Talking of Revolutions: A New Trend in Pakistan Politics – 1
By Mohammad Ashraf Chaudhry
Pittsburg , CA
“Revolutions are not made: they come. A revolution is as natural a growth as an oak. It comes out of the past. Its foundations are laid far back.” - Wendell Phillips
There is a new trend in Pakistani politics, which is to talk about a revolution as if it were a spicy gossip. They talk of revolutions as if revolutions walk through the door peacefully with a greeting; or as if they are sugar-coated sweet pills, kneaded well with rosewater, and are cool and soothing in effect.
The fad has become manifestly discernible as the topic never stops emerging in the statements made by all the major politicians; be he a foreign-based Messiah like Altaf Hussain, or a ‘habitual-revolutionary’ like Imran Khan, or a conscious and “God-fearing” duo of Mian Brothers, to count only a few.
The interesting part is that they all are going over-time on the theme these days. They appear to be doing so, not to remind the people who are to be a cause of it that it is coming, but they are doing so just to scare their rivals of its dire consequences as if they would not be a part of it.
The wind blowing from across the Kyrgyzstan borders is further adding spice to the topic. So basically, Pakistan these days is caught up in the whirlwind of ‘Revolutionary Statements”. Revolutions do not come through empty statements. Our politicians, unfortunately, are men of compromises, and as was said wisely by Kemal Ataturk, “Those who are inclined to compromise can never make a revolution”. And they better not.
Old Major, an old pig, in George Orwell’s satirical novel, “The Animal Farm” passes a pungent comment which is indirectly aimed at the Russian Revolution of 1917, in which he says, “… animals in England are cruelly kept in slavery by man, who steals the animals’ labor and is, “the only creature that consumes without producing”. He describes his vision of an England in which animals are free and live in complete harmony and cooperation, free of the tyranny of man and his evil habits. Replace ‘the animals’ in the fiction with the common, poor people of Pakistan, and the parasitic, burdensome, ill-educated, morbid, overweight and incorrigibly corrupt rich with the “man”, and you will see the cause or causes that often trigger revolutions.
PREACHING AUSTERITY: PRACTISING AFFLUENCE: This is a new ploy employed by the insensitive rich; a new tool, though invented long ago but applied more ruthlessly in recent times, of how to bail out the rich at the expense of the poor. And the practice has become fairly universal. The ironic part is that the advanced and developed countries of Europe and even America, where people are supposedly more conscious of their rights and are better educated, even they are a tacit victim of this ploy. Garda Ghista, a research scholar and author of the Gujarat Genocide in her beautiful article, “Ruthless Economic Austerity Measures:” puts it very convincingly.
Some of the examples cited by her are as under:
The IMF leaders in mid-May, 2010 met with the European leaders and with the EU officials and agreed to a 750 billion rescue package for the Euro countries. This money was not to grow anew on the European trees through a special kind of fertilizer; it was to come from the “ruthlessly, mercilessly applied new austerity measures on the common people of Europe”. The same forma is being applied in Pakistan, and the recently announced budget of 2010-2011 bears testimony to it.
Instead of punishing the bankers and speculators at fault, they are being bailed out by the workers and non-workers alike. As says Garda Ghista, “It is the public who will be plundered of the 400 billion euros (the deficit)… The pensioners, the unemployed, the disabled and all those who are desperately dependent presently on social services provided by the government”, will be paying for it
Greece , the biggest culprit, has been told to cut its deficit by 30 billion euros over the next three years by slashing wages and pensions, by eliminating vital social programs, and by increasing outlandish sales taxes. The victims will be the poor, not the rich who know how to evade taxes.
Spain has been asked to do the same to overcome its 80 billion euro deficit by cutting the salaries of state employees, by freezing pensions. Every baby born in Spain used to get a 2,500 pound gift automatically. No more now.
Portugal will have to freeze all hiring and public salaries, and has been asked to increase sales taxes in order to meet the deficit of two billion pounds.
