Democracy - The Panacea to All Ills of Pakistan

Democracy is the only solution to all the problems that

Pakistan is tangled in nowadays. It is the only panacea
which can pave the way for resolutions of all the evils faced
by common man. Democracy can be well articulated by the
statement of Abraham Lincoln who said that the democracy
is the government of the people, by the people, for the
people. As a matter of fact, intermittently derailed and
fragile democratic institutions have always thwarted the
evolution of democracy in our country.
Quest for Quality Education

1. Introduction

2. An overview of democracy in Pakistan since

independence

3. Pakistan's current problems

a. Political problems
i. Intermittent military interventions
ii. Weak judiciary
iii. Divided media
b. Economic problems
i. Faltering economy
ii. Unemployment

iii. Declining foreign direct investment (FDI)

iv. Poor performance of major sectors
c. Social problems
i. Poverty
ii. Rampant terrorism and sectarianism
iii. Illiteracy
iv. Poor infrastructure
v. Feudalistic mindset

4. How democracy can steer Pakistan out of all these

crises?
a. Democracy provides equality and justice to all
b. Democracy and strong economy are interlinked
c. People choose the leaders for their prosperity
d. Democracy annihilates feudalism
e. Only a democratic state can meet the security
challenges
f. The democratic states wok for the betterment of their
citizens and of state infrastructure, education, trade, etc.
g. Democracy guarantees freedom of expression

5. How democracy can be strengthened in Pakistan?

a. Sincere and devoted leadership
b. No military intervention in politics

c. Restoring People's trust in leadership

d. Reforming the judiciary
e. Strengthening state institutions
f. Creating awareness among people on benefi ts of
democracy
g. Making education the fi rst priority
h. Ensuring rule of law
i. Media's unprejudiced and unbiased role

6. Conclusion
In Pakistan, there has always been a tilt of power towards
the military which has resulted in the conundrums that
today's Pakistan is facing in every walk of life. Declining
and faltering economy, omnipresent social disorder and
prevailing political disharmony all have played their part in
weakening our country and tearing the fabric of our society
apart. Analysts and experts have a consensus opinion that
democracy is the best political system to ensure citizens'
rights within the framework of both human rights and rule
of law. But, in Pakistan, due to intermittent military
takeovers, the democracy as an institution could not
fl ourish. Hence, in this hour of dire need, only the
trustworthy institutions, integrated nation-building
departments, independent judiciary, free media and sincere
leadership can ensure the smooth functioning of a
democratic setup in Pakistan. This is the only way by which
the grievances of the public can be alleviated.

While harking back into our history, it dawns on us that the

assassination of Liaquat Ali Khan, the fi rst prime minister of
Pakistan, was in fact a coup de grce to democracy in the
nascent state of Pakistan. Since then, the power, one way
or the other, remained in the hands of military
establishment. The situation became so adverse that in
1958, the then army chief General Ayub Khan imposed the
fi rst martial law in the country that made democracy
hibernate for years to come.
But, the General could not resist the uprising against him.
He, thus, succumbed to public pressure and transferred the
reins of the country to another military supremo General
Yahya Khan.

Under Yahya's rule, due to internal political wrangling and

external intrigues, Quaid's Pakistan was dismembered, to
give birth to a new state; Bangladesh. Reins of the country
then came into the hands of Pakistan's former foreign
minister and the founder of Pakistan Peoples Party, Zulfi kar
Ali Bhutto, who became the fi rst civilian martial law
administrator (CMLA). Embarking on the mission to lead the
dejected and wounded nation, Mr Bhutto pursued an
independent policy. But, soon he drew the ire of military
bigwigs. After the 1977 coup by General Zia-ul-Haq, he was
charged for accomplice in murder and was later hanged on
the orders of the Supreme Court. The decision was, as
mentioned by Justice Sajjad Ali Shah in a TV programme,
was an outcome of General Zia's whims. This hanging of
Bhutto is commonly termed as a judicial murder by the big
legal and political enchiladas of Pakistan.

General Zia ruled the country like a monarch and this was
during his rule that all the ills sectarianism, terrorism,
Kalashnikov culture, drugs and other menaces we are
mired in today, grappled the country in their vicious claws.

