JI won’t take part in PTI’s sit-in: Siraj

Says people not free to cast vote; police, patwari system two arms of politicians

LAHORE

Despite being a coalition partner in the PTI-led KP government and supportive of protest campaign against prevailing corruption in country, Jamaat-i-Islami will not participate in PTI chief Imran Khan’s sit-in scheduled for September 30 near the residence of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at Raiwind.

“On September 30, the JI leadership and workers will gather at Faisalabad to stage a large public meeting in connection with party’s movement against eliminating corruption from the country,” said JI ameer Senator Siraj-ul-Haq in an interview with The News.

He explained that both JI and PTI were coalition partners in KP government but as yet there existed no political alliance or agreement between them that required them to hold joint public activities. “Both parties are free to have their own political activities according to their policies and plans. Our coalition with PTI is government by a 13-point agenda which largely deals with the local matters and policies. 

The PTI has a local alliance with MQM in Karachi that is confined to a constituency, but that does not mean they had an alliance with MQM which had been the arch rival of JI in Karachi and Hyderabad for three decades,” he said.

However, Siraj-ul-Haq said, different opposition parties had unanimity on various issues especially on the demand of independent investigation commission to probe the Panama Leaks beneficiaries. Senator Siraj-ul-Haq noted that both JI and PTI had been actively mobilising public support for achieving the goal of eradicating organised corruption at the government and public levels in the country.

Elaborating, he said, JI was the pioneered of the mass movement against corruption, and now this demand has become the issue of majority of political and non-political organisations. He said during the last several months, JI had staged 75 public meetings in different cities and towns in the country where large number of people irrespective of their political affiliations have welcomed JI leadership.

Siraj-ul-Haq said it has been a matter of pride for JI leadership and workers that the party has always been regarded as the only political party in the country which is democratic in its nature and not run by feudal or capitalists as their family club or ancestral legacy. “This fact has been acknowledged by various international surveys and reports that JI is the only Pakistani political party which has regular intra party elections and is run strictly on Islamic ideology. We are the only party in the country which has the biggest and active wing of women at all levels. The JI has tabled four bills in National Assembly against corruption which are under process. It is just because of JI’s vigorous campaigning that those who have been deeply involved in corruption are now talking of eradication of corruption. The JI has always come clean and its politicians have never been accused of any corruption, wrongdoing or nepotism. They have never been accused of scandals like Panama Leaks, obtaining plots, permits etc. and writing off banks loans,” he said.

He added "JI leadership has never comprised of capitalists, feudal etc. like other political parties. Yet the party is known for honesty, decency and sincerity of its leaders which has been our real asset so far, besides our ideology. This fact distinguishes JI from other political competitors which are run like personality cults and whose policies revolve around some personalities instead of larger goals or national interests.”

Asked why JI has never fared well in elections despite all this public recognition, Siraj-ul-Haq said, “people of Pakistan have never been free to cast their votes according to their will, rather they have been enslaved by the capitalists and feudal-led political parties. They either purchase votes directly or coerce the voters through different techniques like attractive promises, provision of basic facilities which are otherwise denied to them, or managed to have the votes of entire clans, villages and followers etc. by controlling their respective leaders. In the past, our people were slaves of the colonists, now we are mental slaves of the capitalists and feudal political leaders who have taken the entire politics as hostage and subjecting the voters to the worst kind of political terrorism. When such politicians switch their loyalties overnight in favour of those who offer bigger or more lucrative proposals, they take along the entire ‘herd of political slaves’ with them.”

Siraj-ul-Haq noted that in the present politics, police stations and Patwar Khanas act like two arms of these political leaders. “Whenever the politics become liberated from the slavery of the professional politicians, when voters are liberated from the slavery of politicians, when candidates are elected not for the money they had spent on their campaign but on merit and performance, only then the poor in the country will see better days.”

Siraj stressed that it has always been a reality that the entire lifestyle of the corrupt political and non-political elite is diagonally opposite and different from the rest of the masses. “The character and everything of the corrupt elite is alien to the people of the country. Their houses, schools, hospitals, travelling, eating, language, dress, and their culture are completely strange for the people they have been enslaving. The only magic lamp of Aladdin they have is the plundered money of the masses and the full backing of international establishment. They bow before every door that leads to power corridors. They beat each other in licking the boots of western colonists and army generals. They even treat US officials as their masters,” he added.

Siraj-ul-Haq said the vision and approach of political leaders was as low as that of the councillors. He said any politicians guided by ideology and having vision will identify national priorities and interests under futuristic approach. But those whose objective is to multiply their wealth by hook or by crook will never have that kind of vision. 

Referring to army dictatorship, Siraj-ul-Haq said army is a subordinate institution of the political government, but it has been the sheer failure of the politicians that they had been looking towards military establishment on vital national issues. “Such politicians actually establish their own disqualification, and politicians who invite army to political affairs are neither loyal to the country nor the friend of armed forces."

Regarding the Karachi situation, “the current situation there is a drama and masses have nothing to do with it. People only want solution of their basic problems and provision of all basic facilities denied to them so far, especially security of life and properties. Is this not a farce that leaders of a certain party are regarded as criminals but if they join a certain newly emerged party they would become ‘clean and clear’.”

Regarding the ongoing terrorism in the country, Siraj-ul-Haq said ensuring the peace is the prime responsibility of the security agencies in which they have failed. He said the country had been subjected to a foreign war and badly needed peace. “I demand the security institutions that they must also provide complete security to all the citizens,” he added. 

Regarding some reports of Indian media saying that children of Hizbul Mujahedin supreme commander Syed Salahuddin who has been patronised by JI, and many members of his family back in Indian-Held Kashmir are in government service, Siraj-ul-Haq said if people of his family are serving as professors, doctors and engineers, they are just serving their people and society. “the family of Salahuddin is part of Kashmiri nation and Kashmiri Muslims have never announced boycotting the Indian government institutions, rather they are against the illegal occupation of their state by New Delhi through her army,” he added.

Asked about the impression that he has been leading the party in a common man’s style which is quite different from his predecessors, Siraj-ul-Haq said change of leader in an ideological party does not make any difference on the policies. However, political strategies can change in view of the contemporary requirements and challenges,” he said, adding “JI’s aim is to re-establish Islamic welfare state which guarantees liberating the people from the slavery of man to make the man a slave of the Almighty."