In the second week of October it was revealed that around 300,000
bottles of mineral water, meant for the drought victims in Thar had expired
in a government warehouse. Earlier in the year, wheat meant for
the victims had met the same fate. At least 31
lives were lost there in October and 234, mostly children, in the preceding
episode.
A reporter revealed that the district administration of
Thar at that time was in the hands of Makhdom Amin Fahim’s offspring. He is
the senior vice chairman of the PPP. Meanwhile an inquiry commission formed to
probe the handling of the drought back in April determined that the Sindh
Health Department and elected representatives
of the area were to be blamed. They belong to the PPP.
In between the deaths in Thar was of course the PPP’s jalsa
in Karachi. Where Bilawal, and the rest of the PPP leadership, failed to elaborate
on their plans for dealing with the situation in Thar. After all, death in Thar is
hardly new. In fact, it’s been here for a while. Over
1000 people died there in the last couple of years.
Just because the media made some noise this time doesn’t mean priorities should
change.
What was worth mentioning then? Well, Bhuttos for one.
Bhuttoism for another. Shahadat. Jamhoriat. & Bhuttoism. Sprinkle some
“causes” that you never did anything about when in power on top and glorious
leadership is born.
Unfair perhaps, they did do something about them. In his
speech that day Bilawal took credit for the PPP responding to the Hazara-Shia
sit-ins in Quetta & sacrificing their government. Hmph.
Syed Nasir Ali Shah, the Hazara MNA from Quetta staged
a sit in at the entrance of Parliament house in October of 2011. He
belonged to the PPP & resorted to protesting against his own party after 14
Hazaras were gunned down in Quetta, and no action was taken by the government.
2011.
Why didn’t the PPP government in the province take any
action? Nawab Aslam Raisani was the Chief Minister of the province, the tribal
head of Raisani tribe, influential in
Mastung. Mastung, coincidentally, houses the biggest ASWJ seminary in
Balochistan and witnessed
numerous attacks on Shia pilgrims.
One of the first acts of Nawab Raisani after taking over as
CM Balochistan was to appoint Nawabzada Humayun Jogezai as chief of police in
Quetta. Jogezai, often accused of having
links to the LeJ, in the past had ordered police to open fire on Hazara
protesters killing 25. He is Nawab Raisani’s son-in-law. Coincidentally,
Hazara killings picked up after he was appointed.
The sacrifice of the PPP government, for two whole months,
wasn’t the first course of action either. Initially the PPP CM had proposed to
settle the Hazara mourners issue by sending them truckloads
of tissue papers. The PPP’s tissue paper strategy worked for a couple of
years. Finally protests broke out throughout the country & tissue papers ran
short. Hence the PM descended upon Quetta. Where Hazaras were reminded that
there would be no dialogue with him, prompting one to ask;
“Kyun PM viceroy hain ya hum jaisay insaan nahin hain?”
Once the PPP made the ultimate sacrifice and removed its
government, a couple of peculiar incidents took place. One PPP minister, Ali
Madad Jattak, was arrested with 15 guards because Hazaras
had complained he had ties to a “defunct militant group”. Chatter was that
the guards were LeJ men.
Alamdar road had witnessed two blasts, one a suicide blast
inside a snooker
club and then a more deadly one from an explosive laden car. In February
the Hazaras were targeted again, this time an explosive
filled water tanker was used.
Later in the year, FC recovered 104,480
KGs of explosives from a warehouse in Quetta, the largest such find in the
country’s history. The officials described the warehouse
as a “car-bomb factory” complete with mixers, detonators, remote controls
and of course lots of explosives to fit into vehicles. Coincidentally, the
car-bomb factory belonged to a PPP
leader who was later arrested.
Clearly the PPP, contrary to popular opinion, did a lot to
the Hazaras.
Where did the bright speech come from any way? One influence
clearly was the party old guard, who themselves spent the night recounting
medical benefits of Bhuttoism. The other is the group of supposedly neutral
journalists, intellectuals & NGO workers who were more excited by the PPP
rally than the actual participants bused-in from around Sindh.
Is it a coincidence that almost everyone losing their shit
about how many pressing issues Bilawal mentioned in his speech has been totally
oblivious to the drought & the deaths in Thar? ALL of them didn’t read the
last week?
Having party loyalists embedded in the media cannot possibly
be a disadvantage, but the PPP is well versed in the impossible. Propagandists
are a valuable resource but for external consumption, not for internal
evaluation. It was just silly how Bilawal lifted his arguments from PPP
apologists ever present in the media, & social media.
Sindh is underdeveloped since partition and because we had
no resources. Everyone wants the blockades around Bilawal House removed because
they want me to be killed. Corruption allegations are just an excuse to malign
us. Governance isn’t that better elsewhere either.
Finger on the pulse.
This I am not making up; in his first interview after the 18th
October jalsa in Karachi, chairman of the PPP Bilawal claimed that 60%
of Pakistan’s population is young, and so is he. Therefore, he can relate
to them more than any other leader in Pakistan.
Just like Justin Bieber can.
Yes, a billionaire kid who has lived most of his life
outside Pakistan, doesn’t even know the language, believes he can relate to a
country where, according to World
Bank, 60% of the population lives under the international poverty line,
more than anyone else; because he is young.
The level of delusion is staggering, breath-taking.
So while the young prince lives in his bubble, relating to
his darbaris in the party & the media, where does that leave the people? After all,
it is the Pakistan “Peoples” Party.
Among death & hunger, of course. Those are the gifts the
party has brought them. Thar & the Hazaras are but just a glimpse.
Consider that all over Pakistan 6,126 lives have been claimed by suicide
bombings, in our history. By just 2011, the PPP had lorded over,
and participated in, the killing of
over 7,000 people in Karachi alone. The figure must be over 10,000 now, as
the killing hasn’t stopped.
Hunger is the bigger hallmark though. Shortage of food &
malnourishment is not just an issue in Thar, it persists throughout Sindh to a
disgraceful extent. In Ethiopia the stunting rate
for children is 51%, in Eritrea
it is 44%, in Sudan
40%. In Sindh it is
56.7% and in the loyal PPP stronghold of rural Sindh, it’s 63.3%.
63.3% in 2014.
Death & hunger.
