Adnan Farooqui

Doesn't the headline to this topic remind you of one word often used by politicians in our beloved country to woo voters just before the elections? yes the headline is the meaning to the word "Democracy" which has been derived from a greek word "Demos-Kratein" which literally means what you see in the headline of this post. This is a known fact though, that before every election in the country, when campaigning is rigorous among the different political parties contesting for the elections, often do we hear our favorite politicians chanting these words at the top of their voices and making all sorts of promises to put the country on the track of democracy". Little do the voters then know is that this so called track turns out to be something they had not imagined when they have to face the usual crisis as they did while the previous regime was in power. People are stopped from raising their voice, whether it be publicly, on tv, on radio, via blogs or online journals because they think it is a part of democracy when they are stopping people from complaining about their rights not being provided to them. People are quite familiar with the events that happened over history when time came for the people to be shown the power of the government. We have seen journalists being lashed in jails, we have seen columnists being arrested, we have seen editors taken into custody for reporting the truth. What kind of a democracy is this? When outsiders term it as "Sham Democracy" i think they have a pretty clear picture and they know what they are talking about. Our country is The Islamic Republic Of Pakistan. Our constitution is based on Islamic fundamentals, our society is purely an Islamic society. Islam and Democracy go hand in hand, we have great examples of democracy set by great Islamic rulers one such was Hazrat Umer (R.A.)
Once he was addressing a crowd in Masjid-e-Nabawi and he tried to advise and instruct women that they should keep the amount of dower low. Suddenly a woman stood up and asked him in a loud voice “Who are you to bind us? You should be afraid of Allah”. Her objection was quite right therefore Hazrat Umar (RA) immediately realised and uttered these words “thanks Allah that a woman of Madina knows better than Umar”. In fact this was the atmosphere and spirit of freedom and equality that made his Khilafat successful to such an extent that the world admitted and confessed that If Umar (RA) had lived for ten more years then there would have been only one religion on earth - that is Islam.
Now just keep this picture in mind and try to picture yourself retorting to some ridiculous policy, i am sure that it will take you all your life before you actually get a sit down with the premiers of the country and get to argue about something you think might be wrong for the country.
In my perspective, what we need is transparency, in every form of ruling, may it be legislative, may it be constitutional, may it be judicial. Our premiers need to understand the fact that they should take the say of the people in consideration if they want the public to support them continuously. We should have freedom to comment and criticize any policy, any judgment, any lawmaking with the fear of being arrested and transferred to an unknown location. That would literally turn around the fate of our country.

Farooqu|