The flooding in Pakistan in July-August 2010 was a natural calamity that the equal of which it had never experienced before. The deluge came in the wake of a nationwide ‘lower-riparian’ furore, against Punjab by Sindh, and against India by a raucous ‘water-war’ lobby in Pakistan, because of scarcity of water. When the rivers overflowed after rainfall, Pakhtunkhwa-Malakand, Gilgit-Baltistan, Punjab and Sindh were inundated, dislocating 20 million people.
The scale of the calamity was clearly beyond the capacity of an administratively and financially drained state. Instead of concentrating on the crisis, the media made the nation concentrate on the revelations made about Pakistan’s double-faced strategy in Afghanistan made through an LSE research paper and ‘leaks’ in the world press. The floods were ignored and the government was pilloried after President Zardari made the politically unwise decision to leave Pakistan after the onset of the flood. He visited the UK whose prime minister had accused Pakistan of duplicity during his visit in New Delhi. The media became obsessive about ‘ghairat’ (national pride).
Welcome to flood-politics: The flood was further ignored for the following reasons. The media attacked the PPP government and used the flood scenes to emphasise – falsely – that the masses were suffering because of the government. The technique used was to make the stricken population accuse the government of not caring for their plight. The opposition joined in and focused on Zardari’s visit and its various lurid aspects like the visit to a luxury villa in Paris and staying in a posh hotel in the UK. Punjab government couldn’t do much to prevent the millions being displaced but still accused Zardari for not being around to nurse the stricken.
The truth is that there was not much the affected provinces could do. The calamity was just too big. And Pakistan’s ability to govern had been devastated by years of Taliban and Al Qaeda assaults on its cities. Another reason this capacity declined sharply was the media focus on US and India as the producers of the suicide-bombers found prowling the streets of the country. Lack of trust was endemic. Provinces wanted the centre to shell out big money for the rescue and rehabilitation of the stricken population. Punjab asked for 10 billion rupees immediately; Pakhtunkhwa asked for 25 billion. The provinces had not developed their capacity to raise their own funds.
Media repeats its overkill: The 2010 calamity was many times bigger than the 2005 earthquake. Flooding did the sort of damage that the earthquake never did. What was destroyed most crucially was the communication system. There was no way the rescuers could reach the road network. It is not true to say that the civil society did not respond. The response was there but it was delayed by the understandably slow pace of the development of logistics. Not even in Gansu, China, where the economy is growing at a high rate and national foreign exchange reserves are the highest in the world, could the flood-affected population be saved in time.
Flooding easily destabilised the country. The blame for this instability must be borne by the media which learned nothing from the overdrive it went into in 2005, accusing the then government of dereliction. The earthquake suffering was exaggerated and the government condemned during the period that the army was struggling to reach the affected areas. This time too the army – the only organised entity in the country with capacity of outreach without roads – had to take time to plan its rescue campaign. It would be difficult to fault the efforts made by it although the scale of destruction was too large even for its relatively well-equipped response.
Calamities and dismemberment: Natural calamities have not been politically good for Pakistan because of the opportunist interpretations placed on them. In East Pakistan, a historic cyclone was interpreted politically by the opposition to start a campaign that resulted in 1971 in the breakup of Pakistan. In 2005, the Musharraf government was saved by the international community that praised Pakistan for tackling its earthquake effectively. Reproducing what the media said during that crisis would shame many aggressive TV anchors and Urdu columnists today.
Pakistan destabilises itself during crises by becoming xenophobic. The UK, which was hugely maligned – the internal criticism in the UK of his gaffe in New Delhi should have been enough – ended up committing flood aid to the tune of 30 million pounds sterling. The US has committed $71 million thus far. The big friends – Arab countries (except Saudia Arabia), and China - do not yet appear on the list. (Saudia has sent two planeloads of goods and committed $100 million so far, and Chinese ambassador says his country has announced assistance.) If India offers help (New Delhi says it is ready to give $5 million) Pakistan will most probably not open the Wahga border. And if it does, it will register no gratitude because of ‘ghairat’.
Flood as punishment for sins: No one minds those who accuse the stricken population of sinning. According to Express (11 Aug 2010) chief of Jamaatud Dawa Hafiz Saeed appealed to all Pakistanis to pray to Allah and sincerely ask Him to forgive them for the sins for which He is punishing them. Similar appeals of ‘contrition of sins’ were made by Maulana Haneef Jalundhari chief of Pakistan’s top madrassa in Multan, and the father of the Pakistani nuclear bomb and great scientist, Dr AQ Khan. Surprisingly, MQM’s Farooq Sattar too has joined the chorus in misplaced populism.
Quoted in Jinnah (13 Aug 2010) Jamaat Islami chief Dr Munawwar Hassan asked the Muslims to pray for forgiveness from Allah as the floods were sent down as calamity (azab) from Allah for sins committed by them. Jihadi publication Al Qalam editorialised that floods were an indication that the nation of Pakistan had committed certain acts (lagh-zashain) that were not good in the eyes of Allah who had sent down the calamity. The editorial said that the Quran was the authority behind this opinion. Voltaire (1694-1778) blasphemed against the Church of Rome when he condemned the latter for interpreting plague as punishment for sins.
Calamity as cause of fall of government: In 2005, the banned jihadi organisations were let out to rescue people from the earthquake. It immediately led to the ouster of the NGOs from areas where the jihadis were operating. It later on led to the weakening of the position of General Musharraf within the army. His ability to control the jihadis who had tried to kill him a number of times declined, which led to the new aggression shown by Lal Masjid and its supporters within the state. After that, Sipah Sahaba staged its largest show of force in Islamabad in 2006 which was followed by Musharraf’s operation against a greatly emboldened Lal Masjid, in which he was defeated in 2007.
The jihadis are once again in the field. This time the affected areas are nearer home and the population ready to reward their efforts with loyalty to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. (Jihadi publications are back in circulation after the 2006 ban and a booklet of Al Zawahiri rejecting the Constitution of Pakistan is being mailed to people in the big cities.) Reported in Jang (11 Aug 2010) the Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq, named after a killer of the Shia in Pakistan, announced that if Pakistan returned the American aid the Talban were willing to pay $20 million as a substitute fund. And if the Pakistan government assured security, the Taliban were ready to distribute charity and do rescue and relief work in the flood-affected areas.
Talibanisation of the flood: Reported in the jihadi Jaish-e-Muhammad publication Al Qalam (13 Aug 2010) Al Rehmat Trust had gone into motion in the flood-stricken areas of Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab with its thousands of volunteers helping 3,439 victims in one week in Pakhtunkhwa. It was helping families in Nowshehra, Malakand and Akora Khatak, giving food worth Rs 1100 per family. In Punjab it was active in Rahimyar Khan, Muzaffargarh, Taunsa, Kot Addu and Leiyah. Al Rehmat, attached to Jaish-e-Muhammad, was in coordination with Al Shafi Medical Welfare Organisation.
Pakistan’s flood could be on the brink of Talibanisation, followed by a rise in the hold of the banned terrorist organisations over the masses. The Pakistan army is stretched to its limits rescuing people as well as fighting the Taliban in Waziristan and Orakzai. That Pakistan’s posture is confrontational vis-à-vis India and the US will not help in the coming days when estimates of the damage sustained by it will become public and the world will be found reluctant to help a strategically confused state.
