The Causes of Poverty

The poorest of the poor everywhere desire a change in their condition.Who does not aspire for a better and more comfortable life,rather a grand and impressive living?Poverty is not easily acceptable to anyone except the truly religious "dervishes" or "sufis or mystics.

Firstly,we are facing a population explosion.A poor man of very ordinary means has several children,often more than five or six,partly because he marries early.He cannot afford to maintain such a large family.As he struggles hard to earn more,with all his poverty and ignorance with him,he goes on getting weaker and poorer.Generally,he falls ill, and quite often dies before time.After his death,his wife has to work manually in village fields or city homes to bring up the children.At times the children,if they are grown up, are forced to work for their living.

Secondly,illiteracy or ignorance does not let the people learn better and modern methods of farming,production in factories and construction of buildings,bridges,roads and dams.We know that modern machinery is mostly computerized.How can illiterate workers learn the working and maintenance of computers and other electronic devices?As a result,they cannot add to their incomes in accordance with their growing needs, and continue to remain poor.

Thirdly,the past governments did not build small and big dams in different parts of the country.In case new dams had been built,electricity would have been much cheaper and so the old and new factories would have employed more labor and produced more goods for export.With more water and cheaper electricity,farm production would have increased appreciably and more labor would have been employed.

Fourthly,the hold of big landowners or feudal landlords has kept small farmers or peasants all over the country in practical slavery.The "haris" in Sindh,for example, have tried to get free of the feudal hold at times, but to no avail.In Balochistan exists the "sardari" system that allows the sons and daughters of the big "sardars" or landowners to study here or abroad or to enjoy the sweet fruits of life while keeping the common people uncultured and backward.In the Punjab and Khyber-Pukhtunkwa,too,the big "lords" do not allow the small farmers and their families to progress and prosper.

In order to help the poor,their general education level should be drastically improved.The government should take immediate steps to industrialize the country extensively.As many big and small dams should be constructed across our rivers as possible.Feudalism should be abolished permanently.Farmers should be able to own their lands in large commercial units.