The founder of Pakistan hated bribery and equated it with poison. Unfortunately, he did not live long after creation of the country and his successor Liaqat Ali Khan was assassinated. Thereafter, the leaders who held power in one garb or the other, adopted luxurious lifestyle and paid not attention to the menace of corruption. They instead of cultivating culture of austerity, started running after wealth by any means possible. Our leaders became ambitious to compete with affluent class and forsaken Mr.’s Jinnah vow to eliminate corruption.
Thus, corruption spread in all segments of life from politicians to government servants to business of all sizes. The more efforts were made to restrict it, the more it flourished. In words of a poet, “marz barhta gaya, joon joon dawa ki,” literally meaning that the disease kept getting worse as we tried to cure it. People in power and those holding wealth have more ingenuity and resources to get find ways to amass more wealth through any means possible. The rich and famous now enter politics to enhance and protect their ill-gotten wealth. This has literally buried Jinnah’s pledge to root out corruption. Rather, it seems the upper classes of the country are in a race to make more by unfair practices at the cost of our beloved country fully endorsing Plato’s idea that business and politics don’t mix well.
RAJA SHAFAATULLAH,
Islamabad, August 8.