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The
Human Development Report of UNDP, 2003, ranks Pakistan 143 out of
175 in Human Development Index, based on basic criteria like life
expectancy, literacy rate, education index and per capita incomes.
Countries below Pakistan are mostly highly destitute African countries.
In another survey on 'quality of life index' Pakistan rates even lower
in global ranking. While such statistical evaluations based on cold
numbers, provide useful benchmarks for development planners, fundamental
social vectors that determine rankings do not emerge.
Aristotle declared, "It is in justice that the ordering of society
is centered." History of civilizations and political development
of cultures has been anchored to the search for an order that ensures
justice to masses, or at least creates a goodwill based on an illusion
of fair play for the majority. In his treatise on social philosophy,
'the Aristos', John Fowles observes, "Social stagnation is most
likely to occur in extreme societies - extremely just or extremely
unjust - and must lead to one of three things: war, decay or revolution."
It is hard to equate justice in a society with prosperity empirically,
never the less; there is a strong co-relation in the end. Unjust societies
may expand and prosper for a while but eventually crumble as human
dissatisfactions erode its foundations. On the other hand, just societies
need not become super powers but they do enjoy stability and longevity
to earn the loyalty and respect of their populace - Switzerland for
example.
Since Pakistan has seemingly averted the looming disaster of implosion
under external pressures although fissures are ominously increasing,
it would be opportune to take stock of this aspect of communal harmony.
Does Pakistan qualify as a just society by and large? There are no
absolutes in this regard, obviously, but we can address this issue
in relative terms. A simple indicator would be the general 'resentment'
levels in various sectors of the society. Let us not mistake resentment
for a healthy need of economic re-adjustments that people in most
developed democracies constantly clamour for. Resentments are strong
feelings against a system which is perceived to have loaded the dice
in favour of one segment of society or the other on a permanent basis.
On that count, society in Pakistan harbours dangerously high levels
of resentment. Beginning with distribution of wealth, the disparities
are stark and wide. One doesn't need to delve into Gini coefficients
to see that economic disparity, large to begin with, is on the rise
in Pakistan especially in the rural areas. The overwhelming majority
of people in Pakistan attribute the widening gulf to unfair means
and advantages. Political patronage and corruption are two areas where
social murkiness cannot be concealed by any means which provides sustenance
to criminal activities and extremist militancy. History teaches that
economic inequities are fertile grounds for revolutions or anarchy.
Next, there is a rural-urban divide that polarises society like chalk
and cheese. The visual manifestation is dramatic. Driving a few kilometres
out of the municipal limits of any city transports you into a different
world. The dearth of infrastructure, utilities and commercial facilities
in rural areas lag behind urban areas by at least half a century;
the mindset by at least a whole century. Two of the worst aspects
of urbanisation have seeped into the rural areas with opening of roads
- social alienation and naked materialism of consumerism - but none
of the benefits have spread out. It was always true that Pakistan
hides its real poverty in the rural areas but there used to be an
innocent serenity to villages that proximity to nature brings - the
simple, wholesome life. Now, the villages are turning into large ghettos
of filth, squalor, ignorance and pollution of horrendous scale. Agricultural
economy was held hostage to 'industry-friendly' macro policies for
a long time; now the tyranny of 'free market economy' is bleeding
the farmers in the absence of equitable market mechanisms like forward
trading and commodity warehouses. Impoverished agriculture sector
is becoming increasingly uncompetitive as trade borders open up. Land
fragmentation, a product of Muslim Laws of inheritance and politically
motivated, draconian land reforms, pre-empts economies of scale in
agricultural production. Hence capital flows from rural to urban areas
and never returns back. Rural society has been reduced to captive
producers and captive consumers. Show me a satisfied farmer (barring
those whose elders left them miles of orchards) and I will show you
a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow.
The civil-military divide has its own stark realities. The military,
by the dint of its long tradition of being in power and insularity
from civil scrutiny even in times of civilian rules, has assumed the
stature of a social class in itself. Military service bestows certain
privileges that greatly enhance access to resources (land and services).
The military as an establishment competes with civilian society in
every area with clear institutional advantages. So great is the divide
that mutual distrust and suspicions have hardened between the civilian
and the military mindsets. Both perceive one another as naïve
in matters of the very approach to life.
Bureaucracy, for its own genesis, has created an elitist class of
services that has a distinctive character and mindset. Private sector,
especially the business community over whose life-lines bureaucracies
rule, cannot relate to the ways of the officialdom and consequently
either find loopholes in laws or purchase discretionary powers to
proliferate corruption and subvert fair play.
The political arena is divided by all the schisms described above
and provincial disharmonies to add. The three smaller provinces are
always at logger heads with the federation which is dominated by the
one larger province. Sense of inequity runs high on provincial issues
for the past fifty years. Cultural fabric is split between 'anglophiles'
who enjoy an English based world view and the 'vernaculars' to whom
it is denied through educational handicaps. The vernaculars have a
strong sense of disadvantage against anglophiles in most walks of
life.
Justice is not the exclusive domain of judicial system. That is only
an arbitrator of conflicting interests in a society, and itself subject
to a dictates of country's governance sense. Justice is an ethos of
governance and reflects in every aspect of a community's life. It
begins at the top where leaders embrace a sense of equity and fair
play with an enlightened self-interest and far-sightedness. The order
of governance justice trickles down the power hierarchies to the individual
levels. Fragmentation of society into several groups based on power
advantage erodes the morality of justice in individuals. This way
it becomes a spiral where individual impulses create governance inequities
that further re-enforce the temptations to subvert justice in the
name of survival.
Majority of people in Pakistan have lost faith in a prosperous future,
a fact corroborated by exponential increase in visa and migration
applications with foreign embassies. It is not merely the economic
deprivations or the lure of affluence in the West that has dismayed
people. There is a pervading sense of injustice in society that is
eroding the faith of people. Ideological red-herrings drawn in the
name of nationalism are beginning to sound hollow.
General Musharraf and his capable team of managers are doing a commendable
job of reviving economic indicators but they must not lose sight of
the fundamental need for justice in a society. While fire-fighting
on many immediate ends, they cannot afford to ignore that the termite
of injustice, born out of the myopia I spoke about last week, is eating
away the roots of our society. It would take generations to produce
a society of individuals with internal sense of justice. The incumbents
will have to take some tough measures to stall the rot setting in
from the foundations if their efforts today are to bear fruits tomorrow.
Iqbal Mustafa
24 January 2004
1280 words
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