It’s needless to say that our country is plagued by countless issues today, one of them being corruption. Discussing corruption and how to eliminate it one day in my Political Science class at university, I came across a very pessimistic view held by my instructor who, bringing Imran Khan into the discussion (since one of his primary goals include eliminating corruption in Pakistan) said that it is a totally idealistic aim and will not bear fruit since corruption is so strongly embedded in the country that it is impossible to tackle it. End of the story.
I thoroughly disagree with this. While I do not deny the fact that the issue of corruption mars the organisation and working of every institution of Pakistan and it will obviously be quite impossible to root it out completely in a period of five years (If Khan comes to power that is), I do not believe that it is a totally idealistic thing to aim for. Even if the process is not completed during the five-year period, I think one thing that we can surely achieve in the meanwhile as a nation is that we can become more aware of ways with which we can hold our rulers accountable for whatever they own and spend on.
A classic example is the act of declaration of one’s assets which has empowered the common man to practically question his governors about their possessions and voice his reservations if he thinks them to be doubtful, something that had never been done before. Also, if the policy comes out to be functionally successful but faces the problem of being given a limited time to achieve its goal, the succeeding government can continue it so that there is no disruption in the process and we can achieve what we had aimed for in the beginning.
ZAINAB SHUMAIL
Lahore
