Peace
is the single motive to make people lives healthier and productive lives in a state
with a single objective of national integration. Conflict is also known as the
difference of opinion among the masses, why were we a peaceful nation at the
time of independence? People were welcoming the immigrants from India and
giving them full support to settle down here in Pakistan. What happened when we
have not taken into consideration the aspirations of a majority which was our
brethren in the East Pakistan? They started taking feedback of the non-state
actors to get their differences be mitigated the result was the creation of
Bangladesh. In the prevailing situation
in the country our major problem is the nastiest situation of peace in the
country, which is mostly the major source of non-state actor’s involvements
with the state to destabilize the nation and flaking the deep routed national
integration which is our national ideology.
The most crucial time on our country’s peace starts with the
emergence of war against terror after 9/11, the decisions were made by an
individual guided by his own dogma which make the condition more worst and
country alienated into different sections with a strong difference of opinion,
most of the politicians were forcibly torn and made a new kings party known as
PML-Q which make no way to the people’s aspirations and lead the things as and
where deemed fit by the dictator. Mostly these so called political powers
benefited from the policies chalked-out to furtherance of the personal gains by
profound segment, they were part of most of the deals at the state level they
were the people who were not in a position to intervene on the issue of
national interest and national integration.
Instances like the incident of Jam-e-Hafsa (Lal Masjid), Operation
in Swat and Malakand, and later on in the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas,
Ban on Media, Attack on the GEO TV and burning of the newspapers, Confrontation
with the Judiciary and emergency on 3rd November, Drown attacks,
missing personals, Dr. Aafia Sidiqi and the most important concern of our
sovereignty as a state when on 3rd May 2008 United States Marines
attacked the Osama Bin Ladin in the hilly station of Abbottabad these are all
the serial provoked by the dogmatist approach of General Retired Pervez
Musharraf which could never be rollback or to undo with any kind of tips and tools
so one could say that the loss to national integration by military took-over by
Pervez Musharraf is revocable, hence it is loss which could never be repealed.
So when one think of the good governance ultimately the answer is
transparency in implementing day by day business of the state by the state
machinery. This could be provision of safe drinking water, running of
sanitation services without any disparity, equal opportunities of education to
all the people of the country at all levels, delivery of health services, providing
livelihood resources to the whole population, prevention of diseases like
measles, eradication of polio, HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and drug abuse prevention
to help the citizenry grow and live a healthier and happier life. The communities
are the helping hands of the states but here we the helping hands are mostly
away from the state business, state is not even sure what to do and where to
take-off but am somewhat sure that the goals of national development could only
be achieved by implementing the activities locally needed, locally
designed/planned and locally executed I means the Participatory Local
Governance which we are missing since independence.
We are among the countries
who have to make sufficient achievement on the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) by 2015 this could only be done if our local government units are in
place and working efficiently which is only possible by establishing local
governments across the country without any delay. The funds for the development
must by routed through the local government units headed by the elected
representatives and which must holds a social audit system to monitor the use
of these funds at all the tiers of the government whatever they could be like
village, union, town, tehsil, taulqa or the district or the city district.
Most of us think that democracy is not suitable for us but we have
not taken into account the worst behave of ourselves with democracy. We have
never articulated any form of public demands at community level, nor we deliberately
asked the political elites to add our community demands or even the basic
needs, like health, education, water and sanitation into their political
strategies at any level for example in my native which is the constituency of a
seasoned politician who have a more than three decades of proactive presence in
the mainstream politics but the people from our community have never asked him
for setting-up educational institutions, establishing basic health units,
trauma center, emergency help or the community patrolling, crimes prevention
and pouring money on the issues of immediate attention from the state funds,
may be some of a few have asked for the healing the community problems but
their voices were not pluralized nor they have any impact on the concerned
politicians.
The pluralism summons the communities to focus on civic demands in
the modern day politics or the process of social change in modern democracies.
