ALMOST a week after the heatwave in the southern part of the country passed, leaving behind an alarming death toll, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif finally thought it worth his while to pay a quick visit to Karachi and make some inquiries. His visit was abbreviated, and cut short further as he attended one meeting with Sindh government officials and civil society leaders before departing straight for the airport. In the meantime, he offered condolences to the bereaved without finding the time to visit the hospitals where they were being treated, and left behind reports that an inquiry committee had been constituted to affix responsibility on those government departments that were negligent during the tragedy. All through the event itself, the federal government took the line that it was the Sindh government’s responsibility to formulate a response, and deflected charges that power outages that aggravated the death toll had anything to do with the centre since K-Electric is privately owned. But by insisting that the National Disaster Management Authority did indeed fashion a response, the federal government tacitly admitted that there was a role for it to play in such a situation. Nobody has asked whether the Met Department, another federal body, actually issued an alert in response to which government departments could have mobilised.

Mr Sharif’s visit, and the response of his government more generally, appears almost flippant in the face of a large death toll that crossed 1,200 in Karachi. First by participating in a blame game over who was responsible for the shoddy response, then by making a short and perfunctory visit whose only tangible outcome appears to be another committee, he has reinforced the perception that the city of Karachi has nobody to care for it. Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah couldn’t abort his trip to Larkana as the death toll mounted during the heatwave, while Mr Sharif cut his own visit to Karachi short when he arrived in the city after the crisis had passed. What exactly does accountability mean at this point? What difference does it make that a committee will now be making some inquiries when both the federal and provincial governments are more interested in protecting their own image than sheltering the most vulnerable of lives from a crippling natural event? The residents of Karachi can do without mere lip service being paid to their troubles.

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2015

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