DILEMMA OF PAKISTAN

Pak International Friendship Forum

Patron-in-Chief: Sardar Muhammad Iqbal Khilji



DILEMMA OF PAKISTAN

It is said that Pakistan is presently facing the most critical problems of its time. These problems if not tackled properly could change the future of the country. At the onset these problems could be categorized into four major classes. First are the problems originating from the government itself, such as corruption, bad governance, law and order, power shortage, unemployment, price-hike, etc. The next category is that of problems originating from the people, such as, religious extremism, sectarian violence, blasphemy issue, madressa issues, terrorism, etc. Third are the economic issues, like trade deficit, excessive government expenditure, foreign and domestic loans, inflation, etc. The forth category of problems are those which are purely political in nature such as the issues emanating from lack of the absolute majority of the ruling party in the Parliament, exploitation of such issues by the party leaders, political immaturity, polarization in society, insurgency like situation in Balochistan, war on terror, fighting extremism, etc.

First of all let’s talk about the corruption and the bad governance charges leveled against the government. This is the fourth government of Pakistan People’s Party at the federal level. Each time when PPP came into power the party seemed to be not prepared to perform the task diligently. They never did their homework or gave it a serious consideration as to how to run the affairs of the country. On the contrary, they always ruled on the bases of hollow slogans and to accommodate and oblige the party loyalists and the top leadership. In doing so all norms of fairness, honesty, morality, ethics, responsibility and competency were regarded as hurdles and were trampled under the feet. All charges of corruption against the party loyalists are either ignored or refuted as mere allegations leveled by political opponents. The first government of PPP led by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto left behind legendary stories, like dalai camps, throwing out parliamentarians from the Assembly, killing of opponents, military operation in Balochistan and much more. There was no print or electronic media to dig out cases of corruption during that period but as events unfolded later on, it was alleged that Libyan President Moamer Qadafi donated one hundred million dollars to Pakistan to help strengthen the national economy but the amount was deposited into the personal account of Mr. Bhutto. Later on, the same amount became the cause of family feud and the breakup of Bhutto clan.

The latter two governments of Mohterma Benazir Bhutto were dismissed on most blatant charges of corruption. The second government was dismissed by a PPP loyalist, who was made President on the assumption that a PPP man in the Presidency would be a better protector of the government. The party claims that these charges were never proved so they were innocent and the corruption stories were part of the great propaganda game against Pakistan Peoples Party. The accountability process in Pakistan could be leveled as non-transparent and devised to target and harass political opponents but there was always enough material in the corruption charges so as to keep the investigation going even in foreign courts. As a replay of the past attitude, the PPP government is keeping mum on all corruption charges brought against its loyalists and front-


Patron-in Chief: sardar_khilji@yahoo.com

Chief Coordinator: bqayyum@hotmail.com


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Pak International Friendship Forum

Patron-in-Chief: Sardar Muhammad Iqbal Khilji



men. The Hajj scam, ICP fraud, financial embezzlement of the highest degree in PSM, RPP, PIA, PEPCO and so on are not mere stories. But the Prime Minister has not shown an iota of concern for any of them.

The lack of governance and the ineptness can be seen in every sphere of government institutions but no step has been taken to improve the situation. Merit and competency is always ignored while appointing heads of autonomous bodies. The problem of PPP is that it wants to accommodate party loyalists, who always remained the bone and flesh of the party. They sacrificed for the party to keep it in the limelight during the most unfavorable times. But most of these party loyalists are not academically qualified to such levels as to hold any important position in the government. When the party comes into power, it has only those poorly educated or not educated at all to run the affairs of the government. Pakistan is still an under developed country and highly competent people are required to run the affair of the country. When mediocre or incompetent individuals are appointed to run the affair of the country, in particular into such institutions and departments, which are supposed to provide financial backing to the nation, a non-ending decaying process starts. To add to this decaying process, the incompetent individuals appointed to head those departments start making illegal money from those departments. The decay in some of the key departments like PIA, PSM, Railway, Pakistan Shipping Corporation, Pakistan Investment Board, Insurance Corporation of Pakistan, NHA, NTC, etc, etc is due to this chain process. The irony of fate is that the PPP Government is not ready to accept the mistakes and mend the fault lines.

Next are the law and order situation, which cannot be stated as satisfactory. Karachi, the financial hub of the country is the most disturbed, where the target killings could not be controlled despite repeated pledges by the federal and provincial governments. Some of the old friends of President Asif Ali Zardari, holding key positions in the Sindh Government are daggers drawn with one of the most popular parties of Karachi. The war of words between PPP and MQM could not be stopped despite the fact that MQM threatened to quit the collation Government number of times. The compulsion of the MQM is that they cannot afford to quit the government. They need to remain with every government in power, lest they might lose their vote bank and hold of Karachi and Hyderabad. So they always return to old position after every sore point with the PPP, the major partner in the alliance.

The law and order situation in the rest of the country is also not satisfactory. The terrorists and criminal seems to be rampantly taking the population hostage. Fear and insecurity are prevalent everywhere. Influential personalities and government functionaries living in metropolitan cities have build fortress around their living places. It looks that Pakistan has gone back to the tribal period, where each family has to take up arms for their protection. The bomb blasts, suicide attacks, target killings, kidnapping for ransom, looting, arson are rampant everywhere. Police and law enforcing agencies are more involved in security of important government functionaries instead of controlling law and order or curbing crimes from the society.

