Back of the Envelope for Me, Back of the Class for Mian Sahib

On August 27, Sher-e-Punjab and Saviour of Pakistan, Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif strongly recommended that the federal government should immediately provide at least Rs.100,000 (one lakh rupees) to each flood affected family. Immediately, he said, before Eid, and of course he would welcome it if the government provided more. He repeated the same line today while addressing flood affectees.

Just the sort of statement that makes you reach for discarded envelopes and a pencil stub for rough 'back of the envelope' calculations.

Let's take the conservative figure of there being some 17 million flood-affected people (some estimates run to over 20 million). Then, making the assumption that there are on average 10 people in a family (which may in fact be too high an assumption), this means that at least 1.7 million families will each need to be given Rs.100,000. That means the government would need to have Rs. (1,700,000 x 100,000) to dole out.

1,700,000 x 100,000 =  170, 000,000,000

So the government would need to be able to hand out 170 Billion rupees immediately, before Eid. Now, since big numbers often make people's eyes glaze over, let's see what this means in US dollar terms. Taking the dollar-rupee exchange rate as equivalent to 85 rupees, 170 Billion rupees comes to exactly 2 Billion US dollars.


To put it all into perspective, consider for a moment that the entire Kerry-Lugar assistance comes to $1.5 Billion a year. Consider also that the cash requirement for such a handout easily dwarfs the budgeted allocation for any department or ministry under the Public Sector Development Programme for the whole year (the entire year's allocation for the National Highway Authority, the largest chunk of the PSDP, e.g. is 44.64 billion rupees). And Mian sahib wants that US$2 billion to be handed out in cash within 10 days??! And this is aside from the cost of whatever rehabilitation and reconstruction would need to come next. Noble sentiments I am sure, but where exactly would all this money come from? Does no one surrounding Mian sahib know basic mathematics? What is alleged financial whiz-kid Ishaq Dar doing?

Nawaz Sharif answers the question: how much is 2 + 2?

One could be forgiven for being shocked at a businessman's naivete about money. But remember, this is the same businessman who introduced the yellow cab scheme in the 1990s and the sasti roti scheme in the Punjab in 2008-2010 (now quietly wound up), both of which ended up bankrupting the governments he controlled. Obviously some people believe more in the value of populist rhetoric than in realism.

How Much Money Has Your Channel Raised Today? (Updated)

A little (well connected) birdie told us something quite astounding.

Apparently a very well known businessman in Karachi received a call from a TV channel asking him to pledge a donation for flood relief during the channel's live telethon to raise funds. The gentleman demurred, saying that he had already given all that he had planned to give (and he has given quite a bit). In response, he was told to go ahead and pledge something anyway even if he was not going to give it. When the gentleman expressed incredulity at how this would work, he was told the channel would not hold him to his word. Under such 'assurances' that he would not actually have to pay up, the man pledged 500,000 rupees on live television.

It sure made for exciting television and a feel good time for all, except of course for those in actual need. Shocking and sad but kind of like all those international pledges that never materialize. Is anyone keeping tabs?

In case you're wondering, it was NOT Geo.


::: UPDATE :::

I have been pondering quite a bit since this morning about reader sabizak's rather spirited response to this post and came to the conclusion that she is absolutely right: I should have named the channel. In my defence, the only reason I omitted the name was 1) out of a journalistic instinct against potentially libelous claims, even though I admit that it would be difficult to prosecute us (as opposed to blocking us via court order ala Facebook) and 2) to protect our source. Being a blog does not absolve us of basic journalistic ethics, contrary to what sabizak implies later on, and we have always at least attempted to uphold such ideas in their spirit.

But I think she was essentially right because 1) if someone is being unscrupulous, they should be named 2) and even if our claims are challenged, they can only lead to the pledges made good on, if only out of embarrassment, which is ultimately to the flood affectees' benefit. A third reason, which arises from looking at the other comments is the speculation that resulted which tarnishes even non-dodgy efforts to raise funds.

So, yes, the channel was ARY. Kudos to those who guessed it / figured it out.

Meanwhile, another reader sidrat_a has told us (via Twitter) of a landowner friend who has not been affected by the floods but who is sheltering flood affectees from neighbouring villages on his land being approached by TV One to set up tents on his land. According to her, when he pointed out that he had adequate shelter to house the people on his lands, TV One refused to hand over food for the affectees as well unless they could set up their own tent city. Anything to get your logo out there.

