State of Poverty in a Democracy

THREE DIMENSIONAL DEMOCRA TO END POVERTY IN PAKISTAN

Amartya Sen, the Nobel Laureate in Economics says “There is no poverty in a democracy” provided it is a genuine democracy which can be ensured only in a state of perfect devolution of political, economic and social power. The kind of democracy we have in Pakistan could be compared to a bloody wolf lurking under an innocent looking sheepskin. This monster is fast eating into the vitals of the nation making it poorer day by day. Known as Islamic Republic, Pakistan is neither an Islamic polity nor a republic. It is deprived of the blessings of the both making an extremely minor section of the society fabulously rich and powerful thus leaving billions in a state of destitution and helplessness. The question is if democracy, true and genuine, comes to a less developed nation, what impact does it have on the state of its poverty? The answer is poverty surely takes to its heels. But will the required kind of democracy ever show up in Pakistan? In all probability, it will never. That is what the nation has witnessed in the past and that is what it is destined t face during scores of coming decades. The poverty, as such, will be free to prevail, flourish and multiply at will.So far as Pakistani nation is concerned it is not autocratic by nature. It is fully primed to become a full-fledged democracy. The only requirement is the appearance of a leader who could do away with the hurdles that have blocked the advent of democracy ever since Independence. That visionary has yet to come. After the great Quaid, there was no dearth of capable leaders who dominated the political scene but none was greater enough to rise above the status quo and bring about the required revolutionary change.The most serious scourge that afflicts the society today is feudalism in its many different forms. It is the mother of all other ills. It has kept a person illiterate and uneducated which in turn has let the population get out of hand. It has built up mighty reservoirs of wealth and vast deserts of poverty. It has given birth to innumerable social ills, treated the honourable citizens like slaves, and misappropriated the wealth of the nation, denied justice to the wronged, perpetrated cruelties upon the people living under its influence. The feudals abduct poor women at will, indulge in rang rapes, run private prisons, commit all kinds of moral, legal, social offences one can imagine under the sun. There is no power on earth that can check their acts of highhandedness. In general elections, they return to the assemblies through influence, threat, wealth, manipulations to safeguard their vested interests and claim to be the product of democratic process. This brand of democracy in reality is the rule of autocratic, dictatorial, fascistic and despotic attitude