People want democracy based on justice

The common people appear changing their mind about what they call ‘dirty politics’ and ‘leaders of self-interest’. They now talk about direct democracy.

They argue that in direct democracy they’re given opportunity to choose their president and prime minister directly in order to have the Pakistan Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah had envisioned and their forefathers had sacrificed their lives. “That’s in national interest.”

Young and old citizens say they believe the Quaid struggled for freedom and welfare state for Muslims by peaceful means through unity of masses. “In fact, 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,” say college boys who pursue studies in the morning and do some jobs in the evening.

Such hard-working students say they are sick of soaring food price. Elders tell them the Quaid had envisioned an independent and sovereign state. He told the Constituent Assembly 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.

“We should keep that in front of us as our ideal, and you’ll find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that’s the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the state; 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 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.

The 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 he 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, seem waiting for an honest and selfless leadership to emancipate them from exploitation, poverty and soaring prices.

— zasarwar@hotmail.com