1.

Recent Floods: Natural Disaster or

Man-Made Catastrophe?
“You don’t believe the sky is falling until a chunk of it falls on you” – Margaret Atwood

 Nature is striking back to human’s relentless development model in the form of

climate catastrophes – climate change has set in.
 The scale, scope and spread have surpassed 2010 super floods which was termed as
once-in-a-generation-event at that time
 Global temperature had warmed by 1.3 degree Celsius since the inception of the
modern industrial order
 33 million displaced, 1500 killed, total financial loss of $10B and one-third of the
Pakistan under water - NDMA

Man-made catastrophe of natural disaster?

 It is both
 Officials claim that it was due to climate change. This claim hold water but will someone
be held responsible for state policies, institutional response, society’s overall mindset and
most importantly, the kind of politics displayed during the course of calamity.
 The request for foreign aid was the need of time but changing and reforming the institutes
responsible for dealing with disaster is also crucial for our survival
 Disaster orthodoxy: a belief that disasters are unexpected and unfortunate events. This
viewpoint absolves state institutions’ responsibility for putting vulnerable communities at
risk

Man-made Factors
 Federal and provincial govt. were quick to blame climate change, instead of poor
early warning systems, poor building and material standards and unplanned growth of
human settlements

1. Flood is natural hazard but the destruction is human-induced

 it is not God’s furry to punish sinners; we are the culprits and inaction is our sin
 Let us stop calling it a ‘natural disaster’. Yes, floods are natural hazards but the
destruction is mostly human induced and is exacerbated by the dwindling patterns of
deforestation, weak structural or nonstructural mitigation methods, quality of building
standards and the way impoverished population is marginalized geographically,
economically and socially
 Take Sindh, for instance, the road network has basic structural defects – no drain on the
road sides, no provision of dewatering the various enclosed, low-laying areas

1. Existence of post-flood vulnerable communities

 A large part of destruction was avoidable
 Vulnerability; unequal access to wealth and resources have contributed to who is
impacted
 Post-flood conditions of flood affected people
 730,000 among flood affected were pregnant women but bear in mind that they come
from communities that were already lacking family planning and maternal care services.
Flood affected areas are the ones with highest fertility and mortality rates
 People were living in makeshift housing far from major roadways with no access to
services. Living on the edge with their multiple vulnerabilities and now displaced under
open skies
 A study named Impact of climate Change in Vulnerable Communities in Sindh,
Pakistan (2021) confirms that climate change was already a known reality to these people
2. Alteration in flood plains
Flood plains are low-lying fields prone to inundation. They are adjacent to a stream.
There are vast inland flood plains in Punjab and Sindh capable of absorbing and dissipate
their intensity. However, since waters of Indus River system have receded in
recent decades, the problem of encroachments has intensified. There is a
network of land grabbers under the supervision of influential politicians and
landlords. As a consequence, the scale of disaster raises many folds. As a
result, natural course of flood water has changed causing more destruction.
In Sindh province, flood plains have been most severely altered. There are
illegal occupants and permanent structures such as roads and bridges as
well. Flash floods carry away these structures and bridges, raising the
disaster score.
5. Flaws in our development model:
 Our development model is neither disaster-resilient nor climate smart
 The monsoon waters are furious primarily because we have chocked their passage
 development path chosen has a zero-sum relationship with the natural environment
 gravity pushes forward the water flow but our model is insisting on defying gravity.
Infrastructure have become extremely vulnerable because we have been blocking
water flow
Committed four developmental mistakes
 a) top-down panning and resource allocation
 b) randomly selected development schemes
 c) archaic and poor standards of infrastructure development
 d) centralization of political power
6. Land use change
 Happened at will. Urban sprawls as well as grand housing societies
 Land-cover change (urbanization, deforestation, and cultivation) results in increased
flood frequency and severity.
 reduced infiltration capacity, lower soil porosity meaning lower evapotranspiration

 study conducted by journal of Water Science & Technology in 2002

7. short term measures taken in the past
 extending emergency supplies via disaster management authorities followed by cash
grants
 not calculating the economic losses and cost of climate resilient infrastructure
 Previous Climate Change strategies ignored the mushrooming of fragile structures
that were built upon river and canal beds
 Policymakers consciously neglected the escalation of inequalities rising poverty and
population in the past
All governments in the recent past have been preoccupied with politicking and crisis
management mode, postponing reforms and looking for pain-free, short-term economic
solutions rather than a longer-term approach to deal with country’s fostering structural
problems
-Maleeha Lodhi
8. Not following disaster risk management cycle approach
STAGE 1: Pre-disaster

