As I sipped the tenderly brewed coffee facing the lush green golf course of a relatively new Lahore Country Club, the new reality of Pakistan became a little clearer. The sprawling premises of the club were a preserve of the Railways Department until the inefficient Pakistan Railways could not manage it and doled it to the new, oligarchic big business of Pakistan. Much ado was made when the land owned by the Railways was privatised and questionable deals were transacted in that moderately unenlightened era. Nothing came out of the public questioning and today a lavish country club, far removed from its downmarket environs, has sprung out for the affluent and the upwardly-mobile classes of Lahore and Punjab.
The classic barriers to entry created by the cliques that lord over Pakistan’s elite clubs is being undone. Pay a handsome fee now (way over a million rupees) and you are a member to this new “club†built on the ashes of the Raj steelframe, albeit, reminding one of the nasty remarks of Churchill on how the brown, rapacious Rajas would appropriate the space created by the wise and just colonists. As my host elaborated on the entry procedures to Lahore’s richy-rich club, I could not help but remember the compensation to a suicide bomber that has also increased over the years and now hovers between one to two million rupees. A grossly-overlooked fact is that the grinding poverty in the pockets of Pakistan, seemingly unaffected by the consumerist prosperity, is the key to our current turmoil and violence.
At the end of the day, the ideological battles, the foreign interventions and incursions aside, it is all about inequality and the fact that the poverty is now a mushrooming social reality. Apathy to the shameful criminal inequities is another visible trend. Take the new avatars of Pakistan – the media hosts at the leading television channels: the rants and ramblings overly obsess with ideology, of myopia and inward looking gambles. Let Pakistan follow Iran without a drop of gasoline; or let it be a Vietnam in the making forgetting that Pakistan’s heterogeneity and complexity defies even the best of sociologists and policy experts. Nowhere is poverty, especially that of the tribal belt, given the importance that it should be.
And when the international do-gooders want to do something about poverty they come up with packages that have been tried and tested across the globe with dismal results. How can piecemeal advisory aid impact in a gnawing and in-your-face policy vacuum? What happened to the FATA electoral reforms; plans to introduce local self-governance in the tribal areas; and the correction of draconian legal regime meant to advance the great game and colonialism? Above all, the much touted second and now third prong of FATA policy, namely development, employment and economic opportunity. The dehumanising poverty that facilitates selling the lives of young men in the name of esoteric jihad is nothing but years and years of exploitation and now a manifestation of unbearable poverty.
The truth is that Pakistan’s elites – both the political and the unelected – and their purported watchdogs are fairly oblivious to the fundamental reality of how the consumerist culture and emergence of Richistans in a sea of squalor and violence are aggravating deprivation, dispossession and hunger.
Never before has a predominantly agricultural country sbeen food-deficient and a victim of blatant capitalist speculation. Monopolies are not new phenomenon; however, cartels control oil, cement and all other elements of economic activity and survival. Yet, these are issues skirted around and a hapless civilian government, a product and victim of both the powerful elites and their machinations is the prime target of media critique. The corporate media not unlike India and other iniquitous societies is by and large indifferent to such monopolies and the capitalist machinations; much of its solution for inflation is executive control of prices.
The emergence of such Richistans is not restricted to Pakistan alone. Globalisation has to sell fabulous, vulgar wealth as a spectator sport and the ultimate marker of achievement. And the world’s war and oil industry have to fuel this all-pervasive greed.
True, the skewed growth during the last eight years has enabled many people to gate-crash into the world of elitism and create newer island-Richistans. The question is, at what and whose expense? Income and resource distribution have worsened and without a plan for redistribution there is no way to achieve peace, security and sustained progress in Pakistan. Sooner or later, the surrounding pooristans, tribalistans, conflictistans, violenceistans will gobble up these Richistans.
Estimates suggest that food price inflation have led to significant increase in Pakistani poverty levels. 20 percent inflation in food prices theoretically results in an 8 percent increase in the poverty head count. And, the official estimates suggest that the galloping inflation is above 30 percent. We are heading towards a situation where 50 percent of the population will be poor. Needless to mention, this situation ought to be the foremost priority of the State and its international partners. Domestic rhetoric on ideology and the global rants on terror can only destabilise Pakistan further that is in no one’s interest. The ruling party needs to revisit its social agenda and reclaim its original redistributive ethos. This is the time for initiating land reform; of increasing access of the poor to productive resources and undoing the structural roots of poverty. These policy priorities must drive the stabilisation packages proposed by all and sundry. The urgency of the storm, which has brewed for long time, needs to be recognised. It is already thumping the fragile contours of Pakistani society.
Raza Rumi is a writer. He blogs at www.razarumi.com and edits a cyber magazine, Pak Tea House, and the Lahore Nama blog-zine.
Photo Credits: Title photo is courtesy of Aamer Mukhtar at Flickr.com
I’m not finding this situation terribly unique to Pakistan. It will occur anywhere a small group of people acquire unfettered power and wealth at the expense of the many.
I am reminded of France under the Tuileries or Czarist Russia–a filthy decadent, limitlessly wealthy elite and great masses of oppressed poor, dumbed down with religion as much as possible, who were ignored even when they started to starve–and we all know how both those cases turned out.
Again great article by Raza Sahab, its the difficult time for whole Pakistan. People are shouting , coming on the rodas due to over loading of electricity bills, i myself in Lahore feeling myself some psycho when after an hour continuously my tubelight vanished and life stops at all outside, factories , mills r on the death bed, and we are begging for 5 billion dollars in the whole world.Who will invest when in the heart of islamabd, suicidal bombing is just like a normal thing for people and for the government officals !
I agree with the main thesis of the post and to some extent with Riaz as well – indeed poverty is universal. Even here in the US, working with local agencies we find pockets of poverty, deprivation and extreme hunger – true for India, China and Brazil as well. But here is the difference – simple arithmetics, if we import more than we export then who fills the balance? Much of it is in the form of grants from overseas that maintain accepted leadership in Islamabad.
Pakistan has been surviving on subsidies since its birth and deliberately kept aloof nation does not even know where the next handout is coming from.
Our leaders go around with the begging bowls to US, China, Saudis and other “FOP” nations for cash or to barter our services such as stationing troops in Riyadh or UN… Besides, we have not much else to offer anyway.
The long term strategy need to focus on educating public about the painful realities, embarrassing may they be and tightening the belt and controlling lifestyle that is beyond the reach of the majority.
Unless we admit our faults and and work to overcome the problems, the isolated islands of look good/feel good fake prosperity will only add to the class divisions, disgruntled masses and eventually a bloody mess.
And finally, can someone ask this question – where did all the money go?
Hear Hear!!
Well Done, Raza.
You have highlighted the serious inequities and the resulting social strife in Pakistan. I am all for seriously addressing the causes of abject poverty by progressive taxation and through public-private partnerships with strong participation by volunteer organizations backed by national and international resources.
But, do you think this situation is unique to Pakistan? Isn’t there grinding poverty and worse inequities in our neighborhood? Aren’t the wealth disparities far worse in India and China? Why don’t we see the kind of suicide bombings and mass murder among our neighbors that we witness in Pakistan? Does our religious fanaticism have anything to do with it? Do you think that fixing economic disparities will solve any or all of our problems? Can a feudal democracy take care of it? Or do we need a “benevolent” dictator?
I think there’s a lot for us to ponder as we look for a panacea to our complex, long-standing problems.