Less poor but no richer

Battalions of reports cross my desk weekly, most are fleetingly scanned, a few read at least halfway and one or two make me sit up straight. The World Bank report that said that Pakistan had successfully translated economic growth into the well-being of the poorest people is one of the latter. All the boxes were ticked, the indices solid and yes, according to the report there has been a ‘staggering’ fall in poverty.

Cut to my home village in south Punjab. It is now 23 years since I first made the acquaintance of F******* (…hereafter ‘F’) and it was probably the poorest place I had ever been in my entire life — and I had been to some very poor places in the Middle East and Africa. Dirt roads, no in-house sanitation, no potable water worth the name, nobody owned a vehicle of any sort, no men had a job outside the village as far as I could tell, there were two brick-built houses one belonging to the priest the other to the numbadar and the two schools, one government the other run by a local church — struggled. It was the home village of my soon-to-be wife and she was one of the very few educated people not just in the village but in the entire area.

Cut again to ‘F’ as it is today. Even to the untutored eye it is dying on its feet, and so are similar villages across south Punjab but paradoxically, and much in line with the World Bank report, it ticks most of the boxes for poverty reduction.

For the first time ever there is a reliable potable water supply courtesy of a solar-powered pumping station funded by the government. It is free and wildly successful. Since coming on-stream earlier this year infant deaths in the first year of life have dropped like a stone. (Source — my sister-in-law who is the village LHV.) Ours is still the only family that owns a vehicle for private use, but there are plenty of motorbikes and several tractors most owned by cooperative groups. Most homes have a toilet within the compound. Most homes have a TV and roofs are thick with dishes. Many have refrigerators. Family sizes are smaller, children are marrying later. Of the few new houses that have been built in the last 15 years they are all of brick, none of mud blocks. Boxes ticked right, left and centre. And the place is dying on its feet.

Twenty-three years ago and despite the grinding poverty ‘F’ was a happy place and I clearly recall the joy my visits brought to me and those who hosted me including my future in-laws. There was a lot of laughter. We played games into the evening. Told stories. Went to the fields together to clear the irrigation channels. I even picked cotton, possibly my most backbreaking experience to date.

Happiness is in short supply these days. It is not a commodity you can tick a box for and perhaps it should be. The village is depopulated, working-age men have left for the cities to jobs that are menial. Beyond farming they have been trained for nothing. They have no saleable skills beyond their hands. They send money back and visit rarely. The village is populated by women and young children and the infirm elderly that sit at the crossroads, smoke their hookahs and look at a far horizon. The two schools still run but barely. The small farmers have either sold their land or given it on rent as the acreage is no longer big enough to support their families.

Those that are left in this emerging ghost-town are indeed less poor if only judged by what they own or can afford within the limits of disposable income. Fewer infant deaths has to be good. So does clean water. And a shop selling the basics. And all those motorbikes. But ask anybody if they feel any richer (I have) and there is that intake of breath, the look downwards, the wry smile and the uncomfortable shift of position that says ‘No’, not richer just differently poor. The differently poor have a dusty inheritance — and will leave a legacy of broken refrigerators.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 24^th, 2016.

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