On August 12, 2017 Dawn Newspaper published a report about the stupendous speech made by Founder of Islamic Republic of Pakistan Muhammad Ali Jinnah on the following day.
The first elected president of Pakistan delivered ironic lines, “You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this state of Pakistan.
“You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the state.”
He added: “We are starting in the days where there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another.
“We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one state.”
Seventy years later, Mr. Jinnah’s founding vision and direction for the country had not accomplished, nation needed to drift the vision for the prosperity and success of a country.
He warned, “First duty of a government is to maintain law and order, so that the life, property and religious beliefs of its subjects are fully protected by the state,
“But society itself has fallen prey to extremism and an infrastructure of hate.”
Most worryingly, Mr. Jinnah’s vision of a secular, constitutional democratic state focused on the welfare and material good of its people had become fallen victim to hate and distortion.
Democracy, too, was still to be meaningfully accepted, with elected governments always vulnerable to undemocratic pressure and attack.
The sight made by Mr. Jinnah was just like another ousted elected prime minister travelling down the GT Road as political distortion made by Supreme Court that would be a mock on democracy.
Additionally freedom of speech presented the country at the tip of destruction that lead uncertainty and turmoil swirl across the political landscape then.
Bribery and corruption, black-marketing, nepotism and jobbery, interruption of Jewish lobby in an Islamic state — all ills that Mr. Jinnah identified as fundamental impediments to a democratic, fair and just society fall in the domain of civilian control.
Reporter: Syeda Faiza Bukhari
