Definition of democracy as taught in schools and colleges is “government of the people, by the people, for the people”. It is further explained that this definition is meant “rule by the (simple) people”. This definition does not cover democracy being practised in our country. The democracy being followed currently does not involve the common and downtrodden people in decision-making. No parliamentarian consults with people of his respective constituency for taking their opinion. Their claims that they have the mandate of 180 million people are false. The rights of people to live, to work, to express, to preach their religions freely are not protected. They have no say to decide and plan their future. They are treated like herds of animals through the terror of the security forces. The democracy is seen is a tool of convenience for the elite class and it is used in a way to exploit the ruled class and provide benefits to the ruling class and their cronies. The rulers have invented strange techniques to prolong their rule in the name of democracy. They, in order to score points, blame each other through the media although none of them are sacred cows and they are products of scandals. The other way to befool people is that they have turned the superior courts into their battlefield to get their scandals decided through litigation at the cost of public money. They know that litigation will never end and in this way, they would succeed in completing their tenure. They also propagate against martial law and the army despite the fact they grew up under the patronage of GHQ.
What should we do to get rid of these false democrats? The best thing is that all old democratic leaders should say goodbye to politics seeing their failure in performance and for destroying the national institutions. The other way is that people should stand up to field candidates from amongst themselves who bear good character and are capable of running the government for the betterment of the masses. They should boycott all those candidates who purchase party tickets for contesting elections on payment of heavy amounts. If people do not do it, the same old corrupt rulers would come into power in the upcoming elections and the masses will remain hostage to them. There would be no collective progress and whatever is left in the form of half-dead institutions would be completely wiped out.
SHER GONDAL,
Mandi Bahauddin, August 5.