Lessons from 2022 Karachi Rains

Rains are always a welcome sight in southern Pakistan, which is sunny and hot for most of the year.  There is poetry and romance associated with the rainy season.  The monsoon rains offer a respite from the scorching sun.  This year, the heat was unbearable as unprecedented temperatures were experienced due to climate change.  The monsoon this year was reminiscent of 2020 when the rainfall was equally fierce. This year, we should have been prepared.  The rains had been forecasted up to two weeks in advance.  We knew that the showers were due on the occasion of Baqra Eid.

The citizenry took absolutely no responsibility for their property and their lives.  The entire focus was on procuring sacrificial animals.  It was every man for himself and people made regular sacrificial arrangements.  Their main concern was getting hold of a capable butcher at a reasonable cost.  They went ahead with the religious slaughtering and polluted their own homes, residential streets and entire neighbourhoods with animal parts.  The callous expectation was from the city’s sanitation services to clear the massive mess, which they had created.

Then came the torrential rains, which led to flooding.  The city’s capacity to handle the flood water was tested to the limit and there were massive crises.   Many neighbourhoods had waist-length water on the streets, which entered homes.  This was rainwater mixed with sewerage water and then there was the floating debris of animal offals, heads and other trash usually littered the streets.  As time progressed, the water turned putrid and the stench became an issue, as much as the possibility of water-borne diseases.  K-Electric had to shut down the electric supply to prevent electrocution incidents.  Citizens were without power for multiple days, in areas with extreme flooding, especially in DHA.

It was a massive disaster, compounded by people’s own laziness and callousness. Residents of low-lying areas such as DHA Phase IV etc did not pre-empt the flooding and did nothing to protect themselves.  Many were stuck in their homes, unable to evacuate due to the waist-length water.  Many were posting almost 40-year-old newspaper clips of the rain that led to flooding in the area, lamenting that nothing had changed. A Facebook group of DHA Residents, which had previously always bashed Revo and other 4×4 owners, found them to be unexpected saviours.

The Off-Road club Pakistan (ORCP) on Facebook turned into heroes and rescued more than fifty families all over Karachi, including DHA.  A welfare group of Dawat e Islami became heroic messiahs when they helped the flood-affected families in DHA and last but not least the jawans of the Pakistan army were selflessly and heroically leading the rescue efforts.

Ridiculous requests were posted by DHA residents.  An expectant mother-in-labour needed to be evacuated and taken to a hospital.  One lady asked people to rescue her stranded mother and the starving sacrificial goat, whose fodder had run out.  Another person wrote dramatic words, posting a picture of a middle-aged couple, where the husband was experiencing a medical crisis and was carried by good samaritans, as his wife followed them, wading through knee-deep water.  People complained of running out of food and water.

The rain-related suffering and property damage of 2020 taught them nothing.  Residents of DHA phase IV, who have suffered for 50 years, did not approach the DHA management to ask for concrete measures for better storm drainage.  Such an effort for collective good seems like a tall order, when people did not pre-empt the rains and evacuate their parents, or stocked up on food and water, to feed their families.  People said that they had to throw away sacrificial meat, which rotted without an electric supply.

One DHA resident posted how a sacrificial animal’s head was floating outside her house, in the filthy water, which had turned into a breeding ground for disease.  They said that they had shut all the windows as the stench was unbearable.  They were bashing the Cantonment Board Clifton (CBC) for not doing anything.  The CBC was being bashed everywhere for not doing anything, just as the residents sat at home venting on social media.

CBC workers are also humans and they are under no obligation to risk their health and safety to clear a mess of rich people’s making.

Karachi is the most educated and developed city in Pakistan.  It houses all the major media channels, newspaper offices and think tanks.   Even with the intelligentsia in residence, the city could not brainstorm for solutions and implemented a strategy to combat flooding and minimize the loss of life and property damage.

The reason behind the passive stance and a firefighting approach is our national attitude of entitlement and laziness.  Our propensity of shifting blame and bashing others completes the trifecta of ineptitude.  People expect to live like royalty if they pay taxes to DHA.  This means that they can throw cow heads on the street and expect CBC’s janitorial staff to clean them.

I experienced the same revolting attitude coming from educated women passengers travelling from Lahore to Karachi.  They were throwing empty juice cartons and empty chips bags on the floor, angrily and bitterly complaining about how the janitorial staff was failing to arrive after every 30 minutes to sweep away the mess they were creating. Irresponsible, inconsiderate, entitled, mouthy and lazy citizens diss politicians, systems, services, institutions, people and the country to no end.  They expect to live a lifestyle comparable to the developed western countries while engaging in acts that create public health, sanitation and humanitarian disasters.

These entitled and lazy people expect overnight miracles from a politician who makes impossible promises in his election campaign.  They complain about the rising fuel prices and the falling Rupee, directing their rage at the military.  Even the rain-stuck ones rescued by the Pakistan army personnel were not expressing gratitude.  It is common to read toxic comments disrespecting the army’s top brass.  Imran Khan -who excels in name calling and shifting blame –  supporters have turned into an army of internet trolls, who bash the generals and the military in general. The entitlement, ingratitude and mental toxicity of Pakistanis have reduced their grey matter.  Pakistanis fail to realize that each citizen has a responsibility toward the collective good of the nation.  Everyone needs to play their individual part.