so how many of us here know what our
fundamental rights are according to the
Constitution of Pakistan and how many of
us here know how to file in a fire at
the police station if there’s a robbery
in our house have any of us ever been
taught how to file taxes or do we know
how elections work and what the
difference between a provincial and
federal government is why do so many
people in our society still support
military rule when there have been mass
movements in the past kicking the
unconstitutional dictators out of power
now the first time I was struck by these
questions and by this ignorant of
knowing our rights and how the system
works was when I was when I was a
student in school this was 2007 to 2008
and Musharraf had imposed emergency in
Pakistan so a lot of us were going and
protesting in the Loess movement a lot
of us were demanding that the depot’s
chief justice be reinstated and a lot of
us were sneaking out of our houses
because we were not allowed to protest
um and that’s when we realized when each
time my friends and I would go up to our
other class fellows and we’d be like hey
there’s a protest please join the
protest because you know we need to do
this for our country and they would list
down a list of fears they would say
they’re afraid of going to protest they
would say oh we’ll get in trouble
they’ll say it’s not right at Sacre
etcetera so then what my friend and I
did then is we listed down the fears
that people told us they had about going
out and protesting and then we listed
down all the fundamental articles in the
Constitution that gave us the
fundamental rights of assembly of speech
and expression of Association and
essentially of protesting against what
citizens thought was wrong now why why
does this what what is this really
highlight and what is this really
highlight and at that time in our
society amongst our students it was this
acute and conspicuous lack of civic
education at
and educational institutions we are
never taught how our government works we
are never taught how our country
functions and we are never taught what
the laws are and how we as citizens can
use them and that is why I personally
believe that civic education should be a
mandatory subject in all educational
institutes in Pakistan that all students
should learn what are their rights and
they should learn how to file their
taxes they should learn how to file an
eff fire and how to deal with police
when they’re stopped and they should
learn how elections and how governments
work and how they can hold government
officials accountable now why is this
important why is it important to hold
government officials accountable and why
is it important to push the system that
we live in of politics of government of
things we hear about in the news all the
time why is it important for us to be
involved in this there are two reasons
why it’s important to be involved in
this first of all it is your money it is
our money that is running the government
so it is through our taxes whether it’s
the twenty five percent tax we pay on
each mobile phone upload or whether it’s
the income tax that slashed off our
incomes every month of our salaries is
that is what is running the government
that is what paid what is paying the
salaries of your policemen of your
politicians of your judges are fear
generals and of everyone that works at
as part of the state institutions and
the second reason it’s important for us
to be involved and it is important for
us to hold our politicians in our state
accountable is because it is through our
votes that the our government really
comes to power so it’s by virtue of our
taxes that were paying and off our votes
that who are giving that the government
really is able to perform the government
is really able to exert the power they
do over us now the issue with this
really is two-prong it’s not only
citizens that are not active and not
demanding their rights but it’s also the
government and the state machinery that
is not really equipped or is not really
used to you know being accountable to
citizens I’ll give you an anecdote an
example of what I personally experienced
so in
in 14 I filed around three right to
information requests with one government
Authority and with one ministry there’s
a stipulated time under law of 21 days
for them to give a response to your
information requests I got no response
so then the procedure back then was that
you appealed to the federal Ombudsman
office and that senior retired
government officials that then called a
hearing between you the citizen and
between the officials from the
government department that did not
respond to your request now we sit sit
at the hearing and this is 2014 and we
find out from the officer from the
government ministry that in the 12 years
since that Freedom of Information
ordinance was promulgated in that 12
years they had never received a right to
information request and they did not
know what a right to information request
was
now what happens next is very interested
in and it will explain a lot of what I
talked about earlier so our request was
about the legal procedure for how the
government is censoring websites in
Pakistan back then YouTube was still
blocked and my friends and my
organization we were very very angry
about how we could not hacks as so many
websites in Pakistan without any
knowledge of why they were blocked so we
find out that in 2006 an
inter-ministerial committee for
evaluation of websites was formed and
