Daily Times

Sir: A ‘manifesto’ is a public declaration of policy and aims’.  It may fudge key issues and party slogans in the declaration. It need not be original, but it must set forth targets and show means to achieve them. Take the Communist Manifesto and Karl Marx’s slogan “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”. Aside from Quranic injunctions about justice, the roots to this slogan can also be traced back to August Becker (1844), Louis Blanc (1851), French utopian Étienne-Gabriel Morelly (1755 Code of Nature), Guilford (1639 Covenant), and even the New Testament.

Aside from its main rhetoric and sloganeering, the Communist Manifesto spells out the nitty-gritty of the Capital formation process in contradistinction with capital formation under capitalist systems (class struggle, exploitation, capital surplus, etc) Let our political parties also explain in their manifestos how they plan on meeting the basic needs of the common man. Even the Constitution of Pakistan highlights the main objectives of the government in power as the abolition of slavery and forced labour, the promotion of social and economic well-being of the people irrespective of sex, caste, creed or race, the provision of the basic necessities of life such as food and clothing etc, a reduction in income disparity in the community, and the elimination of ‘Riba’ as early as possible.

AJ MALIK

Rawalpindi

Published in Daily Times, June 29^th 2018.