Although the sixty-five years of Pakistan’s existence have been marred by instability and crisis, now even from Pakistan’s dismal standards the turbulence and conflagration has reached unforeseen heights. In the last few years’ violence, apathy, hyperinflation, sprawling poverty and callousness have acquired unprecedented proportions.

The recent pilgrimage-linked Indian sojourn of President Zardari has been puffed up by the mainstream media. The Islamists and the extreme right wing, as usual, condemned it. Reactionary politics infested with hatred, prejudice, chauvinism and bigotry could not have come up with any other opinion. On both sides of the divide, this hostile crusade serves the interests of sections of the elite and the state.

It is often said that necessity is the mother of all invention. However, if we look at the masses on a vast scale in society it turns into its opposite. Most inventions become a necessity on a wider scale once people become aware of their benefits and end up becoming dependent on them. At that stage these inventions adopt the characteristic of social necessity.

The state in Pakistan is on the verge of collapse and basic infrastructure is crumbling. Pakistan Post is a key institution on which a lot still depends in the daily routine of common people. But this institution is suffering heavily due to the irresponsible behaviour of the Ministry of Post and its bureaucracy.

The Jammu Kashmir People's Students' Federation and the All-Pakistan Progressive Youth Alliance jointly held a public meeting in Rawlakot on 4 April to commemorate the Death Anniversary of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who was assassinated by Martial Law Dictator General Zia ul Haq.

With the economy in a shambles and with a crumbling infrastructure, Pakistani society is unravelling into an unprecedented abyss of devastation. Education and health are the most important sectors of the social infrastructure that are vital in the socio-economic development of society. With the exception of the 1973-74 budget when the Pakistan People’s Party came to power on the back of the revolutionary upheaval of 1968-69 that had developed an enormous pressure from below for radical reforms, health and education have been the most neglected sectors by the country’s ruling elite.

Management is using the yellow “pocket” union to attack dismissed workers in Rahim Yar Khan. On 5 April nearly 150 goons of the pocket union, which is also the CBA, attacked the sit in organized by the dismissed workers with iron rods and hockey and cricket bats.

Unilever in Pakistan is continuously taking anti-worker measures and ignoring the law in order to increase its exploitation of the workers increase its rate of profit as much as possible. Court orders and decisions are being crushed under the boots while national and international labour laws are being violated openly. The workers who produced the net profit of 46.6% this year for the multinational are now being squeezed more and more.

For the last 65 years, the attempt of Pakistan’s ruling class to impose numerous anniversary celebrations aimed at instilling nationhood has failed to resonate with society below. The media-hyped cricket hysteria, the patriotism orchestrated by the state and the distorted history in the school syllabus, whose objective is to foment national pride amongst the deprived and destitute masses has abysmally failed. Their suffering and agony does not leave much room for them to celebrate.

Along with the other miseries of the system and society, the curse of the oppression of women not only continues unabated but has worsened with the aggravation of the socio-economic crisis. It is rather ironic that around International Women’s Day, the incidents of violence against women, honour killings and other brutalities like acid-throwing and rape have intensified.

In Pakistan today millions of people feel the pain of hunger and suffer from diseases for which they receive no treatment. Under capitalism medicine, like everything else, is used for exploitation, not for treatment. In a Socialist Pakistan no man or woman will die of preventable disease. No child will go to bed hungry. There will be medicine for everybody.

“The relationship between the ruling classes and the state is never a straightforward one. It depends on the financial potency of the elite and their capacity to advance the means of production and develop society.”

The Taliban are not a homogenous whole and the Islamic parties have no fundamental ideological differences with imperialism. The conflicts erupt when competing groups of these zealots are sponsored by imperialism.

Yet another excruciating wound inflicted. Insult heaped upon the injuries of the brutalised masses. It is the further exacerbation of the misery of the impoverished souls of this tragic land. The people already suffering from the ethos of this bestial capitalism in terminal decay are groaning with the pain of these policies of ‘reforms’.

“Ever since the national liberation movement in Balochistan abandoned socialism from its programme, it became an easy prey for the imperialist vultures. They can now play with the sentiments of national exploitation and oppression of the people only to utilise them for their own imperialist designs.”