Call it nostalgia or whatever, but to me it seems that in good old days people used to have limited needs and wants. In the pre-partition times, there was no media blitz and show-off was not the trait of masses. People used to live simple lives working hard to earn enough to meet their needs and to save some. Political leaders were more devoted, honest, and focused on their cause. Similarly, workers were selfless and devoted. After creation of Pakistan, things started to change rapidly. It seems that after achieving our main goal of getting a country of our own, we lost our way. As if we did not have a purpose anymore. Our politicians became power hungry, selfish, and vision less. Instead of working toward achieving a goal to make the country prosperous, they exploited public for self-serving purpose to satisfy their lust for power. Result was that we started to lag in economy, education, and health. Our rulers instead of correcting their course, took the easier way of borrowing to finance their self-gratifying, often useless, projects. Whichever political party came to power, blamed the poor health of economy of past rulers and borrowed more to keep doing what the predecessors did. Beside dictatorial rules, the two mainstream political parties, PPP and PMLN ruled the country for a long time but failed to carve out methods to keep balance between income and expenditure leading the country into a downward spiral of debt trap. The PTI came on promise of change but very quickly fell into the same trap. They lacked experience and did not do proper planning to deal with economic issues of the country. Resultantly they find themselves in a economic and political quagmire, which they find difficult to get out of. Our PM has said on several occasions that his government will learn from the Chinese model to revive economy. The Chinese president Xi recently said to government officials that the Chinese officials must not use the fight against corruption as an excuse to sit around doing nothing, idling away the day, “spending the whole day eating.” It is for the PM to interpret and understand the Chinese wisdom.
RAJA SHAFAATULLAH,
Islamabad.