Let’s Get Real For Once ! By Jovaria Naseem

Natural disasters wreaked havoc in South East Asia. Nepal was left devastated, with more then 3700 people dead and hundreds injured, after the catastrophic earthquake struck on the fateful day of 25th April 2015. Meanwhile, destructive torrential rains and storm hit Pakistan’s province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK/KP), killing at-least 50 people, injuring dozens and displacing several.

Desperate attempts are being made to search and rescue people. Both countries have employed the services of their armed forces. According to sources, 9 out of 10 Nepalese soldiers are part of search and rescue operations, while, Pak Army dispatched Two Rescue Teams, who along with Bahria Town Rescue Teams, are working in full swing in Peshawar and neighboring areas.
It is noteworthy that Pak Army has assured a hundred percent cooperation to the Nepalese Army for the relief operations.

KPK Information minister Mushtaq Ahmed Ghani, in his press briefing stated, that one thousand tents besides food packages had been distributed among the affected people. He assured that the victims would be fully compensated after completion of survey of the damaged houses. CM Pervez Khattak announced to rebuild the damaged homes.

CM visited Lady Reading Hospital and met all the victims (approx. 200 of them). KPK’s provincial government has been trying to provide assistance to the affected on every humanely possible level.

Yet in-spite of all the official efforts, some critics resorted to blaming the provincial government of KPK for the natural calamity. In their frenzied attack, they accused PTI (ruling party) of being complacent. They demanded to know why the provincial government failed to upscale the shacks or why the people were unable to seek refuge in schools. They further compared PTI’s performance with the likes of PMLN, PPP, ANP, JI, JUI-F & MQM.

Here, the attention should be drawn to a key aspect: many living in hovel decline moving to improved places despite being offered better prospects of living. When government offers them money and house, they take the monetary offer and refuse the other half, as they prefer living in their cost-effective ancestral shacks. Others simply find it difficult to start all over again.

Critics also deliberately put aside the otherwise evident fact of PTI being a first timer in the assembly. The provincial government will complete two years in coming month of May. Hence, the comparison with PML-N, PPP, JUI-F, MQM, ANP is futile as most of these parties have been in power since 30 years or more. And they are over 40 years old. These pseudo critics fail to understand PTI has no magic wand that it can fix anything and everything at the wave of the hand.

Besides, natural disasters do not come with a warning. Most of the times, governments are caught on the back foot. No country in the recent history or in the past has been able to avoid natural calamities: Nepal, a country jolted twice in space of three days, has failed in damage control. US government’s performance during hurricane Katrina was disastrous. Not only were they ill-prepared, they were ill-equipped as well.

Realistically speaking there is not much any government can do in face of such overwhelming disasters. Maybe, being there or perhaps, the swiftness & the promptness of action are the only actions any government can take.

Few significant questions that deserve answers are: what would we have done, had we been in power? Why don’t the victims move to other places when they know rural areas in KPK are the worst hit during torrential rains & windstorms? How are we ordinary citizens helping in lessening the burden of our government? Why must only the government and the army come to help, why can’t we the people take responsibility of the welfare of fellow citizens? Are we giving suggestions to the ones concerned? How about we building national consensus for dams?

Unless we get tangible with our expectations & our pov’s and unless we do our part, there is no way Pakistan can pass through this tunnel. It is high time we opt for constructive criticism instead of going for blame games. Let’s give a fair chance to the newbie in politics before passing a verdict. Can we for once get real?

by webmaster@insaf.pk (tkiadmin)