LAHORE: Pakistan’s civil society today stands confused, even disoriented, as it struggles to identify the real enemy in its midst. Are the enemies those who carry guns and explosives, or those who silently cripple the state every single day.
They include tax evaders, smugglers, hoarders, bribe-takers, electricity thieves, indifferent doctors, officials who collaborate with smugglers, and the powerful mafias that operate with impunity? The list is long, and the damage they inflict collectively is no less than the destruction wrought by terrorists.
Terrorism destroys life and property. But what about the thousands of deaths caused not by bombs but by absentee doctors, collapsed public hospitals or the refusal of government officials to perform their duties? A 2023 Punjab Healthcare Commission audit, for instance, revealed that in several district hospitals, over 30 per cent of sanctioned posts of specialists remained vacant, while many doctors continued private practice during public duty hours. No official statistics exist -- because deaths due to negligence are not counted as national tragedies.
Corruption, too, continues to bleed Pakistan far more than many terror attacks combined. The Daily Mail’s 2024 investigative report on South Asia estimated that Pakistan loses over Rs3 trillion annually to corruption, bribery, theft of public assets and misgovernance. This is nearly three times the country’s annual health budget. Corruption has become so routine that society no longer sees it as a threat.
Economies do not flourish where the government has no writ. Law and order is only one dimension of state authority. The other, equally critical, is the writ of the state over economic governance -- taxation, regulation and rule enforcement. Pakistan’s tax-to-GDP ratio has collapsed from 13.3 per cent a decade ago to an alarming 8.8 per cent today. This is not just a statistic; it is the loudest evidence of national decay.
How did we get here? Successive governments surrendered before vested interests. They allowed tax evasion to become a national sport and documentation of trade to remain a taboo. Pakistan’s 1.8 million retailers, most of whom do not pay income tax or sales tax, continue to intimidate governments with the threat of shutter-down strikes.
Smuggling, under-invoicing and misdeclaration have become standard operating procedures at ports. Officers, who should protect the national exchequer, instead collude openly with importers in return for a cut. In 2024 alone, the Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) noted that 85 per cent of smuggled goods entered Pakistan through official checkpoints, facilitated by those tasked to stop them. When the very gatekeepers of the system become its violators, what hope remains?
Social injustice and economic deprivation do not merely cause discomfort -- they generate rage. And rage, when left to ferment, transforms into extremism. The world learned this long ago; Pakistan refuses to.
A responsible state ensures affordable food for all, because nothing destabilizes society faster than hunger. Yet Pakistan has practically outsourced food pricing to the hoarding mafias, who stockpile wheat, rice, onions, garlic and potatoes, then release them at artificially inflated rates.
Pakistan has normalised practices that erode the social fabric: corruption, theft of utilities, tax evasion, document fraud, bribery, and smuggling. Inequality grows, yet public conscience remains silent. Social respect is reserved for the wealthy -- not the honest, not the hardworking, not the principled.
Economy is the foundation of peace, harmony, and national stability. Sustained growth does not come from IMF loans or budget speeches; it comes from a responsible, accountable government that enforces the same rules on everyone -- rich and poor, powerful and powerless.
Pakistan cannot defeat terrorism while allowing economic terrorism to flourish. The nation must confront all enemies alike: terrorists, tax evaders, smugglers, hoarders, bribe-givers, bribe-takers, electricity thieves, customs collaborators, and robbers in both the streets and in the corridors of power.Until we fight them all, Pakistan will remain trapped in a cycle of poverty, instability and decline.
