July 15, 2016
By Saeed Qureshi
Throughout its existence since August 14, 1947; Pakistan has
perennially remained in troubled waters. From the anarchy of the initial years
to the interspersing of democratic stints, to military dictatorships, it has
been overshadowed by a constant threat of disintegration as a state. This
disintegration came off in 1971 when its eastern part then known as East
Pakistan was truncated.
While East Pakistan changed her nomenclature to Bangladesh,
the West wing came to be known as Pakistan. It was a cataclysmic event that
happened in contemporary history when a state dismembered barely 24 years after
its birth and independence from the colonial rule.
All these years, Pakistan earned strictures such as a failed
state, a country not viable to stay on the world map and a nation moving
towards eventual extinction or another disintegration a la East Pakistan.
Pakistani society is infested with myriad chronic problems that range from poor
social and utility services to unstable or dysfunctional institutions as well
as sway of reactionary cutthroat religious militants. The competent,
efficacious, egalitarian and public welfare oriented governance has ever
remained elusive.
The mutual bickering and intolerance of the politicians kept
the functioning of democratic form of government fragile and vulnerable to army
intervention that always stepped in as an interim arrangement. Yet in due
course the army would consolidate its hold on power as long as it could hang
on. As such a stable democratic culture could not take roots.
The state governance and power wielding alternated between a
non-representative military set up and the political power grabbers who were
more concerned with their power and pelf than the national interests. In this
pernicious musical chairs game, the welfare of the people and development of
the country was always kept on back burners.
The incumbent PMLN government has been embarking on the same
track that was being traversed by Musharraf and later by the PPP dispensation
in combating the religious militants. Pakistan army has been braced for over a
decade now against the radical religious bands to honor Pakistan’s commitment
with the international community to annihilate terrorists. Pakistan has been
reaffirming her role as an unflinching ally of US in latter’s war against
Islamic extremists.
In such a bleak and murky scenario, the amelioration of the
appalling socio economic problems of the people cannot be effectively addressed
with the urgency and seriousness that it merits. The economy of Pakistan has
always been in doldrums and seriously impaired to an alarming extent as
evidenced by an all-time high inflation and parity rate between dollar and Pak
rupee. Apart from other countless maladies we have seen that a whole panic
stricken nation waits in long queues for a bag of flour or else buy food items
at an exorbitant price. The other commodities are so expensive as to reach out
of the poor sections of society to buy.
A nation is decaying and dying on account of hunger,
disease, deprivation, poverty adulteration lawlessness, and rotten civic life.
All these afflictions have fallen on a Muslim nation of 200 million still
struggling for its survival. These distortions are the consequences of the
wrong doings of the leaders, lacking vision and sincerity. The motives and
agendas of successive leaders have been to capture power and milk the national
exchequer.
Every year loans of billions of rupees are conveniently
written off. These loans are granted to robber barons whose bellies and bank
accounts are already bulging like swelling balloons. There is the least
accountability for rapacious robbing of the national wealth which must be spent
on people’s welfare and country’s advancement. Panama Leaks speak volumes the
way the ill-gotten wealth of this poor country has been dumped abroad by top
notches in politics, business and in service.
Pakistan is in emergent need of a new revolutionary social
contract that should encompass radical remedial changes in every domain and
discipline of our society. It should start from abolition of feudalism and
Sardari system to abundant and adequate availability of civic facilities namely
electricity, water, transportation, good roads, railways, jobs etc. Social and
legal justice should be liberated from the onslaughts of the pressure groups
and influential individuals and bribery.
There is an appalling mess all over in Pakistan that instead
of diminishing is accentuating. Democracy is the finest system of government
provided it can ensure social justice and equality of opportunities and basic
services. We need dedicated, visionary, and honest leadership that can put
Pakistan on the way to economic and institutional stability and civic galore,
as we witness in the Western countries.
It all depends upon the quality, sincerity, and caliber of
the leaders whether they make or break a nation. We in Pakistani have been
having gangsters, thugs, custodians and savior of an exploitative system with
such despicable manifestations as feudalism, elitism, untouchable military and
civil bureaucracy and so on.
It is therefore; absolutely imperative that Pakistan’s
socio- economic and political landscape must be completely reoriented and
refurbished. The status quo must be quashed, and new vigorous radical and
revolutionary agenda should be evolved. A new social contract must be written
that brings about structural and institutional changes in all spheres of
society.
