The word of the day seems to be Civil Disobedience (technically two words). When Khan uttered the words yesterday, a collective *gasp* was heard. Teacups were dropped...and the general feeling was that PTI is going down the do or die road, a last gasp before the drowning. First, lets not forget this is not the first time anyone has threatened civil disobedience. Parties from time to time have threatened to resort to it. PMLN as early as DEC 2011 threatened to do so. But in a country where people already pay little to no (The PM himself paying RS 5000) direct taxes, and people generally only paying for services that that they consume, it is no surprise that this is a tactic only threatened and one that rarely materializes into anything. Some analysts argue that while we have no history of being more civil disobedient than we already are, there is other facets of making this threat that cannot be ignored. The West see Civil Disobedience as a big thing and this decision will be bound to turn heads there. In turn, they will apply pressure on the government. But why exactly will they do this? To understand this, we have to understand our relations with the west. This relationship is pretty simple. They give us loans, we spend 70% of our funds to pay them interest on the said loans. As previously mentioned, we do not have many direct taxes. Our revenue is main indirect taxes and these utility bills. This is the reason the IMF is very much involved in the pricing of our electricity. They usually demand the government to raise prices before issuing loans, because it guarantees them payment. Now imagine them hearing about someone in Pakistan launching a movement not to pay bills. It raises their ears because they have their eyes on these payments. This results in them in turn adding pressure on our government to resolve the issue. In a nutshell, the call for civil disobedience is not just a last resort method of a failing rally, but a tactic to get the attention of our overlords.
Posted on: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 10:21:05 +0000
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