Risk
mitigation Preparedness
Assessment
STAGE 2: Post-disaster steps

Humanitarian
Response Reconstruction
Assistance

 We start at the second stage and have a response-centric approach because:

o Lack of political will as political leaders want to portray themselves as saviors by
visiting destruction sites handing out rations
o Insufficient budget
o Dependence of foreign aid
o The biggest hurdle in the way of correcting the course of things is well explained by
ZAFAR MIRZA in DAWN op-ed
“We don’t learn from our experiences. Every time we start from the scratch as if it is
happening for the first time. There is no coordination in response effort”
Deforestation
The rate of deforestation in Pakistan is second highest in south Asia
3. International carbon emissions:
2. Pakistan contribute only 1% to global carbon emission
 7200 plus glaciers
 As a poorer and less developed country, it is at the receiving of global north’s
contributions to climate degradation
  “Let’s stop sleep walking towards the destruction of our planet by climate change.
Today, it is Pakistan. Tomorrow, it could be your country.” – UN Secretary General
António Guterres
4. Over-exploitation of nature
 Greed has led us here. Greed in the form of over-exploitation of nature along with
vested interests of elites and inadequate governance
 Flood can be termed as violence nature which has set itself to autocorrect the damage
caused to it by the human race.
 The powerful elites in developed nations are the main culprits while underdeveloped
countries are bound to bear the brunt.
 Emanuel Macron, President of France gave an ominous speech before leaving his
country to attend Queen’s funeral. He said:
 “We are living the end of what could have seemed an era of abundance… the end of
the abundance of technologies that seemed always available…the end of abundance
of land and material including water”

Natural factors:
1. Change in the monsoon pattern: as global air temperature increase, the clouds can
hold more water resulting in torrential downpours
2. Rise in sea water: coastal flooding. Also, increase in sea temperature allows clouds to
reach farther lands. The flood in Baluchistan is also a result of these westerly weather
influence rather than the traditional eastern monsoon originating from the Bay of Bengal
3. Unpredictable monsoon patterns
Despite a lot of research, monsoon patterns are always unpredictable.
Difficult to tell which area will receive rain and will which not. For example, while
Pakistan is facing deluges, some Indian regions received record less rain (breaking the
record of past 122 years)
This is due to the changing atmospheric and oceanic conditions. Some other factors;
clouds of dust flowing in from Sahara Dessert, aerosols and even the fertilizers used by
farmers

Consequences
1. food insecurity
 major kharif crops destroyed
 IPC Acute Food and Security Analysis 2021,22 – Baluchistan and Sindh were already
facing high food insecurity
 Now damage to livestock, crop, food network and food market will aggravate the
food insecurity situation – malnutrition and disease
2. worrisome healthcare conditions
 water-borne diseases
 mental health
 73,000 women are expected to give birth in flood-hit areas
 Maternal mortality rate in Pakistan is 186 per 100,000 live births
3. Impact on industry
 Car and tractor manufacture as well as steel producers have already temporarily shut
down their plant
 Economic slowdown in near to medium terms
 Damaged communication infrastructure – hurdle in the transport of goods
 Contraction in both public and private investment
 Output of large-scale industries will reduce
4. Condition of Women During a calamity
 when a disaster strikes, women and children are 14 times more likely to die than men
– UN Assistant Secretary General
 more than 70 percent of women face various form of gender-based discrimination
after a calamity – UN Women
 sexual abuse, harassment, human-trafficking, agriculture income suffers, pregnancy,
childbirth- related complications

 So next time, beware of the good men who portray it as a natural disaster. It is not, as they
only try to protect the interests of elites who prefer their profits over the nation’s
wellbeing