Then in a tragic air crash on 17th August 1988, the General

lost his life. At that critical moment in country's history,
this incident created a void in the political arena of
Pakistan. Afterwards, in almost a decade, no elected
government could complete its constitutional term as they
were ousted by the discretionary powers under Article
58(2)(b) of the then presidents. Nevertheless, this
decade of personalized politics and lust for power came to
an end with another coup on 12th October 1999, which
again put the country under military rule.

Then, in 2008, after relentless efforts on part of civil

society and a mammoth lawyers' movement, democracy
was restored in Pakistan and elections were conducted. The
democracy rekindled with the populist PPP again holding
the reins of the country. This election and unprecedented
freedom of judiciary bode well for democracy in Pakistan.
This was due to this fact that for the very fi rst time in the
history of Pakistan a Parliament completed its
constitutional term notwithstanding the fact that interinstitutional wrangling resulted in the ouster of a prime
minister on the orders of the Supreme Court of Pakistan;
the third pillar of the state.

Presently, hardly any sector in Pakistan is free from

problems and personal politics. Every sphere of the life is

immersed in numerous troubles. A few of them are

discussed and spotlighted hereunder:

First of all, military's intervention in political aff airs has

disturbed the political scenario of the country. The longer
dictatorial regimes have culminated in aggravation of
internal and external challenges. If, by the stroke of luck,
any sincere leadership came at the helm to act for
betterment and steer country towards development, it was
ousted by the military elite.

Another pertinent matter that is one of the major threats to

democracy is country's weak judicial system. The fragile
judiciary has given immunity to the actions of every
military dictator and provided them with a legal cover
under the pretext of doctrine of necessity and expediency.
Justice Qazi Muhammad Jamil opines:

The judiciary cannot fi ght the dictators. We require strong

political institutions which are lacking in the country. In the
current scenario, there is again a threat that history could
repeat itself if the guardians of democracy continued to
disrespect the norms of democracy and judiciary

Moreover, media has also been constantly fl agging and

berating the democratic institutions in the country. Media
trials and undue bias towards certain political parties make
democratic institutions fragile and vulnerable. With a
synoptic view of the economic sector, one can realize that
economy is becoming sluggish day by day. Decreasing GDP

and devaluation of currency have added fuel to fi re which

gives rise to massive protests and halts the nurturing of the
democratic process. Unemployment, declining foreign
direct investment, energy crisis, security problems and
poor infrastructure create unrest among masses leading to
a lack of trust in elected government, thus, hampering the
democratic process.

In addition, the major sectors like Agriculture, industry and

tourism are performing below targets and this phenomenon
has reversed their indicators. Socially, poverty is
exacerbating the country's miseries and woes. One third of
the population lives below poverty line. Simultaneously,
increasing the crime rate and other social ills discords the
trust of people in democratically elected governments.

In addition, illiteracy is another major cause of

deteriorating economy and human resource development in
Pakistan. A nation with a low literacy rate as ours can only
breed a frail democratic system.

It is an established truth that infrastructure is essential for

development of a country. In Pakistan, only a meagre
amount is spent on infrastructure development. The
present infrastructure is being annihilated by the
unrelenting terrorist attacks, and we are, literally, being
rolled back to the Stone Age.

Another matter of real concern is the feudal system. The

concentration of power in a few families had thwarted

democracy to thrive. A common man cannot even think to

have access to corridors of power. In rural areas, people
are forced to vote for their feudal lords or waderas.

In ipso facto, democracy is the only instrument which can

be a sole solution to all ills of Pakistan. It is the system that
gives voice to the masses so that they may rise up to
mitigate their adversities and suff erings.

If democracy is introduced in letter and spirit, then the day

is not far when we will have a Pakistan dreamt by our
forefathers where citizens would have a say in matters
concerning the well-being of the populace in economy,
education, health and infrastructural development spheres.
Only a robust democratic system can guarantee full
freedom and equal justice to all in every sphere of life.

On a concluding note, democracy, indubitably, is the best

form of government as in this system all pillars of the state
work with a collective vision. Presently, Pakistan is tangled
in a web of multifaceted problems comprising poverty, bad
governance, economic decline, terrorism and extremism.
Pakistan's grievances are multidimensional and require to
be addressed at the earliest. And for this purpose,
democracy is the only way out.

Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an intellectual prodigy, a famous
linguist and a well-known philosopher, cognitive scientist,

logician, historian, political critic and activist. In a 2005

poll, he was voted the "World's Top Public Intellectual". His
articles that contain a strident criticism of US Foreign Policy
appear in a number of international newspapers and
journals.
Hope We Still Have
Early Life
Chomsky was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on
December 7, 1928 to a family of Ukrainian and Belarusian
Jewish immigrants. Chomsky's parents both taught at a
Hebrew school. He was raised in a middle-class family and
he himself witnessed injustices all around. In 1945, he
began studying philosophy, mathematics and linguistics at
the University of Pennsylvania where his teachers included
the famous philosopher and systems scientist C. West
Churchman, the distinguished philosopher Nelson Goodman
and the renowned linguist Zellig Harris.

Political Ideas
He once said: If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then
every post-war American president would have been
hanged.
These words vividly describe that Chomsky is a libertarian
socialist, a sympathizer of anarcho-syndicalism and is
considered to be a key intellectual fi gure within the leftwing of American politics. He is considered "one of the
most infl uential left-wing critics of American foreign policy"
by the Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers.

Although Mr Chomsky is renowned for his linguistic theory,

it is his political writings that have made him the most
revered with both activist and public readers. This is in part
due to the fact that Chomsky doesn't theorize in the
traditional sense of the word. He doesn't seek universal, a
priori principles or superstructures of thought as part of his
critical analysis. Rather, his political analyses come directly
from empirical observations.

Chomsky's disdain in theorizing about issues such as

justice comes from his intense opposition to what he calls
"the intelligentsia" or "the liberal intelligentsia." By this
term, he refers to academics and even reporters, placing
them under the umbrella of "propagandists" "for the state."
Whether or not this charge holds up under critical scrutiny,
it deeply infl uences how Chomsky approaches political
analysis: in a word, un-theoretically. In using this approach,
Chomsky openly acknowledges the infl uences of socialist
thinkers from Karl Marx to Mikhail Bakunin; from Wilhelm
von Humboldt to Daniel Guerin and Rudolf Rocker.

Global Justice
When it comes to Chomsky's philosophy of global justice, it
is most eff ectively understood as being innate in his
political writings. His overt concern has consistently been
quite specifi c: US government's moral hypocrisy regarding
its stated values compared with its foreign policy. Chomsky
founds his ideas on his understanding of human nature, the
essence of which is free, creative self-expression, and
voluntary association with others. This leads him to
embrace what he refers to as anarcho-syndicalism
(sometimes called "libertarian-socialism"). Thus, for

Chomsky, the value of freedom, while primary in his

understanding of justice, is itself functional: it is the means
by which humans are able to fulfi l their nature, not an end
in itself.

Justice" says Chomsky, would be engaged when social

structures are in place to allow the full fl owering of human
freedom. This entails dissolving all illegitimate authority in
all institutional structures. In its place, Chomsky advocates
an anarcho-syndicalist social structure, whereby the
workers control the means of production and directly
control their representatives.

Historically, the state and the capitalist system, particularly

in the US, have combined to concentrate power for the
benefi t of those who have iti.e. the wealthy. The method
Chomsky uses to demonstrate the abuses of state and
capitalist power is to delineate numerous single acts of
brutality and oppression that issue from the corporate
state. Because he is an American citizen, he focuses on the
abuses of power and the oppression of people done by the
US government. He compares such acts against the
"elementary moral truism" that what one nation does it
must condone all others doing.

When it comes to global justice, Chomsky opines that there

can be no justice as long as the inherently oppressive state
continues to exist, which acts solely in the interest of
corporations while denying other nations and peoples the
ability to act for their own perceived good. The US, in
particular, judges states "unstable" when they do not allow

US corporations to have open access to their resources and

markets, and uses terms such as the "national interest" to
disguise the interests of the economic elite in dictating
foreign policy and the choices of those states against whom
they wish to war.

With his unrelenting attack on the contradictions of the US

government policies, it is unsurprising that Chomsky has
drawn many critics. These critics charge him variously with
highlighting only US immoralities, not defi ning signifi cant
terms, being too utopian, using assertion as proof, and
even falsifying evidence. While some of these charges are
themselves one-sided and poorly supported, some of them
do carry weight. For example, Chomsky could stand to
defi ne his terms instead of side-stepping the "liberal
intelligentsia" when they demand a bit more structure in
his political analyses. Part of what draws such attacks is by
Chomsky's own making, in that he engages in stinging
vocabulary and cynical remarks.