THE SOLUTION PAKISTAN DEMANDS
Written and Presented by
MALIK SHAHZAD MUNAWAR AWAN
Advocate High Court
Member Islamabad High Court Bar Association Islamabad
Member Executive Committee Lahore High Court Bar Lahore [2013]
Finance Secretary Bar Association Kharian [2009]
Awan Law Chambers & Associates, City and
Civil Courts Kharian, 50090, Pakistan.
Abstract
First when I wrote this paper my focus was FATA as, I go along with my thoughts and observations I realize that these problems are throughout the nation so I expanded it.
This paper of mine will cover all the aspects of social life that are the birthrights of every citizen of the modern world and so are the rights of people of Pakistan.
These rights are born as soon as a child open his eyes into this world, but these rights are directly linked with democracy, these rights are guaranteed by our worthy constitution guarded by our judiciary.
As I go further I will explain why
these rights are so important and how their denial to the people of
Also in this paper I will argue that how and why the people in charge of Pakistan are either reluctant or simply do not want to give the people their rights.
In addition I will give the audience an overview of the history of Pakistan to let them compare if we are not repeating our mistakes time and again.
How our attitude as a nation needs to change and what is wrong with our education system which is suppose to build our future generation rather vice versa.
Our nation is a diverse nation with different cultures and languages needs to focus on creating an atmosphere of our coexistence.
The emerging role of the media in our society, and the misconceptions about Islam and democracy, to me Islam and democracy are directly proportional to each other and not the opposite.
What is our constitution and how it is the one and the only guarantee to the integrity of our nation.
The research would focus on a permanent solution for the
problems in
Last but not the least some questions left for the audience of this paper to think about.
HISTORY OF
DEMOCRACY
Democracy fought a long way to reach its perfection, the well known Magna Carta from Great Britain and the 17th century French revolution was a milestone, also the people of United States of America gave a lot of sacrifices to fight racial and gender discrimination.
These nations did not get their freedom in a blink of an eye, on the contrary they gave a lot of sacrifices to win it and fought for centuries against their own governments for their rights. Females didn’t have equal rights to men; they did not even have equal right to representation. There was slavery, colour of the skin was more important than human life. These nations wrote their constitution with their blood may be that is why they respect and honour it more than their lives but we as a nation take our constitution and our liberties for granted and we never fight for them.
How can I forget to mention the Nelson Mandela of South Africa who gave his life to win the right of vote for his people?
One must remember the great Prophet Muhammad [PBUH] whose struggle for democratic freedom is renowned and he made a practical example through social welfare democratic state of Medina.
WHAT IS
DEMOCRACY?
To me democracy is the only way to serve and govern. Some might ask what democracy simply means, I am afraid to suggest that not even so called political heads of Pakistan know its meaning or if they know, they do not want the people of Pakistan to give democratic freedom.
Our rulers whether they come from military or after so called elections both are to be blamed for current situation in Pakistan.
As far military rule is concerned I would not discuss it as I do not and will never recognize it, to me it is a law of jungle. Our beloved country has paid already for unconstitutional military regimes and the dictators who came in the name of reforms but used the unprecedented power to fulfil their own and international agendas for which we are suffering till today.
My only focus will be so called democratic leadership of this country whom I hold responsible for confusion in this country in general and FATA in particular. The political leadership is supposed to educate and lead their people with the outcome of democracy as democratic values are most precious and simple to understand that includes freedom of speech, right to choose your own representative for your service.
I without referring to dictionary or thesaurus meanings/ explanations of democracy will try to explain democracy in my own words for the audience of this paper. Democracy simply means the right of people to govern themselves by themselves for themselves and one cannot get away with it by just saying that as general election are now held in Pakistan and we are so called democratic leadership of this country.
Democratic values demand a lot more than just elections, of course first and foremost basis are elections indeed but duty of democracy comes after free and fair elections accepted by all segments of the society. Our so call democratic elected leaders have forgotten their job to democracy, they are to be reminded that the people of Pakistan have elected them not as their rulers but as their representatives who are answerable to the people for every step they take and every decision they make.
Before I go further I would humbly like to pay my tribute to Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who gave us with this constitution of Islamic republic of Pakistan that safeguards our birth rights to a free life in this country and binding Pakistan as a federation. As if we did not have this constitution our country would have been worse than Egypt, Libya and Syria.
