July 03, 2006	Monday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 6, 1427

WITH the bulk of the population living on or less than $2 a day, poverty is getting concentrated in backward regions, such as Balochistan, large parts of NWFP, the tribal areas, southern Punjab and the interior of Sindh. In fact, central Punjab and urban Sindh together are said to have been contributing as much as 95 per cent of GDP’s growth all these years.

Faster growth without equitable distribution only ends up choking the development avenues in due course of time. And this is already happening. The crime rates in Karachi and Lahore, country-wide breakdown of law and order and the deployment of the army against our own people in Waziristan and Balochistan are signs that domestic poverty is threatening the banks of the small prosperous islands.

There are many factors contributing to this painful state of affairs. First and foremost is the policy of using liberally the principles of free market and putting all your eggs in the basket of the trickle- down theory.

What this means is that the fiscal and monetary policies are framed in such a way that only those who have bankable collaterals, influential contacts and have acquired education in the elitist institutions can enter the commanding heights of industry, trade, commerce and lucrative professions and prosper. And the crumbs that would trickle down in consequence of this rich becoming richer process are expected to take care of the poor.

The belief is that the more prosperous these richer classes become, the more crumbs would trickle down to feed more of the poor. In fact, there is no in-built mechanism in this system to ensure distributive justice. The system actually ensures that the poor remain perpetually poor while the rich keep prospering in perpetuity. As a result, there have emerged over the last 60 years two Pakistans, one relatively very rich and the other very poor.

In civilized societies, the crass practices of capitalism and the consequences of free-for-all are constantly corrected and tempered by well-entrenched regulatory mechanisms with oversight from democratic institutions conforming to a constitution in which the interests of the even the poorest are also safeguarded. But in Pakistan, such statutory regulatory institutions do not exist. The ones, which have been set up for form’s sake, have been rendered impotent by keeping them under the executive rather than being overseen by the parliament.

Another factor, which has contributed to the emergence of two Pakistans and the consolidation of the barrier between the two, is the rise of a ruling elite comprising, feudal aristocracy, big business, the military and the civil bureaucracy. This elite has over the years acquired a grip over all the instruments of political power. And it has been using this unchallengeable political power to aggrandise to itself all the fruits of development by shutting out completely the shirtless millions from the national economy.

The modus operandi here is very simple. Make policies that render it impossible to redistribute land and also facilitate big business to avoid paying full taxes due from them. The civil and military bureaucracy has been colluding with the feudal and the big business in this matter for a generous feet.

In fact with inter-marriages and business collaborations, all these four members of ruling elite have become one seamless entity. And it has framed the national education policy in such a manner that a permanent and non-scalable intellectual wall has been erected between the children of the ruled and the rulers.

No one of the four members of the ruling elite raises any questions when measures to protect the fundamental interests of any one of the other three members are proposed through the annual budgets.

For example, they all agree that defence budget should never be challenged beyond some rhetorical protests. Similarly there is not hue and cry from other members of the ruling elite when extra measures are proposed to protect the interests of the feudal aristocracy or excessive concessions are allowed to big business.

None of the three bothers that even today 95 per cent of the arable land in the country is in the hands of about five per cent of the population or that business and industrial oligopolies are mushrooming. And that there are as many as 32 military cantonments in the 104 or so districts in Pakistan and growing and, that there are as many as over a dozen huge military farms in the country.

The biggest conglomerate, the industrial, housing and commercial holdings of the defence services, has been removed out of all kinds of oversight. The big business which, shares cabinet posts has been allowed to form cartels, indulge in hoarding and black market and stock market manipulation and the feudal, a part of the government, is allowed to play freely with the national agricultural agenda.

All this comes under the definition of conflict of interest. Since the ruling elite enjoys the commanding heights of business, politics, power (Army) and intellectual monopoly (civil service), it has become almost impossible to resolve this conflict and create a level playing field for each and every individual citizen.