For the last two years, Pakistan has been experiencing a severe economic crisis. Oil prices have sky-rocketed due to the conflict in Russia and Ukraine. Since Imran Khan was shot, there have been several protests throughout Pakistan, where food inflation has already surpassed 15%. Pakistan has been struggling with the same economic, political, and terrorism-based problems for the past 75 years.
What about Pakistan's political system is so fundamentally flawed, that it has caused so much unrest over the last 75 years? Perhaps, the most pressing issues in Pakistan impeding the country's economic growth were ensnared by the Chinese debt.
Both India and Pakistan gained their independence in the same year, yet, India celebrates 75 years of democracy, with just one emergency within that period, compared to Pakistan's 23 emergencies since 1947, none of which have lasted an entire term. There are several causes for this.
Firstly, time and again, the military has overthrown the Prime Minister and assumed control of the country. More than a third of Pakistan's years of independence have been governed by the military rather than the government. And this is because of something called the doctrine of necessity.
It's the basis upon which people attain extra constitutional powers to do illegal things in a legal way. This came because in 1954, Mohammed Munir, who was the chief justice of the Pakistan Supreme Court, overturned the decision of the Sindh High Court. He did this to give power to the Governor General of Pakistan, which led to the dissolution of the first constituent assembly of Pakistan after its independence.
After that, the Pakistani army chiefs have used this doctrine of necessity again and again. It was being used to overthrow the government, and because of this extreme instability and the unprecedented power of the army, three things happened that shook the foundations of Pakistan's development.
First and foremost, instead of taking on long-term risk to expand the economy, military and government officials were more concerned with maintaining their positions of authority and accumulating wealth for themselves. As a consequence, Pakistan has seen an increase in crony capitalism and corruption.
Second, no party has been able to carry out its objectives for Pakistan's growth due to the country's severely unstable government. Instead of genuinely growing the economy, they were more concerned with maintaining power by winning over the populace. As a consequence, we see that currency reserves are rapidly declining.
Third, the IMF deny to help them when they asked for assistance. A country must develop its own currency in order to reduce poverty. Stop handing out subsidies if you want to make financial savings, the IMF told them.
In order to secure funding Pakistan suddenly started cutting down on the subsidies, but as a result the country suffered from inflation and the country went into an even deeper economic mess. Seeing this situation, very few investors were willing to bet their money on Pakistan.
In 2018, Imran Khan became the Prime Minister of Pakistan. But, then again, even Imran Khan's party members didn't support him, and he lost the vote of no-confidence. This is how Shehbaz Sharif became the Prime Minister of Pakistan. And he will be able to hold power until October 2023, but this is where Imran Khan's speeches started the chaos in Pakistan.
In his statements, he blamed the army, criticized the administration, and even spoke of corruption and international collusion. These remarks had such an effect on the Pakistani people that Pakistan's electronic media banned live broadcasts of Imran Khan's speeches due to his severe criticism of the army, and the election commission banned him from running for office or contesting elections for five years. This is where the protest began to gain momentum.
On October 25, 2022, Imran Khan called for the greatest march in Pakistan's history from Lahore to Islamabad to seek early elections. One and a half weeks later, Imran Khan was shot. After this, Imran Khan's popularity skyrocketed, and Pakistan's security forces were so messed up that nobody knew who shot the prime minister, even with two others assassinated.
When the world's attention was focused on the political unrest in Pakistan, something even more damaging took place with the flooding there.
In only four months, these floods, which were so severe that over 25% of Pakistan's total population was uprooted and about one-third of the nation was under water, resulted in the deaths of 1350 people. Again, this led to shortages in grains, poverty, and an economic slowdown.
Another challenge for Pakistan is the internal separatist movement and their external conflict with the Taliban. In Balochistan, the separatist group claims that Pakistan has never paid attention to the people of Balochistan, which is true. Separatists believed that the Pakistani government only wanted Balochistan's resources but didn't care about its people. So they want their own state and will use their own resources and build an economy to support themselves.
Pakistan is experiencing a severe economic crisis. The separatist movement in Balochistan is gaining more and more momentum, and this has been happening rapidly over the last fifty years, posing yet another danger to Pakistan. Lastly, Pakistan's conflict with Afghanistan, which is another external conflict, has had an impact on Pakistan's political and economic unrest for many years.
In fact, Pakistan's government and military are submerged in corruption. The shooting of the former prime minister has already created a feeling of insecurity across the country. The people-pleasing subsidies are now resulting in inflation and currency depletion. One of the greatest floods in history, followed by an internal struggle with Balochistan and an external battle with the Taliban in Afghanistan, have caused Pakistan to experience its worst crisis in history.
Imran Hosen is a freelance contributor.
