Daily Times

Years ago, the fervour of Eid and more so of ‘chaand raat’ (night of the moon) was simply amazing; the Lahore police was forever formulating plans to maintain the traffic flow, control the eve-teasers and on the whole avoid a major disaster. Years later, as the security issues became complex, I for one was simply content with staying at home, much to the chagrin of my children. This year I was blackmailed into taking them out for the much sought after ‘chaand raat’. I was not too amazed to see that the crowd was nothing akin to that of yesteryears; maybe it is the security scene but more than that I suspect it is the dwindling buying power of the masses.

Equally amusing was a television programme being aired, which sought to enquire of our politicians what kind of meat they liked to eat, especially on Eid. Our federal information minister happily chirped her fondness for sautéed liver!

I went to a salon a couple of weeks ago. The 19-year-old girl there lamented the fact that they had not eaten anything except daal (lentil) at their home since the past two months. She told me that her father had a donkey cart and used to work at the fruit and vegetable market at Kot Lakhpat, Lahore, unloading and transporting trucks. In addition to cash, he used to bring home seasonal vegetables and fruits that were given to him by the traders. Ever since the market was shifted, he has been unable to find a regular income for eight mouths to be fed.

Last week, I was in my village for a day. A woman who was raised by my grandmother has been employed as a lady health visitor (LHV) since 1995. She told me that none of the LHVs had received their salaries for the past four months. They were all, still, working on contractual basis.

And we are all too familiar with the images of aged railway pensioners, one dying in the queue, waiting for their hard earned pensions, the prime reason for opting for a government job.

The Islamic concept of a state is basically a welfare one, where the rulers are under strict religious and moral obligation to provide for their people. Our constitution binds the state to provide for its citizens, to work for their economic and social well-being.

The minimum wage for the year 2011 is Rs 7,000 for the unskilled worker under the labour laws. What consistently amazes me is the genius of our ruling elite and their complete divorce from reality. Expecting a family to live on this meagre sum of money is not only delusional but also criminal. It is obvious that those formulating policies have lost all contact with reality and function in a vacuum. This season the average price of a kilogramme of any kind of vegetable, including turnips, which were once considered cattle fodder, was Rs 80. The price of one litre of oil stands at around Rs 160, depending on the brand. Mutton is out of reach of the majority of our population at Rs 600 per kilogramme.

Domestic employees should fare slightly better than their other counterparts, as at least their food, boarding, clothing and medical needs are or should be catered for. But there is no pension. And, not all households believe in feeding their domestic help the same food that is put on their own table; most people have the ‘help’ cook separate food for themselves, which of course is always ‘meatless’, regardless of which day of the week it is. There is no law governing domestic employees and their wages but there is a provision for their medical care in ‘The Provincial Employees Social Security Ordinance 1965’. The law states: “Every employer of a domestic servant shall be liable to provide at his own cost to the domestic servant medical care which includes general practitioner care, including domiciliar visiting; specialist care in hospitals for in-patients and out-patients and such specialist care as may be available outside hospitals; essential pharmaceutical supplies as prescribed by a medical practitioner; hospitalisation where necessary, including cases of pregnancy and confinement; pre-natal confinement and post-natal care, either by medical practitioners or by qualified midwives.” It does not require a rocket scientist to figure out how many of us adhere to this law!

Most of our elected representatives and the ruling elite belong to the rural areas where there is still no concept of paying the people working in their homes and on their lands; it is one of the worst kinds of bonded labour in which generations after generations are held virtually captive and unable to break loose.

The honourable Supreme Court has ruled that all employees are entitled to at least the minimum wage, regardless of the fact whether they are government or private employees. Although the Minimum Wages for Unskilled Workers Ordinance 1969 is not applicable on the government, as a welfare state it is bound to follow the principle, being a matter of public policy, and any agreement of a lesser wage, to which an employee has agreed, is void and not enforceable. It is the duty of the state to ensure that no discriminatory policies are adopted, regardless of the fact whether the employee is a permanent one or working on contractual basis. Any such act would be considered a violation of the fundamental rights of life and equality of all citizens to earn their livelihood.

I, for one, fail to understand why all the politicians and high government functionaries get their salaries on time and why the employees in the lowest rung of this ladder have to suffer for their hard-earned income, more so when they are the ones who need it the most? Why is it always up to the courts to redress our basic grievances and why is there no obligation on the part of the state to ensure that every citizen is fed, clothed, educated and has access to the basic amenities of life? Why are we still the ‘Islamic Republic of Pakistan’ when clearly we have failed miserably in upholding the dictates of Islam?

And why is it that our government functionaries are so insensitive to their people? Why is it that whilst they had ‘leg roasts’ and ‘sautéed liver’, the only ‘liver’ the people got to eat was their own and that too ‘smoked and char-burnt’?!

The writer is an advocate of the High Court