Pages

Thursday, June 23, 2011

PATHE-LITICS


Pakistan is one of the countries where politics is taken very seriously by every individual be it a hawker selling vegetables and fruits at doorsteps of people or a businessman sitting in a 5-star hotel, having a sip of cappuccino and leaving a currency note of green or red color (depends on the brand of suit worn by the tipper) for the waiter as tip. Like every other country, politics affects everyone from mother’s cradle to eternal grave in Pakistan but the difference is that we take our politics and politicians very totally. 

We, the people of Pakistan, have been under immense turmoil since the previous decade or so. To summarize the last decade, we can say that in the name of keeping ‘Pakistan First’ we gave our land to foreigners for the purpose of invading our neighboring country with whom we had cordial and brotherly ties and eventually became the battlefield ourselves. We gave our friend away for securing ourselves and as it turns out we end up being the biggest problem of the world as many leaders put it.

For all these miseries of naughts of 21st century, we had a lot to learn from. One needs a very gigantic stomach to digest all what we’ve been through. Credit goes to us, cheers. But for all our patience and heavy digestion, we are still on ground zero and this time the credit is not ours. We have to applaud our politicians for that matter.Our COMPETENT and VISIONARY leadership has brought us everything but serenity. Imagine, this month is the most important month of the annum due to the pecuniary factor but our leaders are fighting to label someone as ‘wajib-ul-qatl’ and the others in return chanting slogans that a wagon conductor would rethink before uttering. Their actions have compelled us to believe that politics is a game of dirt and deception. The one who is more cunning, breaks promises and able to deceive his opponent is ranked as one of the best politician. We all know that nowadays, our worthy President is the best politician.

We define politics from the traits of our rulers, the traits which are everything but sincerity towards their elector. I guess I am wrong here, they are sincere towards their elector but this purely depends upon who is the elector. Our politics has become so pathetic that I don’t like to label it as politics as politics is a divine duty undertaken very efficiently and sincerely rather I would call it is pathelitics (pathetic politics). Finding it very difficult to find a person in our leadership who can be called a politician in real sense but we had many in our history includes the likes of, to quote a few, Khalifa Haroon ur Rasheed, Tipu Sultan and above all our Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) who gave us great examples of how to conduct politics.

While criticizing the patheliticians, one should also scrutinize the system in which they operate and through which they are elected. Just a preliminary analysis of our system would unveil that it is the system that actually promotes corrupt leaders to take charge. A system in which you need a considerable amount of money, Kalashnikovs and their operators to ward off the opponent and above all a tag name of baradari (caste) to get the voter of your caste on your side. If you have above three things then congratulations, you have all what it takes to be a legislator.Besides these factors, another important factor is the motivation for a feudal lord or the industrialist to enter the legislature. These capitalists and feudal lords use legislature to legislate whatever is in their favor. Glaring example of recent budget: our parliamentarians didn’t veto the tax on bricks but took stand to exclude the proposal on removing subsidy on fertilizer and wheat (though it also benefits general public). The problem lies in the very system. It equips the legislators so much that the lust and intoxication of power distances them from their electors. Take those powers of legislations and make them a mere representative of people, whose sole duty will be to forward the concerns of people and I am damn sure there won’t be any one of the existing legislator available for that purpose.

We get it wrong when we define the politics from the actions of our rulers. Politics is a divine duty performed by the person who is considered as the best among the people. It is time we redefine politics to its old definition i.e. taking care of the affairs of the people and shred that definition of pathelitics in a paper shredder. We have been misled by our rulers and even by our clergy that politics is not a work of common man. I remember, few noble people of my locality used to come to me to engage me in activities relating to propagation of Islamic fundamental practices and leave the politics to these patheliticians and I always got confused at that notion as I always questioned the purpose of our presence on this planet. Was that the sole reason that we were transformed from a sperm into a human being who really can affect this world? Surely we are built for more, not just for sitting in cafeterias and discussing the hottest girl of the town or alienating ourselves from the society and sit in the mosque. We have to balance ourselves. This is our responsibility to prove these people wrong who take politics as a bad thing. We have to believe that politics is a noble work and surely this is the only way out for us if we have to overcome our miseries. I think we should start teaching our children to write a paragraph on ‘I’d become a politician one day’ instead of producing doctors and engineers. If we want to come into politics then we have to be a politician rather than a pathelitician.

0 comments: