Honourable PM! We are thankful to you for your service to the nation. You have done what no one could have ever imagined a chief executive can do in a short span of three years! It was a dream come true for all of us — businessmen, workers, farmers, and even the unemployed ones. You have honoured all your promises that you made atop the container in D-Chowk and through your party manifesto. But now, having done everything that we had wished for, you should take rest and let others do some ‘insignificant’ things for us!
This ‘thank you’ should reach you through your ministers and advisers whose job has so far been reporting you things that you want to hear. None of them would tell you the true state of affairs. Let me do my catharsis through a parable. A king, having been annoyed by howling jackals, called in one of his astute advisers to let him know the cause and solution of sporadic outburst in the forest around his castle. The minister, after some reflection, told the king that jackals instinctively cry when they are hungry. And so it was decided that sufficient food should be provided to the hungry jackals. The next night was even worse. It was howling after howling. This time the king was told that jackals cry when they shiver with cold. To assuage their suffering, the king ordered that blankets should be provided along with other essentials. The order was carried out but the problem of howling continued unabated on the third night as well. The king got furious and summoned the minister for explanation. The minister, instead of being diffident, told the king with pride that it was collective ‘thanksgiving’ by the jackals for his generosity and magnanimity and this would continue indefinitely. Hearing this, the king rested on bed showering praise on the minister. In reality, the minister had distributed all food and blankets among his near and dear ones.
Honourable PM! Do you really hear cries of the poor, jobless, marginalised people? I think you do. You come on TV (sometimes talking live), interact with select groups/individuals (supposedly representatives of different communities and interest groups), and giving interviews to foreign media. Most importantly, you must be reading local and international surveys and data-driven reports about the state of our economy and societal trend. All this must have given you a chance to have hand on the public pulse. What you perhaps lack, to relate to what is going on ground, is your knowledge of political economy — the complex interaction between politics and economy.
To make up for your inability to deal with daunting challenges we confront, you have been scolding previous governments for all our ills — debt burden, corruption, healthcare crisis, extremism, and low human development, etc. Or you end up reshuffling bureaucracy to convey your resolve of not sparing the black sheep who use systemic loopholes for personal gains. Or you start giving motivational talks to the bulging youth of how you won the World Cup, built SKMH, and run a world-class university on charity. But, you know, none of this works to change the system of governance of a country as big and diverse as Pakistan.
Instead of fighting the opposition, you should have developed consensus on tax reforms (widening the tax net and modernizing the FBR), eliminating structural imbalance (which means equal incentivisation of agriculture, manufacturing and service sectors), promotion of vocational education as engine of skill development, and dealing with rising public debt through reorganisation and privatisation. State-owned-enterprises which have become white elephants should have been re-organised in line with modern management practices for making them efficient, profitable, and accountable.
Your die-hard party workers have lost faith in your ability to bring about the promised ‘change’. They feel embarrassed watching video clips of your speeches, press conferences, and interviews going viral every day on social media. One does not know your compulsions and constraints but your vision for structural reforms (building and strengthening institutions) seems a far cry! Let our silent indignation against price-hike, pervasive corruption, and inefficiency should not be construed and conveyed to you as collective ‘thanksgiving’. This should be understood a kind of calm before storm.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 30th, 2021.
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