KARACHI:
The astronomical rise in home grown basic food items, their hoarding and their black marketing, further aggravated by unchecked smuggling to Afghanistan, has led to a despairing situation. Millions of citizens are facing hunger and their frustrations are increasing by the day with no relief in sight. The government’s promise in providing for the poor and destitute remains empty while profiteers continue to exploit the corrupt system.
The political parties and other stakeholders of this country seem to have forgotten that Pakistan was created through a political struggle led by the Quaid-e-Azam who promised the people a modern democratic welfare state. He stated that the first priority of the Constituent Assembly was to frame a constitution and to function as a completely sovereign federal legislature of the state, having all powers. He termed bribery, corruption, black marketing, nepotism and jobbery as evils that should be eradicated so that the nation could prosper. He further emphasised upon the importance of a “system of control and regulation of foodstuffs and essential commodities” to prevent “wholesale starvation and even death”.
Unfortunately, today millions of poor in Pakistan face starvation and hunger, with an incompetent system of governance dominated by mediocrity. The idea of a modern democratic welfare state that Jinnah hoped Pakistan would become has been replaced by a system that is hostage to greed and gluttony. Many still want to cling on to the remnants of the British Raj, which used allotment of lands and titles to bribe the bureaucracy for performing tasks that were detrimental to the collective welfare of majority.
Ideally a nation and all its institutions exist to serve and protect the life and welfare of citizens. Regrettably, this is not the case in Pakistan.
Malik Tariq Ali
Lahore
Published in The Express Tribune, October 20th, 2020.
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