Relics of a decrepit system

The demons of darkness have continued to hang over this unfortunate land for a painfully long time now. Depending on the kind of person one is, this has left behind a variety of effects which have tailored human responses one way or the other. Faced with challenges emanating from this perpetual presence, one’s inner strength and resolve are being increasingly subjected to debilitating pressures.

But then, they say nothing is static. There is movement all around. So, why have we not been able to break the sinister stranglehold that a minuscule beneficiary elite has so deviously crafted to hold the system hostage? The recent budget is a glaring example of how deeply these tentacles are dug in. From faking figures to downright lying to casting an allure of imaginary benefits, nothing was left out of a budget speech that could be easily classified as deceitful jugglery of words.

With the salaries of the chairman of the Senate and the speaker of the National Assembly increased by 500 per cent, substantial additional funds apportioned for the President House and the Prime Minister House and similar ‘elitist’ expenses, the poor worker is only pushed into further poverty. The budget does not even make any promises for their relief. He is the direct victim of the so-called macroeconomic stabilisation programme pushed by the IMF.

According to a recent World Bank report, almost 45 per cent of people in Pakistan now live below the poverty line, and can’t afford two meals a day. Unemployment has surged to unprecedented levels never recorded before in the history of Pakistan. GDP growth totters at 1.7 per cent, which will further enhance poverty. Overall, the budget encapsulates a criminal recipe for the ordinary citizens who are already reeling under the unbearable weight of a losing battle for sustaining life. But there are celebrations in the ruling quarters, marking a new low in the depleting prospects for survival offered to the poor, unemployed and underprivileged segments of society.

The economic forecast for the future is bleak, and getting more so with time. To ensure that money keeps flowing in from the IMF and other lending organisations, the government has ceded space to a protocol of priorities which leaves no margins for the poor to breathe.

This syndrome has been candidly summarised by Sakib Sherani in his opinion piece: “To left-leaning critics of the Bretton Woods Institutions, there is a hidden, more sinister dynamic at play. Support from the West in terms of access to funding from the IFIs, and the subsequent endorsements from the BWIs, are part of a system-legitimising re-stratification effort to consolidate the hold of the Western-aligned ruling elites on power”.

Drawing its parallel with our situation, he goes on to say: “In Pakistan’s case, this plays out as timely and generous financial assistance, spinning a helpful narrative, facilitating political largesse and profligate spending in the budget in the past over two years while imposing austerity policies on ordinary Pakistanis”.

He concludes his argument thus: “With one in two Pakistanis now below the poverty line, and nearly one in four unemployed, the state of Pakistan’s economy has never been as dismal and worrisome as over the past three years. This is the human cost of the stabilisation the government and the IMF are celebrating – and sadly, glossing over”. No better epitaph could be scripted than this for the economic policies the government has pursued in the past three years and, most likely, will continue doing so in the future.

The current situation is tragic. But even more tragic is the response it gets from powerful quarters. They remain disdainfully unmoved at the human misery and suffering they are causing through their myopic and brain-dead policies. All they are concerned about is to feed their so-called macroeconomic stabilisation mantra as an improvement in the economic situation. This is not only erroneous. This is criminal as it is not even remotely connected with how the situation on the ground is likely to evolve.

But then, people have never been the priority of the country's ruling elite. They have always been focused on enhancing their personal capital and that of their crony affiliates. This was never more so than it has been in the past three years. Nothing matters beyond the scope of what suits the beneficiaries of a decrepit system in further perpetuating the cycle of benefits they accrue. The contents of this latest budget reflect their priorities, which are not in keeping with the needs of the impoverished multitudes of the country who struggle to survive on the fringes of life.

With no investment in the education, health and job provision sectors, their lot is bound to deteriorate further. Even the right to peaceful protest has been snatched from them. Having lost hope, it is no wonder that more and more are leaving the country in search of a livelihood elsewhere. An estimated three million people have left in the past three years, with close to 150,000 of them having sought asylum abroad.

Will that stir a conscience? Will that make someone somewhere think of the miseries these policies have caused for the people? Will that impress upon the stone-hearted to think of millions of families pushed to the verge of starvation? Will that ring a bell somewhere that multitudes of souls reside outside the fortified castles of the beneficiary elite in dilapidated habitats without access to electricity, water and education? Will that awaken some frozen minds somewhere that life embodies a lot of misery beyond the trappings of pelf and power? Or shall we remain permanently wedded to driving the wedge between the haves and have-nots so that their citadels of power remain secured?

Sitting in their ill-gotten seats, the ruling elite can be appropriately referred to as the last relics of a decrepit system. They have lost contact with people who really matter – those who toil endlessly to sustain the life cycle. Unmoved by the agony and anguish they cause to them through fabrications like the current budget, the beneficiary elite remains arrogantly arrayed against them and their intrinsic interests.

This ruptures the life cycle. Faced with this catastrophic situation, the burgeoning hope among a majority of the population is that this artificial structure may collapse under its increasing weight, thus paving the way for a dispensation that would be more just, humane and benevolent.

The writer is a political and security strategist and the founder of the Regional Peace Institute. He is a former special assistant to former PM Imran Khan and heads the PTI’s policy think-tank. 

He tweets @RaoofHasan