The majority of Hindus live in upper Sindh area and are affluent traders. However, imperilling their affluent existence is the reported increase in kidnapping of young Hindu girls in the age group of 10-16 who are compelled to convert to Islam. Some elders of the community grumble that their complaint is not registered at the local police station. Similar is the fate of young Christian girls in Punjab.
The mysterious disappearance of young girls and boys is actual cause for concern in the middle of a humanitarian disaster. There are precedents for such atrocious kidnappings and sceptics of the minority as well as majority community are feeling the pins and needles of restlessness.
The Sikhs of North West Frontier Province are also living in disquietude and despair. The newly christened province of Khyber has won reprieve from booming sounds of suicide and car bombings, but the angst of living through bomb blasts has given way to the drag of saving their houses, livestock and their women and men. Not less than10,000 Sikhs are bearing the brunt of the catastrophe. Temples and Gurudwaras in Larkana and Peshawar are transformed into rehabilitation camps and community kitchens.
Christians in Punjab are in equal misery. The scale of tragedy has, for once, blurred the religious divide in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Communities are reaching out to each other in distressing moments.
Nevertheless, millions of those who found themselves homeless and other millions who are still marooned are candid in confessing that they have lost faith in the democratic dispensation of President Zardari. The entire democratic machinery, the elected representatives across the party spectrum, have gone missing. Maulana Fazlur Rahman, popular as Maulana Diesel, who heads the right wing Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JuI), is performing Umrah in Jeddah. His detractors frown that he is scared of making an appearance in his constituency.
The Taliban of Afghanistan is the creation of madrassas run by Rahman across all provinces in Pakistan. His capacity to raise battalions of fighters is his claim to political importance irrespective of ruling party in Islamabad. He is the son of Maulana Mufti Mahmood, former chief minister of Khyber Pakthunwa, who had defeated Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in the Dera Ismail Khan constituency in the 1970 general elections.
Dir and Swat are the worst-hit in the tribal areas. Swat continues to be cut off from mainland Pakistan. Landmines and anti-aircraft missiles of terrorists are also flowing in floodwaters downstream from South Waziristan.
The system has crashed. Any Vivacity in the leadership has
gone for a walk and the confidence in this leadership to confront unequivocally
the major anxieties of the unfortunate Pakistani population is at its rock
bottom. Parliamentarians and provincial legislators of both Pakistan People's
Party and the Nawaz Sharif League are afraid of "fetching dirty water from the well
pump". They fear lynching in public should they gather courage to console
devastated flood victims.
Umar Khayyam, a
Lahore-based advocate and political analyst, sums up the misery of his people.
"As the tip of the iceberg continues to swell, the State's capacity to meet the
challenge continues to shrink. To reach out to the people, in a time of crisis,
to express solidarity with them while pulling out all the stops in ameliorating
their distressed lot is the hallmark of a functional, effective Government. On
all these counts the incumbents have failed miserably. While strategic
foresight, administrative finesse and political acumen have never been the
strengths of the Zardari-led cabal of novices, yet never have their failings
been exposed as brutally before as during this dire crisis. Pakistanis are
being crunched in the pincer of monstrous calamity coupled with ineffectual and
criminally negligent Governmental response. Only a historic and unprecedented
aid programme can save millions of imperilled lives, or else Pakistan is all
set to plunge into the deepest crisis of its national life."
It's anybody guess what the deepest crisis of Pakistan's national life Umar is pointing at exactly. With the vacuum in leadership right from the onset of the water tragedy, foot-soldiers of extremist organisations have rushed in where angels of Zardari and Sharif are reluctant to tread.
The unprecedented calamity hands Jamaat-ud-Dawa's dipping stock a much-needed lifeline and an opportunity to redeem itself in the eyes of international community. Hafeez Sayeed receives a major boost and gets his cadre swinging into action much ahead of the state machinery. The alleged mastermind of the Bombay terror attacks, sought by the Indian government, floated a new charity organisation, Falah-e-Insaniat to storm the flooded areas.
In a telephone chat with a popular Pakistani TV channel, when buck-beard Hafeez Sayeed was grilled over the source of funding for his organisation, he raised his voice to boast that his funding sources are transparent and regularly audited by professional chartered accountants from Lahore who visit Muridke (headquarters of Jamaat-ud-Dawa on the western outskirts of Lahore) every month. The most wanted terrorist by the New Delhi government also boasted that Jamaat-ul-Dawa's huge infrastructure and network has beaten all other charities and agencies in bringing relief to the suffering millions.
Hafeez Sayeed is
working in tandem with Kidhmat-e-Khalq of Jamaat-e-Islami(JI) in the affected areas.
The
New York Times headlined an August 6 article, Hard-Line Islam Fills Void in Flooded
Pakistan. The newspaper pondered over the tangibles before sounding the
bugle. Hafiz Sayeed is a free man in Pakistan, and he and his boys are
saviours for hundreds of thousands of uprooted rural families, from backwaters
of Sindh to Balochistan. Even the college students of Punjab University
who have volunteered to run relief camps are swearing by the meticulously
planned relief efforts of Hafeez's organisation.
Musha Ghaznavi, 20 year old collegian of Lahore, told me, "Jamaat-ud-Dawa is running community kitchen, medical camp and tarpaulin shelters in over 100 centres across southern Punjab, Sind, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Villagers hail him as the protector and benefactor in backwaters of southern Punjab, but they also fear his wrath. Mothers lull their crying babies to sleep by chanting in their ears, "son, you close your eyes and sleep lest Hafeez Sayeed will appear."
A leadership vacuum is palpable like the floating rags of the
poor swept by the bullish rage of the Indus.
Just as Indus waters began to breach barrier after barrier, it was American
military aircraft which flew out of their Dubai
airbase, and later Shahbaz airbase in Punjab,
airlifting hundreds of thousands to safe banks. Pakistan military swiftly followed.
Until now, it has outclassed the democratic government machinery in rescuing
record numbers of marooned civilians. About 60,000 Pakistani military personnel
are deployed in the floodwaters-battered areas, providing impetus to the relief
and rescue operations.
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