August 14, the declaration of the country coming into being, is an auspicious day for the people of Pakistan, but how many of us and our rulers know how Independence Day came about? Under the honest and since the leadership of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah this country was built in the name of Islam. The majority know little of the efforts that went into making Pakistan. The new generation has no or little knowledge of the problems and sacrifices that were made by their forefathers to gain this country. We have forgotten that the dream of this Muslim State became true only after prayers of millions, tireless struggle by Muslims, bloodshed, sacrifices of loss of millions of Muslim lives, loss of properties, and insane and brutal acts of molesting Muslim Women our forefathers paid as the cost to win our freedom. It took over a million Muslim lives to create this homeland. Creation of Pakistan was a beautiful idea, but now every patriot Pakistani feels its existence is in danger.
Pakistan today is a country for sale. Corruption, loot and plunder in almost all the institutions with novel methods under the protecting hands of the ruling elite and constant silence and connivance of the regulatory bodies has led to the economic disaster. Having made their fortune from logging much of State resources our rulers have diversified their commercial interests to encompass other remaining forms of national assets like internal and external debts, share / heavy kickbacks in mega projects, grabbing State lands, and so on. It seems the country is being parceled up hurriedly and going to be sold off very soon. During the past three decades, most of the profitable national assets have been transferred to private interests. The economic wisdom of the almost ‘free of cost’ sell-off has yet to be proven. Social consequences of the same have already proven to be highly devastating for this unlucky nation.
Democracy as a form of government itself demands each one should be taken care of, and multiple problems and concerns must be addressed. Liberty for everyone is to be ensured, and equal opportunity for the unprivileged class is not to be ignored. Contrarily a strong dictatorship has been established by the heads of two major parties Mr. Nawaz Sharif and Mr. Asif Ali Zardari within their parties. We have been made a nation of paradoxes and contradictions. The so called ‘democratic system’ as exists in Pakistan is by no means a democracy instead an abuse of the word ‘democracy’ befooling the people of the country.
In the first term of five years, Zardari took revenge from the people saying “Democracy is the best revenge”. Zardari opened the doors to all those who enriched themselves by pillaging the country. He set the example and left their hands free. He was the boss of the most powerful clan of thieves. He left nothing in the country except load-shedding, energy crisis, unemployment, lawlessness, target killings, and nonstop terrorism, and destroyed almost all the public institutions. He introduced corruption on a large scale; the people tied their hopes with Nawaz Sharif and elected him as savior of this nation and pinned high hopes on him. So far he has proven to be even worse than Zardari regime. Unfortunately after Parvez Musharraf the country is being run and controlled by those ‘corruption specialists’ who have plundered the national resources time and again in the past. It is condemnable that loot and plunder are taking place in the name of democracy.
The greed for money and power has undermined our politicians. They have lost their moral direction. The policy of the incumbent government is that consideration is given only to now decisions made by it will serve a narrow group i.e. the rich. Who are ‘the rich’? Obviously, they are themselves. They rarely consider the impact of those decisions on the overwhelming majority of Pakistanis. Pakistan has become no loss – all profit domain for its corrupt politicians, and they are looting it mercilessly. After about seven decades of independence, we are facing political dynasties leeching off Pakistan taking it to the brink of bankruptcy, and our hopes for some clean and committed leadership are still a dream.
Poverty stricken leaderless Pakistan is a great breeding ground for terrorists and extremists. Lack of education, lack of merit, widespread unemployment, injustice, uneven distribution of wealth, hunger, and poverty can be blamed for such type of ills, but our political leaders have no single agenda to address these problems. Political and financial power has corrupted the morale of our political leaders. After winning the election, they become brazen and arrogant. The do all wrong things and if you question them; they say, why don’t you change the government next time? But that would be five years later. What do I do right now? I am suffering today. Under the single word of ‘Democracy’, it has become legalized privilege of our ruling people using brute force on persons who have not harmed anyone. Though we are all allowed to use force in self-defense to oust these looters from power who have always attacked us, yet we are only defenders. We cannot even begin to do anything about the problem until our family, friends, and neighbors know what it is! Everybody should contribute to save this lovely country. It is really a matchless gift from God. We should strive to take it up and up in the comity of nations. May Allah Almighty bless us and protect us always. Ameen.
