Daily Times

Sir: In Jinnah’s Pakistan, there was no space for elected political leaders or paid civil and unformed public office holders to have any conflicts of interest, except serving people and performing designated roles, upholding their oaths of office.

There was no role for paid establishment to be directly or indirectly involved in the politics. Unfortunately after Jinnah’s death, his successors failed to finalise the Constitution, which was sole objective of creating the First Constituent Assembly. While addressing this assembly on August 11, 1947 he gave guidelines for drafting the Constitution so that a modern democratic welfare state he had envisioned based on Allama Iqbal’s philosophy could emerge.

What followed is the reverse of what Quaid believed in. A nexus of the civil and khaki establishment emerged. No sooner, a final draft was prepared, GG suspended the Assembly on October 24, 1954. It was no coincidence that Ayub Khan took over as Defence Minister in the Bogra cabinet on October 25, 1954. A handpicked Constituent Assembly was selected, excluding Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan on May 28, 1955 which promulgated a constitution on March 23, 1956. Even this constitution was abrogated on October 7, 1958 when Ayub Khan imposed martial law. The rest is history.

Pakistan disintegrated in 1971 and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto took over after an election held by General Yahya Khan. However, the majority went to Mujeeb-ur-Rahman, which the military government was unwilling to honour. The buck stopped at the table of Martial Law Administrator General Yahya and he was under no compulsion to hear Bhutto’s advice.

Other than Mohammad Khan Junejo, who was honest and upright, the political engineering and meddling in state policies has created the scourge of terrorism, ethnic parties like MQM and corrupt politicians like PLM-Q and the NRO. The scourge of the criminal land mafia is so powerful that even state and forest land is occupied and sold to the public.

Welfare is confined to the paid elite, with no funds for the masses. Tax evasion and money laundering is facilitated with unending tax amnesty schemes for black economy beneficiaries. If Pakistan is to survive as a sovereign independent state, it must adhere to the vision of Quaid-e-Azam and reject the doctrines of Ayub, Zia and Musharraf.

ALI MALIK TARIQ

Lahore

Published in Daily Times, May 18^th 2018.