اچار نریندر دیوجی
افسوس ہے کہ اچار نریندر دیوجی کی موت سے ہندوستان ایک بڑی شخصیت سے محروم ہوگیا، وہ اپنے اوصاف کے لحاظ سے ہندوستان کے ممتاز ترین لیڈروں میں تھے، سیاسیؔ خدمات، ایثارؔ و قربانی، علمی قابلیتؔ، بے تعصبیؔ، اور شرافت و وضعداری میں اس دور کے کم لیڈر ان کا مقابلہ کرسکتے تھے، وہ پنڈت جواہر لال کے پرانے رفیق اور جنگ آزادی کے نامور سپاہی تھے، اس راہ میں پنڈت جی کے دوش بدوش قیدو بند کی مصیبتیں جھیلیں، اردوؔ، انگریزیؔ، ہندیؔ، اور سنسکرتؔ چاروں زبانوں میں ان کو عبور حاصل تھا، اور ان کے بڑے اچھے مقرر تھے، ان کا یہ کمال تھا کہ جب اردو یا ہندی میں تقریر کرتے تھے تو دوسری زبان کا ایک لفظ بھی نہ آنے پاتا تھا، اودھ کی پرانی راجدھانی فیض آباد ان کا وطن تھا، اس لیے اردو ان کی مادری زبان تھی اور وہ بڑی فصیح و بلیغ اردو بولتے تھے، علمی قابلیت اور تعلیمی تجربہ کی بنا پر لکھنؤؔ اور ہندو یونیورسٹی کے وائس چانسلر مقرر ہوئے، متعدد کتابوں کے مصنف تھے، ان سب سے بڑھ کر ان کی بے تعصبی اور شرافت و وضعداری تھی، ہندوستان میں اس کے جو نمونے رہ گئے ہیں ان میں سے ایک وہ بھی تھے، ایک زمانہ تک کانگریسی رہے پھر اس سے بددل ہوکر سوشلسٹ پارٹی قائم کی، اگر وہ کانگریسی رہتے تو آج مرکزی حکومت کے وزیر ہوتے، مگر انھوں نے اپنے اصول و نظریات کے مقابلہ میں دنیاوی منصب وجاہ کی کوئی پرواہ نہ کی، اب ان کی جیسی شخصیتیں مشکل سے پیدا ہوں گی، اس لیے ان کی موت ایک بڑا قومی حادثہ ہے۔
(شاہ معین الدین ندوی، فروری ۱۹۵۶ء)
Almighty Allah commanded preserving the dignity of health and wealth of every Muslim. Islam too, emphasises protection of these very elements and guarantees protection of minority's rights in Muslim societies. This prohibits any one, who grabs the property of any other. Injunction of Holy Quran and hadith in this matter are very much clear, which are described in the following lines. The sacred shariah also issued severe punishment to siphon off the waye for these crimes against human dignity by maintaining fool proof surveillance at the doors of all such vulnerabilities. Even the Holy prophet, in his last surmon warned in these words: "Beware! Maintaining the dignity of your blood, property and respect is as important for you as the dignity of this month, this sity and this day (9th zilhaj). In the following discussion all these injunctions of Holy Quran and Hadith would be analyzed.
Women in Pakistan are playing an important role in the society, with the majority living in the rural areas. However, the condition of women in the country is very adverse especially in rural areas. Punjab Rural Support Programme (PRSP) is a non-government organization working for the empowerment of rural women. Its main aim is to organize community, to help equip the less privileged people fight poverty and to run operations that encourage socio-economic empowerment. The present study was designed to analyze the role of PRSP in catalyzing the process of empowerment in rural women of district Faisalabad. The results of the study would be advantageous to identify the strengths and weaknesses of PRSP in catalyzing the process of empowerment and to propose measures for further improvement. The population for the study consisted of rural women only who were members of the Community Organizations (COs) of PRSP. A multistage simple random sampling technique was used for the study. Out of the eight towns of district Faisalabad, four towns which cover rural areas (Samundri, Iqbal town, Jaranwala, and Chak Jhumra) were selected. Four field units of PRSP are working in these four towns i.e. Salarwala in Chak Jhumra, Satiana in Jaranwala, Khidarwala in Samundri, and Dijkot in Iqbal Town. These field units have 214, 203, 170 and 238 female COs, respectively. Sample of 10% COs was selected from each field unit randomly. Thus the total selected COs were 82. Five members from each CO were selected at random. In this way the total sample size for the study was 410 respondents. Validated and pre-tested interview schedule was used for data collection. The data collected were analyzed with the help of SPSS. It was concluded that social organization and micro- financing were the two main services provided by PRSP to all members of the organization. The respondents considered most of the dimensions of micro-credit quite good but they were hardly satisfied with the amount of credit given to them by PRSP. The training of tie and dye was considered quite useful by the respondents followed by beautician course. The other trainings were perceived to be relatively less useful. The facilities for education were considered good by the respondents however, they were only satisfied with health facilities. The decision making power of respondents at household level was improved due to the services provided to them by PRSP. Burden of household responsibilities, less involvement in decision making, religious bindings were main socio-cultural barriers to women empowerment. There was a dearth of income generating activities, employment opportunities and access to economic resources for women which were important barriers to their empowerment. A large majority of the respondents considered participatory approach followed by PRSP as a tool for women empowerment. The highly significant negative relationship between age of the respondents and women empowerment showed that lesser the age, more was the feeling of empowerment. There was a highly significant positive relationship between education, family income and share in family income of the respondents and women empowerment.