Empty stomachs

Imposing a ban on recruitment is imposing starvation on the unemployed. Recruitment bans have been great accomplishments of our democratically-elected rulers. The masses elect the rulers. The rulers express their gratitude by starving their electors. The electors pay back the gratitude by re-electing those who starve them. If a democratically-elected government starves its electors, there is nothing criminal about it. A professional politician enjoys a special brand of impunity. This impunity empowers him to starve the masses. The inventors of the ban technology aver that the ban is necessary for the economy of a poor country. Since all the Pakistanis cannot be fed, some of them should enjoy their starvation for patriotic reasons. But those who are condemned to starve object: Why should not all starve? Why only we? The objectors should know that the politicians believe that starvation is an exclusive prerogative of the masses. The state has guaranteed exemption to the politicians. Every ban bites the unemployed Pakistani the hardest. The ban imposers enjoy watching the misery of the jobless Pakistani. Whenever the rulers want to economise, they economise by imposing ban on the recruitment of lower-grade functionaries. There has never been a ban on the recruitment of cabinet ministers. Our treasury loves to have mammoth-size cabinets. But when it comes to recruiting ordinary functionaries, the treasury cries: I am bankrupt. I am bankrupt. The treasury is a play-actor par excellence. A job means bread for the jobless. Barring ones way to a job is barring his way to bread. Barring ones way to bread is opening his way to hell. If you want to kill someone with absolute impunity, keep him jobless till his physiology collapses. Starving a citizen to death through prolonged joblessness is a technology, which is operational in most of the democracies of the world. Numerous jobless young men have solved their bread problem by self-killing. There is no refuge like the grave. Marx says: Man is born free. Only animals are born free because there are no politicians in the jungle. Man is in chains everywhere in a state because there are politicians everywhere in a state. Every man is born a prisoner of a state. And a prison may or may not feed its prisoners. For example, England guarantees bread to every citizen, whereas Pakistan believes that such a guarantee would spoil the common Pakistanis. A Pakistani must survive all on his own. If he cannot so survive, he is free to migrate to a jungle of his own liking. The rulers know that the country is over-brimming with unemployment. Over-brimming unemployment means over-brimming starvation. Presumably, the rulers have never personally experienced the volcanic rumblings of an empty stomach. Having a knowledge of other peoples starvation is one thing. But having a personal experience of starvation is quite another. Eternally over-crammed stomachs are congenitally incapable of having even the foggiest idea of the misery of an empty stomach. If the national problem of starvation is to be solved, then the rulers should be required to undergo starvation courses. A few foodless days would teach a ruler what even all the sages cant. Starvation courses should be made mandatory for all ranks of rulers. He who has said that nature hates vacuum must be the citizen of a welfare state. Since a welfare state feeds every citizen, an empty stomach is nonexistent there. No empty stomach, no vacuum. Unfortunately, most of the world states are illfare states. They do not guarantee food to every citizen. Consequently, most of the stomachs in these states are empty stomachs. In these states, nature loves vacuum. For example, England is a welfare state. In England, every stomach is a full stomach. Thus, in England nature hates vacuum. Pakistan is not a welfare state. In Pakistan, very many stomachs are empty stomachs. Thus, in Pakistan nature loves vacuum. Over the years, our grave economic disparities have mercilessly dispatched numerous poor Pakistanis to early graves. A country which does not feed its starving citizens has no moral right to exist. In order to die of starvation, one need not have a motherland. One can die of starvation anywhere under the sun. We have a written constitution. We also have an unwritten constitution, which is a national secret. The unwritten constitution consists of only one clause. The clause proclaims that the rulers shall have whatever they desire to have. But the masses shall only have lots and lots of starvation. The unwritten constitution has been fully implemented in letter and in spirit. The writer retired as professor of the Department of English, Government College University, Lahore.