Social empowerment

This is the third dimension of the real democracy. Under this, sound economic standing the individual makes the power of his vote meaningful. It enables him to cast his vote with fear or favour. He is led by the voice of his conscience and disregards influences of all extraneous factors. Thus parting with his vote by putting it in the ballot box does not make him politically powerless. The power of his vote is not usurped by the elected member to render him a non- entity. Rather he continues to have his say in a big way in the national affairs. His right to t. part in decision-making even at the highest level remains intact. Once he has cast his vote the system does not treat him as a spent up cartridge. The source of the vigour and vitality of a society is the empowerment of its people population that consists of weakling and impoverished individuals lacking in sense of pride - themselves is a crowd that is unable to make its mark in any field of national existence. NL depends on the quality of its human resourcefulness. Society has no existence without individuals. Similarly there never was a one man society. This establishes intimate relation5- - between the individual and the society. Existence of one without the other is unthinkable. In of this, therefore, individual must be free to think, speak and act not only to enrich his - environment but also fortify the society to acquire stability and cohesion. Individual’s closer relation with the society yields unlimited blessings for him. This is he learns meanings of some of the finest human qualities such as inter-dependence, co-existence  patriotism, love for others, selflessness and sacrifice to the extent of laying down his precious - when required, for the sake of others. He should not be made to lose his individualism as p the society. Rather he should be provided conducive environment in which he should be able promote his personality as well as common good of the entire social order. The fate individual is eternally bound up with the destiny of his nation. He is the living cell organism. If majority of cells suffers ailment, the whole body loses strength and falls Nations become great and strong due to the achievements of its individuals. They also plunge in destruction and chaos due to the treachery, deceit and betrayal of its individuals. An individual act of supreme heroism may win an impossible battle for an army. Likewise one man’s betrayal may seal the fate of a nation. History is replete with instances where an individual served as saviour of a drowning society, pulled his hapless people from abysmal depths of political slavery, economic destitution and moral degradations. Examples of national disasters done b treachery of one man, are also not uncommon. That is what happens in circumstances of unusual, exceptional and extreme nature. Under normal conditions, however, responsibility for good conduct and rational functioning lies more on the society than the individual. The law of the nature is that the wrong doings of an individual may be forgiven because their impact often remains confined to the individual alone but there is no forgiveness for a corrupt society because the society has the power to exercise its its influence,  through various social, administrative, judicial and political institutions, in weeding Q -. collective wrong doings of its people such as use of drugs, moral turpitude, bribery, exploitation of the people by a few powerful and influential individuals. The society is therefore, required to take a perpetual stock of its inconsistencies and internal contradictions to provide environments to its individuals to live purposeful lives and flourish in freedom. This objective cannot be achieved unless the individual is socially empowered along with his political and economic empowerment. One of the purposes of the great exercise of devolution of power and installation of a structure of local government in Aug 2002 was to let the real power seep deep down to the grass root levels of the society where the individual, as unit of repository of real power, has to flourish and play his important role in building up a sound and strong society. In conclusion, it may be said that Pakistan is blessed with all those essential elements which if operate in rational coordination can make it a dominant power of not only of South Asia but also of the Islamic world to sort out the problems of the Ummah as a whole. The only requirement is that it should become a perfect democracy, genuine and real in literal sense of the word. What we have at present and which is the main cause of most of its national and international difficulties is flawed system of governance which in fact is pure and simple rule of the feudals working under the garb of democracy. The ultimate objective of any nation is the welfare of its people which cannot possibly be achieved without the enforcement of genuine democracy. Our ideal is a three dimensional system of democracy. The average member of the society should be blessed with full economic, political and social empowerments. To attain that kind of the status of the individual all those hurdles that stand between the individual and his empowerments should be demolished. Feudalism in all its manifestation should be done away with. As the nation is set free from the stranglehold of feudalism, it will be able to take mighty strides of progress. It will achieve 100 percent education along with equitable distribution of wealth. An educated community, conscious of high standards of living, will exercise check on population growth. Income generation on a nationwide scale will give phenomenal boost to economic activity in the country. In such a rejuvenated environment. rate of social vices will decline to the minimum. Unfortunately, the devolution system introduced in Aug 2002 has not been able to get off very well. The system has already developed cracks and appears to be in a state of rejection by the previous system over which it has been superimposed. It could have succeeded had it been conceived and developed from the grass roots .Its main flaw is that it has duplicated the previous system in quite a number of areas. It has established almost a system parallel to the system in vogue. It should have assigned tasks of only grass-root nature such as education, rural economic development, population control etc. The devolution plan must be remodeled to avoid friction with the old order and converge all energies to introduce development at grass root levels to become an integral part of the national democratic grid.