Price hike: why are traders protesting instead of consumers?
By Aileen Qaiser
TRADERS demonstrating in Ramazan? Shouldn’t the ones protesting be the poor consumers, weighing under the burden of the price hike that began with the advent of the holy month of fasting?
Ironic though it may seem, on the fifth day of Ramazan over 50 traders from Mughal Market in I-8 Sector staged a protest in front of the nearby Industrial Area Police Station and blocked traffic with felled tree trunks on a double road in the area at about Iftari time.
The traders were demanding the release of four of their colleagues who had earlier been arrested on the orders of the Islamabad administration when an anti-profiteering raid was conducted on the market during which a number of traders were fined for alleged over charging.
In addition to the road block, the traders of Mughal Market also observed a shutter down strike the same evening, with most of them closing their shops as called for by their association which is run by elected office bearers, like many other trader associations in other sectors of the Capital.
The demonstrating traders also chanted slogans against the police and forcefully pulled down the shutters of a clinic and a medical store which had not heeded the strike call.
The arrested traders, who were released soon after, said that they were selling the items according to the rates at which they got them from the wholesalers.
Another incident of traders’ protest occurred on the 15th of Ramazan, this time in Rawalpindi. The target was again the police of R.A. Bazaar Police Station in particular, for allegedly beating them and not cooperating with them in curbing a recent wave of crime in their localities. The protesting traders, supported by the shopkeepers’ association, blocked traffic around the Kalma Chowk area for an hour, burning tyres and raising slogans against the police.
In contrast to this activism by traders, the only public resentment exhibited so far by consumers has been the rather uneventful protest demonstration against the price hike at Aabpara Chowk on the ninth of Ramazan staged by two fledgling progressive political forums — the People’s Rights Movement (PRM), founded in 2002 fighting for the rights of the tenants of Okara military farms and the Democratic Forum, formed recently by the workers of different political parties.
Even in Rawalpindi, where the price hike has reportedly been aggravated by a simultaneous shortage of atta, no spontaneous public outpouring of resentment in the form of protest demonstrations have been reported despite a lot of verbal condemnations about the price hike from the general public.
In most criticisms of the price hike, the target of attack seems not so much the traders or the business community for exploiting consumers during Ramazan but the government for failing to keep the prices under control as promised.
Herein lies the key question: who is really responsible for the price hike? That there is prevailing confusion on this issue is evident by the comments made by various participants at a seminar organised by a non-government organisation, the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), in Islamabad last week entitled “The unprecedented price hike: whose responsibility?”
While the administration is blaming the retailers for artificially pushing up the prices of essential commodities, the retail traders on the other hand are blaming the price hike on the wholesalers, the price control committees/city magistrates and the ‘bigwigs’ or government-backed mafias. Consumer organisations in turn are blaming the administration as well as civil society and the apathetic consumers.
Meanwhile, according to the Chief Commissioner of Islamabad last week, over 800 profiteers have been fined for overcharging during regular raids in different market areas and a total of Rs200,000 has been collected in fines so far in the administration’s drive against profiteering.
But if the fine penalty is supposed to be Rs375 per offence, shouldn’t the total fines from 800 profiteers be Rs300,000?
If traders, whether retailers or wholesalers, are guilty of exploiting consumers in Ramazan by over charging, is there any guarantee that the police and/or the administration are not exploiting the traders and generating ‘revenue’ in the name of anti-profiteering measures?
In any case, are these anti-profiteering measures undertaken by the Islamabad administration and also by the Rawalpindi city district government since the beginning of Ramazan really aimed at curbing the price hike?
Or are these measures meant merely to extract political mileage for the government by showing the public that it is taking strong action to curb the problem, irrespective of the actual source of the price hike?
When we don’t seem to know exactly what or where is the exact source of the price hike, how can we hope to effectively control the problem?
Many in and outside of Islamabad must have thought that the Capital city at least should have been spared from the price hike in Ramazan because of two main reasons.
