Pakistan Women's Foundation for Peace (PWFP) on Friday organized Allama Iqbal Inter University Debate Competition to commemorate Iqbal Day. The event was organized at Karachi Gymkhana, presided over by former ambassador Mehdi Masood. Speaking to the students, Mehdi Masood said that terrorism and extremism could only be uprooted by changing the state of mind of the people of Pakistan.
"National interest should be on the top of the list to counter the extremists' narrative," he said. He said that national consensus on the issues is pivotal to attract foreign direct investment in the country. Former Justice Shariq Usmani said that Iqbal's vision of democracy could not demonstrate after partition. "He said Pakistan is on the path of democracy and by the time it would be strengthened," he added. Chairperson PWFP Nargis Rehman said Allama's role as a major intellectual reformer and poet has been universally recognised, but his activist role for political and social reform in the Muslim world was unique an instrumental in shaping the thought of his contemporaries especially Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah. She was of the view that Iqbal's call for an independent Muslim State, a Republic for the Muslims of the sub continent was the first articulation of the two nation theory. She said Iqbal's aversion for western Democracy based on is analytical study and experience is well known in his work. His message for the necessity of social movement for the required social change was expressed in" the Principles of movement in the structure of Islam", the sixth lecture of his profound series "Reconstruction of Religious thought in Islam." "Iqbal talked about a modern contemporary evolving State. The democracy he envisioned was not quantitative but qualitative, not counting but weighing the character of both the candidate and the electorate", she added.