Class Division: A Hindrance in the Development
Pakistan has the highest inflatioon rate in Asia at 39-40%, the rate of basic food items has gone up to 60%. In 2018, flour was 33 rupees per kg and today the same flour is 150 rupees. People who used to buy 3 kg of flour for 90 rupees today buy it for 500 rupees. Other things are different, medicines have become expensive by 300 to 400%, electricity has become expensive, the average age of the lower middle and middle class youth who are working in factories is 30 to 35 years. Educated middle class youth, they are not interested in tomorrow of Pakistan, that is why they are leaving Pakistan.
The question is, what should be done to deal with such situations, what should be done is very easy, but those who have to do all this will not do it. 60% of the population of Pakistan lives in villages. Do land reforms that are different from Pakistan. It has already happened in the whole region around us, if we fix our politics and foreign affairs, there will be no need for defense expenditure, fix relations with neighboring countries. There are many conflicts between India and China, but these differences although they trade with each other; the trade between the two is 137 billion annually. Business is also happening and they are talking about themselves, Pakistan can increase its trade, our one billion trade can go up to 38 billion. The problems can be controlled to a great extent, go for solar energy, once upon a time yellow cabs were given on easy installments, come up with a similar scheme for solar system, provide solar panels to every house on easy installments without interest. A lot of electricity is generated from petroleum, it is an alternative.
Every other person in Pakistan says be friends with India, land reforms should be done, defense expenditure should be reduced, but they don’t want to express it formally, I think it’s time we need to talk in a formal way then this society will move forward, otherwise we will not be able to get out of the trap we are stuck in. According to facts and figures, poverty in Pakistan has not decreased in any era, these figures are from the World Bank which adapts the figures as needed to defend its policy. Poverty is a social and political issue. Every year there is a budget. It is in which it is determined, how the resources of the nation will be distributed, how much money will be taken out of whose pocket and how much money will be put in whose pocket. He who has a heavy wallet takes less money out of his pocket and takes more money out of other people’s pockets and puts more in his own pocket. This is the same in every budget.
Our wheat goes to Afghanistan and Tashkent and we will not be able to stop it, then we will have to add Afghanistan and Tashkent to our requirement. If not, there will be shortage of wheat, 10 to 15 percent of the wheat that will be smuggled from here to Afghanistan and Tashkent will have to be imported from another place for 300 dollars. We have the land, so why not produce it yourself? Pulses can be produced 100%, we have a whole region, Jacobabad, Shahdad Kot, Dera Ghazi Khan’s area is very good for pulse cultivation. Sunflower doesn’t need very good land, we don’t need much water, and we have land. Yes, we can stop the import of palm oil by cultivating sunflower.
When we produce basic food items ourselves, they will not be expensive and poverty will be reduced. No one is ready to buy our PIA, steel mill and other industries, we go to the market again and again to sell them but there are no buyers, so now we are selling our agricultural land, which is even more dangerous. People don’t hate institutions or the country; people are suspicious because of class divisions. If the country is really in trouble, then these problems should be faced by all Pakistanis. But here, one section is not getting disperin and one section is getting treatment in Europe. One section is paying the electricity bill by selling their kidneys and another section is getting free electricity. One section does not even have a bicycle and another section is moving around in helicopters and cars worth billions of rupees.
One class is standing in flour lines; one class is having candlelight dinners. One class is living on the sidewalks; one class is buying islands in Europe. I am reading. One class stays in jail all their life for stealing a piece of bread, another class walks free even after stealing billions of rupees and killing. When there is such severe discrimination, the backward class will scream. Their screams are justified. You cannot call them traitors. This class does not hate the country or the institutions, but hates the luxury class. Until this discrimination ends, there will be instability. The only solution is that either both classes become poor or both become rich.