Daily Times

The media tells us that the people of Pakistan want change. We hear also that they want stability, which would mean the absence of noticeable change. It may be that they want ‘sameness’ to remain after the desired improvement has occurred. Change in the affairs of men is incessant. The world today is not the same as it was during the time of Moses. Experiences of success and failure lead us to discard some ways of contending with life’s problems. This process may go forward gradually and quietly; it has not been planned consciously by those who manage society. There are occasions when the same managers, dissatisfied with the status quo, may want to replace it. That would be planned change, and that is what the people of Pakistan want. It remains for us to figure out what kind of change they desire.

The advocates of change want to improve the operational modes of society, state and politics. They are concerned with the extremely high incidence of corruption in virtually all departments of societal interaction, back-breaking prices and shortages of the basic necessities of life, including such things as water, electricity and gas. Desired change would mean amelioration of these annoyances. The government will claim that the abatement of these vexing problems is already on its agenda. The change, if it does come about, will relate to the government’s effectiveness in implementing its chosen policy. The prospect of the present government’s improved effectiveness is poor. Its style of governance during the last three and a half years indicates that, while it will applaud all desirable measures, it will do nothing to undertake them. One is likely to get the impression that this is a government that does not really want to govern.

Beyond the maintenance of public order and tranquillity, governments are expected to provide needed services to the people. The Zardari-Gilani dispensation is neither doing much to safeguard the citizen’s life and property nor is it moving to make his/her life more comfortable and fulfilling. In many ways, this government is acting as if there is never going to be a tomorrow. Its lavish expenditures far exceed its revenues. It has been borrowing both at home and abroad and the loans it has taken out run into billions of rupees. It is commonly understood that its borrowings will burden every child that is born with a debt of many thousands of rupees. It is doing nothing that we know of to reduce its expenditures and increase its revenues. The proceeds from taxes in Pakistan form a lower proportion of its GDP than they do in much of the rest of the world, including developing countries. Experts in the field of public finance tell us that this country’s financial crisis will be eased considerably if the usual tax were imposed on agricultural incomes. Regretfully, one must note that this is not likely to happen in the foreseeable future since large landowners dominate our legislative assemblies, which levy taxes.

Students of politics and society often speak of social change, a concept that needs to be examined. Opening up of professions to women, increase in the enrolment of elementary schools and development of pride in one’s local language and culture, among many other things, are all elements of social change. At a more fundamental level, one might speak of increases in industrialisation and urbanisation resulting in structural changes in the social order. Included among them could be such things as elimination of feudalism, reduction of ceilings in land ownership and abolition of caste and class distinctions as relevant factors in the disbursement of jobs and other public benefits.

It is one thing to name the changes that may be desirable but it is quite another to bring them about. Take, for instance, the matter of instituting meaningful and effective reforms for the purpose of abolishing feudalism in Sindh and southern Punjab and that of rationalising single individual ownership of agricultural land in central and northern Punjab. Laws will have to be made for this purpose. The difficulty arises from the fact that, as mentioned above, large landowners dominate the legislatures and they are not likely to pass legislation that diminishes their role and status in society.

Moving on to another dimension of social change, we know that urbanisation came in the wake of the industrial revolution. Mills and factories went up in towns, creating many thousands of jobs not only for technically trained personnel but also for semi-skilled and unskilled workers. Farmers flocked to the cities. This trend intensified as mechanisation transformed agriculture. Tractors, harvesters and other machines did in a day what several peasants, employing traditional implements, used to do in 10 days. The great majority of them became superfluous on the farm. They migrated to cities and set up shacks in overcrowded ghettos where people of their own ethnic and linguistic affiliations lived. Many of them found that the jobs they had expected to have in the city did not exist. They then took to a life of crime.

In Pakistan, the more daring of them stationed themselves on highways, snatched cars, motorcycles and mobile phones. Migrants to the city of Karachi made parts of it battlegrounds between Pakhtuns, Punjabis, Sindhis and the Urdu speaking muhajirs. They competed for scarce jobs and other amenities of life. They resorted to violence in order to drive their rivals out of the marketplace.

One way of dealing with the general problem of rural migration to cities may be to encourage small manufacturing enterprises in the countryside that create jobs and keep the potential migrant in his native village or small town. Improved transportation systems might make it possible for persons from the village to go to work in the city in the morning and return home in the evening.

Desire for change is universal; we all want improvement in our present condition. Desire alone will go nowhere; it has to become a quest in order for improvement to take place. The road from impoverishment to a comfortable living can be long and bumpy. For societal improvement to take place, cooperative action of several forces is needed. These will include politicians, bureaucrats, media managers and other organs of civil society. A coalition of these forces may not always be available. Desired change may take a long time and sustained effort to materialise.

The writer, professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, is currently a visiting professor at the Lahore School of Economics. He can be reached at anwarsyed@cox.net