Beyond growth: Pakistan’s war against poverty, privilege, and the digital divide

Let’s not sugarcoat it — Pakistan is a land of jarring contrasts. In one part of town, a billionaire is escorted in a bulletproof Land Cruiser. Across the bridge, a child rifles through garbage for dinner. And no, this isn’t just bad luck or a temporary dip in fortunes. This is by design.

We’ve been sold a story: that if GDP grows, the rising tide will lift all boats. But what if the boats are chained to the bottom while the yachts float higher? Dr Mahbubul Haq, the brilliant mind behind the Human Development Index, called this bluff long ago. He reminded us that real development isn’t about numbers — it’s about people. It’s about whether children go to school, whether mothers survive childbirth, and whether families eat more than once a day.

Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel laureate in economics, once said that inequality isn’t just a moral issue — it’s a threat to economic stability. And he’s right. In Pakistan, we see the same story playing out every day. The top 1 percent hoards wealth while 40 percent of the population lives in multidimensional poverty.

Add to that a broken education system, crumbling hospitals, and a state that often behaves more like a gatekeeper than a service provider. You don’t need to crunch numbers to feel it — the anxiety in a working-class mother’s eyes says more than any economic report ever could. There’s a reason why the rich are building taller gates while the poor are digging deeper wells.

It’s not just the volume of poverty that’s alarming — it’s the architecture of inequality that makes it so resilient. This isn’t a temporary misstep; it’s a well-entrenched design. A tax system that punishes consumption but falls short of addressing direct taxation, a labour market where informal workers form the backbone but remain invisible in policymaking, and a state obsessed with optics over outcomes.

We’ve had enough of the Power Points; what we need now is power to the people. And that power begins with reform that doesn’t pretend.

For decades, elites have perfected the art of capturing growth while outsourcing the consequences. Landowners who haven’t planted a seed in years still enjoy subsidies. Powerful elite amassed wealth over generations operating on tax holidays on generational wealth and inheritance while daily wage workers queue for overpriced sugar. Somewhere along the way, Pakistan confused privilege with productivity. We gave the keys to the country to those least interested in steering it forward.

The tragedy is not just economic, it’s existential. Inequality of wealth quickly becomes inequality of dignity. When a student in a far-off village has to walk ten kilometres for a teacher who rarely shows up, and a minister’s child gets an international education with state perks, we’re not just failing at governance — we’re violating the social contract.

And this social contract isn’t frayed — it’s in tatters. Ask any young Pakistani why they want to leave. They’ll give you a look. It’s not just about jobs. It’s about fairness, trust, and the hope that if you work hard, you’ll get ahead. Right now, that ladder looks more like a wall.

There is a way out, but it needs political courage and moral clarity — both in short supply. Start with taxation. We have to tax the rich. Yes, it’s politically difficult. But so was eradicating polio — and yet we did it. The time has come to shift the burden away from consumption to capital. We need to close loopholes, digitise land records, and ensure that wealth — especially inherited, unproductive wealth — pays its due.

Then there’s public spending. For every rupee spent on a ribbon-cutting ceremony, there are children dying of preventable diseases in rural Sindh. This is not just a misallocation — it’s a moral failing. Health and education need to be seen as rights, not privileges. That means not just building more schools, but ensuring teachers show up. Not just importing ventilators but maintaining basic sanitation. It’s boring work, unglamorous work — but it’s the work that actually matters.

Social safety nets must be expanded and modernised. BISP was a good start, but it’s time to link cash transfers to measurable outcomes — school attendance, vaccination records, and nutritional benchmarks. No more handouts for the sake of headlines. Let’s fund dignity, not dependence.

And yes, we must confront the oldest taboo of all: land. Land reform remains the elephant in Pakistan’s living room. We know the numbers. A small elite owns the lion’s share of arable land, often leaving it underutilised while sharecroppers barely survive. This is not just a rural issue. It’s an issue of justice. If we can’t talk about land, we can’t talk about equality. Full stop.

But here’s the twist. Amid all this dysfunction, a quiet revolution is taking place — in the palm of your hand. The digital revolution might just be the great equaliser we’ve been waiting for. Tech doesn’t care about your last name.

Mobile banking has brought financial inclusion to places the state never reached. Platforms like Easypaisa and JazzCash are letting rural women bypass patriarchal gatekeepers to access and move money. They’re doing it from their homes without getting perturbed how they will go to a bank and how they will find someone ready to help them.

Digital classrooms are making it possible for children in Jhang to learn from the same curriculum as those in Lahore. Telemedicine is bringing diagnostics to Balochistan.

Agricultural apps are helping farmers in Rahim Yar Khan get fair prices without relying on exploitative middlemen. But for all this to work, we need not just devices, but digital literacy. A 4G tower in a village means nothing if the people under it can’t afford data or don’t know how to use it. Infrastructure must walk hand in hand with inclusion.

This is where the state can play a constructive role — not as a provider of patronage, but as a platform of possibility. Let it ensure connectivity, regulate fairly, and then get out of the way. Let entrepreneurs, students, nurses, and small farmers innovate their way forward. Just as Mahbubul Haq once asked us to measure what matters, we must now build what empowers.

Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson in their influential book, “The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better”, showed how inequality poisons even the wealthy. In deeply unequal societies, no one feels safe. And in Pakistan, that’s tragically evident. Gated communities, security guards, surveillance systems — the rich are just as trapped in fear as the poor are in hardship. It’s not a society. It’s a siege.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. We’re not poor because we lack money — we’re poor because we lack justice. We don’t need more donor reports or imported models. We need to look inward, build bottom-up, and trust our own people. Reform isn’t rocket science — it’s just will power plus empathy. And if we don’t find both soon, we’ll keep spinning in circles, watching each new ‘vision’ document fade into irrelevance.

The choice before us isn’t between socialism and capitalism, or tradition and modernity. It’s between fairness and chaos. Between a digital future that empowers, or a digital dystopia that deepens divides. If we want to build a Pakistan where opportunity isn’t inherited like a family asset, we have to act — and act boldly.

So let’s not be the generation that downloaded every app but forgot to upgrade the lives of the poor. Let’s be the generation that saw the fault lines — and chose to fix them, not flee from them. Let’s move beyond growth.

Let’s grow fair.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025