Battles we’re losing

What has a malnourished child, crawling in the dust of some distant village in Pakistan, got to do with, say, the passing out parade in the solemn and sanctified grounds of the military academy? My answer is that both, the kids that are raised in the cradle of social deprivations and the regimented ranks of the defence forces, are lead players in the overall structure of our national security.
We are constantly reminded of the victories won by our soldiers in the battlefield and in operations like Zarb-e-Azb. But there is obviously not much concern for the battles we are losing in villages spread across the country and in burgeoning slums in our major cities. And in that sense, our survival is verily at stake.
My excuse to make these observations is that the World Food Day was observed on Friday. Besides, I had an opportunity to participate in one session of a conference of rural women held in Islamabad on Wednesday and Thursday. This conference was titled: ‘Rural Women: Democracy, Development and Peace’ and it marked the Rural Women Day in Pakistan.
On Thursday, Oxfam Pakistan collaborated with the organisers of the conference to sponsor the session on ‘Government Services for Women Farmers in Pakistan: Challenges & Opportunities’. The focus, however, was on food security that Oxfam is working on in a structured manner. Irrespective of how we sometimes glorify our minor achievements, Pakistan’s position among nations that lack food security is abysmal.
Experts have pointed out that food security is national security. In a wider context, it is social development that makes a country strong and viable. The economy is the measure of a country’s power in the international arena. This makes the development of human resources a major priority. After all, we cannot afford to first allow our population to breed without any check and then let the multitudes lurch in poverty, ignorance and hunger.
Thanks to Oxfam, I was able to briefly touch upon some issues before an audience that was exceptional in many ways. The two-day conference was attended by many hundreds of rural women from all parts of the country. This was the eighth annual gathering of this nature under the auspices of an NGO with the acronym of PODA – the sapling.
Since most participants were activists from their areas, here was some manifestation of women power in Pakistan. We may feel inspired by how women are raising their voices and changing the rules of the game. At the same time, it was disconcerting to see that all of them had sad stories to tell. The conference was held in the premises of Lok Virsa and I had a long discussion with Fouzia Saeed, the relatively new executive director, on the challenges of how we should reclaim our heritage.
Unable to even refer to the topics on which a number of sessions were held on Wednesday and Thursday, with the participation of a large number of distinguished individuals, including our own I A Rehman, I should restrict my attention to the session that also comprised some research-based presentations on food security.
To mark the World Food Day, this newspaper’s Encore portion of the weekend magazine last Sunday had a special report that featured a long interview with Dr Abid Qaiyum Suleri, who is an expert on food security and we should refer to him to appreciate this problem in all its dimensions. The title of the interview was: ‘Food insecurity is a non-traditional security threat’. I would want to put it more starkly, being a journalist and not an expert.
In the first place, look at the situation that exists in this country. According to one American study, Pakistanis spend nearly 48 percent of their household budget on food consumed at home. This is huge and it is hard to even imagine what it means for such a large number of people to make both ends meet. Bear in mind that this is food for survival and nutrition has very little to do with it. No wonder, this ratio was the highest among the 84 countries that the study had covered.
America, surely, is a rich country. But it would be instructive to know that an average American spends less than seven percent on his household budget on food. This is quality of life for you. Undernourished children cannot grow into healthy adults, physically. My refrain is that we are not mindful of what this is doing to the mental abilities of our children.
Let us leave the American study aside. We have a document prepared by our own government. It is called Vision 2025 and has been approved by the National Economic Council. It says that 60 percent of Pakistan’s population is facing food insecurity and 50 percent of women and children under five years of age are malnourished. Take a pause, please, and then read this sentence again.
As Dr Suleri stated in his interview, “malnourishment leads to persistent lethargy, poor concentration, low achievements in school and at work, compromising IQ level and long-term physical and mental disabilities”. Referring to research being done, he said: “We are working on impact of climate change on food security; impact of bad governance on food security; and how women are prone to more food insecurity than men”.
Take it as an irony of our fate that we have a kind of parity with India on food insecurity – at the other extreme of our nuclear capabilities. On Friday, Nicholas Kristof’s column in the New York Times was titled: ‘India’s stunted children’. As a good reporter, he has collected his impressions during a long visit to different places in India, mainly the province of Utter Pradesh. He has noted that though former prime minister Manmohan Singh had called child malnutrition “a national shame”, there is still no political will in India to address it.
Kristof has mentioned some theories that are emerging in India to explain why India does so poorly in child nutrition – such as as low status of women and poor sanitation. He has noted this anomaly: “Infant mortality is lower for Indian Muslims than for Hindus, even though Muslims are poorer. One reason may be that Muslim villagers are more likely to use outhouses”. This relates to the fact that about half of Indians defecate outside without using toilets.
Whether our rulers find some satisfaction in this comparison with India or not, the thought of going down together is not as acceptable as the aspiration to rise above other countries in the region. Essentially, we have to understand what national security is all about. And there are areas in which we fall behind the rest of the world.
The writer is a staff member.
Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail.com