Dr Javaid Iqbal made a very significant remark when
he pointed out that China weeded out corruption with stringent punishments like
death for this crime. Can we do it in Pakistan under the prevailing
circumstances? What the learned Justice didn’t disclose that even China could
nor do this before 1949 during the days of Chiang Ky Shek when the country was
in the grip of feudalism. It could do so only after the great communist
revolution in which aristocracy was completely eliminated and rule of the
common man was established. How can Pakistan take such stringent measures when
feudalism, the source of all corruption, is completely in control of our
national affairs?
Apart from the compromise option, the other
punishment being awarded i’s to banish the corrupt from the country so that
during their stay there they can freely enjoy the blessings of the looted
wealth and at the same time reap rich harvest of peoples’ sympathies and
continue to drum up their piety, harp on the incompetence and unpopularity of
the regime in power and wait for its doomsday to return triumphantly home with
fanfare. Since corruption starts from the above and seeps down to the common
man, therefore, they will not fall short of followers they have managed to
corrupt during their hay days. Even now people know what they are but that is
immaterial to them. What matters to them is a corrupt fellow sitting on top so
that they may also be free to indulge in all kinds of bad practices such as
dacoities, kidnapping for ransom, rape. murders, looting the passerby, breaking
into houses, taking bribes rendering illegal services in exchange for fat
packets of currency notes carrying the noble image of the Quaid.
Stringent actions are taken and executed in a
society of people with clean hands. When every one has been corrupted in one
sense or the other no one has the moral courage to implement hard punishments?
A crowd that was ready to stone a convict to death when told that the first
stone will be hurled by a person who had never committed a sin in life, became
stunned, threw away their stones and departed for homes with heads hanging in
shame leaving the condemned bewildered standing all alone in the death pit In
Pakistan where is a person morally qualified to pass a death sentence against a
corrupt and where would one find a hangman to execute him.