FOURTEEN newborns did not need to be burned alive for us to realise how deep the rot runs here. There are equally if not more damning indictments of this decrepit system that play out daily in Thatta, Mastung, Rajanpur, Rawalakot and Bannu. But when babies are locked into a room on fire in Islamabad’s biggest public hospital, with no staff member in sight, there must be a reckoning.
Immediate accountability is certainly necessary, but removing a health secretary here and there is an easy escape for those at a much higher pay grade. Accidents happen, but the perpetual immiseration and oppression of the masses is not an accident. It is by design.
When the interior minister deliberately remarked that the ‘system has failed’ some weeks ago, he neglected to mention that this same system works very well for those with power and money. Once upon a time, as the peerless Arif Hasan documented, Pakistan’s militarised ruling class shared space and facilities with the ordinary masses. Take public universities, for instance. There were also communal parks, cinemas, and even basic health services.
But now those with deep pockets and connections want nothing to do with the ‘public’ — neither the mass of people, nor the facilities that the latter use. This is precisely why incidents like the abomination at Pims take place — because no one who is influential is affected. And by extension, nothing is done to fix what was broken a long time ago.
This isn’t just a question of political will on the part of a callous ruling class.
This is not just a question of political will on the part of a callous ruling class. It extends to our intellectuals as well. For decades, privatisation has been depicted as a panacea for all our economic problems. But no one bothers to acknowledge that the state has steadily withdrawn from whatever measly service delivery it once performed and left the mass of people to their own devices. The a priori insistence that ‘privatisation’ will somehow unequivocally turn out better for the ‘public’ at large is politically irresponsible.
Let there be no mistake; this anti-people system needs the people to function. Who else will till the fields, serve the high and mighty in their homes and offices, construct the palatial mansions in which rulers live, and become soldiers in endless, bloody wars? Even when there are bad PR events like babies dying in pathetic public hospitals, the news cycle quickly moves on.
Just like it did soon after the brutal demolitions of Islamabad’s katchi abadis and historical villages that left tens of thousands of people homeless. That was no accident any more than the deliberate withdrawal from delivery of public services like health and education is no accident.
It is not as if the masses’ welfare has ever been a major concern of those who rule. This is, after all, a system built by colonial masters to extract resources and subjugate the mass of people. Its basic character has remained unchanged for eight decades. But for the first three decades after 1947, a left-wing politics of the people forced the state to make some concessions to the public interest. The establishment and its hangers-on have been unfettered by such an expansive, countrywide politics since the 1980s. And systematic and systemic dispossession of the masses is now the only game in town.
The other, insidious side of the story is that a militarised ruling class that is enjoying ever-growing concentrations of wealth and power also acts out the role of concerned patron as a form of legitimation. Servitude has a long and deep history in the subcontinent, and both old and new moneyed classes revel in being able to dish out the carrot as well as the stick.
Indeed, to be rich and powerful in Pakistan is arguably a much better deal than to be rich and powerful anywhere else in the world because of the total impunity that comes with class and state power. Some heads roll from time to time, mostly because of intra-elite palace intrigues. But in the final analysis, most of the big fish literally get away with murder.
Violence and impunity run all the way down to the patriarchal household. The most recent example is that of the grotesque murder of Hina Javed. The alleged perpetrator is a university professor whose other family members have remained at large because of their suspected connections.
The system is not failing its intended beneficiaries by any stretch of the imagination. And it will require much more than moral outrage to get rid of it.
The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.
Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2026
