Media Remain Silent while Severe Drought Threatens Balochistan
Media Remain Silent while Severe Drought Threatens Balochistan
Shezad Baloch
Articles

Beset by frequent natural and manmade disasters, the mineral-rich but socio-economically poor province of Balochistan has always been a difficult place to live. In the past decade alone, the province has suffered from prolonged droughts, devastating earthquakes, and flashfloods following torrential rains.

Beset by frequent natural and manmade disasters, the mineral-rich but socio-economically poor province of Balochistan has always been a difficult place to live. In the past decade alone, the province has suffered from prolonged droughts, devastating earthquakes, and flashfloods following torrential rains.

Today the impact of drought in the 2000s, flashfloods in 2006 and 2008, earthquakes in 2013, and drought again in 2015 is still clearly visible, as are the scars of so many other disasters.  Adding insult to injury are the numerous incidents of lawlessness and injustice in the province.

Today once again, a huge area of Balochistan is in the grip of severe drought. Beside Quetta and other areas, people in the villages and towns of Gwadar, Turbat and Panjgur in the Mekran region face a serious threat to their survival because of a lack of clean drinking water.  Already close to half the population has left the affected areas.

The Mekran region has been suffering from a lack of rainfall for the past four years.  Groundwater levels are dangerously low and the Karaizat, the ancient system of aquifers that supplies the region with water, is all but dry.

According to growers in Panjgur, in their district alone over 70 percent of the Karaizat have run dry, causing many of families to migrate to cities like Karachi and adjacent towns. Many others have moved from remoter parts of the drought-affected areas of Panjgur, Gwadar and Turbat.

“Every single village in Gwadar, Turbat and Panjgur has been affected by the drought,” an Irrigation Department official stated. “People have been digging deeper, private tube wells to get water for their basic daily needs,” he said. “This practice has had a detrimental effect on the environment and is causing the groundwater level to go down even faster.”

According to Babu Gulab, Chair of the Gwadar District Council, every single village, Tehsil and town in Gwadar, including Pasni and Jewani, is now in the grip of severe drought.  “I know hundreds of families who have migrated to Karachi because of the drought in Gwadar,” he said.

Mullah Baksh Sanjrani, President of the Zamindar Action Committee of Panjgur, reported that 150 Karaizat were now completely dry, leaving residents without drinking water and forcing them to purchase water for their daily needs from water tankers. Babu Mehraj of Kolanch Ambi village said that 80 percent of the population of his village had left for Karachi.

The remaining 20 percent could not afford to make the trip because their animals had died. Abandoned in the village with no rescue in sight, their fates were in the hands of God, he said.  In Kech the situation was no better.  District Council Chair Fida Hussain Dashti described the drinking water situation in the entire Kech district as very serious, with Zamuran, Dasht, Tump, Bal Nagor and Bal Nagor being the worst hit areas.

The inhabitants of the Mekran region are totally dependent on livestock and agriculture for their survival. The prolonged drought has taken a major toll on their livelihood, killing their livestock and making irrigation of their crops impossible. What is desperately needed – and has been needed for years — is more dams and a system of regular maintenance and upkeep to preserve the centuries old Karaizat.   No government has ever made a serious effort to address this need and the people of the region are paying a very heavy price for that neglect.

In 2008 the PPP-led government announced a plan to construct 100 dams in the Mekran region.   Almost a decade later, only a handful of those dams have been completed.  The official line is that construction of dams in many areas of Turbat, Gwadar and Panjgur could not be undertaken because of the poor law and order situation. But word on the street is that the failure has more to do with a lack of commitment to the project and that “law and order” is being used as an excuse to renege on a promise.

There has been much talk of multi-billion-dollar CPEC projects that will bring development and prosperity to Balochistan, but no talk about how to address the urgent, life-and-death needs of the people of province right now.  And all this while people are engaged in an everyday struggle to survive and feed their families.  I personally know many families who, even during less difficult times, could not afford to eat more than one meal a day.  The ongoing drought has made their lives a misery and put them in a situation where they are hard pressed to feed their families at all.

In Balochistan improvements in healthcare and education, a decent infrastructure, and an uninterrupted supply of electricity are the stuff of dreams.  While much needed, they are eclipsed by the ever-present worry of finding enough food and water to keep families alive.  The government of Balochistan does not seem to grasp the severity of the crisis nor to understand that people in the province lack even the basic needs of survival. Not a single government official has so much as mentioned the current crisis, let alone declared the affected region a disaster area – and this despite the huge numbers of people who have been forced to migrate from the area.

In Balochistan there is a suspicion that the government’s reluctance to seek help from national and international non-profit organizations is born of fear that this will open up a Pandora’s Box and bring to light the many injustices perpetrated on the people by the government.  Be that as it may, inaction on the part of the government should not be an option. And yet when I reached out to a senior Balochistan government official for comment, he said, “There are really serious issues in the federal government and you are talking about drought in remote areas of Balochistan. Don’t you know the Prime Minister is gone?”

This response, though disappointing, is very much in keeping with the impression the government has always given that human life in Balochistan is cheap and the sufferings of its people unworthy of government attention. Despite the fact that many people have lodged complaints, in articles and letters to the editor in national and regional media, that people in Gwadar do not have enough drinking water, not a single step has been taken to address the situation.  In light of this, one has to question where the government’s priorities lie. Development, after all, can wait, but it is hard to live a single day without drinking water.

Many nationalist leaders, intellectuals, and poets believe that the Baloch people are being made to pay for their different political views.  Had there been such a crisis in any other area of the country, there would, at the very least, have been media coverage to push the government into taking action. The media’s silence with regard to this crisis is helping to widen the breach between Baloch people and the rest Pakistan. Rather than making the victims feel like they live in enemy territory, the government needs to start acting responsibly and take steps to alleviate the suffering of the people of Balochistan.

                                                                                                           

The writer is a research student at UW-Madison’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and a former correspondent of The Express Tribune. He tweets at @shezadbaloch