Poverty, in my opinion, is the curse that needs to be eradicated from this earth. Poverty is the worst form of oppression, suppression and exploitation. For a poor person it hardly matters what is happening around him. Survival is the only thing that he cares about. Nothing matters to him more than feeding himself and his family everyday. Poverty does not allow him to be part of his civil society, for he has no opportunity to think about the community at large. Poverty strips away a person’s dignity and gradually dehumanises him. I can never imagine how it must feel like to be poor because I have never felt what it feels like to live through a day without any certainty of how I will live tomorrow. The feeling of perpetual siege due to lack of resources to satisfy basic necessary wants is something one never wants to even contemplate. But there are millions of us who feel like that every day.
Can a good government change things vis-à-vis poverty? A government that really wants to eradicate poverty can achieve this unthinkable task. Firstly, the government will have to put forward a plan of mass education and land reform in Pakistan. Any plan will need time to bear any results and hence it cannot happen overnight. More importantly, any vision that is put forward needs to be such that every government in power will have to build on to continue the process of reform to achieve material results.
Poverty is itself not an issue that is separate from other evils in Pakistan. An effective judicial system is imperative if we need parity and enforcement of rights. Furthermore, we need better schooling for poor children at primary and secondary levels for them to have any hope of a life which will not be engulfed by poverty. Additionally, we need to give people at the lower strata of society public goods like: clean drinking water, electricity and healthcare facilities to ensure that they can have the capacity to live with a life style which will assist them to grow out of poverty.
In sum, Pakistan needs a government that has a vision to improve life for all citizens. But it has to at the same time put more emphasis on eradicating poverty. It is a moral disgrace that in Pakistan no emphasis is put on narrowing the gap between rich and poor. Instead, all the successive governments in Pakistan have allowed rich people to get exponentially richer, whilst the poor people are heavily taxed and get nothing substantive in return. Above all: for a just society we need to invest our resources equitably and as result to ensure that we have to reorganise our budgets. Pakistan is heavily investing and spending on defence, which, in my opinion, does not further any objectives to eradicate poverty. Excessive defence spending neither provides greater security nor does it give Pakistan any stability. It is therefore a necessity to take away a substantial amount of resources away from the defence department and put them to use in areas that will assist the masses to come out of poverty. If we neglect the issue of poverty, then we are doomed to fail as a society because a time will come when the state of Pakistan will be such that society will fail to operate at every given level due to an enormous disparity of wealth between the rich and poor. That will be the end of Pakistan as a state.
I think Imran Khan is the man who has the vision to bring Pakistan out of the shadows of poverty. All of us should listen and assist Mr. Khan to achieve this unthinkable task. If Imran Khan’s party cannot win an election this year, we should not give up hope for a better tomorrow, for we have no other choice other than to live in ignominy and poverty forever.
Khuldun,
Indeed, a very well written article. But there are a few issues which need to be considered when we talk about eradicating poverty. First of all, poverty levels are difficult to control without economic sufficiency and the ripple effect of achieving economic strength is an increased gap between the rich and the poor, at least initially. However, once the first hurdle, of economic prosperity, is passed we can work on the second one- eradicating poverty.
With extra cash and job opportunities, poverty levels will show a downward trend; this could be easily catalysed by the improvement in the social services as mentioned in your article. However, we have to remember that our country’s case is not a normal one. We are not yet on ground zero, the situation is still under the sea level and to bring it to a level where we can start vertical acceleration will require some unconventional moves from our policy-makers.
When we talk about justice, we need to look at the micro level of our judicial system. How would you provide justice with the existence of imperialist laws which have never been changed? Is our legislature truly sincere to bring that change or is it old fashioned?
In my humble opinion, the current political turmoil’s roots lay in these archaic laws which are repelling our entry into the 21st century. In principle, removal of the Chief Justice was the worst move of the current government but did anyone think of the reasons which led to these events? Had our laws been in conformity with the current pace of global advancement, the Pakistan Steel Mill issue, for example, would not have been of concern to the judiciary and, who knows, maybe our (current/ex-?) CJ would have been the best of friends with the big boss. And, may be, there would have been some positive change or job creation in PSM? Ah, let’s move towards the reality!