This article by Uzair bin Farid is published by The Friday Times. Here is an excerpt:

Democracy is a collective concept. It is a system of government where the highest power resides with the wishes of the people. If people do not feel satisfied with the constitution of a political body, they remove and replace it with a better structure in place. In its essence, democracy is an impersonal force of social progress, which cannot, in all probability be reduced to the whims of an individual. Thus, democracy is established and its longevity ensured, by a conscious process of collective decision-making and its broad-based acceptance as the only long road to freedom.

Freedom, as commonly understood, was granted to Pakistan in 1947. It remained, however, a distant mirage for a majority of the population. The state and its capture by interest groups never allowed  the germination of the seed of freedom into a fully-grown tree that would have distributed its fruit and shade to everyone.

Instead, freedom became an evasive privilege for the toiling masses, which could not readily get or achieve the fruits of economic growth and efficient redistribution. Instead, the political structures and bureaucratic hallways got filled with people who believed in traditional culture of power.

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