Our own contagion

In the last few months, I have been working with researchers in Karachi to understand the link between healthcare access, livelihood and living conditions among poorer parts of the city, particularly for those who work in the shrimp peeling industry. We have been conducting surveys for a few months and just recently did we finish data collection. Last weekend, I downloaded the surveys that had been uploaded by our local partners. As I looked at the first one, something broke inside me. The third question — after name and age — was about the level of education. This was well before the questions around health, disease, cost of care, perceptions about healthcare, working and living conditions, etc. I somehow could not get past the third question. This particular participant had told our team member collecting the data that she was na-khwanda i.e. illiterate. I hadn’t seen that word in a long time. I am aware of the national statistics, but still it hit me, that in 2024, we have among our midst, in the largest city in the country, people who are unable to read or write anything. I overcame my shock and went to other surveys. Unfortunately, it did not get any better. A large number of women were illiterate, and a substantial number of men only knew how to read the Quran, but had not gone to any school. Our survey sample is quite decent, and the age group is fairly diverse (between 15 and 50). Among the ones we sampled included those who have the national ID card, and those who are denied that — we surveyed teenage boys and girls, men and women.

A significant part of my own research focuses on infection and access to healthcare, in Pakistan and other low- and middle-income countries. The issue of disease dynamics, spread of infection and control measures are not unfamiliar to me. Going through the surveys I felt as if I was looking at infection data — but this was a contagion of a different kind. The contagion of illiteracy had many similarities to infections that impact more than just one individual. Illiteracy in one person impacts their family and the community, leads to a poor quality of life, and undermines one’s potential to have a richer, fuller life. Like an infection it has close ties with the environment where it thrives. It also spreads — those who are illiterate typically come from families where their parents were also not literate. Here, we should also recognise that we must separate the pathogen from the infected individual. In our surveys, I noted the respondents’ desire to learn to read and write, but the doors of learning have been sealed shut. The contagion of illiteracy is what the problem is, not the illiterate person who is forced to live with that contagion.

The images of Covid-19 are still fresh in my mind. So it was inevitable that I thought about prevention and cure. I started searching on any recent policy from the federal or provincial government. All I found was the same old stuff about the alarming statistics of out-of-school children — a description of the problem (and that too by journalists, op-ed writers, NGO workers) but nothing on the prescription front. There are no new ideas, no real effort and no resources to recognise our own social contagion and find ways to treat what is akin to an epidemic. It seems that we have given up, most probably because the policymakers do not see the slums and informal settlements as places occupied by people who matter.

The idea of illiteracy as an epidemic or an infection is certainly not mine, and it is not new. Scholars in public health, education and social work have discussed the analogy for a long time. Yet, it needs reminding, especially in a place where economic injustice, social anxiety, corruption and poverty are rampant. An enabling environment for a contagion, and no inoculation or treatment strategy, will have painful consequences. The early days of Covid-19 should serve as a good reminder of what happens when there is no mitigation strategy and no vaccine. We are living in that world.