The writer is former executive editor of The News and a senior journalist with Geo TV.
At a general glance, there is little in common between Karachi’s continuing woes and the situation in Tharparkar. The terrorised financial hub of the country and one of the world’s largest cities sits a world apart from the backyard of development, whose local economy is almost non-existent.
Yet the two places are joined by the critical factor of failing state and government writ with catastrophic results for the citizens. Both have become testaments to myopic, incompetent rulers, and a corruption-infested system that is directionless and cares two hoots about the plight of the people in whose name it exercises infinite power. Viewed from that standpoint, the two are really one. Tharparkar and Karachi in that sense are one city – we can call it Tharparkarachi.
Nothing illustrates the point better than the present state of affairs in both these districts. Karachi’s latest events show that terror is back with a vengeance. The killing of the much-loved and deservedly-mourned Sufi music icon Amjad Farid Sabri and the kidnapping of the son of the sitting chief justice of the Sindh High Court showcase a reordered terror network that has the capacity to carry out major attacks as well as the wherewithal to sustain itself in what has become an inhospitable environment on account of the Karachi operation.
Officials tell us that the remains of Al-Qaeda, TTP and local banned organisations are now together under the rubric of the Lashkar-e-Farooqi. They claim that this setup has the backing of powerful foreign actors and local political organisations.
This sounds plausible but in no way does it distract from the utterly hopeless preparation by law-enforcement agencies in anticipating what seems like classic ‘blowback’. During the mantra of the anti-terror operation’s success, for which there is an endless race to take daily credit, the most important element requiring attention was the possibility of the fragments of these groups. This was elementary CT boardroom strategy. There was going to be another round to be fought harder by these groups after losing the opening encounter.
And yet all these years we heard nothing on the late but inevitable reaction from these groups. All officialdom did was to churn out favourable statistics on declining crime rate and restoration of semblance of normality. And this was done in the crucial phase when much could have been done on how to be ahead of the mutating terror cells. Not for the first time, the establishment sat on its laurels too quickly. Not for the first time politicians fell miserably short of their basic duties.
Now a new phase of terror is upon us – and this at a time when neither the city’s politics nor its administration is in a position to cope with resurgent groups. Yes we have the Rangers, but the Rangers without a functioning police, a favourable political equation and administrative focus both from the provincial and central government is about as much effective as it has been so far. It cannot run the city. It cannot govern people’s lives and, if prolonged, its present role could cause it severe exhaustion as a credible force.
The vacuum of clear planning, identifying future goals, systematic evaluation of each step of Karachi’s operation, and positioning of resources for the next challenge is now filled by renewed terrorism. The bullets that killed Amjad Sabri were fired by terrorists, but they were facilitated by the supreme incompetence of state and governments in pre-empting the rise of re-energised networks. The repeat cycle of violence with its familiar blood-splattered scenes involving lost lives and a traumatised citizenry is an outcome of policy and planning dysfunction.
In Tharparkar the same killing combination – policy and planning dysfunction – is at work costing the precious lives of infants, new-borns and their mothers. There are no gangsters moving on motorbikes knocking out celebrities creating movie scenes, but the effect for the ordinary citizens is the same: hands and feet tied by circumstances, disowned by those who wield power on their behalf, they are thrown before the lions of draught and hunger. Their lives are not snuffed out by a hail of bullets; no sudden pulling of the trigger chokes their last breath.
That kind of dying, while wholly tragic, is easy. Instead a more painful and slow-moving death stalks their land, nibbling away at their young in front of their eyes, consuming their livestock, driving them out of their homes, and pushing them deeper under the burden of debts that mortgages their coming generations.
Like Karachi, Tharparkar has been in negative limelight for years. The plight of its inhabitants has grabbed big headlines leading to momentary hype and calls for soul searching. Malnutrition killing Thar children also forced the habitually neglectful Sindh government to wake up to reality and take action.
So like Karachi there were emergency measures and many claims were made that the deadly equation of rainlessness, drought, poverty and death had been finally broken. Asia’s largest reverse-osmosis plant and its various smaller units were installed with resounding claims of having delivered panacea to the area. Asif Ali Zardari was mounted on the pedestal of a saviour and visionary and his lesser lieutenants were painted in heroic colours. As in Karachi, we were told salvation had arrived in Tharparkar.
Reality, as it turns out, is the exact opposite. A recent report by UN agencies speaks of a depressing situation, not any better than before – in fact worse considering the lost years to save lost lives. The office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) sent a joint mission to Tharparkar last month to minutely study the effects of draught on Tharparkar population.
Their findings meticulously document the plight of this most under-developed district of Pakistan where factors like child mortality, morbidity, acute mal-nutrition, declining harvests, dying animals, falling water tables, grinding poverty and endemic health challenges have perpetuated life-threatening conditions.
The much-drummed RO plants have turned out to be another expensive experiment failed by mismanagement and absence of maintenance. Says the report: “out of the total 450 reverse osmosis plants installed by the government a year ago (at a cost of $54.6 million), 50 percent are out of order due to maintenance problems, poor planning or negligence. The lack of safe drinking water and sanitation facilities contribute(s) negatively to health outcomes, with a large number of children suffering from diarrhoea.”
My visits to Tharparkar bear out these harrowing assessments. Spending time in far-flung goths with forsaken communities has yielded similar, even grimmer details. People are eating less than before. Thousands go hungry for days. Children’s deaths are under reported as thousands of villages are not even registered in official records so there is no documentation of what transpires there. These people are voiceless and are overwhelmed by a gathering sense of doom. No public representative reaches them. They are not even a consideration for the ruthless, rapacious leaders who sit in Karachi, and Dubai and tweet about Sindh’s rights. They are not reported upon because they are not part of the media’s rating catchment area.
In Tharparkar deaths are occurring every day because nobody is willing to sincerely plan to protect the most vulnerable section of our nation. There is no focus. No attention. Nobody cares. That way these deaths are more sinister and scandalous than those caused by terrorists: terror groups have their hideous motivation to wreak havoc and spill blood. What motives can Sindhi-cap and ajrak-wearing public representatives have to invite annihilation upon their own people? Why would they let children die and pretend in public that they are doing their best, and the victims should be grateful to them?
The answer is blowing in the sands of Tharparkar and the streets of Karachi: when the rulers abandon citizens and turn their miseries into dice in power politics, deaths become commonplace. That way Amjad Farid Sabri and the nameless dead child in Mithi’s forgotten village are one. Their lives have been cut short by the doings of those whose job is to save unprotected citizens.
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