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THE people of Pakistan have risen. Revolution is in the air and oppression does not stand a chance. Before long, the cruel fruit vendors of the country will be thrown out of power and a new, justice-oriented regime will be installed in their place. Once this is done, the narrative of fruit selling and fruit consuming will be changed forever. It will be a historic moment.
The three-day fruit boycott that began, like all great things these days, on social media and spread via WhatsApp has only just concluded. The aim of its organisers as per the prescriptive posts they splashed on the screens of fasting Pakistanis was to force down fruit prices during the month of Ramazan.
A few days without fruit, the opening of the day’s fast with a date (ironically not considered a fruit for the purpose of the boycott) and the sating of one’s appetite with saalan (curry) instead of fruit, posters prescribed, would teach those who had so carelessly pushed a price hike on the pocket books of poor consumers, a much-needed lesson.
Fruit, a perishable good, would begin to rot in the hot and non-refrigerated warehouses where it is stored. The threat of rotting fruit and the lost revenue that it represents would push fruit wholesalers to slash prices, the price cut reflected in the prices charged by vendors, the difference to be pocketed by the consumer.
When some folks see higher prices in Ramazan they feel morally entitled to punish those engaged in opportunism.
The intention behind the boycott was possibly a good one. In the larger cities of Pakistan, consumers can be unaware of the supply and demand dynamics that determine the prices of the things they buy. In the case of fruit, a number of consumers noted that the prices of various fruit had been increased by huge percentages as sellers see an increased demand during the month of fasting. The consequences? Increasingly high prices charged for even workaday fruit like bananas and apples.
In this age of social media, they did what all angry people do — they tried to harness the power of collective organisation (rendered ever easier by the networked world of Twitter followers and Facebook friends) to extract revenge.
Their strategy seems to have worked, based at least on the hue and cry regarding the fruit boycott raised on social media itself. Even on the very first day, newspapers reported that the markets in cities like Lahore and Peshawar and Karachi saw little activity on the first day of the boycott.
As for the prices themselves, there seemed to be mixed evidence. One newspaper report said that some people continued to shop for fruit because of various family occasions. Other sellers of seasonal fruits like mangoes did report that they were slowly bringing prices down to half of what they were charging after seeing few customers. In other cases, the fruit vendors told newspaper reporters that they too feel bad charging high prices but are hemmed in by what they themselves have to pay to wholesalers and suppliers.
This last point regarding the supply chain of fresh fruit has been brought up by many people opposing the fruit boycott. These dissenters, who have advertised their displeasure on (where else but) social media, raise some valid points. They draw attention to the day-to-day existence eked out by most fruit sellers who rely on what they sell every day to eat on any day. It is the feudal system, these opponents of the boycott argue, that is responsible for fruit prices and production in the country and it is the real culprit here. Those who can take their grievances to social media, they further argue, are already in a far more privileged position than those who sell fruit.
Instead of ‘teaching a lesson’ to those so significantly worse off than themselves, those so incensed at having to pay more for fruit, these irked organisers and supporters of the fruit boycott should concern themselves with the systems of oppression that enrich only a certain class and mete out injustices to everyone else down the line.
These objections and critiques of the fruit boycott are important but they are also, to some extent, a misunderstanding of the sentiment behind the boycott. This sentiment has to do with the conflicting messages that are produced and consumed in Pakistan during the month of Ramazan. To many, particularly those who are well off or at least a bit better off than fruit sellers and other street vendors, the month represents a time of greater emphasis on moral behaviour, a suspension of business as usual and sinning as usual.
When these folks see prices being increased and opportunistic sale strategies in operation during the month of Ramazan they feel morally entitled to punish those who have engaged in a kind of opportunism. If they are themselves refraining, restricting and disciplining themselves, then so must everyone else, including fruit sellers.
Applied to the fruit boycott, this logic justifies a price being imposed on those who know that more bananas are eaten during Ramazan and who therefore charge more for them. It is a sad situation, for the simple reason that opportunistic price hikes are hardly a monopoly of those who sell fruit. Others engage in the same behaviour in the same holy month, but are less easily punished.
No one is boycotting the expensive boutiques that will soon be peddling their overpriced Eid items, or any others who similarly take advantage of the upcoming demand for new clothes and shoes that will send shoppers to the markets. There will likely be no boycotts for them. Like so much else in Pakistan then, the fruit boycott is simply one more iteration of punishment inflicted on those who can be punished rather than those who should be punished, a question not of what is just but simply of what is possible.
The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.
Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2017