what that committee was doing was
censoring all the websites that were
being censored in Pakistan however
before this nobody knew about this
committee and it was not public
knowledge what we then realized is that
this inter-ministerial committee is
actually unconstitutional and it is not
legal for it to exist so my organization
biloba we challenged the
inter-ministerial committees existence
in the High Court and what happened then
was that the court ordered that it was
actually unconstitutional and that
committee was disbanded now what is this
show us had I not filed that Right to
Information request we as citizens would
never know that this committee existed
and would never know that this committee
was unconstitutionally censoring
websites on Pakistani internet but once
we had that information we used the
legal route of the court to challenge
that and we got a favorable response
from the court
so if citizens are ignorant and if
citizens are not holding the government
to account the citizens are not asking
their officials what exactly they are
doing if citizens are not using the
tools available to them in a democratic
system then the government and state
officials will obviously abuse the power
they have they will obviously be corrupt
and they will obviously not have any
interest in maintaining you know the
government system the way it’s supposed
to go constitutionally because the
citizens do not know and because the
citizens are ignorant abusive power is
very very easy
now there’s an explanation for this lack
of democratic culture in Pakistan if we
look at our history for hundreds of
years we were we had monarchy crew we
had the Mughal dynasty and other
dynasties who ruled over us until the
fall of the Mughal dynasty and then came
British colonial rule for two hundred
years
we were a colony we were under the
British Raj and we were ruled by them
until 1947 when we finally got rid of
the British and then for the next sixty
years not a single civilian democratic
government was able to complete its term
because it was interrupted by military
cooze and dictators now the silver
lining for us right here right now is
that the current government is the first
that got power transferred from another
civilian elected government so we’re a
very young democracy and were very new
to this whole idea of us being the
owners of the state because what’s
common across monarchies across
dictators and across colonial rule it’s
the subjugation of people and the lack
of accountability but now that we’re a
democratic country now that we are
voting now that we have taxes and we
have a system it is our responsibility
as citizens to demand greater
accountability and to get rid of that
culture where we have word eras and we
have politicians thinking they own us we
own them we pay them we pay the taxes
and we give them the votes so we’re
entitled to every bit of good governance
and every bit of our fundamental rights
as they’re guaranteed in the
Constitution so how is it that you and
me as citizens can really hold the
government accountable and can really
hold the
State accountable and can really get
them to run the country the way it’s
supposed to be run so first of all I
already talked about Right to
Information requests so any of fun any
one of us can submit a right to
information request with the government
Department and demand information and if
you do not get the information it’s very
fun going to the Ombudsman and
complaining and having a hearing and
saying merit tax app Ethan haria up Muji
information abhi they and I’ve done this
right the second way you can do this is
now you can contact your representatives
so if you if I don’t know how many of
you knew this but all the telephone
numbers of your public representatives
of your members of provincial assembly
National Assembly and Senate are on the
website so if there is any policy or any
law or any issue you worried about in
your area or overall you can simply
contact them through a text message or a
phone call you can also call and any
citizen of Pakistan can call a public
hearing in the Parliament in the
National Assembly or the Senate on any
issue that you think is important and
they have to respond to you so any of
you can interact with them and ask them
hey why is this issue not being worked
upon why is education and a mess at
sat/rad sector so there’s a lot of
different tools that are really
available to us that we really need to
start using now personally when I
realized the need for civic education
when I applied for my Master’s my
application was based on me wanting to
come back and to work on civic education
so when I came back along with a few
friends I made a curriculum and we did a
few trainings but then as mentioned
earlier I was able to really write a
curriculum on fundamental rights in the
Pakistani Constitution and that is now
being tested at 11 universities in
Pakistan as mandatory and now hopefully
if we keep trying to hold the government
accountable if we keep pushing for our
rights to be known to us if we keep
pushing for a civic education curriculum
and we keep letting the state and the
government machinery know that we’re not
silent citizens who will be ruled like
we’re subjects of a monarchy which were
democratic citizens of a democratic
Pakistan who are paying taxes and were
voting and we demand better governance
and better rights and I think for me
that is the way forward thank you
you