We the democratic nations are duty bound to respect and honour our constitution and must never take it for granted which gives us the freedom in our country that most of the Islamic countries do not enjoy although they are very rich in terms of money.
Most of the Middle Eastern Muslim countries very much rich with oil money are governed either by kings or dictators, their people are not allowed to talk against their rulers and to oppose or protest is a luxury they cannot even enjoy in dreams. Freedom of speech is unknown to them. in most of these countries women are nowhere in national seen. Women cannot vote even they are not allowed to drive in some countries like Saudi Arabia. In other words they are treated as slaves. Pakistani nation enjoys freedom of speech, right to choose own representatives as their servants not kings. Men and women are equal before law. Human rights are the integral part of our constitution. These are the fruits we enjoy through the respectable constitution of ours which guarantees no other form of government except democracy in our country.
And thanks to judicial activism that has taken its utmost duty of protecting the fundamental rights of people of Pakistan, had the judiciary taken this step with the birth of Pakistan we could have been in much better position. Throughout the democratic world it’s the judiciary who has protected its people from their own governments as judiciary is the guardian of the constitution and the sole purpose of embedding the fundamental rights in a constitution is to safeguard a nation from its own government. No government in this world is willing to give their people rights or in other words there is no governmental department of this world who want his powers to be surrendered to its people but it’s the judiciary who does it for the people and protect them from their state powers used discretionally. Independence of judiciary is the independence of the people and we must have no doubts in our mind to it.
But there are some powerful players in our country who have always think themselves as untouchables and they are feeling much uncomfortable with this phenomenon of judicial activism as judiciary is asking them to answer before law for their illegal acts towards our state. But these white collar criminals are trying to let down judiciary through different activities which can be seen in the capital territory of Islamabad and on different television Channels as well. They are to be reminded that gone are the days when Pakistan was ruled by the hidden hands. Our people are awake now, they have learned to question things that were forbidden in the past, we cannot allow anybody to use our tax money according to their sweet wills .now they will have to except the rule of law and the democratic values in this country because only democracy is our future.
In Pakistan another organ known as the fourth pillar is catching strength that is the vibrant, free and independent private media which is of course a necessity of democratic country as free and independent media takes up the task to give people their voice and speak for those who have nobody to speak for them. freedom of speech is a very precious gift indeed that must be protected by all means and freedom comes with responsibilities that we have to fulfil as we go on to enjoy our freedom.
Pakistani media is playing its role to keep people informed although people argue about the maturity of it but I think we have to give it some time as it will regulate itself automatically.
The most important part of democracy is the opposition that keep an eye on the government. A healthy opposition is part and parcel of a healthy democracy because it controls the power of the Government. One should never take an opposition as it is against democratic norms but difference of opinion is the beauty of democracy. Democracy teaches us to respect one another’s point of view.
Islam and
democracy
Some people in this country argue if we are Muslims then why we need democracy as our form of government and there is no concept of democracy in Islam.
I would humbly reject this idea and will insist that Islam is the only religion in this world that teaches and enforces democracy.
To prove my argument let’s have a look on our beloved prophet’s life.
Our Prophet Muhammad [PBUH] had a span of 63 years of life. Among these 63 years only 23 were of ‘nbau’h’ the 40 years life time was before ‘nbau’h’.
First let’s start with the first 40 years when prophet himself didn’t know that he would be the last and the most honoured prophet of God[Allah] in these years before ‘nbau’h’ everybody who lived in Makkah was a witness to the truth, equality, honesty and respect he gave to the society and what is democracy except these principles.
Every non believer in Makah believed in Muhammad [PBUH] because Muhammad [PBUH] respected their rights.
When nbau’h was bestowed on Muhammad[PBUH] by almighty and after preaching so many years in Makkah only a few embraced Islam but when he migrated to medina he established a society there that was free and prosperous .equitable and just .everybody was equal before law including Muhammad[PBUH] and all the decisions were taken with democratic principles of consultation.
Muhammad [PBUH] lived his life on the democratic principles which the west just came to know just couple of centuries before and we the Muslims the followers of Muhammad [PBUH] forgot these democratic principles he taught us 1400 years back.
His last address to the world known as ‘khutba haja-tu-wida’ is an un-rebuttable evidence of democratic human rights.
We can kill in the name of god but cannot save a life in his name.
We have to rethink our values, are we really Muhammad’s [PBUH] followers or disobeyers.
