Afghan Press Author: Roohul Amin

Good leaders make good nations. The nations who are numbed to realize and face the challenges lost their self-ego and identity in world community.

It is a sense of patriotism, which is endowed always by the leaders to their nations.

Pakistan, is but one of those ill-fated countries that has been facing a crisis of potential leadership.

According to the author of “ Verdict on India” after Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan will face a crisis of political leadership and the 61-year history of Pakistan flew out at us his prognostic-forebode.

Jinnah was a man of principles and his determination won him the title of obdurate in west as well as among his Hindu rivals. But this could not deter him of his doctrines.

During his lifetime no politician could dare to make recommendation for special privileges and this principle made him unpopular among his party members and many of them turned as his political adversaries.

Because of that prejudice his address to the nation on 14th August was distorted while Fatima Jinnah’s address to the nation on the first death anniversary of her brother, was censored by Z.A Bukhari, the then D.G of Radio Pakistan, for that was replete with bitter facts.

It was his assassination, a deliberate conspiracy or oblivion that he was laying stranded-dead in a clumsy ambulance at Karachi.

The author of “ The Politics of Jinnah” says that the fair- weather friends, who begged for political privileges, always, surrounded him as children beg for candies of their parents.

M. Ali Jinnah was agog to see Pakistan, growing as a democratic and secular state while on the other hand from the very out set his political adversaries tried to undermine the democratic roots of the country.

Among his political posteriors most of the rulers called themselves ‘state’ and tried to exploit Islamic concept of totalitarianism for their private interests.

Ayub khan, the first Martial law administrator, started his constitution with the word “I” instead of the masses of Pakistan. Another dictator Zia-ul-Haq went ahead of him and not only sown the seed of sectarianism but also attempted to Islamise PTV dramas.

It was not because that he was a lover of Islam but to achieve his ends.

He exploited PTV in demonizing Z.A Bhuttu.

Contrary to them Jinnah wanted to keep Pakistan on the track of Attaturk’s model as his book “The Grey Wolf” had a warm place in Jinnah’s hands.

Thinking about the present herd of politicians one can, no doubt, trace out that they are the remnants of those toadies, who are expert in none but mere flattery.

In chitchat with him at Sarhad Chamber of Commerce Peshawar the former US ambassador to Pakistan, Ryon C-Crooker, stunned me with his remark that your national product must be flattery as he was surrounded by a flock of the opportunists.

Today the country has been facing multifarious challenges as terrorism, violation of Pakistan’s frontier by it’s so-called non-Nato allied friend US, inflation because of the devaluation of currency, stagflation because of power shortage, strained relations with its neighboring countries and above all the huge glut of dismayed and jobless people which is floundering in blind alleys fumbling for jobs.

Where is that leadership who can salvage the drowning ship of Pakistan in this turbulent hour?

None but time and again they beguiled the masses into plumping for them and as its repercussion the masses received nothing but only Talibanisation.

What ever act of terrorism is done in the country is all deliberate and planned with the people who are sitting in the echelons of the authority.

The entire nation was sanguine about the new government that it would array all the affairs in the best of the public interests but their hopes shattered when it started driving the old wagon of Musharraf’s shabby policies.

No doubt the present coalition government added feather to their democratic movement by writing the political obituary of Pervaiz Musharraf.

But the political tug-of-war between the major two parties over the issues of presidency and restoration of sacked judges will push their achievement into futility.

A country where more than 30 ethnic groups live, speaking over forty languages and dialects, extricating immigrants, require a lot of potentials, diligence and moreover devotion on the part of leadership.

It is time for them to show discretion, to halt elitism, revamp the sagging politics with a vital essence of egalitarianism, reunite the dejected nation and save it from going into the quagmire of fanaticism.