Solutions
We should take a lesson from the Yangtze River Basin of China where they have adopted
ecological procedures to manage floods
 the climate has changed, the floods will become costlier unless we adopt a climate
resilient development model
a) instead of stopping at cash grants disbursements, it’s time to create a special
purpose vehicle for risk transfer and insurance in five key areas: lives of bread
earners, shelter, livestock, standing crops, small and micro enterprises
b) survival demand more than charity since it is not aimed at preventing
environmental collapse
c) improved early warning system
d) developing district-level disaster management systems
Four policy options for transforming the disaster management system from curative to
preventive one
1) defining responsibilities: while climate change is a federal subject, flood and other
extreme events falls under provincial sphere of action. Clear threshold points should
be defined for when the fed needs to step in
2) need of data sets and designated institutions in place: Granular data is needed to
support hazard assessment, development planning, and monitoring. only have income
data which does not have any vulnerability maps – understandably so because its
mandate is limited to income support to the people living below poverty line. BISP
 only acts as a post office for disbursal of flat amounts without assessing the level of
damage received by a family
3) need for contingency budget; earlier attempt to reserve a small portion of budget for
federal and provincial disaster have been discontinued
4) need for disaster recovery framework: for reconstruction and resilience. In 2005,
commitment to Hyogo Framework for Action but institutional and policy makers’
inefficiency made it unsuccessful
5) reforestation: 10 billion tree tsunami initiative already in place. Tree such as
mangroves and eucalyptus are particularly good at reducing flood intensity.
6) Construction of new Dams
need to enforce NDMAs commitment to Paris Agreement, SDGs and Sendia
framework for disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) ➜ its ongoing target for 2030 is
‘Build Back Better’ via improved multi-hazard early warning system and disaster-risk
information to people.

2. Has Disaster Management System failed

in Pakistan?
A. Introduction
“There are disasters that are entirely manmade, but none that are entirely natural.”
- Rebecca Solnit
 The wrath of nature takes form of a disaster when gets entangled with human
footprints, public negligence, exploitative government policies, short-sighted
modernization agenda and environmental degradation
 Pakistan is highly vulnerable to climate change due to its geographic situation
coupled with weak system of emergency preparedness
 Due to this mismanagement, disasters have been very unkind. For example, 2005
earthquake (displaced 3.5 m), 2010 super floods (displaced 20 m) along with
economic losses

B. History of dreadful disasters in Pakistan

 Pakistan is prone to natural hazards such as
 floods, droughts, cyclones, famine and heavy monsoon.
 During past three decades, it experienced four major crisis; 2005 earthquakes,
2010 floods and third rose out of international terror campaign led by the US
causing Internally Displaced Person(IDPs) Crisis during 2008-2010. This year, it
again witnessed a new flood crisis.

C. Evidence of Failure of Disaster Management System in

Pakistan
1. Greater vulnerability to climate hazards
 Poor disaster management has made Pakistan more vulnerable to climate hazards
 Pakistan ranked 8th most vulnerable country on climate risk index
  Contain both physical and socio-economic components of vulnerability. For
example, the poor residents of coastal areas are often short of money to build
concrete houses
2. Loss of lives, livelihood and livestock
 Both type of hazards i.e. natural (floods, cyclones, earthquakes) and man-made
(fire, civil unrest, terrorism, refugees, IDPs) poses a direct threat to lives and
livelihood of people
 World Disaster Report of 2003 highlights the human impact of natural disasters in
Pakistan: 6000+ killed during 1993-2002
 Recent floods killed 1500 and 33 m displaced
3. Decline in Agriculture Productivity
Leading to drought and famine
 2022 floods have inundated 7 m hectares out of 22 m total cultivated land (35%).
Similarly, 2010 floods reduced crop production to 15%
 Pakistan already ranks 92 out of 116 countries on Global Hunger Index 2021
4. Dwindling export due to the destruction of large swathes of farms
 Impacts the exports of commercial and food crops
 Thousands of factory workers lose jobs. Disasters also decrease Purchasing
power, thus results in spiraling poverty impacting other sectors
 Textile export (major portion of our exports) gets hit first. 2022 floods: Garments
exports are expected to sink by 35%
5. Damage to infrastructure
 In 2022 floods, about 6000 km of roads and 300 bridges were reduced to rubble
 Contraction in both private and public sector investment
 $20 billion loss of infrastructure rehabilitation
6. Burden on the National Exchequer
Economic loss of $10 billion (2022 floods) - UN
7. New waves of refugees from calamity-declared districts
Disasters displaces millions, becomes a challenge for relief and rehabilitation agencies.
Compete with local population for already scarce resources
8. Long-term implications of natural disasters
Diseases like cholera, dengue, and psychological conditions like trauma, depression, and
hypertension
Research by Bookings institution shows an overall reduction in educational attainment,
lower academic performance, higher rate of absenteeism among children experiencing
climate shocks and deadly disasters
9. Political chaos in the aftermath of crisis
A disaster can change the public perception of the ability and concern of the political
players
10. Detrimental implications on disaster struck women
 UNDP says that in wake of a disaster, women and children are 14 times more
likely to die in than man
 Incidences of gender based violence
 more than 70 percent of women face various form of gender-based discrimination
after a calamity – UN Women
 Relief programs are not gender sensitive