What is Constitution
Some might ask why we need a constitution anyway. For those a simple understanding would be as our brain controls our body and run in proper order all the functions and reflexes and our body cannot function without brain similarly constitution is the brain of a country that have all the answers in itself necessary to run the mechanism of a state in order and in due course of law. Constitution is not mere a book of words and letters but it is the spirit and will of the people. It shows the building structure of nation’s ideology and set out how to form and run a government also how to run its institutions that includes executive, judiciary, army, public exchequer and allot more. That how the balance of power will be established in the state so that no institution becomes more powerful to ruin other organs of the state. Our constitution says the only form of government is the democratic parliamentary system which is of course the best system in the modern world. Our constitution also guarantees the empowerment of the provinces including FATA and protects their way of life, languages heritage and culture. We have everything that we need to build us as a nation in our constitution all we should focus is to follow it in its true spirit.
Constitution is a document which is taken for granted in our society, it is not their fault though because they are not being educated by the political leaders and parties about the importance of the constitution in a democratic country.
Constitution is sacred document commonly known as ‘’the of will of the people’’ in democratic nations the constitution of 1973 came into force on 14th of august 1973 it was a miracle that happened to a nation devastated and depressed after losing half of their brothers ‘Bengalis’ who was an integral part of the freedom movement against the British rule but when mistreated by the people of west Pakistan decided to gain freedom for their own and got it.
When a nation does not respect the rights of one another and exploits each other resources then it is hard to keep them together as a country merely because they have to live in this country. Our constitution guarantees the right to resources of its territories.
Constitution of 1973 is a document that guarantees freedom, equality of each and every person before law .it guarantees the right of free life in this country right to live a prosperous life and right to have shelter food and clothing provided by the state.
This is another question whether the state is fulfilling its obligations towards people in accordance with constitution or not.
Constitution defines the role and duties of the four institutions of the state including legislature [parliament], executive, judiciary and army. Each of these organs is attributed specified role in order to secure a prosperous and free life for the people of Pakistan.
Parliament make laws the executive implements it within the country and maintains law and order in the country .the army secures the borders from external aggression.
Prime Minister is the executive whose job is to provide the people with all the means and resources necessary to enjoy a free prosperous equitable and secure life for the people in this country.
The most important role is that of the supreme judiciary who keep an eye on the executive so that it must not misuse the state power against their own people and also no law neither made nor use in any way that undermines the fundamental rights of the people as warranted by the constitution.
Whether a certain law is right or wrong?
It is a dilemma of our society that when we do not implement laws properly and we are suffered we abuse the law and even nowadays we straight away abuse our constitution which is the only guarantor of our freedom. We have to understand that no law is wrong when it is made under the umbrella of constitution if we do not implement or follow the laws of land as nation then it’s our fault.
We have to change our behaviours towards the society. We are not respecting each other’s rights we do not even give way to each other while walking in the street we love to break the law rather to follow.
This is not how the democratic societies behave and no form of government can work in the circumstances that is our daily routine.
I do not blame the people though for all this restlessness in the society in Pakistan as whole and in FATA particularly again this is the job of the political parties and their leadership to educate and lead the society and make us the people a nation but I do not know why they are not doing this only job of them.
Leadership makes a nation a nation otherwise it is just a mob.
How and why could we blame the constitution, the laws of the land and the system of democracy for unrest in our society in fact we are the one to blame ourselves for not implementing it.
Communication system of a nation;
Our country is a multicultural and diverse society where different cultures and ethnic units are living together.
But the question is can we just force them to live together as we try to force our Bengali brothers to live with us and we couldn’t do it by force although Bengali leadership was among the founding fathers of this nation. We never tried to probe into that what went wrong that made them think to get apart.
We as a nation and our political leadership in particular must take this utmost duty to create an atmosphere of our coexistent.
The most important mode to live together is to communicate and to communicate the only institution is that of the Language which has been and will be the best way to communicate since the birth of human on this planet.
Shouldn’t we focus on the communication of all the different diverse people of this country so that we the people really feel ourselves as a nation together with mutual love and affection? How can we do it? In our schools languages and cultures of this country must be made an essential part of the curriculum so that people of this country could understand each other.
