WITH the social media platform X choked and new disclosures being made in the Islamabad High Court about the level of Big Brother’s intrusive interest in our everyday lives, conversations and messages, it is clear that the all-powerful state is becoming increasingly unsure of itself.

Meanwhile, public discontent is only to be expected: the budget has dashed hopes that hitherto untaxed assets and income, said to run into trillions of rupees, would be brought into the tax net; instead, a greater burden is being put on small earners, whether salaried or self-employed.

The hybrid set-up, whose legitimacy has a question mark hanging over it, could have won credibility and widespread support had it gone after the mountains of cash in agriculture and real estate and slashed subsidies to the well-heeled. Regrettably, it has yet to display courage and a vision.

The half-hearted budgetary measures, which exempted many wealthy real estate owners — the ones who make the most of the state’s largesse by selling cheaply acquired land in the ‘open market’ for many, many times the purchase price — was a sham. Even the tax levied on real estate transactions is no more than a perfunctory gesture.

Do the various tools at the disposal of the state have the capacity to keep the lid firmly on the steam that is building up?

The burden of taxes on the already unfairly taxed salaried class and the backbreaking rise in utility bills, coupled with the increases or extensions in general sales tax, will indirectly squeeze the life out of those who were already living a hand-to-mouth existence. Little wonder that even media people generally seen as sympathetic to the current dispensation are now reflecting on the pain of the masses. In fact, some have taken a hostile stance against the PML-N-led government and are calling on voters to shun the party. Public anger and despair are palpable. I have heard many low-income earners groaning under the weight of electricity bills and saying that their entire monthly income may not be enough to pay. They have no idea how they will pay rent and buy food, even basic items, after settling their power bills.

Then there is the continuing unease regarding how an opposition party and its leader are being treated. They may not have treated their opposition any better when in power but that is irrelevant in the current context.

I guess social media curbs such as X’s fate are designed to stop the spread of messages of discontent far and wide and, even more important, to put a spanner in the works of any planned protest before it gets off the ground.

The disclosure that the authorities have acquired the ability to monitor four million mobile phone users simultaneously is outrageous but, I suspect, is meant to warn anyone in key institutions against supporting the leader who seems to have made inroads into hitherto no-go areas.

Fear of consequences is a strong factor in determining whether, in taking positions, the ‘safety first’ principle should apply. Therefore, the state telecom authority PTA’s disclosure before Justice Babar Sattar of the Islamabad High Court is a ‘Big Brother is watching’ message.

But, if the underlying causes of public unhappiness remain unaddressed, particularly those that are directly impacting people’s pockets and creating a dire financial crisis, are we running the risk of creating a pressure cooker scenario, with no release valves for the anger and despair, with these oppressive measures?

And if that is indeed happening, do the various tools at the disposal of the state have the capacity to keep the lid firmly on the steam that is building up and keep the pressure cooker from exploding? Those at the helm seem pretty sure they can accomplish this or they wouldn’t have continued so relentlessly to give more reasons to the people to feel unloved.

I wish you and I could be that sure. In fact, if we are honest, we’d say that the lid can’t be kept in place for any significant period of time. That is my greatest fear. Unless miraculously — and yes, as things stand it would take nothing short of a miracle — the economy shows a dramatic upturn and somehow that translates into tangible relief for the common man, the pressure will continue to build up.

With a growing mountain of domestic as well as foreign debt, and with so many institutions remaining preoccupied with managing the political side of things, the security situation in the country in general and in the merged districts and other parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in particular is showing progressive deterioration.

Against this backdrop, the much-sought-after direct foreign investment which, by definition, will be risk-averse, will also stay away. That, in turn, would dampen the prospects of any economic miracle at least in the foreseeable future.

Some readers have called me naive, but the only way forward is through a process of grand reconciliation. Calling for such a move isn’t naive. Expecting it will happen anytime soon is. For, given all stakeholders’ — and this excludes nobody — narrow institutional and partisan interests and the egos of the many key characters involved it would be an extraordinary occurrence.

Even then, one does not need to be a soothsayer to say we are heading towards disaster, a disaster that will leave no one unscathed. Ergo, it would be in the enlightened interest of all players concerned to stand down from their belligerent, confrontational positions. In the absence of a clear winner so far, the country seems to be the only one consistently left holding the short end of the stick.

Principles need to be upheld, no doubt. But the tragic and ugly ground reality also needs to be acknowledged. That, to me, is the only way to pull back from the abyss. Otherwise, no matter how keenly Big Brother is watching, the outcome of the present impasse can be scary, a tragedy beyond words.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, July 7th, 2024