24 May 2004	Monday	04 Rabi-us-Saani 1425

While poverty has been steadily rising in rural areas of Pakistan, it seems poised for taking a rampant turn because of depletion of resources. The number of people living below the subsistence line is likely to grow correspondingly with the rate at which water resources are shrinking.

The water situation is becoming more acute with time and there apparently is little hope of consensus for building reservoirs to counter shortage of water, which is one of the two most vital resource for the rural community; land is the other.

Land has also suffered in quality but that has not hit a dangerous streak so far. Land is still available in plenty and much of it is productive. But fertility cannot be harnessed for productivity without sufficient water. Scarcity of water is a recipe for pushing more people of rural areas towards the poverty line.

Unfortunately, nothing is to be done on this count as the governmental search for consensus has only led to greater disagreement and controversy over the last about 15 years and whatever the claims and declared aims of the authorities, things seem to be moving in the wrong direction. The plight of the rural population is consequently multiplying.

The constitution, Article 38 (e) guarantees that the 'state shall reduce disparity in the income and earnings of individuals'. But constitutional provisions are known more for being trampled than honestly and sincerely pursued.

The government has plans and programmes for alleviating poverty but they are leading nowhere because their thrust is academic rather than specifically targeted. Moreover, it is doubtful if the planners have genuine information of and insight into the scale of rural poverty; experience of living conditions for the poor is unheard of in the case of most planners.

I was travelling in the Multan area some years' back during the cotton-picking season. It was a bad year for farmers as prices had plunged and buyers were determined to fleece growers, small farmers to be exact. The farmers looked poor, terribly poor even though some of them owned land. I had occasion to be engaged in a two-way communication with a group of farmers there.

While every member of the group had an unhappy experience to narrate, a middle-aged farmer in tattered clothes summed it up for all of them. He said that he cultivated cotton every season but it was years since he had a new pair of clothes; this was true of most other farmers and their families.

Cotton growers cannot afford new clothes and those who cultivate wheat would go without food if they did not save a percentage of the crop for the family's stomachs. And this is not the complete view of the plight of the poor of rural Pakistan.

Many factors contribute to the existing and continuously escalating poverty in villages of the country. Religion is an opiate that tells that suffering is Allah's will. Local prayer leader who manages to obtain alms for religious purposes from the impoverished farmers drums fatalism into their souls day in and day out.

At the highest, the planning level, emphasis is on growth rate, foreign exchange reserves, mega projects and poverty alleviation projects prepared in cozy environments and run from comfortable offices by foreign educated economists who haven't been to a village in their lifetime or have, at best, spent a night or two at some feudal lord's opulent hospitality.

The general who had produced the plan for local governments was invited by the Punjab government to brief provincial cabinet on the scheme of administration proposed by him some year back.

He gave them a detailed account of the administrative and political set-up of is vision. This was followed by a question-answer session. One minister remained quiet during the proceedings.

When the meeting was nearing conclusion, he turned to that minister, wanting to know if he had any question. The minister asked him if he had ever lived in a village; the general answered in the negative.

What can I ask you in that case, said the minister. This is true of a majority of the people managing poverty alleviation programmes. They address rural poverty with unenlightened ignorance.

There are no agreed and reliable statistics of the number of the poor in Pakistan but the urban poor are a visible phenomenon. Not so those living in the countryside. For the administration, they are invisible poor and hence not targeted by any plan. They, however, form the bulk of people sheltering under the subsistence line.

Over 60 per cent of the population lives in rural areas. As only seven per cent are big landowners and another about 20 per cent middle level owners, the majority of rural population is poor. The countryside is indeed teeming with abject, absolute poverty with no hope of redemption.

They are poor in every respect: no access to drinking water, to health facilities even of basic nature, no schools for children and if there are any, they cannot afford to send children to schools, no jobs that can bring two meals to the family and a life of subservience under the feudal who has the administration, police in particular, at his beck and call.

This is why panchayats order gang rapes and this is the reason why policemen reported for abducting and subjecting women to inhuman treatment and humiliations end up registering cases against unknown persons.

Hell is in a constant loose state in rural Pakistan. The rural poor have no voice at any national forum and if perchance they manage to express themselves, no one listens to their plight; no one sees their misery as the rich and the resourceful dominate all forums.

An idea of the extent of rural poverty is available in statistics. They are one's only insight even if their reliability is considered questionable. The rural-urban gap is minus 36 in Punjab, -38.6 in Sindh, -40.2 in the NWFP, and -10 in Balochistan.

The NWFP is thus at the bottom but Sindh and Punjab are not far behind. The total of rural poor is higher in Punjab as the population of the province is the largest among the provinces as also because other provinces have relatively higher urban population.

The situation calls for drastic measures at the grassroots level and opening of closed avenues for the rural poor. Firstly, basic amenities need to be made available to them.

Next, opportunities to earn a living have to be provided. But most important of all, exploitation has to be brought to an end. The government looks at poverty as a social issue. It very much is but it can be resolved only by political means and that means genuine empowerment of the people.

One does not see any possibility of the authorities willing to share power with the people. Unless that is done, pledges would ring hollow and plans would continue to be marked by a counterfeit quality and will be defeated as surely in Pakistan as they have been defeated in India.

There can be no shining country if its masses live under the darkness of despair, particularly the segments that keep the economy going and the population provided with food. They need a fair deal and they need water.

The farmers and breeders require inputs with their purchasing power, markets for their produce near their homes, jobs that arrest migration to urban centres, fodder and feed for animals, health and veterinary services for themselves and their animals and a lot more but that is not an expensive agenda. Care, concern and directing investment to right channels would produce results. The structure would crash if these needs were not met.