Let’s say one wants a job and one does not qualify for the criteria set for the job, one uses some connections and gets the job done, murdering the merit and yet one does not feel guilty about it?
Almost everybody in the society practices this norm. We all know what’s the
problem here, the murder of merit obviously.
In every society it is taken as an evil that leads to the degradation of society because if such things prevail in the society than incompetence
is the only result one has to accept.
This murder of merit is not just confined to any one
institution, almost every institution has it in the form of norms i.e.
1.
Political leadership is not given on the basis of political abilities; it's based merely on the fact that one is born in a specific family. Accident of birth in a ruling party becomes
a sure ladder to the leadership even if one has zero experience for example:
after Nawaz Sharif there is no one else competent enough to lead the party but
Maryam, same is the case with Bhutto family, nobody but Bilawal has to be the
chairman of the party.
2.
Economy hardly follows any transparency
and as a result the country has become ruinous financially and possesses an
external debt of 49200 billion rupees
3.
In judicial system there is hardly any practice
to follow the rule of law as a result the most important agencies of judicial system
namely police and judiciary have been named as the most corrupt institutions of
Pakistan.
Everybody sees this as a wrong thing all around the world but that’s not the problem, Pakistani society does not see it as a wrong this is the problem.
Why is this issue not taken as something wrong? There could be many explanations:
The system in practice in Pakistan is not indigenous but is colonial one so colonial legacy still haunts the country.
Personal gains overcome national interests.
People think about pity goals and cannot
see long term gains.
External pressure does not allow the institutions
to make decisions on the basis of meritocracy.
All these concerns could be relevant, I agree to that, but the issue is not about the practice rather about the consideration. It has become a normal thing for people, in their sub-conscious they do not even consider as a sin and feel guilty.
The major reason for that, which I have observed is that in sub-continent the religious stories contain many incidents where
one spiritual person bypasses all the protocols, told by Nabi Pak and described
in Quran, to help his followers in front of Allah.
Here is one of the incidents:
Ashraf Ali Thanvi R.A writes in his book Al
Izafaat Al Youmia Malfozaat e Hakeem ul Ummat, page # 100, volume # 2 that once a
person who was a launderer (Dhobi) died and when angels came to him to ask him
questions he could not answer any of them, instead he kept saying that I am a
follower of Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jillani, the angels did not get satisfied by his
answers so the Sheikh himself landed into the grave and lamented angels for
disturbing his follower. The angels went back to Allah and narrated the whole
incident and Allah replied, "Now Sheikh himself has intervened, leave this
matter with me and Sheikh."
one can see what just happened here, the sheikh just favored (did sifarish of) a
follower. A society where “sifarish” is a part of religious thought (not the actual
religion but the version here in subcontinent only) why would people fear practicing
it in their life then? When such practices are indoctrinated into the minds of people
in the name of Karamat without taking into consideration that the consciences
of this may translate into the society and when practiced frequently can
lead to the degradation of a society.
I am not talking about the authenticity or credibility
of this story, I am just talking about the results of telling such stories, one is not just narrating a Karamat of a Bazurgh but telling people that even God can
be persuaded by sifarish then why one cannot use it for his personal gains on men (the creation of the same God who accepts sifarish.)
We must stop telling and justifying such
stories for the sake of our society because the society in sub-continetn is emotionally moved by the religion, they can be made to do anything in the name of religion, therefore religion should be used for something constructive rather than as an axe to one's own feet.
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