Daily Times

In Pakistan, aversion to modernity has remained the hallmark of the clergy. Perhaps nowhere has conservatism evoked as much opposition as when it comes to the operations of the NGO sector. Similarly, no campaign stirs as much trouble as polio immunisation. Ever since 1994, when the polio campaign began in Pakistan, there were dissenting voices from the outset. Opposition towards polio efforts was primarily a conservative response from religious quarters. The clergy came up with a comprehensive charge sheet against polio. The mullahs would tell the complacent masses that polio vaccination was illegal in Islam because it was a US plot to spread infertility among Muslims. They would point towards female workers accompanying their male colleagues during the inoculation campaign as un-Islamic. If the mullahs were told that poliovirus engenders physical crippling, one risked being declared the infidels’ agent. This mentality was as fatalist as it was conservative. The stock reply was that if Allah paralysed someone, what could these NGOs do to undo it?

The accusations continued. From the mullah’s perspective, the west was fearful that one day Muslims would conquer them through their male power. The anti-polio drive was meant to sterilise Muslim babies and increase the chances of female babies. It is one of the ‘symptoms’ of the nearing of the Day of Judgment that females start outnumbering males. The mullahs preach that due to the effects of the polio programme, this is already happening. On the Day of Judgment, the holy Prophet (PBUH) will take pride in having the largest number of followers than any other prophet and the way forward is to produce more babies. Allah will feed them. Earlier people did not know about the third gender. It is only due to polio that the numbers of the third gender are increasing, they say. The opposition to the polio campaign was a backlash of conservative culture wrapped up in religious imagery. Like it changed many things, 9/11 gave a new boost to the right wing’s self-fulfilling prophecies.

The US invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11 intensified the right fringe’s concocted stories. The US, west, NGOs and polio were interchangeable. How could the US and west be a friend of Muslim children when they had killed thousands of them during their bombing campaigns in Afghanistan? The US drone attacks and Pakistan’s military operations in FATA since 2004 just added fuel to the fire. The government of Pakistan was as responsible for the killing of children as was the US and NATO. The “no” to polio became even harsher. Earlier, polio teams would visit homes to administer polio drops. Although people would refuse immunisation of their children, there was hardly any violent response from the naysayers. For the last three years, it takes the state to use its law enforcement agencies to accompany polio workers but still success appears to be a pipedream. What went wrong?

Uncle Sam bears much responsibility. Back in 2011, Heidi Larson’s article in The Guardian pointed out how the US had launched a fake polio campaign in Abbottabad to search out Osama bin Laden. The subsequent secret operation by US Navy Seals in May that year eliminated bin Laden and they took the corpse with them. There could have been no event as damaging to polio vaccinations as the al Qaeda chief being killed by the US. This episode confirmed the religious fringe’s worst nightmare. They would remind the people how the mullahs — the true well-wishers of the ummah — had warned that the polio programme was up to no good. Since June 2012, when the Taliban banned anti-polio drops in FATA, no polio immunisation campaign could be carried out there. Although polio victims are confirmed from all over Pakistan — 194 this year alone — there is a violent response to the polio drive, primarily a rural Pashtun phenomenon originating from Pakistan’s northwest. It is urban to the extent that the rural population has moved there. Why the Pashtuns primarily?

FATA is a perfect example of the development of underdevelopment. Over decades, if anything, the tribal areas have excelled in backwardness. No one is conservative by birth. Value systems, traditions and behaviours are conditioned by the kind of society people live in. Politically and socially, FATA is the mirror image of its own past. Even today, as during the colonial period, the tribal region remains deeply anchored in strategic calculations. FATA is the festering wound of Pakistan. It has become a deadly virus that has the ability to enormously affect the progress of the whole country. If the past decade has any lessons for officialdom, it is that if the country has to progress, FATA comes first. What to do?

The government should come up with effective, counter anti-polio propaganda, one genuinely aimed at removing misperceptions from the minds of the people. The government should enlist the support of the moderate clergy. Polio resistance comes from poor localities. The government should ensure economic incentives in the resisting areas. In the extremely conservative areas, all-male teams should administer polio drops. As for FATA, long-term policies will succeed. The Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) should be abolished in its entirety and replaced by state laws as implemented in the rest of the country. The policy for FATA as a launch pad should come to an end. The US should carry out a comprehensive state building exercise in FATA. The abandoned bipartisan legislation of the Reconstruction of Opportunity Zones (ROZs) was a step in the right direction. Since FATA holds the key to world peace, the whole world has a stake in building the tribal hinterland.

The writer is a freelance journalist stationed in Quetta