‘Look where you are born’

Published November 21, 2014
The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.
The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

FOR a child born in Pakistan, the chances of survival vary greatly from one region to another. Suppose you are born in the seemingly unapproachable, irredeemable stretch of Thar. You may well turn out to be someone whose pictures are flashed on television as the epitome of utter helplessness, someone whose imminent demise is supervised by a most inept pro-democracy bunch.

This is a transitory period. The affairs of the party that rules Sindh are in the process of being handed over to a grandchild who has inherited the power mantle. This is supposed to be a new beginning, the start of a new era, which is thought to be inauspiciously marked by the death of children in Thar — from malnourishment, from lack of medical facilities, most certainly from neglect.

It is about loss of lives, about a juggernaut that has faced no challenge and encountered no inquiries on its way to stalking homes in Thar. There is a chief minister who defies his public appearance to wield enough influence over the party leadership that issues him a show cause notice only to quickly withdraw it. But he has to be the man held primarily responsible just as the new chairman in the making is excused for only being half in the saddle.


It is about loss of lives, about a juggernaut that has faced no challenge and encountered no inquiries on its way to stalking homes in Thar.


There are others who can share the blame. The administration that is ever so keen to correct the number of the dead children in Thar: it is not several hundred but a couple of hundreds between January and November this year; the media has got it all wrong.

There is the Sindh cabinet and there is the party, which are inclined to think that this is no rare occurrence but a routine affair that has come to be highlighted by chance now. A parliamentary committee to probe the deaths is proposed, after an earlier, aborted attempt at official investigation. The movement, however, remains casual, bar the oral exercise in promise-making.

Sindh has other emergencies to deal with, and among them the threat of invasion by Imran Khan is not one that can be easily shrugged off. It must be quelled at the site of today’s PTI rally ‘a few kilometres short of Larkana proper’, and, true to form, the task should be accomplished singularly by statements that highlight the great sacrifices the current heir’s ancestors have made in the past.

Imran Khan promises to stir up Sindh just as he has created excitement and encouraged counter activity in Punjab. Only the responses by the incumbents in the two provinces so far are so different by comparison. All these stories of inefficiency from Sindh played out against the impending danger have failed to have any positive impact.

The truth is that it cannot get any worse than when the deaths of young children in Thar are reduced from being viewed as a human tragedy to a level where it becomes an aspect tied to the destiny of the young PPP heir. It cannot get more callous than this even in a country that goes about setting one trap after another for its children. Thar appears to be the most dangerous place in the land right now, but other areas are safer only relatively.

There is always this danger that you may be born into a family that abhors the sight of the anti-polio squad out to administer a few drops of the antidote to the children. Once again there have been big statements and some practical measures to ensure maximum outreach; yet all this has failed to ensure a smooth drive and the governments betray a fear of those who are hell-bent on scuttling the anti-polio campaign. There are so many who remain unconvinced about it; a television channel reported the other day that thousands of parents in Karachi had refused to get their children vaccinated against the crippling, life-threatening disease.

Once again the contrast between Sindh and Punjab, two provinces whose long-standing rulers are fighting the politics of ‘change’, is clear. That would suggest that if you are born in Punjab, you are much safer. And it is true, if you can somehow ensure that you are able to escape Sargodha and dodge Faisalabad on your way to finding your feet.

A public hospital in Faisalabad has become so notorious a death trap for infants that it is a wonder how and why it still draws patients. The answer could be that, like the parents of seven infants who died at a government-run Sargodha hospital on Tuesday and Wednesday, a large number of people in Faisalabad have no other choice.

In Sargodha, once again, the all-too-painful allegations of staff neglect were sounded. All too familiarly, the doctors retorted that these were false accusations, saying that some of these children had been born prematurely. Whereas the doctor in charge vehemently denied neglect he wasn’t asked if his hospital was equipped to deal with cases of premature births, which are routine, or if better facilities could have saved a few precious lives here.

When it comes to our collective memory, Thar or a Faisalabad or a Sargodha where ‘an unfortunate incident has taken place’ or even a Lahore where a five-year-old girl is raped by the chowkidar who is there to guard her, is located at a safe distance. The distance allows us to go about our business without being overtly hindered by the inescapable realities of life. Just as it was inevitable a hundred years ago that only a percentage of all those born would attain adulthood, it is a ‘fact’ that some of those born now will meet with accidents early in life.

Lucky will be the ones who will survive and be recognised warily by those in power as the brash youth with its own sets of demands and ideals. In a place as unsafe as this, the Universal Children’s Day that we celebrated yesterday has been in vain.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, November 21th, 2014

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