The change in attitudes, social behaviors, the modernization
of civic facilities and social services should be accorded the utmost and top
priority to ensure a decent and worthwhile quality of life of the citizens. The
Pakistan nation is mired in a primitive mode of life with rampant
superstitions, myths of mystical healings, graves and tombs worshipping, power
of the voodoos and fanciful stories of the past beguiling the people to remain
mentally backward.
Pakistan is stuck up in a morass of abysmal degradations of
all kinds: open sewage lanes, cattle stalking, pollution of smoke and noise,
human and animal excretion blanketing the entire country, pervading stink in
the air, narrow roads, heaps of rotting garbage, traffic madness and
overstuffed public vehicles, life threatening adulteration of food and
medicines, vermin infested water, power cuts et el. The officialdom and the
departmental network are corrupt, too ill trained, too myopic, too ill
equipped, too poorly financed and too outdated to take the bull of these
stupendous challenges by horn.
Here are a few broad outlines of a social contract or an
agenda that can be instrumental in initiating the much and long coveted
transformation in Pakistan. As already stated only a leadership that is
genuinely sincere and dedicated to making Pakistan a civically neat, environmentally
modern and politically progressive, prosperous, democratic and egalitarian
state can enforce it. There might not be immediate and forthcoming results but
a direction and course would be set in motion and the first momentous steps
could gradually change the whole dismal scenario into the resplendent one with
hope and a will to move forward.
The galloping growth of population must be restrained both
by persuasion and official caveats. Two children recipe is certainly desirable
and ought to be made binding.
For devolution of powers, rapid and optimum progress,
Pakistan needs to have more provinces. The existing administrative divisions
should be changed into province. Besides creating more provinces out of
existing four provinces, the FATA, Kashmir and Northern Regions should also be
designated as provinces with maximum autonomy, permissible under the
constitution.
The constitution should be re-written with necessary
additions and subtractions. All those caveats should be expunged that bar
Pakistan from being a true federation, a genuine democracy and modern polity.
During the past few years a few meaningful amendments have been injected in the
constitution but more are needed such as abolition of feudalism and separating
religion and state.
While the Feudalism, Sardari and clannish over-lordship in
all shades must at once be abolished, the taken over lands should be
effectively and veritably distributed among landless peasants. People should be
freed and liberated from the centuries old vestiges of land-based fiefdoms and
indigenous colonialism by taking away the privileged positions and royal status
of super land lords against their tillers and bonded labor. The divisions
and discriminations of being high and low between citizens should be replaced
with equality for all. This is what our religion warrants and this is what a
modern civil society demands.
The pivotal role of judiciary must be ensured and
strengthened at all costs by creating an independent judicial system consisting
of intrepid, clean, conscientious and upright individuals who cannot be
influenced by any trickery of bribe, pressure, political influence or similar
other questionable and dirty means. The deposit of court and other fees through
stamp papers (in local term it is called Ashtam) and should be deposited in
banks. The Accountability courts should form part of the judicial system.
Pakistan can take a cue from other modern societies for establishing a strong
and transparent judiciary. The ramshackle and old court buildings need to be
redesigned as most of the existing edifices look like cattle stables. These
have mostly broken furniture and lack heating or air-conditioning facilities.
The judges and their staff is exposed to violence and intrusion. In the
open place one can see all around make shift cabins of stamp paper venders,
advocates and their agents. If someone wants I can send the design of one of
the district or county court buildings in Texas to see a sea difference between
those in Pakistan and here in the United States.
The entire civic and municipal system should be completely
revamped. The civic problems are directly related to the people’s lives and
their mental and social awareness and quality of life. People are desperate to
have their pressing and local and civic issues such as orderly traffic, trash
collection, encroachment and cattle free footpaths, streets and roads and so on to be addressed effectively and
regularly. For these fundamental reforms the “City and County” system of local
governance should be adopted whose blueprints can be borrowed from the United
States or any western society.
It would be an epic milestone if the people in the coming
elections vote for the candidates and parties that relatively have a clean
record and a fair name in the public service. If the same chronically corrupt
leaders and highway robbers return to the assemblies, Pakistanis will forfeit a
unique chance for a big leap forward and a rare choice for a better future and
good governance, although physically it may still remain on the world map.
