Pakistan polity has been a chequered state; has been a motley of democracy and dictatorship, a story of political pulls and pushes and a system for removed from the intrinsic foundation based on the Islamic Ideology. During the last forty-five years, the country has passed through different political, economic and social phases. We have had some anxious moments and bitter memories.
Pakistan came into existence through democratic and peaceful means. The father of the nation declared in unequivocal terms that the country’s constitution would be based on Islamic principles of justice, equality, tolerance, and brotherhood. He could not survive to see democracy grow into, thriving plant. His unexpected early death plunged the nation into deep mourning.
His trusted lieutenant and righthand man Liaquat Ali Khan rose to the occasion, steered the ship of the nation through the most critical times and infused new hope in the people. He was determined to make the country an ideal Islamic republic but he falls an innocent victim to the cruel bullet of the assassin. ‘May God preserve Pakistan’ were the last words on the lips of Shaheed- e-Millat. Liaquat’s death was an irreparable loss and a death blow to the nation’s polity. What happened subsequently, and is happening now, is the result, rather a punishment for dark dispatch of the country’s most popular P.M.-the man of the people. An Urdu poet has rightly summed up the ensuring situation in the word.[the_ad id=”17141″]
Nayrangi-e-waqt jamana seastat to daikho
Manzil unheen milee jo shareeqe safar na thai
(Tr. LO! how cruel has been the polity of the time).
They climbed to power who were not part of the journey (of freedom). What followed is a story of palace intrigues, undeserved ambitions and strangling of the people’s rules in the country.
The political pundits, instead of promoting political culture, had been busy in promoting their self-interests. The infant democracy was murdered by Ghulam Mohd. when he dismissed the C.A. without rhyme or reason.
The history of Pakistan polity is full of breakages and splittings. Ayub Khan dissolved the elected Assembly and abrogated the 1956 constitution, and divided the national party, Muslim League. A new constitution with Presidential form of Government and Basic Democracies was imposed in 1962. What followed is a long, ugly chain of Marshal laws-two military and one civilian. Naturally, in the absence of people’s rule, the country was broken in 1971. O! Ambition what crimes are committed in their name.
People derive their political and social ideas from the past (the national heritage). The past was sacrificed for the present convenience. A new and third constitution (1973) suited to party whims and divorced from Pakistan ideology – and extracted general sanction under the exigencies of Marshal Law was thrust on the nation- the race of simpletons. The process of free elections and right of Franchize have never taken roots in the undemocratic soil manured by the dictators.
Except for the elections of 1970, the rest had been contests for power and not for influence, the will of people. Again the country was on the verge of civil war after the much manipulated and rigged effects of 1976. The Army had to step in. General Zia tried to put the country on road to Islamization, won people’s support, restored the shattered economy due to nationalization, and gave a semblance of democracy by holding the election in 1985.
The country has seen about a dozen Prime Ministers since her birth. In the absence of political stability and law and order, all progress social, economic any political has witnessed ebbs and flows in these sectors. The dissolutions of the National Assemblies during these troubled years have fed up the people. The country has been the worst victim of regionalism, provincialism, and sectarianism.
The only remedy for all our national problems lies in the Islamic revolution and a constitution based on the Quran and Sunnah. Pakistan badly needs a Khumani, to bring in the revolution, a Hercules to clean the stable!
