What have we gained and what have we lost over the years and where will our way of doing things lead us to? Who will release our homeland from the conspiratorial cobweb woven around it by some foreign countries by way of ditching its socio-economic and defence capabilities?
These are some questions in the minds of the citizens of Rawalpindi-Islamabad and Lahore where the demand for Pakistan was made at the historic Muslim League mammoth meeting chaired by Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
One has noticed a consensus among the common people that it’s the self-interest which is eroding our society. Interaction with Pakistan Railways travellers has revealed that ‘soch ka rishta’ (ideological relation) is fast taking shape because the story of the exploitation of the poor masses is the one and the same across the country.
There are hundreds of thousands of educated and half-educated young in the Punjab and Federal Capital Territory who are hungry because of joblessness. Termination haunts a large number of contract employees, there’s no job and salary security. Is it because of an economic crisis or slack investment following resurgence of suicide blasts reportedly having been controlled by the security forces?
A rickshaw or a cabbie, a wagon driver or a bus conductor, a small shopkeeper or a tea vendor, whoever he may be, blames the people’s representatives in the assemblies for not doing anything against the food price hike. “All of them are selfish, they keep silent over the common man’s social, economic, educational and health problems, their politics seem to revolve round acquisition of position and privilege, money and ministry, find jobs for their own relatives and free medical treatment abroad,” say the common people hit financially by rising cost of living.
An 83-year-old man couldn’t control his anger. “How can we look to the future with robust confidence when we, our leaders and our representatives relax and fritter away energies in internal dissensions?”
The fact is that there was never a greater need for discipline in thought, word and deed and unity in our ranks than is now. It is only with united effort and faith in our destiny that we can be able to translate the homeland of our dreams into reality.
We’ll have to stand guard over the development and maintenance of Islamic concept of democracy, social and economic justice and equality of mankind in our own country.
The common man says it is the ‘nafsa nafsi’ (self-interest) which is prevailing upon human values, there seems no difference between what is good and what is bad, and eventually right is not might---but ‘jis ki laathi us ki bhains’ (might is right).
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