RAWALPINDI: The following statement has been issued by Mr Ghulam Nabi Memon, Minister for Law and Information, West Pakistan, here today [Sept 16].

“Miss Fatima Jinnah’s statement, on the death anniversary of Quaid-i-Azam, is a rather painful document. On a solemn occasion as the death anniversary of the Father of the Nation, it was hardly in the fitness of things to raise unsolemn controversial political issues.

“There is time and occasion for everything. Politics is, after all, a continuous game. It goes all the year round. Why confine it to, and concentrate on it, sporadically only on such days of the year when the people are supposed to forget and unite in paying homage to their hero, regardless of their internal differences and political grievances?

“With due deference to the Madar-i-Millat, who occupies the highest place in my filial emotions and in my esteem, I submit that an overwhelming majority of the people do not subscribe to the melancholy picture of the prevailing conditions which she has drawn.

“There may be frustration in the minds of individuals. But there is no reason for the people, by and large, to so feel. There exists a unique state of political stability.

“People, after all is said and done, have plenty to eat and plenty to wear. There has been a distinct upward trend in per capita income. Rise in income has exceeded the rise in birth rate. The wages are also high enough. Are these not signs of conditions that should induce, and conduce to, “Honourable living”?

Published in Dawn, September 17th, 2016