D. Causes of Failure of Disaster Management System in

Pakistan
1. Resource constraints and fiscal mismanagement
 Three constraints; time, cost, scope; leading to overwhelming constraint of
management
 National and provincial bodies (NDMA and PDMA) are short of finance. Earlier
attempt to reserve a small amount for federal and provincial disaster management
have been discontinued. Regarding time the primary focus is never on the human
development paradigm. Already we are at 154 out of 189 on HDI index. Thus
disaster management was never a priority. Therefore the scope of such efforts is
narrower due to lack of political will.
2. Biased nature of relief operations
 The main aim is to protect the location and infrastructure of greater economic,
political and strategic importance at the cost of vulnerable communities; those in
Baluchistan, mountainous regions of KPK and elsewhere in FATA.
3. Lack of institutionalization to ensure inclusive and coherent response
 Dearth of information about relevant risk and mitigation policies.
 Disaster management bodies lack knowledge about risk assessment, hazard
identification and management thus lack in their preparedness level.
 They do not use cost-effective and sustainable tools
 Work in isolation and integrated planning is also absent
4. Untrained workforce and departmental neglect
 People are not trained to cope with
 Agencies and departments also lack training
 Outdated early warning systems
 Ex. ARMY is usually called in for relief operations and supply rations
5. Ineffective disaster management policy of the government
 Due to bad governance and constant neglect of human development agenda.
  Disasters are perceived in isolation from the process of mainstream development
and poverty alleviation planning
 Existing vulnerable communities are neglected; they are poor, unemployed and
living in makeshift houses
 Govt. only focus on large scale development model; Left Bank Outfall Drainage
(LBOD) and link canals. They made the already vulnerable communities more
prone to suffer damage

E. conclusion

3. Floods are Tipping Pakistan into a Food

Crisis
“Global warming isn’t real because I was cold yesterday! Also great news: world
hunger is over because I just ate.”
-Stephen Colbert

A. Introduction
 In danger of missing a rapidly closing window of securing a sustainable future
 One-third under water and 33 million affected
 Farmland bigger than the Czech Republic was flooded, fresh crops delayed.
Supply chain disrupted. Now hunger looms
 With crops, livestock, and agricultural land damaged or destroyed,
Pakistan will struggle to feed itself and the countries that depend on
its food exports.

B. Post-Flood Situation of Food Security in Pakistan

 UNICEF National Nutrition Survey 2018 around 37% are food insecure in
Pakistan
 8th largest producer of wheat in the world, 10th in rice, 5th in sugarcane and 4th in
milk production still food insecure
 Reasons: Heat waves in mid-march, Torrential rains, increasing fertilizer cost,
Russia-Ukraine war (Pak Import 39% wheat from Ukraine), black-marketing,
holding of essential staples