The Discovery of Pakistan

First I would like to share with you all a letter we received from one of our readers, Saad Siddiqui, on August 7. It's written so well that I thought it best to just reproduce it here:

"Dear Cafe Pyala,

Last night -- for reasons I cannot explain to myself -- I found myself watching ARY News after 11PM. They were airing a live celebrity charity drive for the floods in KP, and had Shahid Masood on location in Nowshera. He was standing at a school where he could not get over the fact that the road behind him was precisely where [Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain] of KP lost his son. Anyway, the school was being used as a shelter for families, and Masood walked up to the principal of the school who seemed to be in charge. He said "Salam" and was greeted back with a "Aap ke aanay ka maqsad kya hai?" [What is the purpose of your coming here?] in a very indignant tone. That part threw Shahid Masood off so bad that he couldn't recover for the next hour or so, and went on to give everyone a textbook lesson on how NOT to report events/disasters affecting vulnerable populations. Examples include:

1. Bursting into a classroom full of families trying to sleep (it was almost midnight)  with his camera/light crew while the women hastily tried to cover themselves; keep in mind that he had earlier reported the school as housing families while single mard hazraat [men] without families slept outdoors.

2. Rifling through possessions of the displaced people and commenting on their lives with his own presumptions.

3. Saying "Yeh dekhein in logon ke paas kapray bhi nahin hain!" [Look, these people do not even have clothes!] and then having his camera crew zoom in to a child asleep shirtless on the floor.

All this at around midnight, and on repeat for many other classrooms in the building. Some very distressing scenes included women trying to get away from the light and trying to find their chaadars."

But the buffoonery of Dr S&M is not what I want to discuss today and, to tell the truth, his stupidities are not really a representative sample of the coverage of the floods we have been seeing on television on most channels. In fact, despite hiccups here and there, the coverage has been a vast improvement over the follies of the early earthquake coverage in 2005.

The scale of the devastation is almost unbelievable (Photo: Saood Rehman /EPA)

I have been wondering if it is even appropriate to be discussing problems with the media coverage of the floods at this time, given the scale of the on-going disaster and the generally commendable and all out efforts that channels have poured into raising awareness among the wider public about its impact. But I came to the conclusion that we would be remiss in not pointing out the issues at least in the spirit of constructive criticism. Particularly because some of the problems are getting more acute with the passage of time.

Consider the following instances of reportage to which I am a witness myself (in the interest of making this not about particular channels but about the larger issue, I am not indentifying the channels):

1. Flood affectees in Sindh complain to reporter about timings of food service (apparently 2pm for lunch, 11pm for dinner) and menu (only rice, no roti).

2.  Flood affectees being sheltered in a proper school in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) complain about the stoppage of supply of pre-cooked food by the government, which has happened after authorities provided basic essentials like rice, lentils, oil etc to them so that families can cook food for themselves.

3. Flood affectees in Matta (Swat) who seem to have adequate food and shelter complain about menhgayi (inflation).

4. Flood affectees in a camp in Punjab complain that while they have received shelter and food, they haven't got monetary compensation yet.

5. Flood affectees in KP complain about the lack of reconstruction activities and demand they begin immediately.

6. Everyone complains about ministers not having visited them.

Now, I know things are extremely difficult, in some cases desperate, for those displaced by the floods - and hell, these floods have wreaked destruction on an unprecedented scale - but is our media making us into a nation of complainers and dependents? I mean, I have yet to see any coverage of the public - and I'm not talking of just these floods - where the presence of the camera and mike does not elicit a litany of random complaints. Please don't take this the wrong way: I know people have genuine grievances and in no way am I trying to belittle the tragedy that people are going through right now. But looking at the above cited instances, you have to wonder if the spectacle of people complaining is not, directly or indirectly, being encouraged by the presence of the media, irrespective of whether the complaints themselves make any sense.

Desperate flood affectees clamber for food in Nowshera (Photo: Behrouz Mehri / AFP-Getty)

With respect to the above, for example:

1) I mean, yes times are hard, relief workers are scrambling to meet the swell of demand, and there are even affectees who are not getting any food at all. Is a slight delay in the timing of food provision and the menu really the most pressing issue at the moment?

