Daily Times

“And, what grail (a cup, a vessel, or a platter) can be holier than the one that fills a child’s stomach?”

The other day, I saw a picture of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, squatting on the ground, listening intently to a poor Thar woman recounting her woes. The drought in Thar has killed around 150 children and counting. I do not know whether the woman in the picture was asking him, “Where were you so far?” This is one question everyone should ask: where has the PPP government been for so long? Why did the taa hayaat wazir-i aala (chief minister for life), Qaim Ali Shah, not take notice of this calamity and arrest it at its nascent stage? How many precious lives would have been saved had this man woken up from his stupor a little earlier? What is he doing in the chief minister house at this age and with his impaired abilities anyway? Does Mr Bhutto-Zardari read any newspapers? Why did he not notice this earlier? Was he too busy basking in the ‘mega success’ of the SindhFest to notice people dying around him? Would not the reportedly more than one billion rupees he spent on the festival have been better spent on starving Tharis, or improving the obliterated education system in the province?

Seeing Bilawal sitting with the woman immediately brought a question to my mind: what does the woman in this picture need more, san gréal (holy grail) or sang réal (holy blood)? What do the people of Sindh in general really need: a plate full of food or the continuation of the ‘royal’ bloodline in power? What if they have to choose between the two? So far, the people of Sindh seem to have put their weight in favour of holy blood. Election after election after election, the people of Sindh have blindly voted for their royal family, the Bhutto’s, gaining little in return, especially after the last two elections but for how long will this continue?

The PPP, after the tragic demise of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, is a mess. A herd led by people who are more interested in filling their pockets than giving something back to their benefactors — the people. Sindh’s case can be described in a Sindhi proverb “Ghotu ‘buchhro’, janj waairree” (the groom is not ‘interested’ in women, hence the wedding is in disarray). It looks like Sindh has been completely forsaken. If the last government of the party was a disaster, this one is even worse. However, mismanagement in food distribution is not the only thing in which this government has wronged the people of Sindh. You name an institution, any institution, and you will see the failure of the government’s writ at large. It looks like chaos is ruling the province and the worst thing is that there is no accountability.

Take the example of public education in Sindh. The system is in complete shambles. News reports say that, against 1,500 positions in the education department, 23,000 people were recruited by the former minister of education, Pir Mazharul Haque. Why was he been so generous? Reportedly, for each job he vended, he bagged Rs 300,000.

The law and order situation, which has never been ideal in Sindh, has deteriorated to an even worse degree during this government. And, we are not talking about Karachi because everyone knows that Karachi is beyond the realm of the Sindh government. I am talking about what is known as the interior of Sindh. In Taa Hayaat Wazir-i Aala’s own home town, Khairpur, more than 15 people have been kidnapped for ransom. At least 10 children have gone missing in the last few days in northern Sindh and the police are as clueless as ever. Robbery, meanwhile, is a routine event, not taken seriously either by the police or the rulers.

The news that the officials who went to Thar to condole with Tharis on the death of their children themselves feasted on a lavish smorgasbord makes one sick. When a friend of mine posted on Facebook a picture of Sindh officials eating out of dishes containing what looked like the blood and flesh of Tharis, I commented, “They should all be tried for murder”. They should be tried for killing children — all of them.

Coming back to the bigger picture: the people of Sindh keep voting for the PPP because, honestly, this is the only party so far as the Sindhis see any hope in. Imran Khan vows in his public meetings to attack Sindh 17 times, a la Mahmood Ghaznavi (does he mean he intends to plunder and destroy Sindh the way Ghaznavi did Somnath?). If he continues with this senseless rubbish, he can never win Sindh. Nawaz Sharif has been given a chance time and again by Sindhis and each time he has failed them. The way he has abandoned Sindh this time around, clearly shows he is not interested in winning over the Sindhis anyway.

The only choice Sindhis have as far as they can see is Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s party but that will go on only for as long as people get their san gréal — a plateful of food. If they are denied that, which it looks like they will be should the incompetent and corrupt dispensation of Qaim Ali Shah continue to misrule, it will not take them long to find another sang réal.

There is a Sindhi verse that goes like this, “Dhava binaa dholaa, naahe saanjyeh soonha ji” (on an empty stomach there can be no appreciation of beauty). Or, as per a Persian verse “Chenaan qaht saale dar andar Damishqu/keh yaaraan faraamosh kardand ishque” (so strange a drought has hit Damascus this year/that people have forgotten even love). People cannot be expected to go on loving royal blood while seeing their children starving to death. The sooner Bilawal Bhutto Zardari sheds the burden of this corrupt administration the better for him and his party.

The writer is an independent commentator