Pakistan’s indifferent and absent state machinery
https://arab.news/2uh8y
It was not the first time people in interior Sindh were left at the mercy of nature when the fire broke out in Faiz Mohammad Daryani Chandio Goth in Mehar taluka of Dadu, on April 18, 2022. Ten children and a woman died in an inferno that engulfed all 120 homes.
According to survivors, no one came for rescue until the fire, raging for almost 12 hours, had reduced the village to ashes. There is only one fire station in Mehar, but without fire tenders. So the question is, where was the Provincial Disaster Management Sindh when the incident unfolded?
The organization is mandated to foresee impending disasters and calamities and provide relief when any part of Sindh is faced with a catastrophe. The department is supposed to have its functioning offices at the beck and call of the calamity-hit people. Its response time to the tragedy is key to save the trouble from becoming fatal. However, that was not to be. Even otherwise, it was the worst of times as the entire political spectrum of Sindh and the rest of the country were busy with political games. The constitution, though, mandates parliamentarians to work for the people of the country and the survival of the state. Unfortunately, that has never been the case.
This is why we are strapped to the scaffold of the IMF. This is why we waste billions of rupees annually on dead state-owned entities because they help us in political hiring. This is why Pakistan is ranked 130 out of 139 nations on the judicial index because the judiciary is compromised. Dr. Ayesha Siddiqi explains in her book, In the Wake of Disaster, about the condition of interior Sindh in these words: “Drawing on qualitative data from ‘interior’ Sindh (and south Punjab) finds that a universal foundation for citizenship does not exist and the very concept of being a citizen is entirely unclear to people in this part of Pakistan.” She further narrates, “This has been made worse by a state that has not attempted to reach out to its citizens either.” She has also used words such as “indifferent” and “absent” for the state machinery, regarding its conduct with the citizens of interior Sindh.
Disasters provide an analytical window to place the state-citizen relationship in perspective. It tells us about the strength and the tenacity of the social contract between the state and its citizens.
Durdana Najam
When the team of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan visited the village under the direction of retired Justice Majida Rizvi, chairperson of the Sindh Human Rights Commission, they found a complete breakdown of civil administration as other than providing a few tents, no one had bothered to remove the smoldering debris for over ten days. As a result, three children suffered burns when they fell onto the cinders.
Imamuddin Chandio, who had lost four children, told the HRCP that when the fire broke out at 8 am on Monday 18, he got in touch with the officials of the Mehar town committee and Dadu district administration to send fire brigades, which arrived after 18 hours – and that too in a dysfunctional form.
Disasters provide an analytical window to place the state-citizen relationship in perspective. It tells us about the strength and the tenacity of the social contract between the state and its citizens.
In the aftermath of the flooding disaster of 2010 and 2011 in lower Sindh, the Lancet wrote about the plight of a family in these words: “The family had received no medical help— or any other help for that matter— after the flood hit their village nearly two weeks ago. Aid never seemed to arrive and in its absence, he feared his children’s health would continue to deteriorate at an alarming pace.”
On the landslide disaster in Attabad, Gilgit-Baltistan, in the far north of the country, scholars asked ‘What do the politics of the Attabad disaster tell us about political processes in Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan.’ Their answer includes the ideological divide between the PPP, and the Mir, the hereditary rulers of the region. Further studies revealed: “People found state-led development packages and reliefs irrelevant.”
The fire that struck Faiz Mohammad Daryani Chandio was from the amber of the overarching disaster that has gripped the country since its inception in 1947. As I write these lines, the country is in the grip of energy disaster, while the economy is rolling toward unchartered territory. Institutions are serving the interest of the elites, while the common man on the street is promised salvage on a false narrative laced with religious and constitutional derivatives.
- Durdana Najam is an oped writer based in Lahore. She writes on security and policy issues.
Twitter: @durdananajam
