The villages and rural areas of the region are worse than the towns. At least in the towns, there might be some functioning public schools and a few colleges, but not in most of the rural areas. There is at least one ghost degree-college that this writer has observed in one of the southern districts. In town colleges, teachers do not attend classes or lecture regularly. The teachers of natural sciences run private academies and don’t devote themselves to teaching at the colleges. The same is true of government hospitals where even the poor patients needing some surgery are driven to private clinics run by doctors on the payrolls of government hospitals. There might be a few noble exceptions to this practice that robs both state and society, but what this writer has witnessed over several visits to the region is heartbreaking. What hurts more is that the ruling classes of the region continue to be elected by the same helpless peasantry that is hauled to the polling station every time to confirm political legitimacy on their lords. Democracy therefore has to go a long way to make the ruling classes accountable to anyone — the law, institutions or the common voting citizen. But this is the only route to progress; we have tried all others. Great difference is visible in the quality of education delivery and some other social services among the rural areas of Southern Punjab between the native and the settler communities. The settler or migrant communities fare much better in terms of quality of education, particularly in areas where they have demographic strength. The native villages that we have observed in more than one district of the region have seen very little or no development: their schools are dysfunctional or most of the teachers are absent; basic health centres have no doctors; and roads break down within a few months of their construction. This is no fiction; it is a cruel reality that is very visible in so many areas.
How do we explain these troubles of Saraiki Wasaib? They are primarily because of feudalism, semi-tribal social structure families over political representation. This class has misused its power appears to be an unbreakable nexus between the civil bureaucrats departments at the district level and the elected representatives both members of provincial and federal legislatures.
and monopoly of landowning and continues to do so. There heading different government of local governments and the
Again, with few exceptions, they have joined hands to misappropriate development funds by spending very little on projects and pocketing most of the money. During the Musharraf years, Saraiki Wasaib witnessed greater plunder than perhaps any other region of the country. Transparent and fair accounting and auditing, including quality checks of public works programmes in the region, would reveal the scale of this plunder.
Has any thing changed under the new elected government of Punjab? No. Sadly, nothing has really changed in Southern Punjab. We have the same number of ghost schools — mostly girls’ schools — absentee teachers and doctors, and poor quality of public works. Punjab as whole and Saraiki Wasaib in particular has been in constant decline as a result of poor governance and an ineffective system of accountability. Regrettably, the greatest number of poor, landless and miserable people live in Southern Punjab. These are perfect conditions for alienation and driving people towards hopelessness and desperate actions. Accountability of both corrupt bureaucrats and public representatives — past and present — may gradually restore some trust in governing institutions. The new rulers of Punjab need to understand the troubles of Saraiki Wasaib and take remedial actions. Some of these actions are doable, like better governance through efficient and reliable service delivery. For change in social and power relations, we’ll have to wait till true democracy takes root.