Poverty: a non-traditional security threat

Are we a mob of psychopaths, sadistic, violent individuals, or our sheer helplessness pushes us towards extreme acts.

She may not be living under the economic poverty line. However, her husband was an unemployed drug addict. She was a chronic victim of domestic violence. Arguments on financial issues occurred routinely, and on top of everything, there are reports that the children had not been fed for the last three days. First thing first. Can one imagine the state of mind in which Bisma decided to end the lives of her two minor children? She may be depressed, frustrated, helpless, extremist, revengeful, all of the above, or none of the above, but it does not change the fact that she took the precious lives of her children. And here arises the second question: who is responsible for the deaths of these children — Bisma, her husband, her relatives, the state, society, all of them or none of them? One can think of all kinds of possible answers; however, the Punjab police were quick in fixing responsibility and arrested her on a charge of murder. She would remain the talk of town for a few days and then all attention would be diverted to some other equally gruesome incident; after all, Pakistan is a land of the happening, where there is no dull moment.

I agree that ‘chronic poverty’ may not be the cause of this tragic incident, but Bisma’s extreme behaviour clearly indicates chronic depression and mental health issues, especially when she had a history of suicide attempts and her mother had also committed suicide a few years ago.

Fortunately, Bisma did not kill herself, but earlier last month, a cancer patient allegedly killed seven members of his family before committing suicide. Media reports are full of instances of such extreme behaviour. One wonders where we are heading towards as a society. Are we a mob of psychopaths, sadistic and violent individuals, or our sheer helplessness pushes us towards extreme behaviour? Perhaps, there is no easy answer to this question, but one can certainly assume that societal behaviour would have been quite normal if there had been attempts by our successive governments to implement Article 38 of the Constitution of Pakistan, which states: “The State shall provide basic necessities of life, such as food, clothing, housing, education and medical relief.” True that ours is a resource-starved country, but even if our state had abundant resources, it would only be able to provide basic necessities even if it knew the number of deprived people. Mapping the demand side reflects the political will to act; however, our policymakers are clearly living in a state of denial. They do not want to read their lab results as it may diagnose their chronic ailments.

We have not released our poverty figures for the last many years. The National Nutritional Survey result was released after a lapse of two years as someone in the bureaucracy was not comfortable with the fact that 58 per cent of the population in Pakistan is malnourished. The World Food Programme-SDPI-FAO-Unicef-led “State of food (in)security in Pakistan 2013” report, suggesting (on the basis of government data) that almost 50 per cent of the people have a chronic caloric insecurity, has been awaiting clearance and shuttling between the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council and the Ministry of Food Security and Research for the last six months. In a country where physical health requirements remain unmet, we simply do not believe that mental ailments exist; thus, most media reports term Bisma a ‘ruthless mother’ and a ‘monster mom’.

I wonder how many more deaths are required to convince ourselves that helplessness leads to extreme behaviours. We need to acknowledge the multidimensionality of poverty and need to recognise that poverty, in any form, is a non-traditional security threat, which can erode the basic societal fabric.

It may require a revised social contract to address societal extreme behaviours, but by then, it would be too late for this ‘ruthless mother’, who may attempt to commit suicide during her trial. I wish the court could have sent her for psychiatric treatment before handing her over to the police on judicial remand. It is still not too late. Perhaps, the Supreme Court or the Parliament’s Committee on Human Rights can still intervene and consider this case under Article 38. It would turn an accused into a victim, and may also lay the foundation of a paradigm shift, which is necessary if we want to provide psychological relief to our frustrated society.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 8^th, 2014.

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