C. How Floods are Tipping Pakistan into a Food Crisis

1. Destruction of large swathes of farm land
 major kharif crops destroyed
 IPC Acute Food and Security Analysis 2021,22 – Baluchistan and Sindh were already
facing high food insecurity
 More than 80 percent of crops across the country were damaged, according to the
government. The Sindh province, which produces a considerable share of the
country’s food, is one of the worst affected.
 Now damage to livestock, crop, food network and food market will aggravate the
food insecurity situation – malnutrition and disease
2. Decline in Agriculture Productivity
 2022 floods have inundated 7m hectares out of 22m total cultivated land (35%).
 Already ranked 92 out of 116 on Global Hunger Index
3. Disrupted food network due to Infrastructure damage
 More than 6,000km of roads and 300 bridges destroyed, causing significant
disruptions to the transport of the food, damaged food networks and supply chain
4. Increased vulnerability to malnutrition
 An assessment done in September by the International Rescue Committee (IRC)
and its partners found that more than 70 percent of individuals interviewed in the
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region reported difficulty accessing any food, let alone
nutritious food.
5. Soaring food prices
 Inflation was already running at a 14-year high of almost 25 percent before the
floods hit. It’s worse now: Food prices in the affected regions increased three to
five times in just a few weeks.
 Reason: With one-third of the country under water, delays in sowing wheat.
Draining the flood waters and rejuvenating the soil took several months.
6. Future uncertainty regarding food security
 World Bank’s 2021 Climate Risk Country Profile, projections for Pakistan over
the next 10 years suggest “yield declines in many key food and cash crops,
including cotton, wheat, sugarcane, maize and rice”
7. Fear of famine and disease
 More than 90 percent of Pakistani households are wheat consumers. But with so
much land destroyed or damaged, the wheat harvest could be jeopardized
 Food shortage will lead to malnutrition, stunned children and other health
challenges
 Already, nearly 10 million Pakistani children suffer from stunning- UNICEF.

8. Vulnerable rural infrastructure

Rural infrastructure and human resource development are necessary for ensuring food
insecurity

D. Strategies to Cope With Flood-induced Food Crisis

1. Take lesson from Japanese Flood Rehabilitation Model
Floods are a key issue in Japan due to its hydrological, climatological and metrological
conditions. Just like River Indus, Japan’s Shinano-gawa River has also been a source of
feeding agricultural land. However, during extreme rains and overflowing of the river
poses extreme threats. Historically, Japan experience severe floods with most recent in
2018. After each disaster, the Extreme Flood Control Operations Authority formulates
new approaches, strategies and design to analyse flood frequency and to mitigate socio-
economic and food security risks. Various structural measures including food supplies
stockpiling, construction of dams, erosion and sediment control are implemented.
Pakistan should learn from there climate-resilient rehabilitation programs
2. Control food inflation
According to a PIDE study, food inflation can be controlled by increasing targeted
spending on R&D
3. Adoption of climate-smart agriculture technology
 One-Health initiative by govt. provide an excellent opportunity to take a more
holistic and integrated approach to human, animal and plant health.
 Encourage greater use of green technologies
4. Need of data sets and designated institutions in place:
 Granular data is needed to support hazard assessment, development planning, and
monitoring. Only have income data which does not have any vulnerability maps –
understandably so because its mandate is limited to income support to the people
living below poverty line. BISP only acts as a post office for disbursal of flat
amounts without assessing the level of damage received by a family
5. Transforming the agriculture sector
 Bringing change in crop pattern by adopting climate-friendly crops, soil-
refreshing techniques and heat-tolerant seeds
 Sustainable agriculture: The goal of sustainable agriculture is to meet society’s
food and textile needs in the present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs.
 Practitioners of sustainable agriculture seek to integrate three main objectives into
their work: a healthy environment, economic profitability, and social and
economic equity.
 Growers may use methods to promote soil health, minimize water use, and lower
pollution levels on the farm. Consumers and retailers concerned with
sustainability can look for “values-based” foods that are grown using methods
promoting farmworker wellbeing, that are environmentally friendly, or that
strengthen the local economy.

E. Conclusion
4. Role of Social Media to Exacerbate
Polarization in Pakistan
A. Introduction
 Humans have an intuitional inclination to communicate with like-minded people
 “Polarization affects families and groups of friends. It’s a paralyzing situation. A civil
war of opinion.”
— Mick Jagger
 There a number of social networking platforms such as Twitter, Facebook,
LinkedIn and YouTube. The users of these social media networks have already
surpassed millions and are growing. This way, it has made it easier for people
with other who share similar beliefs, it has also made it easier for them to access
information that confirms their preexisting beliefs
 However, it has also led to an increase in polarization as people are more likely to
engage with information that confirms their belief and avoid the information that
challenges them.
 It facilitates the social media lobbyists to polarize the communication to the extent
that people start to support opinions or political arguments against leaders without
fact checking
 It accelerates the movement of citizens into informational bubbles which spread
inflammatory stories and videos. This way, it undermines trust in institutions and
in fellow citizens; it allows violent ideologies to ferment
 Thesis: the government shutdowns, violent protests, attacks on elected officials
and intolerance in public all indicate that social media polarizes the political and
social systems and divided the nation each passing day regarding issues of
security, human rights, employment and environment.

