- Unflattering report card
Once again the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) delivered a damning account of the human rights situation of the country in its latest report, which was released on Monday. It turns out that there has been little or no improvement in practically all areas that have been cause for concern for years and decades – from missing persons to misuse of blasphemy law to attacks on minorities. Coming this close to the election, it also questions the government’s policies at it goes to the people for the vote again.
Pakistan clearly continues to suffer from what economists like to call the ‘priority deficit’. The ruling PML-N, for example, has thrown top dollar after mega projects like power plants and motorways. And, without a doubt, there is a big constituency that responds positively, socially as well as politically, to such infrastructural upgradation. But that does, however, ‘violate’ that basic economic principle that mandates optimal utilisation of limited resources. Nobody would deny that Pakistan is a country with very limited resoures, and problems like poverty, disease, lack of food and water, etc, ought to outweigh mega projects on the government’s priority list.
Ironically, we live in an era of unprecedented media outreach and potency, yet it is still not possible to push the government into directing development funds where they are needed for improving people’s lives, not just grabbing votes in elections. Now we have also have a unique situation where the judiciary is overextending itself into the government’s domain, reproaching the latter for not doing its core job even as the former remains plagued with decades of backlog. Unfortunately, even as institutions clash in the name of the people, precious little ever trickles down to the masses themselves. There is an urgent need to address human rights violations; for the benefit of the people as well the government.
