If people in power want to setup schools, hospitals, they must set up foundations from their own pockets.
SIALKOT: Development funds used to build schools or hospitals by legislators, bureaucrats and constitutional office holders to honour memories of their fathers, wives or fathers-in-law amount to abuse of power because this is the taxpayers’ money, and is not there for self-satisfaction. If people in power want to do such good deeds, they must set up foundations from their own pockets to honour memories of their loved ones. It is sad that we have not learnt any lessons from Hindu and Parsi philanthropists of the subcontinent, including Lady Dufferin, Sir Ganga Ram and Gulab Devi, who built hospitals from their own resources and public donations. In recent times, Abdul Sattar Edhi is one such man, followed by others like Imran Khan who built the Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital and those who built the Ittefaq Hospital, etc. These projects were either self-financed or were constructed from voluntary public donations. There is no justification whatsoever for naming a hospital in Sialkot after Khawaja Safdar, or one in Lahore after Khawaja Rafique, or renaming a hospital in Islamabad after Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Similarly, there is no need to name a university after Ghulam Ishaq Khan, who collaborated with an usurper like General Ziaul Haq.
Public funds can only be utilised to honour the memory of the founding fathers of the nation or men who have rendered extraordinary services to the people beyond the call of duty. With the exception of the Quaid-e-Azam, Allama Iqbal, Maulvi Fazlul Haq and a few others, very few persons have earned the undisputed love and respect of the vast majority of the people of Pakistan.
Shahzad Khalil
Published in The Express Tribune, March 26th, 2013.
