What does independence mean?

Are we really independent? Or are we still on our knees? Such are questions that strike common people’s minds even today when school-going children seek meaning of independence from them.

Citizens who have entered their eighties and believe in faith, unity and discipline, referring to the next Independence Day say they are not independent in the real sense of the word. “We’re economically dependent on others, politically unprincipled and socially caught in the cobweb of depravity.”

Families hit by poverty in the wake of colossal loss of life and property caused by heavy rains and floods almost every two years, seem to have opened their eyes to the lure of leaders who allegedly never forsake their luxurious ways of life.

“A loaf of bread, or better call it livelihood with dignity and honour, is my basic problem,” says the lower citizen. “How can I celebrate any Independence Day cheerfully when I have no shelter and per kilogram prices of kitchen items like ghee, oil and sugar climb Rs5 to Rs25 in wholesale and retail markets?”

Unexpected hike in prices of other food items such as pulse, rice, garlic, ginger, tomato and potato and lemon -- and that too quite before the holy month of Ramazan -- adds to worries of lower people who love democracy.

One wonders why city olds talk about unemployment and poverty, corruption and bribery and law and order.

Undoubtedly, circumstances are adverse in the backdrop of the natural calamity.

Rainstorms and floods eventually cause shortage of foodstuffs. A businessman or an industrialist may not pick a man’s pocket, but he may overcharge him as much as he likes.

In the past, control for the businessman only meant an opportunity to create scarcity and resort to black-marketing to his heart’s content. As a result, the consumer in utter helplessness would say: “It’s better to have things without control than to have control without things”.

The time is long past when we could depend upon the personal righteousness of traders, producers and leaders.

Then, what is the need of the hour? That’s to achieve peaceful co-existence and survive honourably.

Time demands of us, irrespective of caste, creed and colour, to get united with people engaged in the country’s defence, work together to develop the homeland into a real welfare state as the architect of Pakistan had envisaged in the light of the teachings of Islam which does not approve of provincialism, ethnicity and sectarianism.

Also important is to realise that economic unity precedes political unity to make the country stable and impregnable in all respects -- and that’s the road to independence and freedom from slavery to others.

zasarwar@hotmail.com