Daily Times

Poor are born to serve the rich. These pearls of wisdom by ‘His Excellency’ Senator Sardar Mohammad Yaqoob Khan Nasar of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) were bestowed upon the nation during a Senate functional committee on devolution. These are the famous last words that make any debate on democracy, welfare state, equality, equity and social justice a mockery. This is the bane of all that ails the country. This is the mindset that ensures that every year more and more Pakistanis are pushed to abject poverty. This is the real face of the farce going on in the upper and lower house of our democratic platforms.

To add insult to injury, when criticised on these comments, the worthy Senator replied, “If everyone was to become wealthy there would be no one to grow wheat or to work as labour. This is a system created by God, and He has made some rich and some poor, and we should not interfere in this system.” Speechless. Period.

When we look at the continuous decline in the fortunes of the country in the last four decades it is not just military takeovers or democratic blunders that have caused retarded development. It is this deliberate and intentional mindset that has ensured that the few become obscenely rich at the expense of the impoverishment of the masses. This is a legacy of the colonial and feudal mindset where by accumulation of wealth and power it was ensured that the masses were reduced to the level of slavery of the powerful. At the time of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto it was 40 families, and the story has not changed much. In fact, the difference between the rich and the poor has increased. Almost 40 percent of people live in acute poverty. The Oxfam Pakistan study in 2015 indicates that less than 30 percent people born to income-poor families in 1994-95 were likely to remain poor. This figure increased to more than 40 percent in 2010-11, and has been on the rise consistently.

The rise in poverty is not just accidental or circumstantial but intentional. It is this if-I-get-to-be-the-king-you-have-to-be-my-courtiers mentality that creates a system that maintains hegemony of the elite and restrains the rise of the labour class. It is done by coming into power by influence of money and exclusive connections; creation of policies that keep this discrimination constant; and ensuring that a lack of literacy and basic amenities creates enough ‘village idiots’ for them to have this coterie of unquestioning followers. The powerful create a kind of dependence of institutions and individuals on them to suppress and subjugate any voice of sanity. The hiring and firing on positions of power are auctioned to the one who bends to their whims and fancies. For decades this system has been entrenched to create a vicious cycle of the few becoming all-powerful. However, some rays of hope have created a bit of light in the darkness.

The courts prevailed over the courtiers. The Supreme Court’s remarks over corruption in the country while passing judgement over illegal appointments in the National Accountability Bureau throw light on why criminals go scot-free. When the very institution that is responsible for making others accountable is involved in serious violations of accountability, what may you ask of others? The Supreme Court of Pakistan observed that reins of accountability of institutions of the country have to be given to honest, competent and corruption-free officers who should be technically trained. “Otherwise, they [officers] would be held accountable in case of commission of negligence in their duties,” the top court ruled. This is encouraging as only when people in these institutions are held accountable for their own merit and performance will they serve the public rather than the position.

The battle against this mindset of obedience to the ‘king’ is tough. The other court passing a verdict on the illegal and harmful construction of Orange Train is also a positive chink in the wish-list of those obsessed with projects that need to be made even if they destroy history and heritage, even if they dislocate the poor, even if they destroy the livelihood of small sellers, even if they violate all environmental boundaries. That is why the Lahore High Court judgement is again a reminder that there does exist people with more grit to do the right thing. The Lahore high Court judgement said that the proposed Orange Line Metro Train line lies within the 200-feet protective zone, and had unfortunately been endorsed by the government of Punjab and the Directorate General of Archaeology. The reaction of the chief minister and government is that “the train will be built come what may,” and have decided to take legal action against this legal judgement.

Last year, the oldest hospital in Punjab serving poor women, Lady Wellington Hospital, was being bulldozed as the CM felt it was hindering the view of the Badshahi Mosque. It was activists who came on street, went to court and were, consequently, able to save the main hospital from being demolished. This is the Taj Mahal syndrome of the Mughal Empire where Shah Jahan cut the hands of the designers and builders of the Taj Mahal so that they could not make anything similar to it again. Meanwhile, the masses are enslaved to the elite by depriving them of education and health, and making them blind to their own rights and potential.

While 200 million people suffer due to the lowest spending on health and education in the region, lower than Bangladesh and Bhutan, the prime minister and his family, on public money, go for their health checkups in some of the most expensive health facilities in the world. Nothing could be more reflective of this attitude that when after two months the prime minister was to return to Pakistan from London, a PIA commercial flight with a capacity of 485 passengers was barred for ordinary people, redone with beds and comfort for the 27 members of the Sharif family to come safely and happily back to Pakistan. This ‘court’ of the rulers is also role modelled by the ‘courtiers’. When Ishaq Dar was asked in the assembly that the poor man’s staple food like pulses had become very expensive, he replied with great wisdom that they should eat chicken instead. Speechless. Period.

The writer is a columnist and analyst, and can be reached at andleeb.abbas1@gmail.com