Pakistan was created to be run as a modern democratic welfare state, instead it has been reduced to a security state.
LAHORE: John Adams, America’s second president, said in 1774 that the objective of founding the United States was to establish “a government of laws, and not of men”. Similarly, Pakistan was created by our founding fathers to be run as a modern democratic welfare state, but instead it has been reduced to a security state run by religious bigots, opportunists and thugs.
In Quaid’s Pakistan, every citizen was free to practice his faith, while the state had no role to regulate or dictate one’s religious beliefs. We are in the state that we are today because of the myopic vision of those who succeeded the Quaid after his death. These people deliberately delayed the formation of the country’s constitution and became self-assumed protectors of the Quaid’s and Allama Iqbal’s vision and philosophy. These elements have done more harm to this country that the remnants of the former Congress-aligned parties such as the Unionists, or others who opposed the creation of Pakistan. So in Pakistan what we have is a government which is of men but for whom laws are to be broken, bent and violated at will.
The American Constitution was drafted by their founding fathers over 200 years ago and in that time there have been no more than 27 amendments to it. In Pakistan, we have had 18 or so amendments to a constitution that dates back to 1973. The rot started when Ayub Khan took over as defence minister while in uniform and thereafter it has been a continuous slide downward.
Pakistan and its institutions have to decide whether it will function as a modern welfare state, as envisioned by the Quaid, or descend slowly but surely into a state of anarchy.
Malik Tariq Ali
Published in The Express Tribune, July 2nd, 2011.
