He who has nothing to eat is eaten by starvation. A minister has revealed that as many as four Pakistanis daily commit suicide because of extreme poverty. Let's pray that the Pakistanis who leave their motherland by committing suicide find their new country of emigration better than their motherland. Unfortunately, the minister has not revealed how many poverty-stricken Pakistanis daily embrace stealing and robbery as their new professions. Almost under every government the masses have been miserable. But every government has defended itself by asserting that the misery under its rule was the result of what it had inherited from the previous governments. Thus no government can be held responsible for the misery of the masses under its rule. It means that all the presidents and prime ministers of all the previous governments should be put in the dock. The accusation should read like this: "Why did you bequeath poverty to the masses through the governments which succeeded you?" Currently, poverty is killing very many Pakistanis daily as brutally as ever in the past. The masses are crying miserably. The government has defended itself as every government did in the past. The masses have grown obdurate. They have been complaining non-stop for decades. Logically, by now they ought to have become inured to their misery. But no They have been as obdurate as the rulers have been insensitive. Once a European journalist visited Pakistan. For reporting purposes, he was a witness to various governmental meetings. He was surprised to see that the meeting table was invariably decorated with lots of flowers. He couldn't suppress his surprise. He asked a minister: "Why waste so much money on decorations when poverty is so rampant in the country?" The minister smiled and replied: "Your concern for the poor Pakistanis is touching. But your inference that we use flowers for decoration purposes is ridiculous. Flowers are our medical need." The journalist was shocked. He requested the minister to explain what he precisely meant. The minister elaborated: "The poor Pakistanis keep calling on us for help. Whenever a poverty-stricken citizen comes close to us he smells so nauseously that we feel like vomiting. He can't afford a piece of soap. We use flowers to suppress the smell. Flowers are obviously our medical need. Just forget about the bodily smell. The problems which the poor citizen bring are more nauseous than his bodily smell. Can we survive without flowers?" Numerous Pakistanis drink ditch-water. The ruling classes drink imported distilled water. Once a ditch-water drinker asked a minister: "Have we voted you to be a minister so that you could drink imported water? Why don't you drink what your electors drink?" The minister replied: "I pity your ignorance. You don't know that there is shortage of ditch-water in the country. If the ruling classes started drinking ditch-water, there would soon be a shortage of this water. And the shortage would hit the poor masses the hardest. Thus our drinking of the imported water is all for the welfare of the masses." During our entire history, elimination of poverty has been a top priority of every government. Governments have come and gone. But instead of being eliminated poverty has grown worse and worse. The poor man is utterly distraught. He is lamenting: "Why has every government made fun of me?" Unfortunately, the poor man does not know that making fun of the poor masses has been almost every government's political recreation. There are two brands of poverty" the poverty of the poor and the poverty of the rich. If rich man's wealth does not rapidly grow, he is more miserable than the poor man whose poverty keeps growing non-stop. No government has ever publicly proclaimed that making the rich richer was one of its top priorities. But secretly almost every government has done its best to make the rich richer. And with what a glorious success? On the contrary, every government has publicly proclaimed to eliminate poverty. But so far no government has been able to rid the masses of their misery. Ethics commands: "If you make a commitment you are ethically bound to fulfil it." We hate ethics. We love making commitments and breaking commitments. Every government made a commitment to eliminate poverty but no government fulfilled it. Every government enjoyed making fun of the poor masses. Starvation is stomach-breaking. It has been breaking stomachs of the poor masses up and down the country. Making a commitment to eliminate poverty but not fulfilling it is heart-breaking. If you want to know how many hearts of the masses various governments have so far broken ask the graveyards.