Ramadan & Prices

Many a times, I wonder why especially in the month of Holy Ramadan food, fuel and fabric prices began to escalate. May be it is due to the spiritual monopoly which this month have or maybe everyone tries to get share from this holy month, be it in monetary and/or spiritual form. Whatever the reasons are but to be honest my question still remains: why price sky rockets principally in the month of Ramadan?

There is by a hair's breadth doubt that the spiritual value of this month cannot be substituted with any other month of religious calendar. It is not just about the eating habits but a complete transformational change of social behaviors and moralities of the people. The pace of life changes, the attendance in mosques goes up, people begin to give charities and the entertainment and travelling time gets reduced considerably, and still the prices go sky-high!

In economics, the price escalation occurs when there is shortage of resources and the demand is much higher as compared to supply. In Pakistan, before and during Ramadan, food prices begins to rise and everything appears to get out of reach but in many other Muslim countries the scenario is somewhat different. They adopt special measures like fixing the prices of commodities and to keep the lid on they use networking tools including facebook and other social networking sites. They have separate consumer protection societies, who check the prices.  Recently in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia a campaign is launched under the slogan of “think of poor” to raise the moral and social responsibility of retailers. 

As Ramadan moves on, the tag price of three F’s (food, fuel and fabric) begins to augment and get out of reach from the common man. The lack of provisions for subsidies in the basic necessities of life creates cacophony among the masses and act as a root cause of odium for the government. A lot had been said already about hoarding and black marketing. Everyone knows that artificial shortage is created by sellers sometime earlier before the month of Ramadan to make money. These acts of immorality towards society are seriously condemned in Islam. Many places in Quran and Ahadith’s specifically discuss price hoarding & black marketing. Islam clearly forbids hoarding because of the harm that it causes to people.

Being Muslims and living in a Muslim State, we should see our glorious history. I would like to take the readers’ attention towards the Khilji dynasty. Alauddin Khilji’s food price control policy and economic measures which he adopted in 12th century was no more than a marvel to the common people of that time. There is no qualm that his policy measures were for the sake of maintaining outsized army to thwart Mongols at that time. But if these policies be adopted now, we could have some very positive implications on our economy. What sultan did was he fixed the price for every item ranging from animals to pulses. These prices where maintained by strong espionage system and whosoever found guilty was prosecuted in an open court so that others could get lesson. Then he established Royal Granaries. These were royal godowns in which grains were stored and from there, were distributed to the dealers in the market. The other highly important step he took was the elimination of middle man to ensure smooth flow of commodities in the market. These measures not only succeed him in consolidating his dynasty but also resulted in keeping away the Mongols without depending on any other neighboring state.

There is no doubt that the implementation of the plan is concealed in strong leadership of loyal persons. The state should have its clear policies on it. Many actions have been taken but still there had been no significant change up-to-date. It is sad to say that the government institutes paves a smooth way by showing lose administration, poor policies and casual check and balance on price hikes. “Sasta Ramzan Bazars” are not the solutions to these problems. Creating small shopping stalls at the corner of a play ground cannot provide the substitute for this phenomenon. The need is to check the overall economy and to try improving the overall society by strict rule of law. Government should control all the items covering complete necessities of life and then sell it to the retailers of the markets by keeping an eye on them. And, if anybody tries to fluctuate he/she should be dealt with an iron hand.

Umair Anwar

(Writer is a Financial Consultant in an International Firm)

umairanwar_090@hotmail.com