An abandoned citizenry

EDITORIAL
For how long has the citizenry to live in this pathetic plight, abandoned, neglected and forgotten by the elites of every hue and stripe and of every brand and type? Or is it fated to subsist like this miserably on their empty slogans and unfulfilled promises and on their patent hypocrisy, deceptive talk and bunk rhetoric? Is there no respite in store for it? Are its hardships only to multiply? Is hope never to visit it? Is despair to keep it swamped? Have despondency, gloom and disappointment become its eternal lot? Outrageously, the prime minister says the people’s grievances had gone untackled so far as there was no system in place and that has now come about with the 18th Amendment? What? Were we a polity without a system or a law or a constitution until this amendment came in? Were we a people living in a jungle or in caves, with no rules or regulations to order our lives? What kind of a filthy excuse indeed is this that the prime minister has coined up so crudely to explain away his government’s abject stark disinterest in coming to grips with the citizens’ painful problems while remaining engrossed completely in the elitist power games and political plays? After all, what divine edict was it that forbade him from thinking about the people’s woes and going about addressing them? Can he cite even a single legal or constitutional restriction, prohibiting him from trying to liberate the citizens from the stranglehold of skyrocketing cost of living, dancing joblessness and waltzing poverty, squalor and disease? What costs him becoming truthful even now, confessing his sin that he had been really forgetful of the citizenry so far, and vowing to change and give some thought and some effort to their doleful plight’s alleviation somewhat? And had it to come to the knowledge of that provincial leader of Punjab, assuming the airs of a national leader in status no lesser than this nation’s founding fathers, Mian Nawaz Sharif only after having the constitutional restriction on the third prime ministerial term scrapped that the people are in a dire state calling for some urgent relief or respite? But who has asked him to hit the street if the government fails to rescue the distressed people from their biting adversity? No threats or ultimatums they want from him. They want to hear from him of concrete plans, schemes and ideas, if any, he has in his mind to tackle their woes. Enough of hypocritical talk they have had from him over these months. No stomach they have now to take any more of this puerility from him or any of the grandees swaggering on the national landscape so affectedly. The people’s patience has just run out with the gaggle of imposters and pretenders sitting on their necks posing as their leaders, which they are not. The people’s alienation with them is total; their disgust with them is complete. Indeed, never ever had been the disconnect between the elites and the people so stark and so yawning as is it now. The street also knows what kind of chicaners and how fake these imposters are. The people know all about their booming businesses abroad, about their flourishing industrial enterprises in foreign lands, about the five-star hotels they are constructing in world tourist resorts, about their palaces and chateaus they have bought overseas, and the hefty slush moolah they keep stashed in mounds in their foreign bank accounts. They may be thinking that the people know not of this. But the street knows it all, from end to end. These imposters may not even know that a popular perception is gaining wide currency that these charlatans have no real stake in the country. And come a crunch, they would be the first to leave the country without even looking back. But if the people’s estrangement with these pretentious grandees is so pronounced and glaring, their own ignorance of the people’s travails and distresses is just stunning. Not even the foggiest idea they have about what the grueling times the people are presently going through. While they eat well, live well, sleep well, hunger, starvation and want is mowing down the people in multitudes day in and day out. And they wouldn’t even know that while they feed gluttonously, numerous mothers starve and their children sleep hungry every night. But why are the people taking all this lying down? They must stand up stoutly and defiantly and put these imposters on notice either to deliver or just leave. The people are no slaves of any Zardaris, Gilanis, Mians, Chaudhrys or the clans of their ilk. They must demand; and get their demands. Whoever fails them, they must kick him out without even batting an eyelid.