The Thar Tragedy

An epitome of ineptness, apathy and soullessness. ‘The Thar TragedyIn a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.’

This is ineptness and apathy at its height.

It is necessary to understand that the children who died in Thar did not perish just because of the recent drought. Poverty is the main cause behind the deaths. And when it happens, the above-mentioned words of Confucius befittingly warn what may come.

The Sindh government, as usual, has resorted to political gimmicks, as it blames the area’s bureaucracy for sheer negligence and continuing lack of cooperation in the relief effort. Ascribing a variety of causes for the deaths, the stalwarts of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in Sindh tried to divert media’s attention and to allay the damage done to their political image. But, what on earth was the government doing and why it did not take notice of the news in media. Where is, if at all it exists, the reporting system of the Sindh government?

Although heads have rolled, prominent among them the Mirpurkhas Commissioner, the Thar Deputy Commissioner and some medical personnel, yet it is not sufficient. Their negligence seems to go unpunished as most of these officers belong to the ruling elite of the country. Who is answerable for the deaths of precious lives? Given the prevalent system here in Pakistan, it is more than evident that they will go scot free our country’s justice is not meant for the poor.

The perception that the cause of deaths may have been different in different parts of the area cannot be spurned altogether, but arguably those can all be traced to the common thread that runs through the narrative: drought, leading to lack of water, bad distribution of food, leading to malnutrition and various fatal diseases amongst the children, and most damagingly, neglect and a tragically belated response.

The current crisis indicates continuing neglect and absence of any attempt to address, let alone preempt, the ravages of nature on the already precarious existence of the people of the area.

To say, for example, that drought is a frequently recurring phenomenon in the desert region hardly explains why, when some five talukas (districts) of the six in Tharparkar received little or no rain this season, the alarm bells did not go off. If anything, complacency laces the authorities’ and some commentators’ statements that the people of the area traditionally migrate to the irrigated districts seasonally and in times of drought to find work in harvesting. In other words, the people are left to their own devices in times of hardship. Of all the rural areas of Pakistan, some like Tharparkar show a degree of official negligence, apathy, corruption, avoidable shortages and poor governance to add to the woes imposed by natural disasters like droughts. Such disasters are almost commonplace in the desert. The 2000 drought reportedly decimated the livestock population of the area, a critical source of livelihood for the populace. The authorities don’t appear to have put in place since an efficacious system of veterinary services that could prevent avoidable losses of livestock, as the relatively smaller but nevertheless hurtful losses of livestock in 2011-12 show. The current crisis indicates continuing neglect and absence of any attempt to address, let alone preempt, the ravages of nature on the already precarious existence of the people of the area.

The Sindh government may have assuaged its conscience by dismissing some officials and after-the-event rushing food, water, medicines and other items of relief to the stricken districts, but the question of accountability is not fully answered by such attempts at shifting the blame onto local officials while the political leaders of the province try to present themselves as pure as driven snow. To their credit, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has ordered all-out aid to the people of the area, the judiciary’s, military’s, and other provinces’ response is heartening. The Prime Minister says the National Disaster Management Authority is keeping him informed, but where was the Authority all these months while little bodies were being wasted away and piled up in the sandy wastes of Thar?

Aid packages have been announced by the governments of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The military and its medical corps have also been deployed in the area to bring relief and healthcare to the suffering populace, particularly children. This is, of course, all to the good, but if any lessons are to be learnt from this recurring human tragedy in one of the poorest, most difficult natural environments of the country, compounded by the man-made disaster because of negligence, they are that the system, whether democratic or other, deserves little or no respect if it ignores and neglects the poorest of the poor amongst its citizens, and carries on blithely as though business can continue as usual.