Space of decent living is perpetually shrinking for the poor in the Quaid’s Pakistan that was carved out for social equality, identical educational opportunity and similar economic prospects.
Colossal impoverishment due to social, political and economic disparity is still prevalent in Pakistan. Despite official claims of poverty reduction up to 23.9 percent there are massive pockets of poverty dispersed all over the country. The teeming millions possessing bare resources are living at subsistence level while the wealthy are enjoying all luxuries of life. Thus poverty due to disproportional distribution of resources has become chronic and a throbbing canker in the country's body politic.
Space of decent living is perpetually shrinking for the poor in the Quaid's Pakistan that was carved out for social equality, identical educational opportunity and similar economic prospects. The country's institutions are crumbling due to unbridled favoritism, nepotism, red tape and palm greasing. These malpractices have socially marginalized, politically subjugated and economically exploited the inopportune that are already on the bread line.
Plato said, “Within every city there are two cities: the city of the rich and the city of the poor”. There is marked difference between facilities available, opportunities enjoyable and services approachable to the inhabitants of both these cities. The populace of the one locale suffers due to lack of basic amenities of life while those of the other enjoy all comforts of life. Torments of death's shadow haunt the people of one place while glad tidings of opportunities smile on the others. The cities of the poor lack basic infrastructure and harbor-disadvantaged population while the cities of the rich have well-developed infrastructure and their privileged residents always have an edge over the deprived ones in all walks of life. The destitute cannot afford morality while the affluent do not need it.
The suburbs, the shantytowns and the countryside are the hunger domains of those born with a wooden ladle in their mouth. These dilapidated cities where the downtrodden breath have “Ghost Schools” for education of the children, few morsels of unhygienic food for eating, stinking polluted air emanated by the industries of the loaded tycoons for breathing, germ-infested water for drinking, putrid ponds and gushing streams for dipping, hand pumps for taking a bath, charlatans to prescribe expired and wrong medicines for deadly diseases, horses and donkeys dragging carts and ching chi rickshaws stirring on bumpy and broken roads for transportation, collapsing cottages for residing, and hard beds and conked out cots for resting.
The cities of the cash cows are the “Posh Areas” of the country that harbor “chosen people” born with a silver spoon in their mouth. The inhabitants have easy approach to spectacular English medium institutions exclusively established for them for education, ample hygienic foodstuff for glutting their tummies, crystal clear mineral water for consumption, chlorinated pools for swimming, hot and cold showers for comfortable bath under their gentle spray, specialist doctors for minor ailments, comfortable foams and water beds for relaxing, luxurious automobiles for traveling on smooth macadamized roads and magnificent bungalows for dwelling.
Another category sandwiched between the prosperous and the poverty-stricken is the middle class. This class forms the backbone of the country. Social values and moral principles are dominant in this rank. The individuals in this category include those who want to conceal their family background to include themselves in the higher social cadres. They slide out of the cocoon of their materialistic desires and unrelenting illusory dreams once in a blue moon. They want to cast aside their conservative past in order to join the deceiving glittering modern privileged class.
An unfortunate child born in a deprived family remains in his insolvent state throughout his life. If an intelligent poor gets education with a hope of bright future there is a fat chance for him to get a decent job due to widespread occurrence of below the bench means in almost all institutions of the state. Therefore, in majority of the cases poverty and inequality are generated by circumstances instead of ills inside the individual. This social curse of unjust comparative advantage aggravates their condition and plunge them further into the suffocating dungeon of poverty. Thus social, economic and political deprivations tend to further upset the applecart by interacting with and reinforcing each other.
The core of the state's policy is to drastically tax the poor and to lavishly spend on the rich. Almost 80 percent of the state's revenue comes from the poor. The officials siphon off and squander the state's revenue generated in polishing the already developed areas where they and their elite community dwell. They are indifferent and callous towards the development of the areas where the off-scorings of humanity eke out their existence, hoping against hope for a final reprieve. The terrible plight of world's urban poor is not very different from that of the rural poor.
Elections provide a ray of hope to the disappointed poor for a change. But the so-called politicians start feathering their own nests after winning the polls. They visit their constituency on the odd occasions. Therefore, their empty promises projected and hollow slogans propagated during the campaigns cut no ice and the public development remains in the balance. They become white elephants on the already deficit budget. The actual resources spent on the public welfare are just the tip of the iceberg. Inept politicians deem it their right to embezzle plentiful public funds to flood their coffers. Thus elections widened the socio-economic gap by enriching the people already wallowing in pelf and plenty, and further impoverishing the already poor not having a vessel to drink.
