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15 March 2013
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 and 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
the army in due course the army would consolidate its
rule 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.
Pakistan is in dire straits once again. The people
favor a popularly elected system of government as was
evidenced in the February 2008 general elections.
Although these elections were more of a no confidence
vote against the Musharraf quasi dictatorship, yet at
the same time, it vividly demonstrated that the people
of Pakistan were aware of the importance of a system
of governance based on adult franchise contested
between the political parties. At the moment when the
incumbent government is managing to hold on to power,
the country has been turned into a war zone by latter
day Islamic warriors.
The PPP landed in trouble no sooner than it came into
power. It is also trying to maintain and buoy up the
rotten status quo. At the outset, it was locked in a
political tussle with its coalition partners over
restoration of deposed judges, choosing the president
and the strategy to deal with the ballooning
insurgency and upheaval in Northern areas and tribal
zones of Pakistan.
Over all these five years, the PPP government with the
help of the armed forces has failed to rein in the
militants. Even if the militancy is finally nailed and
wiped off in Pakistan, the price would be too high to
imagine in terms of disintegration, loss of human
lives and economic ramifications.
The incumbent coalition government has been embarking
on the same track that was being traversed by
Musharraf 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 is
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 a whole panic
stricken nation waits in long queues for a bag of
flour.
A nation is decaying and dying on account of hunger,
disease, deprivation and poverty and rotten civic
life. All these afflictions fallen on a Muslim nation
of 190 million still struggling for its survival 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 so
conveniently written off. These loans are granted to
robber barons whose bellies and bank accounts are
already bulging like swelling balloons. There is least
accountability for rapacious robbing of the national
wealth which must be spent on people's welfare and
country's advancement.
Pakistan is in emergent need of a new revolutionary
social contract that should encompass radical remedial
changes in every domain and dimension 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.
There is an appalling mess everywhere 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, 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 living. The Pakistan nation is mired
in a primitive mode of life with rampant
superstitions, myths of mystical healings and fanciful
stories of the past beguiling the people to remain
mentally backward.
Pakistan is stuck 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, 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 equipped, too poorly financed and too
outdated to take the bull of these stupendous problems
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 modern,
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.
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,
although physically it may still remain on the world
map. |
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