Here I would like to give the example of European union where many languages are spoken among the nations and segments of the union and they have allot severe differences then us as they kept fighting with one another for centuries but they have formed a union through mutual respect and honour and languages are playing the most important role they are given equal status and major languages are taught in each other’s country so as to make the people comfortable to understand each other.
Why we just keep focusing on foreign language instead facilitating our people to learn our own languages and cultures.
Punjabis do not know Sindis and Sindis do not know Pashtuns, Balochis do not know Punjabis. And this circle goes on with each and every language and culture in this country .how will we bond together by just saying that we are Pakistanis and that is why we are suppose to live together, instead we should focus on creating an atmosphere so that the different cultures of this nation be made able to understand and communicate with each other. Again this is also the job of the political parties and their leadership.
DEMOCRACY IN PAKISTAN
Now question arises do we the people of Pakistan are enjoying with this freedom of democracy in our country the straight forward answer would be ‘no’.
We are a nation whose leadership is incapable of learning lessons from our history. The same mistakes are being made in FATA that has been made in East Pakistan now a free country Bangladesh, and what we have been doing and still doing with our province of Baluchistan.
As soon as Pakistan came into being our internal and external stakeholders of the country started messing with the country and the first martial law was introduced in the country soon after it was born and that martial law lead us to the division of this country as we were not giving our Bengali brothers their rights through democracy and at last they decided to get rid of the superpowers of this country and finally got their freedom from us in 1971 although the great leaders who took part in the creation of Pakistan were Bengali. Same is the case with our beloved province of Baluchistan, we are not willing to give them democratic rights and in addition to this they have no control over their natural resources, they have neither proper infrastructure nor do they even have clean drinking water a basic source of life given to all mankind free of cost and electric power is a luxury to them as is for the rest of our country.
Pakistani nation needs to remember at least its own history how this country was created and how it got divided again in 1971 and what is happening afterwards we can learn sufficient lessons for our future from our own history as a nation if we aim for it. We are repeating same mistakes again and again and again. Time waits for none we have to learn from our history and move forward otherwise pages of history are filled with examples of those nations who forgot their history and the history had forgotten them in response.
We believe in no God but God [Allah] and Allah does not help those who do not help for themselves.
Nations are made when people respect their right of freedom to each other. They start looking at themselves as a solution to a problem. They are proud of their own language, heritage and culture and not the other way around. Their leadership comes from them. Still the bureaucracy of this country is used to rule the people rather to serve them although they are paid through public exchequer to serve and not to rule.
Sometimes I don’t understand if there is a strong opposition developing in our country even the leadership of national political parties start talking about intervention of military. Why they even think so as if they are unaware of the constitution of our country .they must know that a strong opposition is a part and parcel of a healthy democracy as it is the job of the opposition parties to keep a check on the deeds and misdeeds of the Government.
Democracy is incomplete without opposition one cannot be allowed to invite martial law just because there is an opposition questioning the actions of democratic elected government.
We should and must respect democracy which gives us the right to ‘oppose’.
True implementation of democracy is the only solution to the problems in Pakistan.
DEMOCRACY FOR FATA
Every human being on this planet is born free and nobody has a right to dictate a nation how to lead their life except for as provided in the constitution and our constitution guarantees freedom to choose our own people as our representatives so is the right of the people of FATA.
FATA is directly ruled by the president of Pakistan who himself lacks the basic requirement of democratic leadership as he is not directly elected by the people of Pakistan.
The people of FATA should be given their right to govern themselves by themselves and none other. The parliament of Pakistan has unlimited powers under the constitution , and an amendment should be made in the constitution to give FATA a status of a province that should have all the powers in itself like other provinces of Pakistan.
The people of FATA must be given their unalienable right to form political parties and to choose their own representative among themselves who can make their own laws according to their own free will under the umbrella of constitution of Islamic republic of Pakistan.
Who are we or even the president of Pakistan to decide the fate of the people of FATA as we don’t know their customs, their values and way of life?
There is no any kind of proper educational setup in FATA if it is a federal subject then the government must at least compare FATA with Islamabad, one who lives in capital is equal to the one who is living in FATA.
It’s never too late, the patriotism of people of FATA is un-questionable all we need is to provide them with the political democratic platform for their issues.
The people of FATA are men of their words and they keep it if they say so, as for example one of their customs of Pashtunwali. A tradition settled for thousands of years whereby a pashtun is duty bound to protect his guest no matter what happens he can even sacrifice himself or his family but he will never let go in order to protect his guest from any enemy.