C. How Social Media Exacerbates Polarization in Pakistan?

1. Spreads biased opinions and misinformation
 This increased use of social media accompanied with low level of media literacy
and dearth of fact checking training is a high risk in itself. According to an
estimate, internet penetration in Pakistan reached 49.8 percent in 2022.
 Another example is debate about COVID vaccines. The social media debates go
with biased and unbiased approaches regarding getting the vaccine. Some
optimists termed it great, while some pessimists raised questions.
2. Supports propaganda to divide polity (sir’s comment: link it with polarization)
 Social media algorithms create illogical bubbles where people are bombarded with
information and propaganda that matches their views
 Propaganda in social media is also a rhetorical tool of modern populism –
including emotional appeal and fake news. According to a famous journalist
Usman Sahin, populist leaders from around the world such as Tayyip Erdoğan,
Modi, and Trump have gained large followership on social media by using such
tools.
 People are deprived from unbiased opinions
3. Online echo chambers promotes sectarianism and extremism
 Non-state actors are no longer mere proxies of a country but are the prime threat to its
existence.
  Formation of online echo chambers – a tactic of social media recommendations by
extremist groups to strengthen their narrative. This changes the way of thinking of
common people. For instance, former TTP leader Mullah Fazalullah - popularly
known as Radio Mullah - was successful in spoiling the minds of innocent people.
He used to give fiery speeches via pirate FM frequencies and presented a strict
version of Islam. Women every donated their gold for his cause. Though the
channel used by him was a traditional media outlet yet it proved effective to
support his cause.
4. Limited regulatory framework breeds political polarization
 A platform to share political views without engaging with the political discourse.
This leads to people becoming further entrenched in their believes and less likely
to listen to opposing views
 Research published by International Journal of Media and Information Literacy
found a positive link between increased media usage by students and political
polarization
5. Inflicts toxic ideologies of influencers
 Influencers have a follower-base of millions, and may polarize the public and
politics, since they share success stories like internet marketers compelling people
to buy their products.
 Usually, messages containing extreme thoughts, emotional instigation, patriotism,
or criticizing the opposition received a warm welcome on social media platforms
than those messages reflecting merely information.
 Example, recently a retired Pakistani military officer and YouTuber has alleged
that some actresses were used by the country’s powerful establishment as ‘honey
pots’ to lure politicians into discreetly filmed encounters that could be used to
blackmail them. That was a serious allegation and comes under the act of
cyberbullying. Adding fuel to the fire, internet started to flood with memes and
derogatory comments
6. Used for Political point scoring
 A research published in Journal of Social Media + Society found that voters
consider politicians as more honest in social media and opinion pieces, compared
to talk shows and news interviews.
 This fInding confirms Virtuous Circle Theory; young people typically find
politicians to be more dishonest in mainstream media compared to social media
7. A tool of 5th generation war
 A new type of war fought by using tools like perception, information, propaganda
and fake news in order to achieve strategic objectives.
“… in the modern era, wars are not fought by armies or guerrillas, but in the minds of
common citizens.”
-Ahsan Butt (Aljazeera News)
  The key difference between traditional war and 5 th generation war is that the
former is fought with weapons while the latter must be weaponized using tools
such as social media.
 For example, India is also using social media platform to promote polarization in
Pakistan. A report by EU DisinfoLab exposed an operation an operation that
continued for 15 years in 116 countries, featuring more than 500 fake media outlets and a
dozen fake NGOs. This network endeavoured to push a pro-India and anti-Pakistan
narrative in the European Union and the United Nations

D. Recommendations to Ensure Real Role of Social Media

1. Securing freedom of speech
European Convention of Human Rights developed three conditions for countering
disinformation measures 1) the restrictions on speech should be clearly and specifically
prescribed in the law, 2) those measures should aim at protection of fundamental values,
and 3) those measures should be “necessary in a democratic society”
2. Ensuring transparency
 Spreading credible information and not to leave any information void.
 Social Media network operators are the bigwigs and the most influential in this. They cannot
be controlled but only be regulated by framing such laws that may ensure fair use of this
digital platform and are careful so that users may not face any legal issue by discussing
sensitive issues such as desecration of holy places, religions, personalities, anti-state tirades,
rebellion, terrorism, extremism and so on.
3. Strengthening the media outlets

 Expanding the capacity of Pakistani media by providing them considerable resources to

counter the negative propaganda. There is a need to develop credible clusters in the society
that could be trusted for credible source of information.

