Living in Paki $2 a day.

On a rain-drenched road in Rawalpindi men, women and children stand patiently behind a truck. It's a few kilometers from the park where Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was slain four weeks ago. And the street is covered in sodden party political paraphernalia proclaiming elections next month. But voting and Bhutto are the last things on these people's minds. Like much of the country they are queuing for bread.

"A 20 kilo bag used to cost 250 ( $4.o8 usd ) Rupees; now it's 295," says Rashid Nabil, a sack of flour on his shoulder. "I have to buy one of these three times a month to feed the eight people in my family. I earn 4,000 ( $65 usd )Rupees a month. That's a lot of your income to be spending on bread"...

Pakistan is in the midst of its worst bread famine in 40 years. The shortage has been exacerbated by massive power and gas outages. Coupled with the pall cast by Bhutto's assassination -- and what seems an endless toll of political violence (the latest being the murder of 12 people by a suicide bomber at a Shia mosque in Peshawar on 17 January) -- the mood among Pakistanis is as leaden as the winter sky.....

Most know why there is a bread shortage in Pakistan, including the poor. Smugglers and hoarders, capitalizing on record global wheat prices, have found it more profitable to send wheat and flour abroad than to meet domestic needs at home. This is why you will find Pakistani flour in Kabul and Delhi but not in Peshawar. Despite a bumper crop the government was compelled to import wheat, jacking up prices still more....

Of Pakistan's 160 million citizens, 65 million live beneath a poverty line of $2 a day and another 65 million live barely above it. Most hale from rural villages but some, like Rashid Nidal and Javed Hansraj, eke out livings on the margins of cities. Historically the poor don't vote in Pakistan.
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That is part of the tribal outlying regions.
Now the part of Pakistan USA doesn't show on TV.
The WEALTHY:

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Now the political and religious layer next: Excellent analysis, but anti-government.

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Part 2 here:
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Pakistan's own view of the solution. ( I think it is workable )


Gerald
Anthropologist


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