2) Isn't officials providing basic food items to the families so they can cook their own food a far better solution than providing bacteria-laden precooked food that has probably had to travel for miles in the heat? Why must both be provided?

3) Yes, inflation is a major issue. But it's not just flood affectees who are having to deal with it. This is hardly a tale of woe that the channel was hoping to show. Incidentally, it almost seemed that in the absence of dire examples of flood-related displacement problems, the people being interviewed felt it incumbent on themselves to complain about something.

4) Here's another instance of jumping the gun. Thanks to the media, we have come to expect that if your house has been swept away in the morning, you should have a compensation cheque in your hand by the evening. Often, the money assumes far more importance than everything else, including basic survival.

5) Reconstruction?? Hello, the flood waters have not even receded yet, the monsoon is still very much on and isn't the first order of business rescue and relief?

6) Ok so people want to see their representatives sharing their grief and the response of those elected has been largely abysmal, but is it even logistically possible for ministers, MNAs and MPAs to meet each and every displaced person? I am in no way trying to defend the lethargic response of government officials but won't channels always be able to find people who have not seen their elected representatives? And why is visiting the affected more important than ensuring the provision of services to them?

The problem of this kind of coverage partly has to do with the inability of television reporters to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. To provide the sort of contextual filter that print reporters often can. And also perhaps the unwillingness of channels to dilute sympathy-inducing reports or to waste footage that they have spent a lot of money to gather. But not every complaint is worthy of being aired. And the danger is that the airing of such obviously naive / superfluous complaints and resentments nurtures a babble that obscures the real issues.

Here, for example, is an excellent report from Dawn which provides a much needed layer of complexity to explain why many relief activities come to naught. Here is another which helps explain how unscrupulous elements can make it difficult for aid to reach those most in need.

But there is another problem which is something that channels must grapple with. And that is the naivete of city-based reporters covering rural or semi-rural environments. Simply put, many television reporters seem ill-equipped to understand the reality of much of rural Pakistan, which leads not only to certain idealistic assumptions, but also to an inability to separate fact from fiction.

Do city-based reporters even understand rural realities? (Photo: Khalid Tanveer / AP)

I have seen a number of reports covering the flooding of the 'kacha' (riverine) areas of Sindh that have never bothered to contextualize the fact that the kacha areas suffer flooding almost every monsoon season. The people who dwell there know this and expect it but the reports treated the flooding as if it were the first time the residents were being driven out of their homes. There is also no context provided about why so many more people are affected in the kacha / sailabi areas than in the past, how our hydrology works have actually shrunk river widths so that previously riverine areas are being mistakenly used for permanent settlements or how laws against permanent dwellings in these areas are no longer enforced thanks to a breakdown in state power.

Another anchor-turned-reporter expressed his shock that a local councillor in the Punjab had stated that the health and sanitation conditions of the communities in his rural area were nothing great to begin with. Now, one may genuinely be shocked at the conditions most of Pakistan lives in, but technically what the councillor said was not incorrect and has a direct bearing on what relief efforts can practically hope to provide. But somehow, the impression one comes away with from many of the reports is that without provision of bottled mineral water and top-of-the-line medical facilities, all is lost. Incidentally, this anchor-turned-reporter added that the unnamed councillor had also said that it was 'no big deal if the communities drowned.' I seriously doubt any official could have said this and it seems to me this was an exaggeration the reporter tacked on to bolster his indignation. If the councillor did actually say this, the reporter should have named him specifically. If he didn't say it, the reporter's inflammatory exaggeration is, of course, deplorable.

Another reporter summed up her report from a relief camp by beseeching the government to provide "secure houses with food" to the flood affectees rather than the tents currently made available. Does the reporter have any idea about housing in general in Pakistan? Or about economics and social indicators in the country? Or about the requirements of such a large-scale relief operation? It's one thing to express sympathy for the displaced and homeless. But can we at least stop living in la-la land?

'Hukoomat kuchh nahin kar rahi' (Photo: Behrouz Mehri / AFP-Getty)

It is a similar issue with the media quickly jumping on the Kalabagh Dam bandwagon at the prompting of certain quarters within the Punjab. Leave alone the inter-provincial issues of trust (which Umair Javed tackles in his blog here), this campaign - which claims to offer a solution - obscures the larger institutional issues that have resulted in this disaster, the lack of thoughtful planning, the lack of on-ground enforcement of existing precautions, the inability of the state to even work existing infrastructure, and the perennial habit of misdiagnosing problems leading to faulty solutions. Mushtaq Gadi had an excellent piece on this very issue in Dawn.

