‘Democracy not in its true spirit in Pakistan’

Democracy in Pakistan is not present in its real form. The citizens should exercise their right to vote for their own empowerment, said former information minister and writer Javed Jabbar on Saturday.

He was addressing the inaugural ceremony of an international conference on the challenges of social and human development, organised by the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Karachi, in collaboration with the Higher Education Commission at the Arts Auditorium, KU.

Jabbar urged that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) should supervise the intra-party elections of all the political parties. He advised that the government must raise the education and health budget as it had become direly needed. "The HEC must be provided adequate resources for improving the level of higher education."

Renowned academician Professor Dr Hasan Askari Rizwi said social scientists could play an important role in creating awareness in the society about the basic necessities for a stable life for an individual and the society.

He suggested that they could use media and mobilise people to put pressure on the government to give a priority attention to the problems of citizens like education, health care, employment and basic civic facilities. Dr Rizwi pointed out that 823 infants died in Thar during the last three years due to drought but the issue was not highlighted as it should have been.

Professor Dr Jamil Hasan Kazmi and Dr Salman Zubair from the Department of Geography, KU, while presenting their paper, revealed that Karachi stood fourth in number of fatalities due to road crashes among cities in the world.

According to them, global outbreak of road crashes mortalities have become a serious health issue. "More than 1.3 million lives are lost and 20 to 50 million are disabled or injured every year around the globe in road accidents."

The Dean of School of Social Sciences and Humanities, NUST, Islamabad, Dr Ashfaque Hasan, in his keynote address said the process of human development provided a strong foundation of a continuous process of economic development of a country for a longer period of time.

"The human capital is the backbone of the economic development. Only socially and culturally strong nations, which are rich with human capital and have family values, can become prosperous." He said Pakistan's growth rate was 7.4 percent in 2005 which declined drastically to 3.4 percent in 2015 due to many reasons.

Dr Boris Wilke of the Bielefeld University, Germany, in his paper said the nexus of violence and development was seen more and more as fundamental. 

The Dean of Faculty of Social Sciences, KU, Professor Dr Moonis Ahmar, said: “We still have a feudal mindset which is an obstacle in our development. He mentioned that development was not about making motorways and orange line projects but it's all about providing education, basic healthcare and basic facilities of life to the citizens.

Dr Ahmar, who presided over the event, claimed that Pakistan was facing serious challenges including, terrorism, extremism, poverty, and the country needed dire efforts to eradicate these social issues.

"Our society is not aware of the contemporary trends due to a lack of political will and determination which has made the future of 200 million Pakistanis at stake."