If by reading the title, you are discerning that I have written it wrong then dear readers the title of the post is not wrong at all but truly depicts what has been happening in this land of pure. Since childhood, we have been reading stories of “Honesty is the Best Policy”. Our parents, teachers, scholars taught us that we should always act honestly regardless of the circumstances and results. We were taught that in the end honesty and truth prevails.

However, we have witnessed in our cycle of life that situation is exactly the opposite. Honesty is not the best policy but indeed in current circumstances and in our country it has been turned into a worst policy. The honest and truthful person has to face serious consequences in this country. It takes highest amount of courage and patience to be honest here but even after that one has to bear the brunt. There is no doubt in it that this country has more than 90% of people who are honest and truthful but those 90% have been suppressed by less than 10% corrupt elite.

Take any field and you will come to know that there is no place left for honesty. Those who pay their electricity bills have to face long hours of load-shedding along with heavy bills but on the other hand those who steal enjoy it uninterruptedly. If you try to get your work done through legitimate means in government sector then you probably won’t be able to do that. You will have to pay bribe to someone to get the work done. If you are an honest public sector official then nobody would let you work. You would not be promoted and you may be transferred to far areas. Those who work with honesty in public sector know that how hard it is for them to survive. They are being threatened, demoted and transferred. You can’t get an FIR registered without paying bribe and can’t get justice from courts. You cannot get electricity, gas and water connection and even your access to health facilities is subjected to paying bribe to officer concerned. There are thousands of such examples.

The whole system has been badly chained in this menace of dishonesty and bribery. One who try to rebel against this system is often regarded as corrupt and culprit rather than being rewarded and his / her life becomes miserable. One who is dishonest gets rewarded mostly and as a result the honest and truthful loses morale and belief. Though in the end Allah (SWT) will reward and punish everyone for his / her right and wrong deeds but getting due reward while one is alive is imminent for his / her morale too. The reason behind this chain of corrupt and dishonest system is that the majority of ruling elite is corrupt and dishonest. They have no integrity left and do not want accountability and as a result whole system has been corrupted. We as Pakistanis are also responsible for this as we are the ones who bring them in power through our votes.

The need of the hour is that we as a responsible citizen should hold those who are in power accountable for their actions. We should force them to devise such systems, policies and procedures by which menace of dishonesty and corruption gets uprooted and only then honesty can the best policy for all of us.