‘Iqbal’s dream of a state with social and economic justice has been shattered’

We have deviated widely from the lofty ideals imparted by the late Allama Muhammad Iqbal and, hence, we find ourselves in a real mess today. That is something that would have really hurt Iqbal because he dreamt of a welfare state where tolerance, harmony, and honesty would prevail.
This was the consensus among all the contestants at a declamation contest sponsored by the Pakistan Women’s Foundation for Peace and was titled, “Iqbal’s concept of a state”, held at a hotel on Tuesday evening.
Justice (Retd) Haziqul Khairi, former chief justice of the Federal Shariat Court and a former judge of the Sindh High Court, speaking as chief guest, said, “We Muslims have lost the tolerance Islam lays down.”
Allama Iqbal, he said, envisioned a state where social and economic justice would prevail but we had just shattered his dream. He reminded the gathering that Iqbal demanded a Muslim state and not an Islamic state because he could sense that in the latter case, the clerics would have a field day.
Talking about the men-women relationship, Justice Khairi said that they had found that 1,600 women had been accused of adultery with not a single male accused, even though men were as much partners to the act.
In her highly erudite discourse, PWFP Chairperson Nargis Rehman referred to November 20 and its commemoration of Universal Children’s Day. “Ýet even after 29 years of the setting the day aside, 91,000 Pakistani children died of pneumonia and 53,000 from diarrhoea every year because of unsafe water and primitive sanitary practices. Twenty-two million children are out of school, a large number of them being girls. It is a pity that we have not enabled these children to see the bloom of youth.”
There were 10 contestants whose speeches were highly charged emotionally and they displayed a massive talent for oratory. They spoke with voices that resonated beyond the confines of the room and their gestures were most expressive emotionally. It was a bilingual affair. The tenor of all the speeches was that today we found blood spilling in our streets, our womenfolk being subjected to infamy of the most shameful kind, our children being subjected to the most heinous of unnatural offences, robberies, corruption, dishonesty, and terrorism because we had trampled under foot the noble ideals the Allama had imparted us.
Finally, Sehrish Salamat of the SM Law College; Iqbal Hussain Rizvi of the Hamdard University; and Kaleem Ahmed of the Aga Khan University bagged the first, second, and third prizes respectively. Justices Khairi distributed the prizes and certificates of participation among the contestants.
Noted Marxist and social activist, Dr Aliya Imam, said that the students’ speeches also reflected on the rights of the students not being granted. Peace, she said, could not be envisioned in isolation. It was closely intertwined with a just social order. Poetess Fatima Hassan lauded the PWFP for its efforts to bring Allama Iqbal to the young.