For Islooites, performing one’s national duty is paramount

People of all ages, faiths head to the polls

ISLAMABAD: Feeling the weight of a vote’s responsibility, people from all walks of life braved individual odds and came out to cast their votes.

Elderly, men, women, from different faiths, children, and specially-abled people came out to cast their votes in the hopes that the slow and steady democratic process would change not only their lives but also the country.

Everyone is equal before the ballot

With the party handing a member of the Sikh community a key post in the last Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government, Sardar Ashish Singh in the capital was hopeful that the vote he was casting for the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) would bring about a positive change for the minorities in the country.



“Though my cousin was killed in K-P, and his family did not get justice, I would still prefer to vote for the PTI with the hope that he [PTI chief Imran Khan] may bring about a change in Pakistan and make it a country where minorities would be able to enjoy their rights freely,” he said while talking to The Express Tribune outside the polling station in FG-Margalla College for Women F-7/4.

He said that he belongs to the Sikh community and believes in serving the community.



Can votes change fortunes?

But not all were as lucky as Singh.

For 80-year-old Zara Jan, who sat by the roadside with his knife-sharpening machine looked on at voters in envy.

“I could not cast my vote today because I do not have enough money to travel to my village near Murree,” Jan said when asked if he had voted.

When asked whom would he have preferred to vote if had the chance, he pointed towards a poster with a bat symbol and the picture of Imran Khan.

“Over the last few elections, I have been voting for the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), but they had disappointed me. Therefore I would prefer to vote for the PTI,” he said.

However, he did not believe that his votes would completely transform his fortunes, nor those of his children.

“I hardly earn Rs100 per day. The day I earn Rs300, I consider it a blessed day,” he said.

Disability no hurdle

A bomb dropped by India in the 1971 war in Sialkot had robbed 73-year-old Nathanial of his right leg.

But it did little to stop him on from walking to his polling station on Wednesday.

A resident of the slums in posh Sector F-7 of the capital, Nathanial slowly walked with the help of crutches to the polling station in Sector F-7/4.

Having cast his vote, he said he felt he had fulfilled his responsibility.

Nathanial said that he used to sell fruits and vegetables. When he moved to the federal capital, he learnt tailoring so that he could run his household.



He shared that owing to his injuries in the war, he used to get Rs16 .5 as a sort of disability allowance. While the war was nearly 50 years ago, Nathanial said that the allowance was still the same.

Nathanial said that he had no real support from anywhere and struggled to raise his children and make ends meet.

“Whether these political parties do anything or not after coming into power, as a citizen it is our responsibility to cast a vote,” he said, adding that the democratic system must keep running.

To vote in every condition

Despite suffering from Parkinson's for the past 26 years, 86-year-old Begum Mumtaz Manzoor made sure she completed her national duty. Even if it meant being wheeled into the polling station by her daughter and granddaughter.

Manzoor’s daughter, who spoke on her mother’s behalf since she could not speak, said that her mother had cast her vote, even in the referendums held by dictators.

In the last election, she had voted for Javed Hashmi who was contesting on a PTI ticket and had voted for the party again.

Manzoor’s daughter said that she had voted there because her entire family had voted for the PTI.

“Everyone should come out and exercise their right to vote regardless of whoever wins or losses,” Manzoor’s daughter said, adding that if the winners fail, people can vote the party out the next time. 

Published in The Express Tribune, July 26^th, 2018.