We, ‘those’ people

Now I’m told that this ugly executive-judiciary fight threatens to unravel the sacrosanct “balance between institutions” and even violate my rights. I’m counting myself as a typical mind-your-own-business Pakistani, of course, one who goes to work and pays his bills.

So I wonder how something between a government that subjects me to one of the cruelest social/political contracts in the world and a judiciary where my cases disappear into a black hole could affect me at all.

This government is not only arguably illegitimate but also deeply despised by the people. Everybody knows about their corruption – I can tell you that typical, average Pakistanis definitely do – how they ate off the fat of the land and left us to pay for all the debt in the form of taxes that are breaking millions of households across the country.

Its refusal to implement the reserved seats decision and lame attempt to force the so-called constitutional package through parliament has created a standoff with the judiciary, which the press has suddenly adorned with the last-institution-standing title, the only thing preventing the end of the state itself as envisioned in the constitution, as implied in the lead editorial of a respected local daily just the other day.

But everybody also knows – again, I can vouch that most “ordinary people” do – that their lordships preside over one of the most corrupt institutions in the land; one that stands out for not providing justice to the common man. They legitimise abrogation of the constitution and reinterpret it when they choose to; which does not mean that they never protect it, just that they merrily carry on with different outlooks that are, by definition, mutually exclusive. It’s just like donning a different robe for a different day.

The media frenzy completely blacks out the fact that the people, who have long lost all hope in almost all political parties, have also stopped caring about the judiciary since the lawyer rebellion of the Iftikhar Chaudhary court only further politicised and militarised the legal community and did nothing for the giant backlog of cases that ensures that justice to ordinary people is always delayed; further proof that it was never an overriding concern for the last standing institution.

Not to forget, of course, that all this is because the “most popular political party in the country” was unfairly, and quite illegally, squeezed out of parliament. Yet while there’s no denying its following, there’s also disappointment. People see the same old faces in its ranks; those who “looted and plundered” for ages with other parties and now “fight for real freedom” with this one. That explains why nothing changed, especially when it came to bills and fees, when it was in power.

When I look out the window, I see the same old political elite in the same old fight for power, only this time in a different setting. This is usually the time for wheeling and dealing, some cajoling fierce critics from just last week, others openly bickering. And I don’t see how any possible outcome makes any difference to me at all; except ensure a continued decline in my standard of living.

Far away from this slugfest, I’m also told that I should be happy that improving macroeconomic indicators imply the economy has been “nursed to some semblance of health”. But these experts forget that a quantitative improvement in trends – like prices and interest rates – does not account for the qualitative destruction of living standards, especially after years of record inflation and unemployment. And what might sound good in the nine-o-clock news does not imply a turnaround for ordinary people unless the improvements last long enough to make up for the losses and more.

Governments as well as academics will always celebrate good numbers, granted, but they should also talk a little about what is going to happen to prices and interest rates once the cost push inflation of the IMF program starts to filter through the economy. That, along with FBR’s chronic revenue shortfalls, means more taxes for the few honest people that do pay them, and this too is only a problem because the powerful, politically connected elite does not pay its fair share.

It is this elite that is keeping itself protected from the financial collapse and still fighting for the spoils. All sorts of legislation, which the constitution says should be in the interest of the people, caters to theirs instead. And it’s their cases that take precedence at the courts too – which the constitution says exist to provide justice to the common man – making cunning lawyers and corrupt judges rich and doing nothing for Joe Public.

Ordinary people waste their time by indulging in headlines about parliamentary intrigues and bar-bench divisions. They should, instead, worry about a systemic implosion of the state structure – government, opposition, all major institutions – as they raise their children in this Islamic Republic. For, whoever wins this latest fight between the elite, they will still have to brace for the fierce austerity, more inflation, and more unemployment of the IMF program; without which there will be sovereign default and even more painful inflation and unemployment.

Let’s not forget that ordinary people make up the vast majority of this country — the fifth-most populated and among the poorest in the world. And these people have never had much to thank parliament or courts for, where yet another power play is rolling out.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024