The best weapon in Pakistani government’s repertoire to suppress public agitation is to engage the populace in the daily rigmarole of obtaining expensive food items, clothes, residence, children necessities and feeding the bellies of corrupt policemen. After tackling with all this gaping curses, one doesn’t left with any energy or will to look at what’s exactly happening with Nawaz Sharif or Cheif Justice or with the FATA people, or with the flood affected Balochis and Sindhis or with the media or with the economy.
Things were already obscenely expensive and as the Ramadan has approached, common man is at the verge of collapse because he cannot even buy a small pack of dates to open his fast. So the plan, this Ramadan, is to close and open the fast with water, air and tears. People across the country are really worried, and they don’t care about the index of the stock exchange, or the full treasury, or about the bulging foreign exchange reserves. They only see that they are unable to buy anything to eat, or wear or live.
People are dying due to the price hike, and government is just committees over committees to control the prices. In a TV interview, Sheikh Rashid of Rawalpindi, who is one of the leading lotas, said that people should also see that in India prices of the things are higher than Pakistan. Ok, if India is the role model for him, then he should also learn something about democracy from there.
There is no hope from the wholesalers and retailers. They have always exploited this holy month and they take Ramadan as the month of plunder and unfair profits. Price control Committees created by government have failed to implement anything even remotely resembling to price controlling mechanism. There is no check and balance whatsoever, and people have become very miserable and the anger is boiling.
Please, government, please, people are already fed up and at the verge fo despair from the hands of load-shedding, suicide attacks, bomb blasts, national situation, Benazir deal, and the plight of cricket team, don’t try to crack them altogether with the specter of expensiveness.
When a commoner is forced to pay 33 per cent more price for a bread (Nan or Pateeri roti) despite record yield of wheat crop in the country, government’s trumpeting price control through committees or otherwise such mere rhetoric would not fill his tummy.
Leave a Reply