July 27, 2012

The Common Man of Pakistan

In Pakistan the so-called ‘common man’ is a very uncommon entity. He has become virtually irrelevant in the elitist scheme of things. In a society dominated and governed by the elite, solely for the elite, he has continued to be constantly devalued, and has already reached a stage where he is nothing but a cipher, a sub-human species, a non-entity.

Yet, the ruling elite ostensibly for the benefit of the common man takes all major decisions. The callousness of the elite towards the lot of the common man is simply deplorable.

When the likely reaction of the common man to his taxation proposals was pointed out to him, a gruff military ruler of the country had retorted angrily: “I know my people, they are to be kept under the heel”. The common man has remained under the heel for so long that he has probably forgotten that he is even a human being.

Years back I saw a six-foot-plus, hefty Pathan being beaten up by a five-foot-nil Shurta (warden) at the Jedda airport soon after landing there with a work permit. For some reason beyond me, the Shurta was shouting in Arabic in his grating voice and hitting the poor Pathan with his baton. The Pathan astounded by this unpleasant welcome on the land of his dream and devotion was cowering under the baton blows thinking perhaps that his sins were thus being cleansed right from the start in the holy land.

Our man under the heel, deliberately kept illiterate, ignorant and superstitious, dare not likewise question the elitist Shurta about the treatment being meted out to him. He too accepts it as an atonement of his and his forefathers’ sins.

He does not even know that the poor and common people pay bulk of the taxes, the middle class pays some and the elites pay almost nothing. Only a negligible percentage of the people pay income tax. The common people, being the largest segment of consumers, carry the biggest burden of the indirect taxes. Their life is a constant struggle to keep body and soul together. Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, had remarked not long ago that unless Pakistan extended its tax net to cover the big fish too the country wouldn’t be able to cope with the disaster caused by the unprecedented floods in recent years.

Pakistan stands out as one the few countries with a very low ratio of tax to the GDP. Agriculture is still exempt from Income Tax.

The elites, meanwhile, continue with their game of musical chairs. The winner is some times the feudal lord who sports politics for power and pelf, at others it may be a nouveau riche businessman with an insatiable lust for wealth, or a General in uniform with similar motives but with altruistic pretensions.

The constant loser, in whose name power is often usurped, is the ‘common man’ who like Alexander Pope keeps muttering in despair: “How long, but how long, O’ Lord”.

He saw a beacon of hope and dignity in Z.A.Bhutto’s slogan “Common people constitute the fountainhead of all power” and that when elected to power he would ensure for them “bread, housing and clothing”. The common people overwhelmingly voted him to power. He could thus ease out a mighty military ruler and retain power for over six years.

History will credit him for giving his people the nuclear weapon, the Karakoram Highway and close relations with China with their attendant benefits. Yet, he could hardly deliver upon his commitment to the common man. So, when Gen. Zia hanged him in a debatable case, there was no countrywide uprising as he had expected.

As for our Pathan in Jedda mentioned above, it did not take him long to comprehend the behavior of the bully. Next time when another uniformed shorty with the baton started throwing his authoritative weight around, the Pathan picked him up and deposited him in the nearest trash bin fastening tightly the lid over it.

Pakistan’s ill-treated and trapped common people cannot follow the Pathan as the jackboots are ever ready to put them under the heels. Nor, can they like the Mexicans and other South Americans, migrate to hospitable neighboring countries. Many adventurous young men do, nevertheless, try to risk even their lives to reach Europe. Not a day passes without some being caught and even shot down while crossing the border of Turkey into Greece.

The children of the elite have the facility of attending expensive private schools, while allocations from tax payer’s money to public schools are misappropriated by the minions of the elite turning many such institutions into ghost schools. Children of the poor being thus deprived of modern, secular and affordable education go to the religious seminaries to emerge from them as religious bigots.

Leaders of all hues and shades have been telling the poor all the time that there is light at the end of the tunnel. If they haven’t seen a ray of it over the past several decades, it is their own fault. If it is not their fault, whose fault it is then?

Go and ask the feudal lord or the acquisitive businessmen. He will send you to the man in uniform quoting figures of expenditure in support of his accusing finger. The man in uniform will direct you to the bureaucrat or the greedy politician, and he will in turn point to …. Stop the game of going in circles. Only you will become dizzy.

You might even be packed off to a foreign center for asking too many questions. London appears to be the favorite of the dropouts these days. If you had the foresight, you could purchase a luxury apartment or even a palace utilizing the ill-gotten wealth accumulated in Swiss banks in fictitious accounts. Those in power at home will assist you in this for likely reciprocity in future.

A leader, who has been living for years in London and running his party through telephone, has some time back given a call for a revolution and wants the army to take the lead in destroying the feudal structure of the country. If he is beating the drum of revolution merely to expand the vote bank of his party, it makes some sense. But, if he really believes that the panacea lies in a French-type revolution, he would be well-advised to study some more the history of that revolution, how the idea germinated, who took the lead and the extent of the bloodshed. The army is built on the basic concept of defense, i.e. the defense of the status quo of which it is a major component. But, it has acquitted itself exemplarily during the floods and that may have etched a different picture of the man in uniform on the mind of the common man.

The feckless leaders at the helm of affairs now should favor the common man by putting a stop to the expressions of their insincere concern for his welfare. That merely adds insult to injury. The time does not seem right yet for the winds of change to start blowing. But, the time is inevitable; it may not be too far in the future.

arifhussaini@hotmail.com