close
Thursday March 28, 2024

People want Pakistan to be a welfare state

By Zafar Alam Sarwar
March 28, 2019

Majority of people say they have played and watched so many games of politics, but the net result has been negative, that needs to be positively fruitful.

“We want direct democracy, we want to choose our president and our prime minister directly so that we’ve the Pakistan the father of the nation had envisioned in the national interest.”

The people, whether middle or lower, say they believe the Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah struggled for an independent welfare state for Muslims by peaceful means through unity of masses.

“In fact”, they say, “he was dedicated to the cause of the downtrodden, and at the same time he reminded his supporters the motto of faith, unity and discipline to attain progress and prosperity.” Ask any educated citizen he will say the first duty of a government is to maintain law and order, so that the life, property and religious belief of its subjects are fully protected by the State.

The citizen remembers the Quaid said: “If we want to make this great State of Pakistan happy and prosperous we should wholly concentrate on the well-being of the people, especially of the masses and the poor.”

The fact is the founder of Pakistan believed in Islamic principles and democracy and he advocated the cause of Pakistan and its masses. The use of the Islamic idiom was not limited to confrontational situations involving India but extended to domestic reconstruction.

College boys, like city olds, reproduce the Quaid’s words: “It is my belief that our salvation lies in solving the golden rules of conduct set for us by our great law giver, the Prophet of Islam. Let’s lay the foundations of our democracy on the basis of truly Islamic ideal and principles.”

The educated unemployed youths say they too have a dream and visualize a welfare state. They ask the olds: Didn’t the Quaid conceive Pakistan based on the foundations of social justice and Islamic socialism, which stress equality and brotherhood of man?

Was the architect of Pakistan not concerned with the problem of poverty and backwardness among Muslim masses for the eradication of which they looked, on the one hand, to the urges of dynamism, struggle and creativity in Islam and, on the other, to the Islamic principle of distributive justice?

The youths, inspired by the vision of the founder of Pakistan, always waited for an honest and selfless leadership to emancipate them from exploitation, poverty and soaring prices. Has that leader arrived now?

— zasarwar@hotmail.com