fundamental rights are according to the
Constitution of Pakistan and how many of
us here know how to file in a fire at
the police station if there’s a robbery
in our house have any of us ever been
taught how to file taxes or do we know
how elections work and what the
difference between a provincial and
federal government is why do so many
people in our society still support
military rule when there have been mass
movements in the past kicking the
unconstitutional dictators out of power
now the first time I was struck by these
questions and by this ignorant of
knowing our rights and how the system
works was when I was when I was a
student in school this was 2007 to 2008
and Musharraf had imposed emergency in
Pakistan so a lot of us were going and
protesting in the Loess movement a lot
of us were demanding that the depot’s
chief justice be reinstated and a lot of
us were sneaking out of our houses
because we were not allowed to protest
um and that’s when we realized when each
time my friends and I would go up to our
other class fellows and we’d be like hey
there’s a protest please join the
protest because you know we need to do
this for our country and they would list
down a list of fears they would say
they’re afraid of going to protest they
would say oh we’ll get in trouble
they’ll say it’s not right at Sacre
etcetera so then what my friend and I
did then is we listed down the fears
that people told us they had about going
out and protesting and then we listed
down all the fundamental articles in the
Constitution that gave us the
fundamental rights of assembly of speech
and expression of Association and
essentially of protesting against what
citizens thought was wrong now why why
does this what what is this really
highlight and what is this really
highlight and at that time in our
society amongst our students it was this
acute and conspicuous lack of civic
education at
and educational institutions we are
never taught how our government works we
are never taught how our country
functions and we are never taught what
the laws are and how we as citizens can
use them and that is why I personally
believe that civic education should be a
mandatory subject in all educational
institutes in Pakistan that all students
should learn what are their rights and
they should learn how to file their
taxes they should learn how to file an
eff fire and how to deal with police
when they’re stopped and they should
learn how elections and how governments
work and how they can hold government
officials accountable now why is this
important why is it important to hold
government officials accountable and why
is it important to push the system that
we live in of politics of government of
things we hear about in the news all the
time why is it important for us to be
involved in this there are two reasons
why it’s important to be involved in
this first of all it is your money it is
our money that is running the government
so it is through our taxes whether it’s
the twenty five percent tax we pay on
each mobile phone upload or whether it’s
the income tax that slashed off our
incomes every month of our salaries is
that is what is running the government
that is what paid what is paying the
salaries of your policemen of your
politicians of your judges are fear
generals and of everyone that works at
as part of the state institutions and
the second reason it’s important for us
to be involved and it is important for
us to hold our politicians in our state
accountable is because it is through our
votes that the our government really
comes to power so it’s by virtue of our
taxes that were paying and off our votes
that who are giving that the government
really is able to perform the government
is really able to exert the power they
do over us now the issue with this
really is two-prong it’s not only
citizens that are not active and not
demanding their rights but it’s also the
government and the state machinery that
is not really equipped or is not really
used to you know being accountable to
citizens I’ll give you an anecdote an
example of what I personally experienced
so in
in 14 I filed around three right to
information requests with one government
Authority and with one ministry there’s
a stipulated time under law of 21 days
for them to give a response to your
information requests I got no response
so then the procedure back then was that
you appealed to the federal Ombudsman
office and that senior retired
government officials that then called a
hearing between you the citizen and
between the officials from the
government department that did not
respond to your request now we sit sit
at the hearing and this is 2014 and we
find out from the officer from the
government ministry that in the 12 years
since that Freedom of Information
ordinance was promulgated in that 12
years they had never received a right to
information request and they did not
know what a right to information request
was
now what happens next is very interested
in and it will explain a lot of what I
talked about earlier so our request was
about the legal procedure for how the
government is censoring websites in
Pakistan back then YouTube was still
blocked and my friends and my
organization we were very very angry
about how we could not hacks as so many
websites in Pakistan without any
knowledge of why they were blocked so we
find out that in 2006 an
inter-ministerial committee for
evaluation of websites was formed and
what that committee was doing was
