Civic lethargy

In this cold winter an impoverished labourer, Mir Hassan, set himself on fire inside his home for being unable to provide warm clothes to his school-going children. Mir Hassan's death is symbolic of the growing desperation and dejection in our society, afflicted by scarcity of opportunities for ordinary people. Penury leads to all sorts of crime but poor people sometimes take self -destructive as an act of protest against the neglect they face from their society. We spend hours and hours on reading posts pontificating on social media about every single issue, without lifting a finger to actually help the poor and forgotten people amongst us. It is left to organizations like Edhi and Chipa to make up for our civic lethargy. This sad incident calls for immediate remedial action by the government as well as civil society. In a country where 39 percent of the population lives in multi-dimensional poverty and where poor people are brought up on BISP and get food at ‘dastarkhawans,’ the level of apathy towards the poor is awful

Iftikhar Mirza

Islamabad