ISLAMABAD: Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani said on Thursday that the pivot for all institutions functioning through or under the Constitution, 1973, was the Parliament of Pakistan. “All institutions are subservient to the law and constitution of the country. Parliament is to the Federation of Pakistan. It is the jugular vein to the body. If we cut the jugular vein again and again, it would be like decapitating the federation. It is imperative upon Parliament to play a historically significant role in order to overcome the internal and external challenges faced by the country; this institution had to be transparent and deliver so that people own it,” he said. He regretted that the country had suffered at the hands of dictatorship for prolonged periods while the role of democracy has been of mere recreational intervals for an entertainment film. “Every time democracy aims to entrench its hold in the political process of the country, dictatorship usurps its right to do so, making democracy a shameful stopgap arrangement for dictatorial regimes. The institutions were never strengthened and constitutional supremacy never established- a fallout effect that continues till date,” he said. The chairman expressed these views at a ceremony to give away the Pride of Pakistan Award on behalf of National Press Club to Nisar Naasik, the composer of famous song “Dil Dil Pakistan”. “Isolating ourselves from our history, collective struggle for democracy and national heroes we have plunged our society to this pitiable point of decline. This deliberate divorce has led writers like Nisar Nasik, Habib Jalib, Faiz Ahmed Faiz and John Elia into shadows of forgetfulness. Alternative narratives were not developed in Ministries or in Rawalpindi, but they were germinated,” he said. He remarked that it was us who called to annihilate such talent from the country and he was chagrined at the fact that the state failed to appreciate assets like Nisar Naasik. He said that he had witnessed the deplorable conditions of Habib Jalib, clearly implying that we he was live in an uncivilized society, negligent of our national heritage. Even with the passage of 70 years, our state and society is lost in visionless oblivion, vainly looking for their way out. “When the people revolted against the Ayub Khan Regime, the elites worked together to trace the factors that crushed the regime into cinders. It was then that the elitist state conspired to obliterate the ‘Coffee House’ culture to suppress birth of national consciousness and to produce a generation drunk in elitist narratives,” he said. Published in Daily Times, October 13th 2017.