Thirty-year-old Marubhat, a resident of Samo Bheel village – a two-hour drive from Chhachhro, Pakistan- decided to end her life on 23 August 2014, after she had failed to provide food for her children, as reported by Dawn Newspaper on 2nd September. Soon after her death, her home was visited by reporters and social workers where during interviews her family attributed the cause of her death to persistent financial problems. In previous years, 24 such suicide cases were reported in 2011 and 35 in 2012. But this is the 31st death in Tharparkar district as a result of suicide within just seven months, officials say.
These suicides are largely attributed to a rise in cases of poverty in the area. A renowned social worker and CEO of Hisaar Foundation, Dr. Sono Kangharani, stated that the main reason behind the suicides is in fact poverty, “There are multiple factors, but poverty stands out as it points towards a need which continues to remain unfulfilled.” According to data compiled by AWARE, an NGO working in Thar, suicide is a dilemma faced by both women and men. “We are pressurized to avoid giving exact figures,” says Ali Akbar Rahimoo, Executive Director at AWARE. “But these suicide cases cannot be looked at in isolation as they are part of a bigger problem which is poverty due to drought.”
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has reported disturbing information regarding 193 children starving to death in Thar district of Pakistan in only three months of the current year. The authorities have conceded half of that number, while trying to attribute them to different diseases but independent sources have conclusive evidence that they are all caused by extreme poverty, chronic shortage of drinking water due to a years-old drought causing a famine. Serious lack of health facilities in the area which has just one 74 bed hospital, serving a population of 1.5 million, further complicates the situation and has given rise to serious distress migration to nearby districts.
Whilst men and women are killing themselves, with children dying of hunger and thirst, the provincial and federal governments are busy in pointing fingers at each other. The drought in Thar is not a new issue as it is a desert region. The government instead of implementing a permanent solution to the problem has left the remedies to the NGOs with limited funds and resources. And this in a country which is amongst the largest producers of wheat, with 25 million metric tonne per year, ranked 8th in the world and with a similar ranking for overall agriculture production in the world! The situation highlights the problem with distribution of the resources and the absence of a government that cares for the people.
The origin of the problem in fact lies in this rotten capitalist system which has left the distribution of wealth to the price mechanism. Capitalism’s principle of “scarcity of resources” is the dire cause of human suffering, hunger and starvation around the globe. Failing to distinguish between basic needs and luxuries, Capitalism maintains that there are unlimited desires in comparison to limited resources, leaving the basic needs of people at the mercy of the price mechanism, a man-made survival of the fittest.
It is Capitalism that allows Democratic governments to ignore the responsibility of fulfilling people’s basic need. As a patchwork, looking after the health and education is left in the hand of NGOs, which have neither funds nor resources to eliminate these basic problems facing mankind. That is why we see that India which has had uninterrupted Capitalism for more than sixty seven years is unable to eliminate poverty. Currently 30% of the population is living under the poverty line, where spending over less than a dollar a day is considered as being not poor! In the contrast, the number of billionaires in India are being continuously added to the world’s richest lists.
Even in the countries like the US and Britain, where this Capitalist system has been implemented for more than 150 years now, the concentration of wealth through Capitalism has worsened poverty and homelessness. In the UK, food poverty has risen to such an extent that malnutrition is fast becoming common in the UK, with a 19 percent increase in the number of citizens hospitalized for malnutrition, over a period of twelve months months and about one in three UK families now live below the breadline, despite the British economy doubling in size over the same period. In the US, in November 2012, the US Census Bureau said more than 16% of the population lived in poverty, including almost 20% of American children and according to another report child poverty reached record high levels, with 16.7 million children living in food insecure households.