4. Educating the public

Educating the people and creating awareness about the fair and professional use of social
media
Instead of showing the dark side of the issue, we have to educate people regarding both
pros and cons of matters of importance for the general public rather than misleading the
people with biased approaches to oppose the initiative of the government, community or
civil society for the general benefit.

The Utilization of Social Media: Is it

Replaceable?
A. Introduction
 Barely reached its 20th birthday but it changed the very fabric of life
 Insinuated itself into politics, home life, workspace and elsewhere, and continue to
evolve at lightning speed
  Billions of people around the globe using plat forms like Facebook, Twitter and
Instagram to connect with others, share information and engage in various forms
of communication.
 All this has led to many people asking this question: Is It replaceable?
 While it is possible to imagine alternatives to specific social media platforms,
such as Facebook or Twitter, it is unlikely that the overall concept of social media
will be replaced.
 Provides an effective way of communication – a fundamental human need
 Thesis: it is unlikely that social media will be replaced, but it is possible that new
platforms or technologies may emerge that provide similar functionality in new
and innovative ways.

B. Why Social Media is not Replaceable?

1. Provides an Effective form of communication
 live streaming and short-form video, made possible via advances in technology
 Difficult to imagine they will be replaced by something else in the future.
 “The technology with which we keep in touch may change, may evolve, but we
will have social connections and platforms which enable them. Facebook may be
gone in 10 years, but there will be something else.” - Yildirim
2. Gave birth to a new marketing era
 Businesses can reach out to their target audience in a cost-effective way
3. Used as a primary source of information
 Made people more informed about current events and happenings around the
world.
 Social media platforms are now a primary source of news for many people
 “Social media has become really fundamental to the way that billions of people
get information about the world and connect with each other” Kevin Werbach
4. Increased connectivity
Social connections are fabrics of people
Social media has increased connectivity the same way telephone or telegraph did
Social media increased connectivity and reduced cost
5. Cost effectiveness of social media

C. How Social Media is Replaceable?

Intense Polarization and Pakistan’s
Democratic Future
“Democracy is not something that happens, you know, just at election times, and it’s not
something that happens with just one event. It’s an ongoing building process. But it also
ought to be a part of our culture, a part of our lives” – Jim Hightower, American Activist
A. Introduction
 According to Condoleezza Rice in her book Democracy, democracy can only
flourish in ethnically homogenous populations. An ethnically divided society with
varied institutional preferences; democracy fails to deliver. Pakistan is the perfect
example of this notion.
 Institutional and partisan interest are preferred over national interests.
 Politics is all about blunders and blame game
 social fault lines and ethnic divide; society is divided into sects, classes, religions
 Inherent desire of politicians to use religion for political gains
 However, politicians are not the only culprits. Ubiquitous establishment too is
responsible
 Citizens, who make up the core of demo, are suffering. Because human
development is not a top priority of mainstream leadership. Rather, they only try
to accumulate more power and if this does not happen, religious and ethnic fault
lines are used to achieve immoral objectives
 As a consequence of all this, the democracy in Pakistan is expected to receive a
heavy blow due to the growing religious intolerance, extremism, polarized
politics, widening linguistic divide’ mistrust between people and state institutions
and the menace of provincialism

B. Pakistan’s Democratic Record: Frequent Military Coups

and Fragile Democratic Regimes
 Since inception, a victim of interest driven politics
 Demise of founding father compelled the country into a leadership crisis. At the
mercy of immature politicians
 Took nine years to formulate first constitution in 1956 that too, was annulled after
three years without any general elections under it.
 In 50s frequently changing PMs that Nehru mocked that he does not change his
dress as frequently as Pakistan changes its PM. Then 1971 cessation of Pakistan as
a result of divisive politics.
 Even the establishment has never allowed democracy to flourish.

