Consumers in most part of the world have considerable clout and the manufacturers and the governments alike hear their voice. Sadly Pakistan has yet to recognise the importance and power of the consumers.
It is sad reflection on our society that has ignorant consumers, who do not know and use their rightful power. There are manufacturers, who use this weakness to have monopoly in the consumer market.
The government is averse to the problem as it does not recognise or care least about it. The result is a state of lethargic and painful submission on the part of the consumers, who are not ready to fight for their rights and increased sense of arrogance and dictating attitude of the manufacturers.
Staple food such as rice, wheat, sugar, lentils and other food-related items are sold on the whim and avarice of the producers and the dealers. Prices for pharmaceuticals, electronic and electrical items, clothing, rental houses, the manufacturers unilaterally fix house purchase, etc.
There is no concept of taking the consumers in confidence and ask their opinion about the prices.
MEDICINE PRICES: For instance, medicine prices in Pakistan are many times higher than in India. Some are 100-200 percent higher and no eyebrows are raised. Automobiles are also cheaper in India than in Pakistan. Suzuki Maruti, Indian counterpart of Suzuki Mehran, is sold more than Rs 100,000 cheaper. Even the fast food chains like McDonald, KFC and Pizza Hut are relatively cheaper in India. Our neighbours have stringent checks on price control and consumer societies wield considerable power. India has eight consumer and co-operative societies that are very reactive and National co-operative Consumers Federation (NCCF) is very prominent.
In Pakistan consumer awareness is in its nascent sate and mainly ineffective in performing their role as the protectors of the consumer rights. Some NGOs have started consumer protection programmes. But their role is confined to some seminars, press releases to the print media and talks on the TV channels. But they are ineffective and sometimes their interest is confined to their self-projection and carving some place in the society. National co-operative Union of Pakistan (NCUP) does exist but it is mainly dormant.
Compared to Pakistan, Japan has 12 consumer societies and they fight for the consumer rights. Prices in Japan can not be increased arbitrarily. Iran has three consumer societies, South Korea has five, Malaysia three, Sri Lanka, a very small country, has four consumer societies. In the European countries, France has seven, Poland six, Spain six and UK has four consumer societies. They are all-powerful and work tirelessly to safeguard the interest of the consumers.
During the past decade, consumer culture has again become a dynamic area of sociological activity through postmodernism, the rise of marketing and enterprise culture in the 1980s, and newer fields such as the sociology of the body and emotions. Despite this current vogue, both consumer culture and the issues it raises have been bound up with the entire course of western modernity from the eighteenth century onwards.
Concepts of consumers and consumption have been part of modern thinking about such central issues as freedom, choice, and rights. They also encompass relation between public and private spheres, and the roles of gender, class and ethnicity within these spheres; about the nature of modern individuals and moral/cultural collectives. It is also about the relation between culture, economy and society.
For many (including many non-western people) consumer culture has come to represent liberal capitalism's promise of both individual freedom and prosperity. These promises have been most powerfully articulated within economic and political liberalism. Liberal thought links together notions such as individual freedom, rationality and progress and connects them to social institutions such as the market and electoral democracy.
These notions have also placed 'the consumer' at the centre of liberal images of the good society as an individual, who freely and autonomously chooses, pursues choices through rational means, and creates a dynamic society through its market-exercised power over economic institutions. It is through these connections that, for example, 'freedom of choice' and 'consumer sovereignty' have found their way onto the public stage.
Unfortunately, the lofty ideals and determination in vogue in Europe, North America, Japan and some other countries are non-existent in Pakistan. Probably absence of democratic set-up in the country for a long period has devoid its citizens of the sense of freedom and liberalism as evident from the dormant and resigned attitude of the people.
It is hoped that with some awareness and a little help from the government, the consumer rights could be evolved in the country.
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