In contrast, Islam has defined food, shelter and clothing as the individual basic need and health, education and security as the collective basic need for society whose fulfillment is the responsibility of the Islamic state. It is narrated that Rasool Allah صلى الله عليه وسلم said
لَيْسَ لِابْنِ آدَمَ حَقٌّ فِي سِوَى هَذِهِ الْخِصَالِ: بَيْتٌ يَسْكُنُهُ وَثَوْبٌ يُوَارِي عَوْرَتَهُ وَجِلْفُ الْخُبْزِ وَالْمَاءِ
“The son of Adam has no right to anything except these properties: a house to live in, a clothing to cover his ‘awrah (parts of body that must be covered in public), a chunk of bread, and water” (reported by Al-Tirmidhi who said it is Hasan Sahih).
Therefore we see, the Khulafa’a in Islam striving to fulfill the basic needs of all the citizens of the Khilafah state. During the time of Khaleefah Umar (ra), one day Umar (ra) was on his regular night patrol and he passed by the children who were crying and a women who appeared to be cooking for her children. When Umar looked closely, the women was just mixing stones to give a false hope to the children. When Umar inquired about what she was doing, she said that since the Khaleefah Umar didn’t distribute the food from the Baytul Maal, my children are hungry, so I am pretending as if I am cooking. Umar (ra) said what if Umar didn’t know about your condition, she said then if he doesn’t know about us how would he answer Allah سبحانه وتعالى on the Day of Judgment. This made Umar (ra) cry and he went to the Baytul Maal along with his servant and asked him to put a bag of wheat on his shoulder. The servant inquired that “Oh Ameer Ul Momineen, do you want me to put this on your shoulder or on my shoulder.” Umar (ra) said, “No on my shoulder.” Umar took the food to that house and cooked the meal by himself. Since it was a cold night, his servant asked the Khaleefah if they leave them and go back. Umar (ra) said, “I won’t leave until I see them eating, playing and smiling the same way I saw them crying.”
And in the year 17-18 AH, Hijaz and Syria were faced by severe famine and drought. Hazrat Umar (ra) took steps to get food supplies from Egypt, he ordered the wali (governor) of Egypt to send help, he sent three big ships of grains to Madinah which were unloaded in the presence of Hadzrat Umar (ra). He himself distributed the grains amongst the needy. Hazrat Umar (ra) did not take any delicacy (butter etc.) during the famine period. When he was requested to take care of his health, he said, “If I don’t taste suffering, how can I know the sufferings of others?”
The negligence of the regime is apparent, where Umar (ra) moved within hours, the regime does not look to do anything within months. A policy on drought was recently introduced by the provincial government, but Dr. Khangharani, who is among the committee members who worked on the policy, is not hopeful, “Nothing will happen in the coming months. At present, we are waiting for the said policy to be passed in the assembly.”
Moreover, not only did the Khilafah take care of the affairs of the Muslims and non-Muslims living within the boundaries of the Khilafah, it made efforts to alleviate the suffering of humanity outside of its borders. In 1845, the onset of the Great Irish Famine resulted in over a million deaths. The Uthmaani Sultan Khaleefah Abdul-Majid declared his intention to send 10,000 Sterling (which is more than 2 Million USD today) to Irish farmers but Queen Victoria requested that the Sultan send only 1,000 sterling, because she had sent only 2,000 sterling herself. The Sultan sent the 1,000 sterling, but also secretly sent three ships full of food. The English courts tried to block the ships, but the food arrived in Drogheda Harbor and was left there by the Uthmaani Khilafah’s navy. Due to this the Irish people, especially those in Drogheda, are friendly with the Muslims of Turkey.
That is why even Western thinkers and pioneers of Western capitalism have regarded the Islamic Khilafah state as a model of governance. Adam Smith, an 18th Century founding founder of modern economics, whose picture is printed on the current UK £20 note, was exceedingly inspired by the Islamic method of governing. He proclaimed that “…the empire of the Caliphs seems to have been the first state under which the world enjoyed that degree of tranquility which the cultivation of the sciences requires….”. The world today needs the return of Islamic Caliphate which can only take people out of darkness and suffering due to capitalism and can facilitate man to acquire its true place in the world being the best of all creatures where the world can see harmony, justice and prosperity.”
Written for The Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Engineer Saham, Pakistan