Let’s not go too far back and start blaming the establishment or throwing dirt on the army just because one single dictator ruled the country for 9 years in the name of bringing stability to the country. But instead try to figure out why and how the dollar jumped to 250 pkr in a period of less than 5 years. That is more than a hundred percent decrease in the value of our beloved Pakistani currency against the dollar.
Let’s keep the adverse effects of this on the economy and the decresed purchasing power of the public of this country on a side and first try to figure out who actually caused this mess. Was this just because one single political party? Or were all the political parties playing power games? Did one or more parties try to hide their corruption as they all say about each other?
In the past 5 years we have seen that every single ruling governement that has gained power has not been able to do any good for the drowning economy of Pakistan instead the pakistani currency along with it’s economy has gone down the ditch to a point it has never been in the past. The reason why we are ready to forget the past and just focus on these last 5 years is because this is the time period that Pakistan has seen the steepest drop to the ditch of poverty, chaos and instability in the country. Take any sector for example, public or private, all have faced massive losses, losses in terms of jobs, money, value, everything. Giving subsidy or tax cuts and amnesty schemes to a few industries like agriculture and real estate just to boost the flow of black money in the market to sustain or cover the adverse effects of a failing economy do not actually count because all these measures have done is filled the pockets of the ultra rich and not a single penny of prosperity was brought to the general public which comprises of 90% of the population.
Now we need to ask ourselves and the people making the decisions whether they are from a political party, public office, private investors of the political parties, establishment, judges or whosoever, are they being directly affected by the continous rise in petrol prices? Are they being affected by the decreasing purchasing power day by day? I don’t think so. Most of these personalities are being provided free petrol from our pockets, pockets of the general public who are paying indirect as well as direct taxes only so that these high profile personalities can travel in air conditioned cars and sit in air conditioned offices making important decisions regarding power play about who is going to rule which province and finding ways of narrating that the destruction of our economy is the fault of the previous public office holders, who are surprisingly the same people moving through different parties depending on the political position of a given party.
It is about time that we move ahead of the political polarization caused by media campaigns of these political parties to sell their narrative that everything wrong that has happened with this country is the fault of previous governements and a chance should be given to them to “fix everything” or bring down cost of living. It’s about time we move ahead and bring all the stake holders in the same net of accountability, whether they are against each other or they are in favour of one another. We should bring into accountability the organizations that were made for this purpose of accountability and ask them why they have failed to do their job because if they had done their job properly than this day wouldn’t have come. We should hold accountable not one or two but all the political parties and treat them as different branches of the same tree. We should ask them that was the economy and sustainability of this country more important for them or being in and holding power more important? We should get detailed description from every party of how the previous governement as they allege destroyed our economy to this level and what they did to reverse that? How much reversal was brought to the destruction? Or was the economy and country further pushed into more debts and destruction and why? If this was too because of bad decisions of the previous rulers then why did they claim to “fix everything” once in power? Why were the alleged mischief makers not punished or was this all just a false narrative?
In order to reach a conclusion and move ahead to figure out what truly went wrong we need to stop accepting this useless reason that the previous governments weren’t good enough, because if they weren’t good enough then what good are the current ones if they are making the conditions even harsher than the previous ones? Secondly if there was so much miss handling and corruption then what is the reason behind the failure of sitting governments to bring to accountability the people who caused such a downfall never seen in the history of the country? Is it because the organizations made to do accountability have failed? This is a very important issue that the public needs to be enlightened about instead of hearing and believeing numbers from political leaders about their competitors’ corruption and blindly believing them and voting for those particular leaders in hopes for a better tomorrow. That better tomorrow hasn’t come in a long time and if we keep behaving like a herd of sheeps that tomorrow isn’t coming any time soon.
All the talk that we hear from these politicians on television programmes consists of how establishment and judiciary interfere in the parliamentary affairs of state and cause hindrance in the prosperity of our country. We should as responsible citizens and effectees of any good or bad governance make sure that if it is the root cause of the problem then we should find ways to fix those.
In my personal opinion it is about time that now we choose sides. Not the sides of politcal parties but bring into the blame game another party, the largest party, the general public of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Where the general public blames the entire system of this mess that is increasing day by day and all they care about is being in power and degrading immoraly their competitors. It’s now time to make the Public stand against all the political parties that ever ruled this country, the establishment, bureaucracy, judiciary, public office holders, private stakeholders and anyone who has ever been involved directly or indirectly in the decision making of policy, implementation, planning and execution of any and every kind of agenda or task. We should weigh the results and hold accountable even the slighest of mistakes and give praise to those who deserve it. Afterall we have the right to hold accountable our rulers as stated in Islamic Principles and this being the beauty of democracy. My question is, being the general public of this country is it time yet to see the bigger picture and take any action we can or we should stay still and wait for the next political party to come rule us, telling us that the previous governement wasn’t good enough and then leaving us in an even worse state.
Democracy is the way forward in all the developing countries of the world and it is what has brought prosperity to nations that now literally rule the world. However, in a case like ours has democracy failed? Or is there a difference between the democracies of the western world countries and ours? Or let’s not go too far and compare our democracy with that of our neighbours like India or Bangladesh? What’s the major difference and why have they been able to successfully execute this process of democracy and we have failed? Do we need another dictator to bring the country back on its tracks? If not, then what changes do we need to make in order for us and our future generations to be able to have a standing in the world where all democracies are prospering despite being affected by viruses like Corona or natural disasters like Tsunamis and Earth Quakes and what not.
Blame Game
Fahad Malik
