Durdana Najam
Two words define Pakistan’s management of the Coronavirus: hoarding and government’s tantrums on the opposition. While people were finding it difficult to keep their daily expenses running because of job losses and inflation, the government instead of accelerating the wheel of justice, relied on the clichéd mechanism of forming investigative committees and accusing the opposition of its follies, apparently to deflect attention.
Instead of treating it as a healthcare emergency, both the government and the opposition have been using the pandemic as a political football.
There was absolutely no reason to gauge the present performance of the Sindh government in the light of its past record. It baffled one to see a government, which hardly moved an inch in remorse when children have been dying of dog bites because no vaccine was available in hospitals, moving mountains to prevent deaths off coronavirus. Strangely, the PPP blamed PM Khan for the spread of Coronavirus in Sindh which it rules, after authorities let go virus-infected Shi’ite pilgrims from ‘’poorly managed’’ quarantine facilities in neighboring Balochistan. While Sindh government was quick to put lock swiftly to prevent the spread, the central government wobbled on the idea. With his heart divided between the haves and the haves-not, Khan turned out to be an indecisive leader with absolutely no understanding of opportunity cost and substitution effect to turn around the economy.
The country was held hostage to the debate on “lockdown, no lockdown, smart lockdown, and elite lockdown “. In-between hung the begging bowl. We wanted to walk both ways—both as a victim and as a beneficiary. We asked for more debts and sought relief from G-20 countries – as did many other developing nations. This attitude of the rulers further polarized the nation on the definitions of the virus. If in the beginning the pandemic was considered some western ploy to control the third world, it was later viewed by political detractors as a sinister game by the government to jack up deaths off COVID19 and thus claim debt relief.
Three things have led to an increase in deaths. One, the government’s inability to understand the importance of lockdowns; two, the absence of trust between the government and its citizens, nobody ever took social distancing seriously; three, self-medication to cure the virus because people feared that if they went to the hospital they may be held up for covid19 suspects. Most of the medicines people took on their own further depleted their immune system making cure complicated. People went to hospitals late when their conditions had worsened, making treatment difficult.
Crisis brings opportunities to the leaders to reunite with their people. It also provides an opportunity to cast aside old ways of doing business, which is usually not possible in normal times as the majority supports the status quo for its comfort. It also highlights governance flaws to enable law making in new areas for the larger benefit of the people. Most of the advanced and not-very advanced countries have taken this high road during the pandemic. However, in Pakistan, the policymakers were reluctant to throw their old cloak.
Not that Pakistan was the only country putting a political cover to the pandemic; India and the US had even compartmentalized corona into a Muslim and China virus, not to speak of the #blacklivesmatter movement in the aftermath of the May 25 killing of 46 year old GoergeFloyd in Minneapolis and of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta on June 13 – both by the police. What set Pakistan apart in its crisis handling mechanism from the rest of the countries is petty, individual-centric, narrow and biased politic. As the world saw some real fights – the Dalit against the Hindu chauvinism, the black against the white supremacists in the US and UK in particular, the Pakistanis had to contend with the pseudo spatting among politicians.
Blaming opposition for the spread of COVID-19 among parliamentarians, since the latter insisted on reviving the session, is wrong. The Parliament should be revived so that instead of getting into petty bickering, the lawmakers find an objective to fight relevant battles. We nevertheless should also remember that by June 16th, almost three dozen MPs and staff of the parliament house and contracted corona.
That should not take the focus off issues such as rising unemployment, more people slipping below the poverty lines, businesses closing down and children forced to join the labour market to feed themselves and their families. These areas are clamouring for attention.
We have had enough of groping for skeletons in opposition’s cupboards, only to reinforce the holed on power of the third force. The accountability is vital to be on the growth, development trajectory. But over-emphasis and rush taint the stated objectives. The time demands readjustment of priorities with changing scenarios and ground realities. The convictions by a French court to former government officials in so-called the Karachi Affair is a fresh example where the successful governments remained only focused to tackle each challenge say it’s 2008 global recession or terrorist attacks on front-foot throughout more than two decades of probe and trial of charges of millions of euros in kickbacks from arm sales to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
The writer is a policy analyst and a political commentator. She writes on public health issues. She can be reached @durdananajam on twitter.