People forms pressure groups to make their voices counted and heard, but we are
very far away still in the age of new media and social media technologies. I would
like to put the example of a community which is hardly a 45-60 minute’s car
drive from the federal capital but this unfortunate, deprived and disparate
community is lacking a higher education or even at under graduate level
educational institutions are missing, the educational institutions of lower
level like elementary and secondary were setup by both the contestants of
elections without any plans and keeping in view the factual needs. So most of
the buildings are empty still for example in two very closely packed villages
there are some 6 small and medium buildings which are constructed for elementary
level schools boys and girls but only three buildings are in use.
These are mostly the examples which fall in the miss-governance,
malicious governance or the ill-governance or bad-governance what-ever one
could term it this will fit in, because it’s all about us who are the
responsible for choosing our representatives without letting them know what are
our issues, problems and concerns at their constituencies from where they are
running for the contest of legislature, lower house (national assembly) and the
house of units (provincial assembly) so if they were be equipped with the
information of problems we are facing at the community level and already ask them to work on its they
definitely will be in a more sensitized position when coming back to the
constituency next time.
When we think about the democratic of
government which enable the masses to be pluralist and transparent in their
roles towards the state and state to the citizenries. Therefore it is a process
by which people put forth the demands to the state or the government and
governments come to the citizens for help so each-one play its role of helping
the counterparts. Democracy in other words a process of accountability,
transparency and productivity in running the day by day business of a state by
mobilizing the major segments without any discrimination of caste, creed,
religion, color or the sexual orientation
of the populations across the board.
Democracy that is transparent definitely be the productive and
proactive which will be able to deliver, its starts with the paving way of
political development and social change the only way forward to get resulted
the productivity at the either ends, people who believes in the democracy
develop the political culture, initiate and sustain the process of state
building and national integration energetically, political parties works on the
interest articulation and interest aggregation. These activities make them more
accountable and answerable to segments
which they belong, concurrently they become aware of their responsibilities, obligations
and duties towards each other, which make them more and more productive so the
democracy become productive and be able to deliver. The democracy is only feasible when it is in
a position to work for the masses, by mobilizing them to design it, program it,
execute it and finally suggest the corrective measure to make it streamline and
workable at all the stages.
The present phase of democracy in Pakistan is very proactive,
because one civilian government completed its term and handed over the power to
the next elected government which is happening first time in the history of
Pakistan’s Political Development, which a very positive symptom for social
change. However the challenges to
democracy are also prevailing some implications of democracy like in the
developing world or the global south are the impact of colonial past which make
them dependent and in nature they are at the mercy of the external forces or
the non-state actors, who always push them in the dilemma of democracy to make
the picture of democracy a very bad. Positivism
could lead the state to the peak of pluralism or the functional democracy, it
is our attitude which make the picture uglier, when we see the things coming to
us with some sort of preponderant to our powers by our next door neighbors or
the coworkers or some of the times by the general masses and even by the state
functionaries. This makes the governance vulnerable and subjugated the
pluralism, democracy and peace process at the same time, while the lawlessness,
crime, insubordination, anarchy and
conflict arose in the state this could be seen in most of the areas of our
nation like, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Baluchistan (insurgency), violence in Karachi
(Sindh), sectarian violence in Northern Areas, and attacks on the state forces
by different militant groups.
How the democracy could be affective? How it could deliver what is
needed? It’s only when the masses are mobilized and when people are aware about
their obligations too alongside the rights, when we claim rights we must think
about our obligations if we are realizing our obligations to the state, than we
could articulate our demands about the democratic and pluralist approaches of
governance and democracy, which includes independence and autonomous status of
state organs with an emphasis of transparency, accountability, deliver-ability,
capability of execution, and competency to overcome the problems and handle the
process of conflict resolution within the state and across the board.
The people are responsible for choosing the honest, capable,
dedicated and well-versed representatives without any prejudice on the basis of
caste, creed, religion, and any sectarian or communal considerations, the
community elected representatives chosen on these lines will avoid nepotism,
favoritism, corruption and personal gain and definitely the Democracy will be accountable,
and be capable of delivering to the needs and demands articulated by the
communities, and challenges of democracy would also dealt swiftly without
harming the civic rights by the legitimize leaders.
Muhammad Tanveer Akhtar M.
Phil Political Science University of Sargodha
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