A simple and rather cliched way to put it is to say that there are two Pakistans. The rich, in a sense, live in another country. Even when they are in Pakistan. And the poor, who seem accustomed to their misery, have nowhere to go. Surely not on a higher rung on the social ladder.
A juxtaposition of headlines that seem to point in opposite directions has prompted me to express some thoughts that have been bothering me a lot recently. Otherwise, there are other issues to choose from.
I am not so good at being a political analyst and would not want to pontificate about President Donald Trump’s newfound fondness for Pakistan’s leaders. And cricket between India and Pakistan is what I had discussed last week and the week before. All I can hope is that ‘third time is the charm’. Today’s final of the Asia Cup, though, will further underline the victory of South Asia’s political derangement.
Now, the headlines that I have for this column. First, the lead story of this newspaper last Sunday boldly proclaimed that “rich individuals flaunting lifestyle on FBR’s radar”. The spotlight here was on very rich people who live it up ostentatiously and evade taxes. The other headline I would put beside it was published on Wednesday: ‘Poverty surge sparks World Bank warning’.
Both news items reflect the reality of Pakistan, presenting a two-in-one situation. One may point out that this cohabitation of affluence and poverty is prevalent in all developing countries. For that matter, the gulf between the rich and the poor has widened in many advanced countries.
For instance, I was reading an article by Bernie Sanders, a prominent leader of the Democratic Party in the US, in The Guardian on Thursday, titled ‘The American system is badly broken’. He wrote: “What we are witnessing is the rise of two Americas. One for the billionaire class. And one for everybody else”.
But the inequalities that are deepening in Pakistan are of a different kind. What Bernie Sanders is talking about is something else. Poverty in Pakistan, no matter how you measure it, is visibly increasing. It is dehumanising a very large number of people and its social consequences are bound to be horrendous.
Something similar is happening at the other end. The rich are deprived of human values in their own way. There is little evidence of their concern for social justice and their interest in the well-being of the people of this country. I am reminded of what an outgoing country director of the UNDP had said some years ago: “Pakistani elite needs to decide whether or not they want a country”.
As I have stated above, my justification for writing this column is the emotional pain I suffer as I move around in Karachi and sometimes travel to other parts of the country. These encounters have nothing to do with the economic statistics cited in newspaper reports or analyses. There is a lot to learn from what you see and experience on a daily basis. That is, if you are observant and can think critically.
In my early days in journalism, ages ago when print was king, there was a game we played as reporters who worked together. Our premise was that there is a story everywhere, in every situation and in every life, whether printable or not. We would challenge each other to find a story in, say, a journey in a bus, a walk through a street, a park, the zoo or the city courts or any specific location.
However, you don't need to be a journalist to collect your share of stories from your daily experiences. These stories would rarely be cheerful or heartwarming. Much, of course, would depend on who you are, where you live and what you do. If you have attended some big fat weddings in glittering banquet halls with a five-star opulence, your capacity to make some assessments and draw some conclusions would be sorely tested. If you can learn about the cost of a bridal costume by the topmost designer, you will have a story to repeat for groups of friends.
One exercise I suggest is to count the number of beggars and apparently white-collar individuals who plead for help on a busy day. Yes, the beggars who are posted at traffic signals may be professionals and may belong to a mafia. But desperate people who need help are all around us. You are likely to be accosted by someone at any place, when you park your car or come out of a restaurant or a store.
But the plight of those who need and cannot ask for help can only be imagined. Yet there are stories written on the faces of people that you can read, if you are literate in the language of love and empathy. The problem is that just reading these stories is not enough. What can you do except make a good deed here and there? How will this entire, rotten system of injustice change?
The World Bank has stated that Pakistan’s current development model is insufficient to reduce poverty and inequality and has called for its overhaul. Actually, poverty trends have reversed during the past three years, erasing two decades of gains. There are serious gaps in human capital. Nearly 40 per cent of children are stunted, a quarter of primary-school-age children are out of school, and 75 per cent of those who attend primary school cannot read or understand a simple story. There are other, equally dismal statistics.
Finally, look at how the FBR is going after those who are guilty of tax evasion. A team of 40 investigators is scouring social media to gather evidence against individuals who fail to declare all their income.
Ah, but do the authorities need to resort to this exercise to learn about who owns what and makes how much when everything is out there, hiding in plain sight? They can, at least, look at themselves in a mirror.
The writer is a senior journalist. He can be reached at: ghazi.karachigmail.com