Pakistan is a state where the economy is in the hands of the army. Every resource is looted by the generals and their vast empire of cronies. The recent report by the World Bank is shocking, but it merely confirms what has been obvious for decades: Pakistan’s poverty crisis has now reached 25 per cent. Behind these numbers is a story of military dominance, corruption, and the deliberate sacrifice of the people for the luxuries of a bloated army.
Pakistan is not a civilian democracy in practice; it is an army state, where decisions about money, politics, and national priorities are dictated by men in uniform, not by elected representatives or by the people themselves. Poverty in Pakistan had once been falling. Between 2001 and 2018, the percentage of the population living below the poverty line dropped from more than 64 per cent to just under 22 per cent. This was fragile progress, dependent on remittances, external aid, and modest shifts from agriculture to services.