France will be required to reduce its budget deficit from eight percent to three percent of its GDP by the year 2013 by raising the retirement age, by cutting housing benefits and by slashing Museum funding. The common people will bear the burden.
Germany has also been asked to pledge to cut its social services and child welfare and disability benefits along with pensions to meet its challenge of the deficit. The common man eventually will be becoming more and more angry and intolerant.
England in the next four years will be required to cut a whopping 100 billion pounds by extracting this amount through slashing 300,000 public service jobs and by freezing public sector pay.
The United States of America is no exception. It is in everybody’s knowledge how the bankers and the insurance companies, like the Bank of America and AIG etc. have been bailed out, and how great an economic crunch has been felt by the common people whose homes are getting foreclosed by the same banks that have been bailed out with their money. Many useful social programs have been slashed in the education and health sector.
A similar formula for invigorating the ailing economy of the country has been suggested by the IMF pundits to the well-dressed, well-fed members of the current government in Pakistan. In the Education sector Pakistan is already at a ranking of 134/180, and yet a reduction of 7 billion rupees has been announced, while a substantial increase, 15%, has been announced in the PM and President House expenses.
On the average age index chart Pakistan is already doing very poorly and is at a position of 117/180, and yet a slashing of fund to the tune of 27 % has been made in the health sector.
Funds in the cultural activities have been reduced by 21%; in the Tourism department, where a mullah has been appointed as the in-charge minister as if to scare people, a further drastic reduction of 35% has been announced. In the per income index, Pakistan in the ranking of the world countries has been at 132/181. It is true salaries to the tune of 30-50% increase have been announced, which will benefit only 1.5 m people; 80% people will have to live on less than seven thousand rupees a month.
The VAT has been conveniently deferred till the first of October, 2010. Agriculture tax, long overdue on the feudal landlords, who are conveniently sitting in the Parliament, has not been touched even. The cabinet consisting of close to 200 members, even after the passing of the 18 th Amendment has not been curtailed. Some sources say that there is a daily expense of about 2.5 million rupees on the President Household alone. Corruption in the Steel Mills, in the Power sector; in the Railways department and PIA, and even in the Revenue collecting departments is rampant. All measures of austerity are directed towards the starving poor.
Against a total outlay of 3.259 Rupees, the revenue income which is just a forecast, is 2.574 Rupees. So there is a fiscal deficit of 685 billion Rupees, which is 4% of the total GDP. We are told that it will be met through a net external financing of 186 billion Rupees, and through a net non-bank borrowing of 332.6 billion Rupees and banking borrowing of 166.5 billion Rupees. No concrete steps have been suggested or initiated that may hint that the economy will grow, FDI (foreign direct investment) will line up; and financial indiscipline and irregularities, rampant in the country in all the major departments, will be brought under control through an iron fist. Everything suggests that the axe eventually will fall on the neck of the poor people.
The smart Finance Minister, Mr. Hafeez Shaikh, has conveniently referred to the global recession just to deflect attention. He has also mentioned the 10.5% unemployment rate in America; to how Greece has been bailed out by the IMF; to how the war on terror has been impacting our economy, but nowhere had he explained how the cut or lack of social and welfare services in Pakistan, already almost non-existent, would stop further affecting the poor living conditions of the suffering majority. Such vital issues as a bold effort to provide relief to them by lifting the “Burden on common man” is no where visible. Instead, the budget clearly reflects the lack of any program that may provide the “ relief to the people”. And there had been “no let up in perks of the privileged”. The deficit of 685 billion Rupees will be met through the broad-day plunder of the poor, suffering people.
There is no lack of money and resources in the country. In fact there are reams of money that are present there. What is happening is, as would say Garda Ghista, “A systematic redistribution of income and wealth from the bottom of society to the top, i.e. from the poor people to the obscenely wealthy elite,” is taking place. The ‘sweet, suffering souls”, the poor are getting fleeced while a deliberate increase in the perks and salaries of the CEO’s and of the rich has not been stalled. (To be continued)
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