C. Causes of Political Polarization in Pakistan

1. Political blunders and interest driven politics
 Blame game, no healthy debate, indecent language, mainstream media is flooded
with tiring repetitions of shallow political narrative. All this at the expense of
neglecting the real issues
 Lack of faith and commitment by the politicians to the process that brings them to
power in the first place -(PDM, non-confidence motion, etc.)
 Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) has ranked Pakistan 104 out of 167 states on its
Global Democracy Index
2. Presence of ethno-linguistic fault lines
 Victim of social fault lines. Some were inherited and some grew later
  Results in sectarianism, religious extremism and bigotry, thus damaging national
unity and cohesion.
 Emergence of culture of militancy
 Shia sunni conflicts. Recent example of Priyantha Kumara of Sri Lanka killed due
to religious extremism
3. Role of establishment
 Rooted back to Ayub khan, Zia-ul-Haq and Mussaraf undemocratically seizing
power then creating hybrid political systems by transitioning them from strict
martial laws to politico-military alliances.
 Ayub’s Basic Democracy, Zia’s Islamization and Majlis-e-Shura and General
Musharaf’s ‘third way’ and support from a faction of Muslim League. During all
these, democratic norms were unduly suppressed leading to political polarization
4. Power centric rather than people centric politics
 Pakistani politics revolve around personalities and power but the essence of
democracy is pluralism and freedom of speech.
 Parties promise for HD and infrastructure development and after coming to power,
their promises becomes utopian dreams.
 IPSOS Survey 2020: 77% Pakistanis felt the country was heading in wrong
direction

D. Pakistan’s Democratic Future: Declining Democracy and

Rising Polarization in Society
(Tell the things that are responsible for polarization and are also bad democratic norms)
1. Sectarian Conflict
 Sunni militants emerged during Zia’s rule
 Also, his support to anti-Soviet Jihad in Afghanistan done to curb Shia Militancy
in response to Iran’s revolution. His Islamization program. Later war on terror in
post 9/11 era
 Sectarian agenda strengthened
 Violent acts in the name of religion
 Political conflict in Pakistan – Muhammad Waseem
 "A Permanent Crisis of Governance". This is because of the gap between the
modern state and traditional society,
2. Rise of Populism
 Populist leaders use the tool of nationalism to gather support. Same happening
Pakistan
 Experts of mass psychology say voters exhibit such pathological behavior because
their biases and weaknesses are cleverly exploited by leaders
 People are not rational consumers of information. Instead, they seek swift,
reassuring answers and messages
  Julian Huxley hypnotized that human mind filters out much of reality because
handling detailed impressions and received images would be unbearably difficult.
Successful leaders massively simplify a complex and confusing world. They
provide cost-free and readymade solutions that require minimum use of
cerebellum and no change of national habits
3. Surge in Religious Extremism
 Posing an existentialist threat
 when a strong social sentiment is not given space for expression, it finds
expression through a more extremist outlets; the excluded Baloch finds solace in
militant Baloch outfits
 Similarly, the rise of TLP should not come as a surprise when Islam has been
repeatedly used by political actors only for it to be put aside when their needs
have been met
 In a speech on diversity at British House of Commons, British-Pakistani actor Riz
Ahmed commented on the similarity between actors and politicians as:
 “We’re here to represent…and when we fail to represent, people switch off. They
switch of the television and they switch off the ballot boxes, and they retreat to
other fringe narratives, sometimes very dangerous”
 Socially, it instilled fear and insecurity
 Economic losses
4. Increasing political unrest
All governments in the recent past have been preoccupied with politicking and crisis
management mode, postponing reforms and looking for pain-free, short-term economic
solutions rather than a longer-term approach to deal with country’s fostering structural
problems
-Maleeha Lodhi
5. Internal Security Crisis
“A house divided against itself will not stand” – Abraham Lincoln
 Federal government is supposed to foster interprovincial harmony but it remained
criminally negligent
 Absence of national consensus on NAP
6. Skyrocketing inequality between different groups
 The Pakistan National Development Report is titled “The three Ps of Inequality:
Power, People and Policy”. Power refers to the privileged groups that uses
loopholes to their advantage. People refer to division of classes, sects, genders etc.
policy refers to the unproductive policies that failed to provide social justice
7. Economic exploitation

8. Negative role played by social media

  Increases political polarization
 International Journal of Media and Information Literacy found a positive link
between increased media usage by students and political polarization
10. Regime change allegations and its aftershocks
 One of the political parties held US responsible for regime change in Pakistan.
This created trust dilemma

E. Conclusion
The democratic future of Pakistan lies in bridging the divisions of social, political or
religious nature