LAHORE, April 21: Governor Khalid Maqbool says the next general election will be transparent and help form a complete democratic government in the country.

He was speaking at a meeting held to observe the 68th death anniversary of Allama Iqbal by the Markazi Majlis-i-Iqbal at the auditorium of the Pakistan Movement Workers Trust here on Friday with Dr Javid Iqbal in the chair. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz was scheduled to attend the meeting, but he could not reach owing to some important engagements at Islamabad.

The governor said President Musharraf, by his concept of Islamic enlightenment and moderation, had helped removed the stigma of extremism and terrorism on Islam. He said we needed such an Islamic political system which should ensure welfare and progress of the people without their exploitation by the vested interests.

He said the door of ijtehad should be opened for a solution to modern problems of the Muslim people. He recalled that Allama Iqbal had also emphasised the need for ijtehad back in 1930 at his famous address at the Muslim League session. Ijtehad could be made either through the elected parliament as proposed by Iqbal or through some other competent institutions capable of understanding and solving day-to-day problems of the people in the light of Islamic principles within the framework of Quran and Sunnah. He said the nation had failed to make Pakistan as visualised by Iqbal and the Quaid-i-Azam.

Former senator Dr Javid Iqbal said Allama Iqbal and the Quaid-i-Azam had achieved their mission of establishing a separate homeland for the Muslims of the sub-continent, but the people had not realised their dream of making Pakistan what they had thought. “We assemble here every year only to praise the deeds of our leaders as devotees of some religious saints celebrate their annual Urs by singing and dancing called dhamal.

He lamented that the people of Pakistan had not cared to put into practice the ideas of the forefathers in any field, be in politics, education, health, economics etc. We could not establish genuine democracy here nor develop democratic culture. Military had been interrupting democratic process in the country, and it had been ruling through their Martial law regulations and ordinances.

He said during their short spans of democratic rule, the ruling and the opposition parties had been fighting against each other providing an excuse to military for intervention. The law and order situation had been deteriorating. Sectarianism had spread and places of worship were attacked and the worshippers butchered. Allama Iqbal and the Quaid-i-Azam would have committed suicide had they lived to see all this with their eyes, he decried.

Former finance minister Sartaj Aziz threw light on Iqbal’s concept of Islam and democracy. He said during the past 70 years the world, particularly that of Islam, had changed. There were only four Muslim independent states when Iqbal had given his message of freedom of the Ummah from the yoke of foreign powers. Now there were no less than 56 independent Muslim countries in the world which were members of the OIC. Oil had not been then discovered in Muslim countries, but now it was their big wealth.

He said the existence and independence of so many Islamic countries and their oil resources were considered by the western countries a big threat for them. That was the reason they had started a series of conspiracies to keep the Islamic countries under their control, and if any Muslim country dared challenge them they would take a military action against it. They had also started maligning Islam as a religion of extremism and terrorism and would not tolerate the presence of any Islamic state in their system like Turkey which had not been given membership of the European Union so far.

He said democracy could not take its roots in Pakistan owing to many reasons. The first was that soon after Pakistan came into being, the Quaid-i-Azam and Liaquat Ali Khan passed away while Allama Iqbal had died long before. Had they lived they could help frame a Constitution, presidential or parliamentary, as early as possible and establish a democratic government in the country. The first constitution had taken nine years to come, and it was not allowed to work beyond two years when Ayub Khan had abrogated it.

The second reason was that elections were not held for a long period of 23 years until in 1970 which were held without any political system. This exercise resulted in dismemberment of the country and separation of its eastern wing. The third reason was absence of a democratic culture and repeated military interventions.

Other speakers included a law college principal Humayun Ehsan, Punjab University’s philosophy department chairperson Prof Shugufta Bokhari, Pakistan Language Authority chairman Prof Fateh Mohammad Malik and columnist and archaeological department’s director-general Oria Maqbul Khan.