Firstly, since Islamabad is under the direct control of the federal government through the ministry of interior, unlike other cities which are governed by elected local governments, it was expected that the business community here would have been comparatively more tamed and law-abiding.
Secondly, since Islamabad is supposed to be a model city in many respects, e.g., in master planning, traffic control, traffic behaviour, etc., it was least expected that its business community, from the lowly retailer to the bigwig businessman, would become ‘model’ exploiters in raising prices during a month known for charity and alms giving.
But not only has the Capital city not been spared from the price hike, the price hike here is higher than in any other city in the country, according to a senior office-bearer of the National Traders’ Alliance last week. Speaking at a meeting of traders and the Islamabad administration at the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry to discuss the crackdown on profiteering, the trader official also said that the main wholesale markets in Islamabad were selling basic food commodities at prices higher than those prevailing in the rest of the country.
If the price hike has reduced the buying power of the poor, it certainly has not, judging by a recent report in Dawn, had any dent on the resources and resolve of the bigwigs in the twin cities to host lavish Iftar parties or to attend such grand Iftar parties as guests, all in aid of votes for the coming elections.
It would have been more in tune with the mood of this holy month if, instead of these Iftar banquets held by the bigwigs for the bigwigs, street charity Iftar banquets are organized to provide for the needy and to reach out to the less fortunate.
The dialogue between Islam and the west
In addition to sporting a pretty face, ‘Discourse’ has a serious (and gigantic) intent, which is to bridge the gap between Islam and the west through dialogue. But I’d better put it in the magazine’s own words. Under the heading ‘Editorial Stance’, it says: “It is against the background of the plight and predicament of the Muslim Community and the ever-increasing hostility and mistrust of the west for ‘things Islamic’ that Discourse International intends to address, by way of balanced and unbiased dialogue, debate and discussion between the two ambivalent ‘civilisational stakeholders’.
In the first issue, Qaiser Alam in his editorial mentions that “the overriding objective is to develop and cultivate a mutually acceptable and tolerant debate and discussion between ‘things Islamic’ and ‘things western’ in order to erect a communicative platform … to chalk out a sustainable blue-print for mutual respect, survival and progress with peace, honour and dignity.”
The journal, which heaven knows why has been dubbed as ‘Book Series’, avoids generally, to quote the editor, “an over-critical and ‘holier than thou’ approach”. In his opening article ‘Terms of engagement between East and West’, Qaiser Alam tries to sort out the reasons behind the prevailing hostility and even hatred between the Islamic world and the west. He points out that the western intelligentsia has been able to convince a vast majority of its people that almost all movements for independence or self-rule are either extremist or terrorist, aimed towards destroying the western civilisation. But, he thinks, the blame rests on others as well, such as Muslim ulema and the Muslim intelligentsia, the orientalists and the Sufis.
One may or may not agree with Alam or the contents of other scholarly articles contributed by well-known authors and thinkers such as Dr Manzoor Ahmed, Jamal Panipati, Ahmed Javaid, Zamir Ali Badaiyuni and Asif Farrukhi, but it is heartening indeed that a serious journal in the English language, publishing philosophical, literary and scholarly papers, has come out from Pakistan.
The second issue of ‘Discourse’ also carries some very interesting and thought-provoking articles. Included in this issue, Qaiser Alam’s article ‘Post-modernism and Urdu Ghazal’ deserves special mention. He laments that the post-modernist Urdu ghazal suffers from some serious ‘ailments’ and with precision, he diagnoses the nature of these ailments.
Barring a few typographical errors that can easily be attributed to the printer’s devil, the journal achieves a high standard of authorship, editing and printing.
What one should do is to keep one’s fingers crossed that the journal maintains regular publication because it is a non-profit, non-commercial venture. In the past, many such good magazines have come forth and died for one reason or another.
– drraufparekh@yahoo.com