The custom of pashtunwali stand back some 2000 years and the tribe who take somebody as his guest will sacrifice everything in order to protect him from and external danger or enemy. And for today world some may call this custom or tradition insane but for pashtoons it is a matter of life and death and above all the pride and honour they have in their enriched culture.
One has to rely on them for the solutions and we must regard them as a solution to the problem in FATA rather vice versa. We have to respect their culture and lifestyle and above all we must give them the right to rule themselves by their own elected representatives like any other province in Pakistan.
How could we be the judges? Let them decide for themselves and honour their traditions and customs and values they will honour you. And this beauty of self respect and to each other as a nation comes will the true implementation of democracy and we have a very comfortable answers to our questions if we start following the constitution of Islamic republic of Pakistan instead of doing useless seminars and conferences and keep on wasting public money for nothing and the people of FATA keep lying in their slums and external aggression and tyranny.
AN UNFINISHED DEMOCRACY
For the record the already existing provinces of Pakistan have yet to achieve complete political freedom. This job is of the political parties and their leadership who has miserably failed to provide the people with democratic freedom and values that democracy aims for.
Democracy has got its fruits if we have courage for democratic values in our country. The so called democratic leadership of Pakistan is yet not ready to give the already existing four provinces their right to decide for themselves for not conducting the local bodies’ elections. Although the august Supreme Court of Pakistan has repeatedly ordered to conduct the local body elections but the so called political leadership denies this right to the people of Pakistan.
Do they not know that local body government is the key to progress in a democratic country?
Local bodies not only provide the political parties a grass root leadership but also the only way of social progress in any field including education, health, infrastructure, social stability and law and order.
This political unrest in the country is because they have never been allowed to govern themselves by themselves and this vacuum has been created through the years by not allowing the national political parties to work. Leaving this vacuum was a historical mistake which is now overcome by the other forces.
Nobody has tried raising the standard of living here, neither the health care is provided nor do they have the infrastructure for economic progress. Most importantly there have never been focus with education and lack of education leads to all kind of curses we are in today .one might call this curse terrorism, lack of social stability or gender discrimination or whatever.
We as a nation need to mend our ways, our behaviour to the society is intolerable as we are losing our temper day by day we are not respecting each other’s way of living, we are not respecting one an others religion, we even don’t give way to someone else in the street and how we drive on our roads is unbearable. This is not how the nations are made but could be ruined as we are now.
Every public servant in this country from a peon to prime minister takes his job for granted and in fact they think their job instead of a duty or responsibly as a luxury.
Why blame the people of FATA for gender discrimination as this is a disease of our nation as a whole and that could come over through quality education but in our schools there is nothing like one could call an education thing as the sole purpose of our educational institutions whether private or public is to teach a foreign language known as ‘English’. I am not against foreign languages .teach our kids Chinese, Russian, German, Portuguese and thousands of other languages too but as a language for God sake and not as the sole purpose of the educational process.
Education means allot more than English language it teaches a man to be human but none of our educational institution teaches that.
So we came to the conclusion that it is only the constitution of a country that gives and guarantees the fundamental rights and freedom of the people of that country and the democracy is the only and best way to serve and govern.
No law or system in the entire word is capable of solving our problems except for the constitution of our country that is the will of the people of Pakistan and I demand to the political leadership of this country the true implementation of it to FATA so that they can enjoy a free life in this country.
Also I demand that in all schools throughout the country whether public or private an easy understandable and comprehensive study of constitution of Pakistan should be made necessary so that our generations to come know their rights and duties in this country in advance before they come into practical life and not get confused as we are now.
Lastly nobody got the power to destroy us but us.
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER
Are we willing to give the people of Pakistan their birthright of freedom?
Why the fundamental rights are not protected as warranted by the Constitution?
Why people of FATA not given the autonomous status of a province?
Why they still governed through political agents nominated by the federation rather to have them elected directly by the people of FATA, if this is to be the system there?
Why our leadership is afraid of the freedom that comes through democracy?
Have our political leadership the courage to serve and lead our nation rather to enslave them?
Why the local bodies’ elections are not being held throughout the country?
When do our people will get their ‘’will’’ [The constitution]
implemented in letter and spirit?
NOTE; no direct references has been used while writing this paper except for my own conscious that almighty Allah has given me through the years.