Social Policy...

Individual perception of the society of Karachi.

As I said before, the society of Karachi has two kinds of people. We, for the sake of assumption ignore the sects, provincial origins and all the other cultural diversity that exists in this city. The two main categories of people are;

a)      Those who wish to stay in Pakistan.

b)      Those who wish to leave Pakistan.

So to see this as the main dividing line to categorically divide society, isn’t too presumptuous. The characteristics that people who wish to stay would be an optimistic view in the ethnocentric attitudes. They would want to learn the history of Karachi/Pakistan. They would want to speak the original scripture of our Urdu language, if not want to know the other provincial languages. They would want to return back to Pakistan to contribute in the wellbeing of the country. The latter would the automatically classify in the other group.

Law and Order of Karachi

It’s a sad fact, but Karachi has been living in ‘bad times’ for as long as I can remember. For instance, in 1995 when I arrived to meet with my friends and family, I was told that it was a bad time to go out. In 2003, the same issue was brought to my attention. The year 2006, I had missed my A level paper because the situation was ‘bad’. My first year in university, I wanted to go out with friends but again the situation was ‘bad’. However, like many other citizens I grew immune to the statements. The odd part is things haven’t changed a bit. I remember it was last week when I wanted to go out for a site seeing tour, and my parents and relatives stopped me again, and the reason would probably be known to you by now. The statement said. “these are bad times.”

So looking at this experience, I realized were (as a society) very self-prophesizing. We make a huge fuss over the situation; however most members of this society manage to go to work, get shopping done and even have time to sit outside with some fellows to have a smoke. Ironic, to think these are ‘bad times’ while I lay on a ‘char payi’ with a few friends sharing a laugh.

Government Policies.

Well this aspect can be well described by the definition of an economic term called “profit”. Now looking at the definition we economists would work on, it would read something along the lines of such;

“Economic profit is a gain to one’s self with a gain to society, if not at least no opportunity cost incurred upon others”.

The definition I learnt, the government likes to follow is somewhat along the lines of;

“A gain to one’s own self, with a loss to others and minimum a higher incurred opportunity cost.”

So looking at the input I gave in, I see the society of Karachi as such. It shows a depressed society, because of the self-prophesizing tendency. We need to learn the reality and improve upon that. Tight accountability checks and balances are required so it would be next to impossible for anyone to step out of the line of the system.

Taha Qureshi