- And explains…
If the back-and-forth between PML-N and the chief justice has become so predictable it is because they are, largely, just going round in circles. Once again the prime minister held supreme the sanctity of the vote before a charged crowd, and yet again the CJ justified the court’s suo motto ingress as the politicians’ own fault and “poor state of affairs”. But, Milord, does such reasoning not rub uncomfortably close to that notorious ‘doctrine of necessity’ that every dictator leveraged and every court provided legal cover to? More importantly, as the honourable court takes the extra trouble to sort out everything from promotion of doctors to footpath schools in Clifton, nobody has as yet shed any light on what is to become of that mountain of backlog that plagues justice delivery to the common man – the judiciary’s core duty.
On the flip side, what is to be done if elected governments allow needless infant deaths in poor regions and shift the blame around even when arm-twisted into providing an explanation? Should people whose children stand to suffer similar fate wait till the next vote for the people to decide? And what if democracy simply fails people to the point that nothing – from quality food and water to provision of security, education, etc – is readily available to them while the elected few live in luxury?
PM Abbasi rightly said in Dera Ghazi Khan the other day that the nation could progress only if democracy and political systems were strong. But he did not explain just why institutions in Pakistan remain weak, and why outside forces are able to influence the political process. Perhaps if our political elite would look honestly inward, a lot of the injuries delivered to the democratic process would appear self-inflicted. Our politics is, after all, a power play between the country’s feudal and industrial elite. Much of their collective interests, unfortunately, remain far removed from the common man’s. And whenever they use political tools to settle personal scores, they create a vacuum that other forces are only too happy to fill. To strengthen our democracy, we need stronger politicians.