Patron-in Chief: sardar_khilji@yahoo.com

Chief Coordinator: bqayyum@hotmail.com


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Pak International Friendship Forum

Patron-in-Chief: Sardar Muhammad Iqbal Khilji



Power shortage, gas load-shedding, price-hike, unemployment, protest and demonstration by masses have become the order of the day. Hardly any day passes when there is no mass demonstration, turned violent against long and unscheduled power shutdowns and outage of gas supply to domestic consumers. Prices of essential commodities are now raised by hours and government seems to have no control over profiteering, hoarding and unlawful price-hikes. The people of Pakistan are facing the worst shortages of everyday commodities and services in our history; no gas, no electricity, no petrol, no sugar, no flour, no onions, ever rising prices and inflation, new taxes, more factories being closed or going bankrupt, unstoppable judicial corruption, injustice, rising unemployment, rising energy costs, more people dying every day for no fault of theirs, police killing those whom they are protecting, mullahs inciting everyone to kill those who do not conform to their thinking, newly unleashed black mailing and self serving electronic media on the loose only caring for their ratings, hoarding, looting, black marketing, touts, pimps and plunderers having a ball of a time and most important a total breakdown of law and order anywhere and everywhere.

Religion is another issue which has serious implication on the integrity and security of the country. Perhaps, the Father of the Nation did not have the slightest notion that in this newborn country Islam will be used as a weapon for radicalization and indoctrination of masses so that they can outcast their rivals in religious beliefs. Today religious extremism and sectarian violence are threatening the very existence of Pakistan. In the early days after independence, some disesteemed politicians incited the clerics and religious zealots to converge on undetermined ideologies to prolong their control. The first constituent assembly could only come out with the Objectives Resolution instead of devising a constitution for the country. The main feature of this Objectives Resolution was the Islamic conditionality to be spun around all future dispensations. What we are reaping today was perhaps sown during those early days. There are numerous examples, when Quaid-e-Azam stressed on a secular form of Government in Pakistan but the zealous armies of the clerics inspired by the military elite poisoned the national atmosphere to such as extent that the fanatics are riding the public sentiments today. Religious zealots were further nurtured by the Islamization of Gen Zia. Immediately before Gen Zia, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto nourished the Islamic sentiments among masses by introducing some sudo-Islamic steps like closing wine-stores, declaring Friday as closed holiday, introducing blasphemy notes in the Penal Code and few other injunctions. During Zia’s tenure a network of religious seminaries known as “Deeni Madaris” were established throughout the country, five time prayers were made mandatory for government employees and numerous other Islamic Laws were introduced, which have taken roots in the society. Today we are at such a stage that the killer of Salman Taseer is being hailed as Ghazi and defender of the faith although Salman Taseer committed no Blasphemous offence. Where is the law and justice, what is the government doing when murderers and law-breakers are heralded as heroes and all the religious groups have ganged up to fight any attempt to change the Blasphemy Law?



Patron-in Chief: sardar_khilji@yahoo.com

Chief Coordinator: bqayyum@hotmail.com


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Pak International Friendship Forum

Patron-in-Chief: Sardar Muhammad Iqbal Khilji



To add fuel to fire, the country is going through the gravest of the financial upheavals. The Government is borrowing two billion rupees daily from the State Bank to keep its affairs running. The foreign debts are piling up in the face of fast depleting domestic resources. The shortage of power and gas is rendering more and more domestic industrial units to shut down. Industrialists are shifting their production units to more attractive lands and the capital is very fast moving out of the country.

On top of all these the political dispensation in Pakistan is not matured enough to foresee the dangers lurking on the horizon. In the first place no party could secure the absolute majority in the last elections resulting in a collation government where the largest party has to make compromises and adjustments at the cost of national integrity and honor. The weak government at the centre is the mother of some allied problems, which could have been done away without losing much. Furthermore, the majority party is all the time blackmailed by smaller partners of the collation. Thus the stakes of the government are too many to manage the affairs smoothly. Secondly, the PPP government wants to make maximum out of the opportunity which came its way as sympathy of the nation after the sad demise of Benazir Bhutto. To get maximum benefits they have left some very important functions of the government to the army. The foreign policy, parts of the fiscal matters, maintaining law and order in troubled areas, operation against militants, war against terror are those few matters left to be performed by the Army alone and the government has disassociated itself from them.

The incumbent government has perhaps not assessed the dangers and thus has no plans to put things right. The Supreme Court of Pakistan had been making efforts to improve the governance matters by taking suo moto action on some grave misdoings of the government. But that does not seem to be doing the trick as the implementation of the Supreme Court directives still rests with the government. In such circumstances the only option left is the dissolution of the current government and formation of a national government with a mandate to hold fresh elections, if elections could be the answer to the national disorders. Meanwhile, a mass awareness campaign needs to be launched at the national level, wherein the masses are required to be told that the responsibility to elect honest, efficient and dynamic people to lead the country out of the current troubles lies on them and they should act with diligence if they want to live with honor in the comity of nations.

Contributed by the Chief Coordinator.


Patron-in Chief: sardar_khilji@yahoo.com

Chief Coordinator: bqayyum@hotmail.com