LAHORE – The Aman Ittehad, a group of more than 200 non-governmental organisations (NGO), organised a media briefing at the Lahore Press Club on Monday. The briefing highlighted the main and basic objectives of the New Social Contract in Pakistan. Presenting the details and need for a new social contract, Irfan Mufti, convener, Aman Ittehad Punjab, said that the economic, political and social problems and growing insecurity needs a serious redefinition of state’s role and its relationship vis-a-vis citizens and their basic needs.
He said that the basic vision of Pakistan, which was presented and agreed in 1940, has not been implemented in the last 63 years owing to which Pakistan is facing serious threats internally and externally. Mufti said that the Aman Ittehad is organising people’s assemblies in more than 15 cities and roundtable meetings with political parties to get opinions and views on the new social contract that should define the state’s role and its new relationship with citizens and within citizens.
Muhammad Tahseen, executive director, South Asia Partnership Pakistan, Khawar Mumtaz, executive director, Shirkat Gah, Fatima from Bonded Labour Liberation Front, Mumtaz Mughal from the Aurat Foundation, Hanif Jutt of the Sanitary Workers Unions and others also addressed the briefing. Aman Ittehad representatives said that the society is in ferment and a new social contract is urgently needed to improve the situation in this country.
The previous social contract was built around the security of the state: citizens were made to surrender their liberty to preserve the integrity and solidarity of the territorial state. It ignored the first duty of the state to protect the dignity, life, liberty and property of its citizens. It disregarded the second duty of the state to treat all its citizens equally and fairly and to redress inequity through an independent judiciary. It had no respect for the third duty of the state to ensure effective delivery of public services, particularly, education and health.
It did not care much for the fourth duty of the state to ensure decent livelihoods and social assistance for those unable to find work or not able to work at. The failure to provide the former has been the undoing of the later. The new social contract will have to be explicit rather than implicit and agreed by the representatives of the entire strata of the population. Basic questions presenting in these public discussions are:
1 Life of dignity for all citizens, especially the culturally, socially, politically and systemically excluded.
2 Freedom to practice one’s religion without let or hindrance; the state shall have nothing to do with religion; all discriminatory laws to be repealed; rejection of all forms of religious extremism.
3 Indivisibility of peace within and without: peace and trade treaties with the neighboring countries and cross-sectional peace committees.
4 Democratic and participatory governance at federal, provincial, local and grassroots levels.
5 Right of the electorate to recall its non-performing representatives at all levels of government.
6 Election to reserved seats for women, minorities on the basis of proportional representation.
7 Direct elections to decide seats for the Senate.
8 Freedom to form new provinces for any reason – cultural, ethnic, linguistic, religious, administrative, economic – supported by the majority of the concerned group of people expressed in a referendum.
9 People of FATA should be asked in a referendum to vote for either joining an existing province or for a new province
10 Federal-provincial relations respecting provincial autonomy in political as well as fiscal space.
11Abolition of centralised service groups; provinces and local governments should have their own service groups and the federal government should borrow officers from the provinces on the basis of agreed quotas. 12Independent judiciary to ensure justice to all, rule of law that holds everyone accountable, and due process 13The rollback of the state must end, with its resources reprioritised away from national security and towards ensuring equity through institutionalised response to preserve the rights to livelihood, health and education, justice and human dignity.
14Citizens have natural and constitutional right under the social contract. They also have duties, the most important being the duty not to infringe upon the rights of other citizens, pay taxes, respect just laws and sanctity of contracts and defend community. The people’s opinion and views will be consolidated and send to parliament and other democratic and political forces. The Aman Ittehad will also present these views in a national convention in Islamabad on March 31.
