Daily Times

Tragedies are believed to soften hearts and induce empathy. In the land of Sindh, however, tragedies seem to evoke numbness and apathy.

In the last four-and-a-half years, 2,564 children–mostly under the age of five–have gone to the mouth of death in Tharparkar.

The catastrophe that began with famine soon transformed into an unmitigated carnage due to the sheer incompetence and callousness of the Sindh government, which has been in power, uninterruptedly, for over a decade now.

The carnage that was unleashed on the people of Tharparkar continues killing children. To date, the massacre has claimed the lives of 326 children in 2014; 398 in 2015; 497 in 2016; 450 in 2017 and 505 in 2018.

The indifference was so enormous that while the squeezed children were leaving the laps of their mothers, the then Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah was witnessed enjoying the lavish buffet lunch along with his ministers during his visit to the unfortunate district. One such minister trivialised the deaths by calling them insignificant and a “routine thing.”

There was not even an urge to feign concern for the poor children of Tharparkar. Sadly, the approach of Sindh government has not changed until today, which is evident from the fact that 386 children have died in Tharparkar in 2019 so far.

The multi-dimensional plight that engulfed Tharparkar was a direct fallout of protracted myopia, negligence and indifference covered over the decades. Firstly, due to recurring droughts and famine, a large population of Tharparkar is destitute and has a meagre source of earning. Secondly, the people of Tharparkar are faced with acute food insecurity and have limited access to the basic requirements of food. Thirdly, mothers-to-be don’t have an adequate diet, which results in the birth of underweight babies with a weak immune system exposing them to fatal diseases. Fourthly, the dismal condition of health facilities in the area worsens the woes of the inhabitants of Tharparkar with the presence of just one public hospital in district headquarter, Mithi, to cater to the needs of 1.65 million people. Hence, the nexus of these evils has been mercilessly swallowing the children.

The multi-dimensional plight in Tharparkar was a direct fallout of protracted myopia, negligence and indifference over the decades

Amidst the prevalence of such sad state of affairs in Sindh, the outbreak of a life-threatening disease cannot be less than a nightmare. This time, the victims are the children of Ratodero, a small town in the neighbourhood of Garhi Khuda Bakhsh and the capital of District Larkana’s Tehsil Ratodero Taluka, the birthplace of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. The geographical location of the town is tragically ironic.

According to the latest statistics, 830 people in Ratodero, out of which 685 are children–mostly between one and five years–have tested positive for HIV. It is a virus that, if left untreated, leads to AIDS; a syndrome that weakens the immune system, eventually allowing the life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive. The only way of survival is a life-long reliance on Antiretroviral Therapy (ART), which is too costly for the poor to afford.

Although the accused paediatrician, Dr Muzaffar Ghangro, has been apprehended for the reckless usage of virus-infected syringes, periling the lives of so many. Holding him responsible for this atrocity would tantamount to scapegoating him for the criminal negligence of the authorities responsible for the provision of health facilities in the area, which are either non-existent or in abysmal condition.

Though the overall health care system in Pakistan is in absolute pits, that of rural Sindh narrates a haunting tale.

For the population of 224,665, Taluka Headquarter Hospital (THQ Hospital) is the only 30-bed public hospital in Ratodera with no treatment centre for children in the area. Larkana, the hometown of Bhuttos, is the area most affected by HIV in Sindh, with more than 2,400 AIDS patients.

People, mostly children, are dying every day in Thatta, Umerkot and Tharparkar due to malnutrition and ailments including hepatitis, malaria, dengue, thalassaemia and many other diseases. Thatta is at the verge of Thalassemia epidemic, where over 200 children have already lost their lives. Yet, there is not a single thalassaemia centre in the district to provide treatment. This is just a small glimpse of the misery that people of Sindh have been subjected to.

The lack of public health facilities in rural Sindh includes an acute shortage of hospitals, dispensaries and laboratories; specialist doctors and surgeons; nursing, medical and management staff; medicines and state-of-the-art machinery/equipment have led to widespread unlicensed private clinics, dispensaries, laboratories and blood banks, mostly run by quacks. It is a murderous healthcare system taking more lives than it is saving, with towns and towns turning into hubs of chronic diseases–under an 11-year long regime. It is not difficult to conclude that something somewhere has gone horribly wrong.

And that something is Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

A party that was once recognised as a “party of poor” today serves as a perfect case study for the organised corruption in the garb of politics. PPP has used the ‘Bhutto and BB card’ as a permit to loot and plunder this country and exploited the political power to fill their bank accounts. The parasitic leadership of PPP has defiled the insane love of Sindhis for Bhuttos. In the name of “Roti, Kapra aur Makaan,” it has given them graveyards of children.

The people of Sindh – who felt orphaned, for long, after the demise of their beloved leader Benazir Bhutto – found hope in Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and saw him as a cure to their endless worries. However, that hope – though still intact – has not morphed into a balm that could provide a panacea for the sufferings of hapless people of Sindh.

The vintage negligence of PPP which was expected to end after Bilawal’s take-over of the party affairs, unfortunately, persists. While the PPP’s misplaced focus is costing precious lives in Sindh, it also shows Bilawal and his party’s disconnect with the ground realities.

Pakistan has changed, for good. While many of its flaws linger, the nation has become largely averse to corruption. Yet, the denial and delusion that PPP chooses to live in and its failure to see the space for corruption and corruption-apologists is narrowing fast is baffling. PPP is failing to fathom that it’s 2019 and with all the political awakening, Pakistanis don’t endorse someone’s inheritance of a political party through a piece of paper as a qualification enough for him/her to pose as their rightful leader or having born in a certain family or bearing a certain surname gives anyone the right to rule them.

Before Bilawal poses himself as a future leader and saviour of Pakistan, he needs to turn back and look at the abandoned, hunger-filled and haunted eyes staring at him. They keep on screaming that more than democracy, the lives of those stricken with the disease he brushed off as “not a death sentence” are in danger as it has already claimed 20 lives–including a two-year-old. Meanwhile, a vast majority continues battling this debilitating disease dreading ostracisation owing to the stigma attached to it. Rescuing those dying in Tharparkar, Thatta, Umerkot and Larkana is nobler than pursuing the political wranglings. Pulling out his own people from the pits of misery would elevate him as a true leader and redeem and revive PPP.

Today, Sindh needs a messiah. Those who are hungry need food; those who are sick need health and rehabilitation; those who are illiterate need education; those who have been abandoned and uncared for – for long – need to be owned and taken care of. Sindh needs Bilawal. The rest of the country can wait.

Time entails for Bilawal to carve his own road to travel and give up walking on the footsteps of his predecessors as that path only leads to perdition. It’s time for him to realise that one doesn’t embark on a mission of saving the kingdom when one’s backyard burns.

The writer is a freelance columnist based in Islamabad