Ideological political parties or movements are always headed by men with a mission, working for collective welfare and basic rights of majority and downtrodden, never accused of conflict of interest and promoting their personal business empires, or involved in illegitimate activities, such as tax evasion, land grabbing, money laundering and abuse of power. Leadership of such parties is never handed down as ancestral right, but based on merit and commitment. Ideological leaders always lead their people from front, living in their own countries unless sent on forced exile. In subcontinent there existed two major ideological political parties, Muslim League headed by Quaid e Azam and Allama Iqbal, other being Congress under leadership of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. People can have differences with their ideologies, but nobody can cast doubts about integrity of men like Ghaffar Khan. Mere acquiring name of an ideological party does not make them inheritors of an ideology.
The unfortunate reality is that there is no ideologically committed political party in Pakistan today. There is no Left, Right, Liberal or even religious party committed to ideals and principles of faith. When Jamaat Islami became B-Team of Ziaul Haq, they comprised on ideological principles, because under Islamic system of governance, sovereignty vests only in Almighty and no individual monarch or dictator, can have absolute control over fate of majority. No ideological political party would appoint controversial individuals with a history of financial impropriety and criminal offences at helm of state funded organizations, as has been done by PPP under AZ and PML(N). The general perception is that people have lost faith in capacity of state to deliver justice or conduct accountability in absence of powerful independent prosecution and investigation, a politicized law enforcement and corrupt lower judiciary. Everybody knows that Ephedrine scam took place, so did Haj and Umrah controversy and institutionalized tax evasion and land grabbing, yet government in power has no hesitation in appointing such men to important state regulatory institutions and corporations causing massive financial losses to state exchequer.
ALI MALIK TARIQ,
Lahore, December 4.