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IT is telling that all the news reports about the tragedy cannot even concur, so I will not use a precise number here. Suffice to say that upwards of at least 40 people died in Toba Tek Singh over the Christmas weekend after consuming tainted alcohol.
What has come into the public domain so far is that the victims, mainly Christians and undoubtedly the poorest of the poor, were celebrating the festival with drinks into which had been mixed some form of a homemade brew that was otherwise being used as an aftershave lotion by roadside barbers.
Deaths as a result of this form of adulteration are fairly common. In November, two people died of the same reason in Rawalpindi. Before that, in October, at least 10 people died in Jhelum under the same circumstances. Run an internet search on the issue in Pakistan, and you’ll find report after report stretching back over the years, a body count of needless deaths.
Contaminated food and drink hardly bother the state.
In some quarters, the misfortune of the families to which these men belonged was taken as a reason to debate the already tight restrictions that exist in this country over the sale and consumption of the substance. Should there be stricter control? Less? The answer to the latter is fairly easy: also last month, nearly 50 people in Irkutsk died as a result of consuming what Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev referred to as “non-traditional alcoholic liquids”, in that case bath lotion. The murderous substance there was methanol. Clearly, the issue is not about prohibition or otherwise; it is about poverty and access to substandard consumables.
Lest one be tempted into thinking that this is a problem concerning a commodity that is bought by a minority in Pakistan, consider the other side of the coin. Last week, the Punjab Food Authority told the Supreme Court that, as it had been directed to, samples of the products of 30 dairy and over 300 drinking water companies had been collected and sent to laboratories for analyses. The PFA director-general promised that strict action would be taken against any company whose samples might be found substandard.
The petition the bench is hearing concerns the sale of substandard milk and drinking water, as a result of which the PFA filed a report showing the action it had already taken against offending parties, including the sealing of factories, the cancellation of licences, and the imposition of fines.
Quite apart from the petition that the bench is hearing, it has become fairly regular to read in the newspapers accounts of bottled drinking water that laboratory analyses have found to be substandard. In the back of the public consciousness, legal action is taken — or not — but, meanwhile, the citizenry must fend for itself by making the right choices when buying.
There is a large distance between the availability and/or consumption of substances such as alcohol and milk/water in Pakistan. But taken together, all three examples illustrate one fundamental reality: while it is not within the purview of the state to necessarily dictate what citizens may or may not choose to consume, it is certainly its business to ensure that whatever is legally available is safe for human consumption.
On the books, the issue has been addressed. There are laws about the adulteration of food, procedures through which regular checks are meant to be carried out — the regulations implemented, the penalties imposed. In practice, though, like many other aspects of Pakistan, things aren’t so clear cut. Consider, for example, the exercise in the year past that the PFA also undertook to come down hard on eateries selling adulterated, expired, contaminated or otherwise substandard food.
While there was a general sense of appreciation from the public at large, which is obviously at risk from such unethical practices, the greater understanding was that the campaign was not sustainable in the long term. And, as it happens, it has indeed died away, until such time that some other intrepid soul feels up to the challenge of monitoring a sector that is so large as to be, in a practical sense, un-monitorable.
One could make the argument, then, that beyond the laws what is really needed is an appreciation of ethics and honesty by those that would adulterate the food chain knowingly and willingly. But here is where an anecdote concerning a gentleman I know becomes relevant: a keen drinker of fresh milk delivered daily to his house by herders, one day, to his consternation, he spotted the purveyor diluting it with water from his garden tap. After much thought, he decided to continue buying from this particular distributor since the water from this known source was at least better than from some pond somewhere.
No amount of legislation can prevent dishonesty, is the take-away; it is up to the state and its apparatus to ensure that what is being sold in the markets is of some minimum standard.
The writer is a member of staff.
Published in Dawn, January 2nd, 2017
