If the Quaid were alive, he would have undergone a lot of anguish and despair to see elected political leaders
LAHORE: The Quaid-e-Azam led the struggle to create Pakistan so that Muslims could live in peace with members of other faiths — as free citizens of a country dedicated to the welfare of citizens, where laws prevail over individuals and everybody is accountable, irrespective of his caste, creed, belief or status. He could never have visualised that his insistence to draft and finalise a constitution by duly elected members of the first Constituent Assembly, tasked to lay down foundations of a modern welfare state, would be delayed after his death and the country which refused to have Lord Louis Mountbatten as its first governor general would remain as a dominion of the UK with its citizens pledging loyalty to the queen as late as 1956.
If the Quaid were alive, he would have undergone a lot of anguish and despair to see elected political leaders, with the connivance of a corrupt bureaucracy, issuing time-barred statutory regulatory orders for the benefit of only specific powerful individuals and members of the ruling political elite, depriving the state of billions in revenue that could have been spent on millions of deprived citizens living below the poverty line without the benefits of education, health or even clean drinking water. How can anybody justify giving repeated tax amenities to those who evade taxes, knowing full well that all over the world people pay taxes because of the fear of harsh penalties and punishments? Can anybody visualise the Quaid’s and Allama Iqbal’s reaction to the obscene practice of giving several plots, ranging from Rs6 crores to Rs30 crores, to paid public officeholders under the garb of welfare, in a country where millions have no access to clean drinking water? How can such abuse of power be portrayed as welfare when recipients only performed services for which they were hired and were retiring hale and hearty with pension benefits? Would the Quaid have tolerated that those aspiring to hold elected or paid public offices where the fate of millions were to be decided would be in the hands of individuals who have no faith in the destiny of this country, whose children have acquired foreign nationalities and a bulk of their assets were located abroad? In some cases, these individuals even pay more taxes abroad than they do in Pakistan. Yet, they consider it moral and legal to hold elected public office here.
Malik Tariq Ali
Published in The Express Tribune, May 4th, 2016.
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