The state of anarchy in Pakistan
Irfan Ali
Once Socrates, over a discord on the definition of justice, said to his disciples, “justice is what the powerful think.” Same is true in the context of Pakistani society. Though, constitution of state, declares the country to be a modern democratic in its orientation and function but in practice, reality is quite contrary.
According to political theorists, democratic state is a one, where the pivot of power is the masses, the citizens. People enjoy the right of freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and off course, the freedom to survive. In a modern democratic country, media is considered as the fourth pillar of a state, along with executive, legislature and judiciary. An independent media in a modern democratic state, shapes the minds of its peoples, a responsible media sets policy directions for that state. It ingrains the ideas like patriotism, social cohesion, and religious tolerance in the psyche of general public.
As per, theory is concerned, all the pursuits of democratic values, freedoms, and independent media exists in our country. But, as per, praxis is concerned, Pakistan is no more than an authoritative state. Media is controlled either by the government or army establishment. From the very inception, Pakistan has remained under dictatorial rules one way or the other. If, there were dictatorial rules during the reign of Ayub, Yahya, Zia and Musharaf then the so called democratic epochs during Sharif, Aziz and Zardari were /is also no more than despotic rules. Media was, and is still under the control of these tyrants.
For many days, Shia Muslims, from all over Pakistan were gathered outside parliament house, to raise their voice against the recent wave of Shia target killings in GB and other parts of Pakistan. Even they offered last Friday’s congregational prayer in front of parliament house. The crowd was blustering for cessation of innocent citizens across the country. But the media reporters didn’t pay any heed to their voices. Media gives coverage to cat walks and fashion shows but have no time to spare few minutes to air the voice of suffered citizens. Even the interior minister threat the people to disperse otherwise they will be forced to go. Look the ferocity of the Minister who failed to arrest the culprits of Kohistan who eventually took advantage from government impotency in Chilas, by killing another dozens of innocient peoples and now threat them to remain silent over killings of kin and kiths.
Apart from media discrimination, the so called human right activists were also, not remained behind in this race. They are very zealous to appear before media to talk on human right issues but didn’t bother to talk on mass massacring of a specific community across Pakistan. Sitting in Islamabad they love to criticize the rural cultures, violation of women rights in all the four provinces including GB. Their ethnocentric and biased attitude clearly portrays that they are being dictated by some alien powers. They have nothing to do with human rights or women rather they are working for the handsome packages and millions of dollars which foreign NGOs are pouring into their pockets.
Now, why, there is a biased attitude towards a certain fraction of citizens in a democratic state? Possibly the state agencies themselves want to protect the extremists, who in turn serve the interests of agencies in Afghanistan, Kashmir and even in destabilizing democratic setup of the state. Whole of the story behind the establishment of “Deffa-e-Council” in which state agencies have provided protection to terrorist of banned organization. Possibly, because of these reasons, security agencies are directing media and other people to remain silent over these issues. It means, that state agencies consider themselves as the sole custodians of the state and rest of the citizen have no stakes in the country
In spite of a massive crackdown against extremist groups and banned organization whose offices are still operational in GB, security forces are chasing the young peoples of Shia community. Among them, many, who were arrested, are lying on hospital beds due to the ruthless torture of security forces. Both, the extremists and state machinery have squeezed the Shia population in GB. Probably they want a demographic change in region to make it less resistive and a safe haven for terrorist. As the lofty mountains and dense forests in the region provides them sanctuaries to carry out their activities without any interruption.
That is why, when the security force went to Chilas for an operation against the terrorist. The local “Jarga” fooled the security force by handing over 8 people, identifying them as the people involved in the killings. This leaves many un-answered questions, like, if these 8 people were the real terrorists, what were they doing in Chila? Were they living there under the protection of local people? In these Circumstances, what is the credibility of the local “jarga”?
Earlier government wasn’t able to arrest the culprits of Kohistan by providing the excuse, that, foreign hands were involved in the incident and the terrorist have flown away from the national boundaries. But this story sounds indigestible because in both incidents planners seem to be same persons or same organization. The way people were identified, dismounted from the buses after checking their CNICs were queued up to kill them.
Definitely there is a link between the two incidents, either same terrorist have carried out the action or some power is helping the terrorists who are operating in Chilas and Kohistan.
Therefore government must play its role to provide justice for the protection of citizens, and security agencies must be serious to dig out the real issues, otherwise Chilas and Kohistan will be another Swat and Waziristan to add more problems to already deteriorating security of the state.
The writer can be reached at Irfanali700@yahoo.com
