Mubbashir Hussain
Even before the ongoing carnage of floods, Pakistan was following a disproportionate and unequal development model. The catastrophe has exposed the unsustainability and vulnerability of this model. Serious disparities exist among provinces in health, education, and social development. Flood-stricken areas of Sindh, Balochistan, and Punjab were already the least developed areas of Pakistan. Muzaffargarh, Rajan Pur, and Dera Ghazi Khan are the poorest districts in Punjab, where poverty rates are 64.8pc, 64.3pc, and 63pc respectively. Meanwhile, people living in rural and urban Sindh have a disproportionate quality of life, with a 30pc gap. Balochistan is the poorest of all provinces, where more than half of the population is living in poverty. Sixty percent of the houses destroyed in the current floods were located in Balochistan. So, the plight of these peripheral areas in the floods is not a surprise. The suffering of the people was exacerbated due to widespread inequalities, poor crisis management,as well as broken means of transportation and communication. In the 1970s, an American sociologist named Immanuel Wallerstein presented a theory that explained the structure of our world and the hierarchies among nations. Wallerstein’s theory came to be knowns as the World System Theory. It posited that the world system is comprised of three categories: core, semi-periphery, and periphery nations. Core countries are strong capitalist states that are very well developed. Semi-periphery nations are undergoing the process of development. Peripheral nations are the least developed nations that are exploited by the core nations to extract raw materials and cheap labor for their markets.Marxism has long been arguing that capitalist societies are following divisive rather than inclusive models of growth. Inequalitymanifests itself across social, geographical, political, and gender-based divisions at all levels of analysis. The core vs. the periphery divide is also clearly visible at the domestic level in our country, wheremegacities are developed at the cost of the underdevelopment of peripheral rural and sub-urban settings. An application of this model across Pakistan also fulfills these expectations. For instance, drawing a brief comparison of Lahore with South Punjab reveals some shocking results. Lahore has a literacy rate of 65 percent, whereas the literacy rate of Bahawalpur is 48 percent. The literacy rate of Rajanpur is 45 percent, whereas for Bahawalnagar it drops to a mere 25 percent. The situation is not so different in healthcare. Lahore Division has 99 health institutions whereas Dera Ghazi Khan Division has 26, Bahawalpur Division has 24, and Sahiwal Division has only 19. These disparities are often attributed to the population. That is misleading, however. On average, the Lahore division has 195,958 persons per health institution. Whereas the number of persons per health institution for Sahiwal (388,319), Dera Ghazi Khan (423,892), and Bahawalpur divisions (477, 206) are roughly doubled. Even comparatively developed Multan regions have 371762 persons per health institution. So, it is clear that it’s not about population, it is a consequence of, intentional or unintentional, administrative neglect. Leaders of the leading political parties of the nation concentrate on their expanding urban constituencies at the expense of the bulging needs of the shrinking rural population. Seasoned administrative officers are appointed to look after mega cities whereas novice or inefficient administrators are given peripheral areas. All in all, there are several political and administrative hindrances behind this neglect. Whatever the reason is, it is a fact that this neglect has a cost for the local population. The frightening thought is how these underdeveloped peripheries are going to fight the aftereffects of the floods. The Healthcare system which was already in shambles is now completely jammed. Infrastructure is destroyed and mobilization of resources has become extremely difficult. The coming days are going to be very testing for the entire nation. Direct victims are going to be tested by more cusecs of water coming downstream whereas people living in megacities, far away from the misery of these peripheries, are going to be tested by their conscious. Let’s hope that we all endure in this hour of calamity.
(-The writer has a Master of Science in Defense and Strategic Studies from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.)
