Inflation eroding social integrity
INFLATION has become a nightmare for millions of Pakistanis as they find themselves unable to decide whether to spend their depreciated money on quality food or treatment of diseases.
Let’s know and believe that inflation is not something that has descended from the heavens but all a man-made disaster brought by the lust of a handful people ruling the roosts.
It has been crafted, polished, exhibited and publicized to make people believe in its existence and, consequently, to endure it.
The government team denies the existence of that inflation.It’s happened for the first time that an incumbent government has refused to recognize its part in pushing food prices up though devaluing currency and levying taxes on imports, other than administrative failures, is the major factor behind skyrocketing prices of kitchen items.
But let’s keep aside this ‘denial’ campaign to counter the opponent’s foul cry and, rather, focus on a wider picture.
There is an urgent need to consciously acknowledge the inflation can be at most a temporary phenomenon; otherwise it is utter magic, deception and fraud.
For that we need to understand the structure and the processes that put the genie out of bottle and ravage the ‘Pure Land’ with impunity.
In a living and thriving society, inflation is unimaginable.But it is there just like democracy without local governments and a sense of accountability.
Actually, inflation is a tax that has been fraudulently imposed on people who not only can’t afford it but also need social safety net to get out of the mire of hunger and disease.
Peeling the skin of the downtrodden, to finance the privileges of the few, is definitely cruelty.
Inflation not only chips away economic sustainability but also hollows out the society.If not cured, a day comes when the whole structure falls down with a single gust of autumn wind.
Much can be said to fill the colours in the story of social decline, but the school of thought we belong to teaches us to stay away from entertaining aspects and to pay attention to the causes and factors that have made people’s life miserable.
We remember the good times when inflation and poverty were not even imaginable.
If food is cheap then who cares about the flow of dollars?We have talked a lot about this society, free of hunger and disease and also about the honourable people who kept the food problem away from the hassle of supply and demand.
It was a ‘zamindara system’ that grew up in the Indus Valley focused on food security.
This was until dams started casting their ill effects on river deltas, the rivers beds shrunk, and the villages electrified.
When the city and the village were integrated through roads, then currency became a need of countryside as well.
The focus shifted from food production to cash crops.In order to make our place in the foreign markets, the cash crops were produced more and more till we fell into the mire of supply and demand.
In the name of self-sufficiency of food, only wheat is being grown.
Millets, corn, pulses and cooking oil are imported on inflated rates; on the other hand, we have developed into an importing economy.
As kitchen-item demand is inelastic and growing in proportion to the population, governments have found a secure and reliable source of income.
The middlemen, brokers, traders and hoarders make food prices skyrocketing.
The feudal lot, propped up by the colonial masters, has got dams built to water occupy 60% of the fertile land it happens to own, grows cash crops, cotton and sugarcane, to support its luxurious lifestyle.
Also we import spare parts from Far East to assemble luxury vehicles for the sake of this small but privileged section of the society.
Resources falling in few hands and mechanism (local governments, to evenly distribute them blissfully ignored, even democracy can spur socio-economic growth.
We do not see any use of flood water obtained from monsoon rains or feel the need to slow down its pace through growing forests on river banks.
Flood water can be channelled into the deserts, absorbed in the sandy soil, and create and feed lakes all year round.
Pulses and mustard can be cultivated, livestock be given pastures, milk, yoghurt and butter be produced in abundance.Fresh fish can be made available in the cities from the rivers’ deltas.
When dams were built on the rivers, the flow of water decreased, canals were dug in its corridors and crops were cultivated.
Lands were allotted to absentee landlords brought from far to turn deserts into flowerbeds.
In Thal, where the Indus used to flow in a radius of forty kilometres in the form of channels, now its bed has shrunk to twelve kilometres.
Three rivers were sold in the bid for commercial farming.Dams were built with foreign loans and subsidies of billions are granted to landlords for the survival of the commercial agriculture.
We grow grains in plenty, but the reality is that most of the country’s population is starving.
If mothers are suffering from malnutrition, where will the children be born healthy?
If infants don’t get proper food, they don’t grow up fully play their due role as useful citizens.
Consequently, the reins of this country remain in the hands of those few rich people who are born with a golden spoon in their mouth, get training from foreign educational institutions and hold high positions in the government due to their political connections.
Democracy or dictatorship, their privileged position remains intact.What they have done with Pakistan, all is before us.They control the market, they control politics.Policies are made that benefit no more than a few hundred families.
In the deserts, far away from the rivers, their lands are irrigated by canals and the part of the population that has been inhabited by the river for centuries, is sunk in the darkness of hunger and disease.
Not only rivers are now filled with sand but also their banks too.Fish, pulses, livestock and forests, nothing left.Inflation only occurs when food items are subject to taxes.This is possible only through oppressive politics.
The characters of this politics are right before us pretending to the guardians of democracy or promising a sweeping change in peoples’ life.
—The writer is politico-strategic analyst based in Islamabad.
