Spiraling inflation

Finance Minister, Shaukat Tarin’s assertion that the unprecedented recent increase in the petroleum products by the (PTI) government has no linkage with the IMF conditionalities, or with the underway negotiations with the IMF in Washington, sounds tainted oversimplification.

He clearly hinted towards such increases in his budget speech of the current financial year in the context of “financial policy adjustments” with the IMF. The announcement of unprecedented price hike of more than ten rupees of petrol and diesel was shocking for the people equating with lightning strike on all and sundry who were already suffering from the conflagration of inflation, because the government seemed to have thrown up its arms before the spiraling inflation.

All the opposition parties have taken the government to task demanding the withdrawal of the skyrocketing prices of the petroleum products to ward off the ‘tsunami’ of inflation that had the potential of inundating the middle and lower middle class who were already living on the edge of subsistence level.

PPP Senator Saleem Mandviwala in his press conference last Saturday had disclosed that the other opposition leaders had contacted to launch a combined street protest against the inhuman and erratic surge in the prices of petroleum products, adding the people must not be left ‘at the mercy of the anti-people policies of the incumbent incompetent government’.

PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto, while rejecting the rise in the prices of petrol and diesel including electricity, stated that only the truly representative government could provide relief to the people.

The (PTI) leadership is sadly notorious for stirring up hornets net quite often as policy to keep the political opponent and others on the back-foot if they refuse to play ball. Its recent assault on the Election Commission and against its chairman, who stood their ground against the government ministers, was the case in point. Resultantly, the people of Pakistan were starved of good news and remained griped in a sense of loss and gloom during the three years of the (PTI) government, unfortunately.

The issue of appointment of DG (ISI) was yet another manifestation of the same mindset that had been dominating the space in multiple media during the last many days and refused to die down because the much talked about issuance of the notification to the effect was still awaited notwithstanding the government’s ministers’ repeated assertions that the same would be issued within next “two to three days”.

The two or three days had passed and the cliffhanger continued adding more confusion between the civil-military relationship to the collective chagrin of the nation that wanted amicable solution sooner than later in the face of challenges facing the country. Meanwhile, the news had come out that the prime minister would interview the three-star generals, the names of interviewees had already been reportedly sent to the prime minister. So, the stand-off seemed continuing fraught with dangers casting aspersions on the ability of civil and military leadership to resolve the critical issue at the earliest due to the compelling reasons.

Pakistan might not indeed afford such unfortunate and uncalled for cleavages between the two as the country had been bracing difficult regional situation emphasising the indispensability of them remaining on the ‘same page’ to bulwark the dangers to the security of the country. Therefore, the minds of civilian and military leadership should settle the issue sooner than later when the country’s security interests were significantly at stake. People might see the trickling down of good news before the expiry of the current week as predicted by the interior minister. If the issue continued to linger on afterwards, then the narrative of ‘same page’ might be in tatter in the real sense of the word. The prognosis of such unpleasant development might be sputtering. People hope and pray that all would be well at the end of the day because sanity and rationality should surely sway across in the final outcome.

This country’s leadership must be cognisant of Indian Home Minister Mr Shah’s latest naked threat of resorting to more surgical strikes in Pakistan in case of ‘transgression’. The threat might surely underline the necessity and urgency of Pakistani nation and its leadership to get together in the face of India’s explicit and persistent expansionist designs including reckless pursuit of establishing its hegemony in this part of the region. India’s leadership perceived Pakistan as the only formidable hurdle in the fruition of their dream coming true. The Modi’s government, in particular, had been sparing no efforts at the international level to embarrass or isolate Pakistan through its economic, political, commercial and diplomatic tentacles which might be hard for the countries of the world to resist when their national interests run in the same groove. Pakistan’s yearning to build broad-based relationship with US had hit snags when Wendy Sharman, US Secretary of State, during her recent visit to this region, categorically asserted that her country was not looking towards Pakistan for building up broad-based relationship with Pakistan adding that the US relations with Pakistan would be narrowed down to counter terrorism in Afghanistan, in the region and beyond.

India must have successfully played the card of US’s ‘China phobia’ urging the US to stay away from Pakistan as the country had exemplary strategic partnership with China that squarely ran counter to US’s strategy of ‘containment of China’. Indian role during the meetings of (FATF) vehemently opposing and lobbying against Pakistan to push it in the notorious black list, was no more a secret as Indian senior officials reportedly pointed out about the cynical campaign against Pakistan. Though the (FATF) had denied the functioning of the forum driven by the strategic or political overtones but Indian responsible official public assertion left nothing in doubt. India had also weaved a network of terrorism inside Afghanistan to perpetrate terrorism in Pakistan that became dysfunctional after the Taliban took over Afghanistan, according to Chairman Senate Committee on Defense, Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed who disclosed this while addressing a seminar in Islamabad in the recent past. He also underscored the importance of forging unity within the country to frustrate the inimical forces flexing their muscles to take the plunge as spoilers.

Enough was enough. The time for serious introspection had arrived as the country was on the brink of precipice-like situation warranting swift undergoing of the paradigm shift while politicking should be put aside in a den. The state institutions therefore should rein their appetite for the cut-throat competition and function within the ambit of the Constitution, because all other roads might be the shortest route to the unintended consequence. It may be recalled that Pakistan’s Constitution fairly and squarely provides operational freedom to each arm of the government as an integral part of the whole democratic dispensation. The hare-brained race of superiority for the wrong reasons among the state institutions should give way to follow the dictates of the primary law of land. Any deviation will surely rattle the foundations of the Constitutional system that has been keeping us all together.

Throwback to the history, the country had suffered irreparable losses in all forms and manifestations including the territorial losses when unaccountable and unauthorised forces took the reign of the country at gunpoint. The Supreme Court’s historic judgment, written by honourable Justice Baqir, in case of Khawaja brothers stated, ‘the country has come to this unfortunate pass because of the unconstitutional and repeated interventions by the undemocratic forces’. General Ayub Khan committed the first sin against the Constitutional rule, when he declared Martial law in 1958 by abrogating the Constitution of 1956 eroding the basis of national unity between East and West Pakistan culminating in the emergence of Bangladesh in 1971. General Zia-ul-Haq intervened in 1977 and dismissed the government of Shaheed Zufliqar Ali Bhutto and imposed Martial law promising to hold elections within 90 days but never held. He did hold sham referendum and continued his repressive rule for 11 years that ended when he was killed in an air crash. He brought in bigotry, lawlessness, militancy and religious extremism in the society encompassing regression, nepotism and hypocrisy. General Musharraf toppled Nawaz Sharif’s elected government and the country had to face about nine years of his dictatorial rule pushing the country backward as he brought the Afghan war into Pakistan when he succumbed to the one telephone call of junior official of the US State Department. He sent forces in the erstwhile FATA to defeat terrorists but the menace proliferated because Pakistan had aligned itself with US ‘war on terror’, the narrative that appealed to the people of the region. The country and the nation had been paying the heavy cost since then.

Muhammadshaheedi@yahoo.com