To sum up, these floods are indeed a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions which is going to have long-lasting effects on the entire country. And the tragic tales of death, displacement, disease and loss of livelihood certainly need to be told by the media so that other people, both within and outside the country, are made aware of the exact nature of the crises Pakistan is confronted with. But at the same time, the electronic media also needs to be a little more circumspect about how it reports what it reports and whether what it is reporting is actually adding to the sum of viewers' knowledge or simply confusing issues. A crash course about Pakistani rural realities for urban reporters may also not be a bad idea. At the very least, however, it needs to exercise more editorial control so that the information it is so commendably providing has a context and clarifies what needs to be done, rather than lead to a dispirited population and inflammatory but often vague rhetoric.

Pakistan's Ramzan and Its Discontents

Can people just stop with the pointless sms-es and emails wishing 'Ramadan Mubarak'? I mean, you hear from all manner of random people who you never hear from - or wish to hear from - the rest of the year (except also at Eid of course) and all it does is increase revenue for mobile phone companies and clog up bandwidth and  inboxes. Yes, I'm sure you are excited about fasting and wish to spread the cheer all round but as far as I'm concerned, all I see is ill-tempered drivers on the roads, office staff with bad breath (whoever said you cannot brush your teeth or use mouthwash while fasting?) and people who believe it is a God-given right to blow off work for a whole month. The Pakistani version of the holy month seems generally to involve all the things that the month is supposed to be against: a sense of entitlement, extremism, impatience, insensitivity and hypocrisy.

Isn't is also just a little bit cruel to be joyful about fasting when so many hundreds of thousands are going without food - without choice - because of the devastation of the floods? (Incidentally, by the principles of Islam, fasting is not contingent on displaced people in such situations.) So instead of the sms-es and emails, I would much rather see the same people doing something to help with the relief efforts. All Things Pakistan has a good post here about how you can help. Oh, and while you're at it, please stop with the enforced Arabicization, it's always been Ramzan in Pakistan, thank you very much.

Here's one email I got recently, forwarded from some Taliban mindset outfit in the UK trying to be hip:

Please note the injunction against listening to music and "useless activities" (which include television, phones and computers). How about an injunction against inculcating Taliban mindsets in the garb of religion?

Burn, Baby, Burn?

First a couple of disclaimers.

1) I don't like Asif Ali Zardari. I think he is a venal, ill-educated and ruthless man who should never have risen to the position of power he is currently in. It is the tragedy of Pakistan that it must contend with the stupidity, arrogance and insensitivity of "leaders" like him.

2) I think the government's crude attempt to muzzle Geo by forcing cable operators to take the channel off air, by burning copies of Jang and threatening newspaper hawkers who carry it is just plain wrong and needs to be resisted by all who believe in a free media.

I have explained where I am coming from for the simple reason that what I am about to say next may fly in the face of conventional wisdom, or at least the overwhelming consensus that seems to have been manufactured in the country. And make no mistake, it is a manufactured consensus.

I may not like Asif Zardari as a person but it does not take away from the fact that he is the elected president of the country. And people can say all sorts of things about the shambolic nature of a democracy that resulted in him being elected president, but those were the rules everyone agreed to play by and those are the rules we have to accept. And the reason I bring it up is that much of the manufactured consensus against him in the media is implicitly or blatantly a refusal to accept those rules.

Zardari with Cameron (Photo: Kirsty Wigglesworth / Reuters)

Let's take the case of his trip to France and England which has been the source of much of the venom spewed against him. Should he have undertaken the trip at this time, with UK PM David Cameron's pointed barbs in India against Pakistan preceding his trip and the floods wreaking such devastation across Pakistan? No. The former demanded a sense of dignity from any self-respecting leader and the latter simply a sensitivity to public perceptions.

But even though we know that it was really the former issue - and Asif Zardari's ignoring of the entreaties of even his own Foreign Minister - that really pissed the establishment (read military) off, what we have been constantly hearing is that Zardari should have been taking care of the floods situation at home.

