ISLAMABAD: In Pakistan and Afghanistan, democracy can more aptly be described as “government off the people, government far from people and government to buy people,” Centre for Peace & Civil Society Executive Director Jami Chandio said. He was speaking at the Centre for Research & Security Studies’ (CRSS) 7h Pak-Afghan Youth Training Workshop on Wednesday, held under its Afghan Studies Centre initiative, which was attended by several young Pakistani and Afghan students and professionals. “Contrary to the true application of democracy in its real essence, democracy in Pakistan and Afghanistan is confined only to the quantitative representation of the people and neglects its qualitative aspects, depriving the vast populations of their civil, economic and political rights,” Jami Chandio said. Chandio, who was invited as chief guest and trainer, is a renowned writer and a political expert based in Hyderabad, Sindh. He explained that the spirit of democracy is not confined to any single geographical entity or civilisation. “Rather, it is a universal human concept which existed in one form or the other in civilisations all over the world in history and evolved overtime to take the form it is in today. The human civilisation broadly witnessed three major periods of transition, progressing from hunter-gatherers to tribal communities, monarchies and consequently, empires where humans became subjects to sovereigns and the concept of free people seized to exist. The oppression under such a political order culminated in the age of reason which pushed the thought process towards a system that should represent the wishes of the people, such as the modern democratic system,” he said. Fast forward a few centuries; emphasising on the importance of a constitution to lay down the foundation of a democratic system, Chandio stated that Pakistan inherited its constitutional framework from India Act 1935. “Unfortunately though, it took nine long years for the newly independent state to formulate its first Constitution which further underwent several more amendments until 1973 when the Constituent Assembly unanimously passed Pakistan’s existing Constitution which is still in force today,” he said. Of the existing models of democracy in the world, such as liberal democracy, social democracy, and people’s democracy, Afghanistan and Pakistan fall under the category of transitional democracies. Speaking in the context of Pakistan and Afghanistan, he stated that both countries currently can rather be described as oligarchies controlled by elites. Additionally, both countries face common challenges, such as economic disparity, poverty, intolerance, gender inequality, sectarian violence, ethnic divisions, radicalisation and terrorism, which can only be addressed through consolidation of true constitutional democracy. Conflict, being another major mutual challenge, the trainer articulated that democracy provides a peaceful means to the resolution of disputes and conflicts as it is an auto-dynamic system and can evolve and amend itself. Democracy is not only a political system; it is also the process of social education, training and evolution. Published in Daily Times, February 23rd 2018.