censoring all the websites that were
being censored in Pakistan however
before this nobody knew about this
committee and it was not public
knowledge what we then realized is that
this inter-ministerial committee is
actually unconstitutional and it is not
legal for it to exist so my organization
biloba we challenged the
inter-ministerial committees existence
in the High Court and what happened then
was that the court ordered that it was
actually unconstitutional and that
committee was disbanded now what is this
show us had I not filed that Right to
Information request we as citizens would
never know that this committee existed
and would never know that this committee
was unconstitutionally censoring
websites on Pakistani internet but once
we had that information we used the
legal route of the court to challenge
that and we got a favorable response
from the court
so if citizens are ignorant and if
citizens are not holding the government
to account the citizens are not asking
their officials what exactly they are
doing if citizens are not using the
tools available to them in a democratic
system then the government and state
officials will obviously abuse the power
they have they will obviously be corrupt
and they will obviously not have any
interest in maintaining you know the
government system the way it’s supposed
to go constitutionally because the
citizens do not know and because the
citizens are ignorant abusive power is
very very easy
now there’s an explanation for this lack
of democratic culture in Pakistan if we
look at our history for hundreds of
years we were we had monarchy crew we
had the Mughal dynasty and other
dynasties who ruled over us until the
fall of the Mughal dynasty and then came
British colonial rule for two hundred
years
we were a colony we were under the
British Raj and we were ruled by them
until 1947 when we finally got rid of
the British and then for the next sixty
years not a single civilian democratic
government was able to complete its term
because it was interrupted by military
cooze and dictators now the silver
lining for us right here right now is
that the current government is the first
that got power transferred from another
civilian elected government so we’re a
very young democracy and were very new
to this whole idea of us being the
owners of the state because what’s
common across monarchies across
dictators and across colonial rule it’s
the subjugation of people and the lack
of accountability but now that we’re a
democratic country now that we are
voting now that we have taxes and we
have a system it is our responsibility
as citizens to demand greater
accountability and to get rid of that
culture where we have word eras and we
have politicians thinking they own us we
own them we pay them we pay the taxes
and we give them the votes so we’re
entitled to every bit of good governance
and every bit of our fundamental rights
as they’re guaranteed in the
Constitution so how is it that you and
me as citizens can really hold the
government accountable and can really
hold the
State accountable and can really get
them to run the country the way it’s
supposed to be run so first of all I
already talked about Right to
Information requests so any of fun any
one of us can submit a right to
information request with the government
Department and demand information and if
you do not get the information it’s very
fun going to the Ombudsman and
complaining and having a hearing and
saying merit tax app Ethan haria up Muji
information abhi they and I’ve done this
right the second way you can do this is
now you can contact your representatives
so if you if I don’t know how many of
you knew this but all the telephone
numbers of your public representatives
of your members of provincial assembly
National Assembly and Senate are on the
website so if there is any policy or any
law or any issue you worried about in
your area or overall you can simply
contact them through a text message or a
phone call you can also call and any
citizen of Pakistan can call a public
hearing in the Parliament in the
National Assembly or the Senate on any
issue that you think is important and
they have to respond to you so any of
you can interact with them and ask them
hey why is this issue not being worked
upon why is education and a mess at
sat/rad sector so there’s a lot of
different tools that are really
available to us that we really need to
start using now personally when I
realized the need for civic education
when I applied for my Master’s my
application was based on me wanting to
come back and to work on civic education
so when I came back along with a few
friends I made a curriculum and we did a
few trainings but then as mentioned
earlier I was able to really write a
curriculum on fundamental rights in the
Pakistani Constitution and that is now
being tested at 11 universities in
Pakistan as mandatory and now hopefully
if we keep trying to hold the government
accountable if we keep pushing for our
rights to be known to us if we keep
pushing for a civic education curriculum
and we keep letting the state and the
government machinery know that we’re not
silent citizens who will be ruled like
we’re subjects of a monarchy which were
democratic citizens of a democratic
Pakistan who are paying taxes and were
voting and we demand better governance
and better rights and I think for me
that is the way forward thank you
you
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