Nowshera, July 30 (Photo: A Majeed / AFP-Getty)

Really? What exactly would Zardari have done in Pakistan? This is a man who does not even venture outside his presidential palace, unless it's to his bunkered home in Nawabshah, and who has never even once visited the frontline of the battle against the Taliban in two years, and we expect him to be directing flood relief efforts? And more importantly, didn't he just hand over all executive power under the 18th Amendment, making him just a figure-head president? Isn't PM Yousuf Raza Gilani at least correct in his rhetoric that he is the chief executive of the country and it is he who is responsible for directing relief efforts? Him and the provincial chief ministers who seem to have got away pretty unscathed so far. Yes, Zardari failed miserably on the optics and in basic decency, but does anyone seriously believe that the floods' devastation and the ineffectual state response would have been ameliorated by Zardari being in Pakistan? I don't think so. But that is the constant refrain we now hear as if it is the gospel truth, particularly on Geo.

Taunsa near Multan, August 1 (Photo: Khalid Tanveer /AP)

So Zardari was an insensitive ass. But is that such breaking news that the media focus shifts entirely to undermining him? Were he not the president, would the suffering of the affectees of the biggest floods in Pakistan's history be any less? Would the administration become super-efficient? Isn't the issue of the inherent lack of capacity of the Pakistani state to deal with such crises a bigger issue than Zardari and his jaunts? Criticise him by all means but is a man chucking a couple of shoes in his direction really a bigger story than the tens of millions displaced from their homes? Or have we become so blinded by our rage and the cult of personality that we are willing to jettison all sense of proportion?

The question then becomes, to what end is this consensus being created? You only have to watch Aaj Kamran Khan Ke Saath to get a clear sense of the game that is cynically being played.

Here's a clip of last night's programme. Watch from 5.10.




Here's the other myth that is being perpetuated: that the flood relief efforts that the army is undertaking are somehow divorced from the government's response, almost, it would seem, in opposition of government directives. Is the army separate from government? Isn't the military hardware being used in the airlifts and food drops, as well as the soldiers, paid by the government and people of Pakistan? And to take nothing away from the brave work of the jawans who endure hardship and danger to rescue people and provide them food, but why are we being made to feel that the army is doing the people of Pakistan a favour? As if this were not really their job but are doing this only out of the goodness of their hearts?

Does the building up of the army's reputation come always as the cost of undermining civilian reputations? The tragedy for Pakistan is of course that its stupid civilian leaders play exactly according to the script. And only seem to prove their cluelessness with interventions like this:

What will such a demolition, in public perception, of everything other than the armed forces mean for Pakistan? Is that what is intended? Are we destined to go back to Square Zero every time?

But coming back to the issue of Geo's forced blackout: as much as I oppose it, I for one am not buying into the claims of hurt innocence that Geo is now loudly proclaiming. Yes, the government has responded in typical hamhanded fashion and has probably added fuel to burn itself. But was Geo simply reporting news as an unbiased and neutral observer? Does it have no hidden or obvious agenda? I think we all know the answer to that, at least in our hearts.

You could also do worse than read this assessment in The Independent by Chatham House fellow Farzana Shaikh. It is probably not something you will see quoted with relish on Aaj Kamran Khan Ke Saath.

Photo of the Day

This awesome photo from the Behrain and Madiyan area in Swat comes from a tweet by user MerlinUK who took it with a cell phone camera.

Gives you an idea of the kind of destructive power these areas were subjected to, doesn't it?

As If Fake Degrees Were Not Enough

So Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani goes to Mianwali and distributes cheques to affectees of the recent floods there at a medical relief camp. Except, the medical relief camp is fake - it was hastily established in a school for the sole purpose of the photo-op for the PM - and so are the 'affectees', lying on charpoys as if they were patients. Talk about chutzpah! The whole thing was dreamed up by the local administration to make the prime minister feel all warm and fuzzy. I have a feeling he won't be feeling so warm and fuzzy now. Kudos to the Geo team that caught it all on tape.

Here's the report (apologies for the quality, I couldn't find an original upload on the net, will replace when it's up):

Or if you really must see better quality visuals, you can go here and wait for the news item to come up during the bulletin (it comes in around 29:26). Incidentally, Geo later on did a mash-up of the news report with clips from the Indian film Munnabhai MBBS in which a fake hospital is established at a dhobi ghat for a visiting dignitary.