Democracy and Pakistan
By
WAQAR ABRO
Importance of democracy is far away from understanding in countries like Pakistan where most of the people do not know about their fundamental and voting rights.
Basically, democracy brings political independence but it is meaningless without economic and intellectual independence.
Since the creation of Pakistan, Pakistani people have been in search of real democracy that prevails in western countries. But due to dearth of education people have not fully understood the essence of democracy. Although, the current democratic setup is a positive omen or can be said as transitional democratic period yet it would take time to come in its actual form at mass level.
The political setup in Pakistan is not completely democratic in nature. Politicians are successors of their fathers and contest of elections in democratic way can never be named as democracy. In simple words, current political setup is post-mughal political system to some extent.
To begin with the Abraham Lincoln’s saying that “Democracy is government of the people by the people and for the people”.
Does it mean government by the feudal lords? Does it mean government by the bureaucrats? Or does it mean government by dictators? Simply, it means government by people that can be a labor, a peasant, a worker or any citizen. If we trace out the history of Pakistan, we would never find a single leader name that could be considered as peasant or laborer.
Though Pakistan got independence through democratic channel yet it survived without real democracy in the country. Plutocracy, aristocracy, theocracy, dictatorship and ethnicity based leadership always prevailed in Pakistan in the name of democracy but astonishing point is that people never agitated or asked for original democracy. They always supported overtly or covertly all forms of governments and made themselves seekers of silence. Their silence could be due to lack of proper understanding to democracy or education yet they are partly responsible for the prevalent worse condition of the country.
The misuse of religion has also largely contributed for destabilizing the political setup. There is system of (peeri-Mureedi) Pious (spiritual guide)-disciple system on the basis of which most of the illiterate people cast their votes to said representative whether he who fulfills the pre-requisites for contesting elections or not.
Apart from this, role of teachers, socialists, media men, civil society and educationalists is also worrisome. They never informed people how to vote, why to vote and whom to vote. Every Pakistani wants his child to be an engineer, civil servant, doctor, teacher, pilot, army men, or sports man but he does not want to encourage his child to be a politician because contesting election against a feudal lord is not as easy as one paints it.
Actually feudal lords never allowed Pakistani people to grow their intellectual independence due to threat to existing political setup. However, they have built countless industries outside of Pakistan and provided very limited facilities to peasants in their constituencies. No doubt, industrial development does not only bring intellectual independence for peasants but also provide them an opportunity to sell their skills rather than everything through peasantry. Besides, dependence of peasants due to cropping on feudal lords will also be nosedived if peasants are provided opportunities in industries. In nutshell, feudal lords used to threaten peasants if they cast their votes against their will then their production of land will be seized. It is therefore thana(Police station) culture develops in remote areas where chosen officers are posted after giving assent to feudal lords.
It goes without saying that most of the politicians in Pakistan movement were also feudal in nature and democrats in practice but their sincerity with the country can only be gauged by peeping into the history of Pakistan. They were the main heroes who hugely contributed for the separate Muslim state for which they not only lost their near and dear ones but also lost their wealth.
Contradiction to this, current feudal lords want to maintain their hegemony on people along with heading all institutions.
However, they love to be parliamentarians who have a wide scope and area of exercising power at national and provincial level.
“Lord Action” has rightly said that power tends to corrupt but absolute power corrupts absolutely. Plutocrats, aristocrats, theocrats, dictators and ethnicity based leaders have enjoyed the taste of absolute power therefore they never brought reforms in education sector and always allocated low budget for it from national exchequer. They know that education develops a sense of judgment of right and wrong and an educated society would never allow such type of rulers to rule the masses.
But, present scenario strikes a note of hope. People have started understanding the structure of government and started acquiring more and more education which is no doubt changing the state of mind of Pakistani people to larger extent regarding the prevailing political setup.
Owing to this, feudal lords have prepared a couple of new plans in order to secure their power. They have created a number of challenges for youth and for masses so that people may not indulge themselves in understanding the political system of Pakistan. Awami league and Pakistan Tehreek I Insaf have largely suppressed these sorts of tiny but lasting far reaching consequences threats and implied to people that the existing parliament is completely bogus because 45% bogus votes had been cast in the election.
There is also another technique which is often observed, is to get back confidence of the masses by announcing some relief packages like Watan cards, free laptops, free rickshaws etc.
The height of folly can be observed from the fact that whatever relief packages are offered to people, they are solely from national exchequer not from personal pockets of the rulers. And people are jubilant enough that their rulers vividly and tirelessly work for their betterment and relief in Pakistan. Sir Syed must be crying that did I dreamed of this Pakistan? Quaid I Azam must also be moaning that I struggled for this Pakistan? And Allama Iqbal must be requesting Allah to ask his people to thoroughly understand what he wrote in his philosophies.
To lead the topic towards remedies, Pakistanis need to work day and night if they want to change the system. They should collectively put their efforts in order to fight against few families. They must teach every citizen of the country whether educated or not the importance of vote.
Hence, it can be concluded as; though we are having post mughal political setup yet hopes are high that one day Pakistan would be a complete democratic country in which leaders would be emerging from grass root level and there would be no room for dynastical political system.
“Yahi mera sapna hay k Pakistan jag uthy aur ese political system ko khatam kary jo swiss accounts men gareebo ka luta howa pesa jama kar k mulk ko tabah karta, lekin manzil bohat door hay aur ye hay sirf mera pehla Kadam”.
