Human life, in its nature, is inherently anarchic and essentially lacks an inbuilt scheme needed for a fulfilling individual and collective living. Nevertheless, the intrinsic and cognitive prowess unparalleled in any other known species offers humans the agency to deduce potential schemes that could add to the meaning. To reduce the inherent anarchy and add to the predictability and productivity of life, humankind has for millennia evolved — through personal experiences, divine injunctions, intuition and trial and error — a defined set of rules which, when transparently followed or codified as laws, help establish social justice, harmony, order and inclusive prosperity.

However, laws don’t always get enforced or produce results effortlessly in a society; instead, they need description, promulgation, enforcement and interpretation via what we call the three estates of statehood in modern political jargon — the legislature, executive and judiciary, or, jointly, the ruling machinery. The laws often fail to bear inclusive results unless they inform and reflect public interests and are transparently enforced. Therefore, the efficient promulgation and enforcement of laws aimed at inclusive good, and the need for defiance against external and internal enemies, demand people’s unconditional loyalty and patriotism for the land.

The people’s loyalty, therefore, stands conditional on every individual’s and institution’s sincerity to serve the subjects in line with the imperatives of the social contract and the established framework of society. That is, it’s the laws and their just institutional manifestations that are expected to be attended by people’s unquestionable support. This ideal relationship and people’s loyalty and allegiance thrive in societies with transparent and legitimate institutions and accountable governance machinery.

However, the societies with questionable mandates, legitimacy and intentions neither reciprocate people’s loyalty nor enforce the laws to serve the subjects in the best possible manner. Nor do they, in reality, seek people’s allegiance to the laws and just causes. Though the questionable ruling machinery and illegitimate personal manifestations might theoretically attach to and seek people’s trust, loyalty and patriotism to the country, they, in practice, often translate the public’s ill-informed loyalty into the vested and illegitimate interests of the rulers.

That is, the rulers manipulate and exploit public trust for their vested interests in the name of national interests, over time evolving and attaching patriotic sentiments to their stakes. The ruling machinery weaponises people’s love for the country and patriotic tendencies and uses them to dictate and control people’s thoughts, expressions and questions. Patriotism, therefore, is expected to be for and towards the powerful lot, rather than the laws, the collective interests of the people, or the country at large. Similarly, any defiance of or act of questioning the vested interests of the powerful rulers and the disadvantaged plight of the subjects is often branded as treason and heresy — a pattern not that alien in our part of the world.

For decades, the ruling elite have used people’s patriotism towards Pakistan both to sustain their stakes and systematically subjugate people’s lives. They did it by weaponising, besides faith, the patriotic tendencies of people against people.

For the incumbent government in particular and its predecessors in general, people’s patriotism and loyalty are largely, deservedly and unquestionably directed to the stakes and interests of the powerful lot. Any defiance or questioning of the questionable acts and stakes of the ruling machinery is taken as treason and betrayal of the state.

Today, as in history, patriotism largely means not acting on laws in their true spirit, standing with justice and the oppressed, and being honest and sincere with their fellow countrymen, but unquestioningly standing with the ruling lot and their narratives, regardless of their legality and constitutionality.