Daily Times

Poverty is indeed the most serious challenge, as it is the basic reason for hunger, disease, extremism, crimes and other malaises in a society. A common method used to measure poverty was based on incomes or consumption levels whereby a person was considered poor if his level of consumption of calories fell below 2,300, or the income level fell below one dollar or 1.25 dollar per day. To confuse the issue, some economists relate it to deprivation of citizens who are denied political liberty and civil rights by authoritarian rulers. The World Bank, however, described poverty comprehensively in these words: “Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not having access to school and not knowing how to read. Poverty is not having a job, is fear for the future, living one day at a time.”

The Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) identifies deprivations across the same three dimensions as the Human Development Index, and shows the number of people who are multi-dimensionally poor. The MPI published for the first time in the 2010 Report of the World Bank complements monetary measures of poverty by considering overlapping deprivations suffered at the same time. It is claimed that the MPI can help the effective allocation of resources by making possible the targeting of those afflicted with absolute poverty. But poverty measurement is of no significance if serious efforts are not made to alleviate poverty. The problem, however, is that the policies framed by the ruling elite and economic managers are predicated on the assumption that if a lot of wealth is generated by people on the higher social pyramid, common people would automatically benefit from the trickle-down effect of economic growth.

But that never happens, and the result invariably is that the rich become richer and the poor poorer. In Pakistan, it is difficult to have reliable statistics, and even if available they fail to capture multi-dimensional perspectives of poverty. Various governments in Pakistan took steps for encouraging investment for revival of economy with a view to generating job opportunities to provide gainful employment to the unemployed, and also to generate revenue to be able to invest on human resource development. But that could not help alleviate poverty as the targeted revenues could not be generated due to corruption, tax evasion and plundering of national resources. There is a perception that informal economy is about 50 percent of the formal economy, hence loss of revenue to the extent of 50 percent of the revenue from the informal or unregistered economy.

The first ever-official report of the ministry of planning, development and reforms on multidimensional poverty launched last week revealed that four out of 10 Pakistanis live in multidimensional poverty. Independent analysts, however, reject these figures, and claim that situation is much worse. The report details Pakistan’s official MPI, which was earlier published in the Economic Survey of Pakistan 2015–2016. The report has been compiled with technical support from the UNDP Pakistan and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), University of Oxford. According to the report, “Deprivation in education contributes the largest share of 43 percent to MPI followed by living standards, which contributes nearly 32 percent and health contributing 26 percent.” The nexus between poverty and poor social indicators is clear, as lack of access to education, primary health care, population welfare, and basic infrastructure limits the potential for gainful employment.

In addition to lack of social justice, economic determinants vis-à-vis lack of infrastructure, inadequate savings and investment, burgeoning debt burden whereby a considerable part of the budget is allocated for debt-servicing and inflation are causes for abject poverty in the country. There is a misconception that an increase in the GDP, and consequently, increase in per capita income improves the lives of the people. Evidence suggests that the best of economic revival plans cannot succeed unless benefits of economic growth are fairly distributed among the factors of productions. In other words, only equitable economic growth can reduce the incidence of poverty. However, the challenge in Pakistan is enormous; therefore, conscientious efforts have to be made to alleviate poverty and ensure a decent life to the people. A major constraint in this regard is that distribution of economic and political power is not equal.

In countries where wealth is closely associated to land, as is the case in Pakistan, the majority of population is landless or has very small land-holdings. They lack access to other productive assets such as capital, technology and other related facilities. The developing countries can improve the lives of the impoverished people through land reforms. In Pakistan, the Pakistan People’s Party government had introduced land reforms in 1972, but theimplementation was not done in letter and spirit due to landlords’ influence in the government. Land reforms were challenged in the FSC, which had declared land reforms as legal, perhaps because the judge knew that there was no concept of absentee landlordism in Islam. Petitions were filed in the Shariat Appellate Bench against the judgment of the Shariat Court, which comprised Mufti Taqi Usmani, Mufti Pir Karam Shah, Justice Afzal Zullah, Justice Nasim Hassan Shah and Justice Shafi-ur-Rehman.

Mufti Usmani had written the lead judgment declaring that land reform legislations were repugnant to Islam. However, Justice Nasim Hassan Shah and Shafi-ur-Rehman put up a dissenting note stating that limit on land holdings was necessary to reform society and alleviate poverty. But the verdict sealed the fate of land reforms, as the majority of lawmakers had a vested interest. There is only one way to deprive landlords of their power bases, and that is massive land reforms, which could unleash productive and creative forces that would work for progress, prosperity and solidarity of the country. Perhaps the full bench of the Supreme Court could undo the verdict of the appellate Sharia Court by suo motu, or if petitions are filed against the above verdict. Having said that, unless the feudal system and the feudal mindset are done away with, all cosmetic measures would not help alleviate poverty.

The writer is a freelance columnist. He can be reached at mjamil1938@hotmail.com