Mainspring of corruption

Pakistan is now in existence for a pretty long period. During far lesser periods the South Asian States have achieved 100 % education while Pakistan continues to be 33 % illiterate. Their political systems are set on firm grounds but our democratic targets arc still in a state of flux They have multiplied their wealth many hundred times and bade farewell to poverty, Pakistan Is dominated by a few ultra rich potentates on the one hand and teeming millions caught up in  vortex of poverty, on the other. The Islamic system for which Pakistan was demanded has been kept at bay by the prevailing feudalistic order. So long as it has its sway, democracy will never come to Pakistan, because feudalism is anti-democratic in nature. Concentration of wealth in fewer hands will continue unabated because by nature it is set to grab power and resources leaving little for the masses. It blocks the coming of Islam through every conceivable manipulation because it is patently an anti-Islamic order. Islam lays down limits of wealth and property to which it would never reconcile. Islam recognizes human rights of men and women which it denies and tends to keep them in a state of serfdom. Consequently, if the system is permitted to persist, state of corruption will go from bad to worse gradually. No anti-corruption policy will ever succeed as it has been amply demonstrated in the past. Any Anti-corruption measure that was ever adopted, ultimately went up in smoke.

The scourge of corruption was identified at the very birth of Pakistan by no less a person than Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Au Jinnah. He said,”One of the biggest curses from which the country is suffering is bribery and corruption. We must put it down with an iron hand.” Sadly the warning was not heeded during the decades for which Pakistan has lived so far. Why the warning of the Father of the Nation was disregarded is a question that no one is prepared to answer. Instead of containing and eliminating corruption it has actually been promoted in a big way. Today it has assumed such alarming proportions that Senator S.M. Zafar, an eminent lawman, a jurist, a constitutionalist, had to remark that Pakistan had become ‘tsunami’ of corruption and it had penetrated all areas of human life. He said so on the occasion of the celebration of International Anti-Corruption Day observed on 9 December 2006. A seminar on ‘Review and Improvement of Anti-corruption Efforts in Pakistan was held which was presided over by Chief Justice (r) Dr Javaid Iqbal and attended by eminent and high profile intellectuals of the country. In his address Dr Javaid Iqbal said,” we talk and grumble about corruption but do not take tangible steps to weed out this menace from the society. Others also spoke and gave different evidences to prove that corruption was rampant in the country but none would prefer to define the causes that lay behind corruption and none dared to suggest how best to get rid of t1is menace. A few routine suggestions were, however, made that meant to fill in the blanks only and were not of any real practical significance.