Unfortunately Fortunate!

  By Arfa Zaheer Azmat

As ironic as it may seem, it’s a fact that in spite of the wealth and resources this fortunate piece of land has been blessed with, Pakistan lags behind in the race of development.

Pakistan is a vibrant country with a population of over 22 million, a lot of potential and sufficient resources but still its economic growth is in budding stages even after a period of 73 years. Pakistan has been ranked at 152nd position among 189 countries in the Human Development Index (HDI) 2019, dropping it to the lowest amongst the South Asian countries.

Despite largely being an agricultural country, today Pakistan is not even self-sufficient in producing its basic staple crop, wheat. With the most fertile lands and the largest irrigation system in the world; today, Pakistan is not even able to provide food for its own people. Not long ago, Pakistan’s textiles had one of the highest standing in the world but unfortunately, we have lost that place to smaller countries like Bangladesh and Thailand. Although we still are the 5^th largest cotton producer in the world.

Every year Pakistan receives heavy rains in the monsoon season, these rains provide an ample opportunity for the country to benefit by developing more reservoirs in the form of dams or catchment areas but instead this opportunity is wasted in the form of flash floods and loss of life and infrastructure.

These are just a few issues, but they pose an important question as to why every prospective opportunity turns into a misfortune for Pakistan??? We can go on with the list of the international, geo strategic and economic problems the country faces, but that would be too clichéd. 

Pakistani’s are probably the most patriotic nation in the world but when it comes actual numbers Pakistan ranks high among the corrupt nations of the world 120/180  as per Transparency International (TI).

Since its establishment in 1947 Pakistan has been struggling for political stability. Yo-yoing between military and civil rule, Pakistan has unfortunately not been able to exploit its true potential. Many factors have contributed to this state of affairs, external as well as internal.

The Indo-Pak situation, the Afghan refugee crisis and the war on terrorism have had heavy impositions on Pakistan’s socio-economic development. But what has really hampered the growth and development of this country is the internal politics. Pakistan has been a victim of political and religious extremism.

People of Pakistan have been fooled in the name of religious and political biases for too long and this has hindered the development of big ventures like building dams or setting up thermal power plants.

Many other initiatives which purpose to benefit the common man like providing relief to poor farmers or subsidies on utility products have been sabotaged by strong mafias within the country. The inflation and spike hike in the country has also been used a tactic to keep the common man trapped in the vicious cycle of survival and so he remains oblivious of the real problems.

Consequently, over the years the people of Pakistan have become apathetic towards the real issues in the country. Our institutions are weak, there is a lack of trust among the people, law enforcing agencies have not been able to earn the confidence of the people, our bureaucracy lacks credibility, our policy making and implementation has no reliability – but we cannot hold just one government or party responsible for this anarchism. It has been a slow process fuelled by dishonesty, corruption, nepotism, manipulation, mistrust, exploitation, lack of integrity and serving the vested interests of powerful.

In March 2019, the World Bank published its 'Pakistan @100- Sharing the Future 2047' report which points out that it is basically the 22 elitist families who are controlling the 66 % of the country’s industrial wealth and 87 % of the banking sector and continue to constrain economic policymaking.

The report also highlights that Pakistan has the potential of becoming a $2 trillion economy in the next 28 years if it remains steadfast in its reforms and manages to reduce its population growth rate to 1.2%.

In spite of all said above, all we need is a little honesty, trustworthiness and a sense of responsibility to make this fortunately blessed land – really fortunate!

 https://tribune.com.pk/story/2273921/unfortunately-fortunate