Democracy does not come from holding elections and electing people to office. In Pakistan, this is the idea of demcoracy and this is the summation of a democracy. In Pakistan, democracy is a slogan, which many people in this nation do not understand.
Expectations of democracy, in Pakistan, are as naive as the expectations of a one-legged man winning a butt-kicking contest.
It stuns the thinking imagination that chief antagonists of democracy in Pakistan are the political parties, which themselves do not practice democracy in their own ranks. The political parties of Pakistan, which claim to represent the democratic interests of the people, are lorded over by personalities whose claim to powerful positions in their parties are based on their birth rights and whose tenure of office is measured in life times. The councils of these political parties are elected in the silent, murky halls of power, without a debate or a vote cast, but on the basis of expediency.
Pakistan should not expect democracy from its political parties, when these political parties actually believe in autocratic feudalism.
Democracy in Pakistan is nothing more than the old wine of feudalism and reactionism bottled in new bottles and disseminated to the public in a highly glossy public-relations campaign.
Democracy for whom?
There is no democracy. In the rural areas, there is no choice for the peasants of Pakistan, because if they elect anyone besides their feudal lord and master, their final reward for their act of indepedence will be a slow and painful death and to be mourned by none. The pitful slogan of democracy only exists in cities and it is only in the cities that the semi-educated pseudo intellects can claim to discuss democracy.
Pakistan would not be able to define democracy even if someone taught it the defination, because its edcuational system is so bad, that all it can hope to do is memorize "democracy" and keep repeating it like a prized parrot.
The real tragedy of democracy in Pakistan is that when the circus of the fools comes to town, most of the people will be too improvished to even afford tickets to the ringside.
What democracy and for whom?
Expectations of democracy, in Pakistan, are as naive as the expectations of a one-legged man winning a butt-kicking contest.
It stuns the thinking imagination that chief antagonists of democracy in Pakistan are the political parties, which themselves do not practice democracy in their own ranks. The political parties of Pakistan, which claim to represent the democratic interests of the people, are lorded over by personalities whose claim to powerful positions in their parties are based on their birth rights and whose tenure of office is measured in life times. The councils of these political parties are elected in the silent, murky halls of power, without a debate or a vote cast, but on the basis of expediency.
Pakistan should not expect democracy from its political parties, when these political parties actually believe in autocratic feudalism.
Democracy in Pakistan is nothing more than the old wine of feudalism and reactionism bottled in new bottles and disseminated to the public in a highly glossy public-relations campaign.
Democracy for whom?
There is no democracy. In the rural areas, there is no choice for the peasants of Pakistan, because if they elect anyone besides their feudal lord and master, their final reward for their act of indepedence will be a slow and painful death and to be mourned by none. The pitful slogan of democracy only exists in cities and it is only in the cities that the semi-educated pseudo intellects can claim to discuss democracy.
Pakistan would not be able to define democracy even if someone taught it the defination, because its edcuational system is so bad, that all it can hope to do is memorize "democracy" and keep repeating it like a prized parrot.
The real tragedy of democracy in Pakistan is that when the circus of the fools comes to town, most of the people will be too improvished to even afford tickets to the ringside.
What democracy and for whom?
1 comment:
With a heavy heart I agree with you. 'Democracy' if we intend the Western definition of it, was never the natural outcome of the evolution of India under the Raj, nor subsequent to that.
I'm going back over the history of the Raj and particularly the hodge-podge that was Partition, and the various models that were envisioned upon which to divide the country in the first place and how political power would be allotted. Democracy had no place in the history and evolution of he country, and as you say regarding the peasants*, my most intimate experience of Pakistan has been to find myself immersed in the feudal aspect of local governance.
In terms of belonging to the international family of nations, the label 'Democracy' in Pakistan is like obtaining a number plate for a car, you either get one or you can't drive.
As for the educational system . . . we had to pay our nieces' and nephews' way out of the public system in place in our part of the world once I saw how utterly decrepit it is.
*In a true democracy, this category does not exist, as do not the 'masses' referred to as such. There are also no 'subjects', no 'serfs' no indentured servants. And women do not belong to men like actual property (nor as vessels of the 'honour' of an entire family.)
Post a Comment