Few sights are as tragic and yet as predictable in Pakistan as rivers bursting their banks during the monsoon, submerging entire settlements, washing away hotels, houses, and lives along with them. Every year, the script repeats itself: the rains arrive, the rivers swell, structures crumble, and the nation mourns. But beneath the floodwaters lies a deeper story of negligence, greed, and the absence of governance.
It is no secret that hotels, housing societies, and restaurants are routinely built on riverbeds and floodplains across Pakistan. What should have been protected ecological zones—designed to absorb and channel the natural overflow of water—have been converted into commercial and residential hubs. This reckless expansion has not been the handiwork of common citizens alone. Politicians, businessmen, and state officials have all played a part in sanctioning or silently permitting these encroachments. The result is a tragedy manufactured in boardrooms and backrooms long before nature delivers its blow.
The moral culpability here is unmistakable. Ordinary people pay the price of elite profiteering, their homes swept away while the actual culprits remain immune. State authorities, entrusted with enforcing land-use regulations and environmental laws, often turn a blind eye in exchange for political patronage or financial gain. Where laws exist, they are seldom enforced. Where enforcement begins, selective application ensures that only the weak are penalised while the powerful remain untouched.
This culture of impunity has transformed natural disasters into man-made catastrophes. Floodplains are not meant to be real estate; they are meant to safeguard entire populations by absorbing excess water. By converting them into revenue-generating projects, we have turned lifelines into death traps.
The path forward demands more than post-disaster relief. It requires the state to reclaim its authority and ensure the rule of law without exception. Encroachments on riverbeds must be removed, no matter how influential the owners. Strict zoning regulations should be enacted and, more importantly, implemented. Environmental assessments must become a prerequisite for all construction, rather than an inconvenient formality. And above all, accountability should not end with low-level officials—it must extend to those at the very top who profit from regulatory violations.
Pakistan can no longer afford to treat floods as acts of fate. They are acts of failure—failures of governance, integrity, and foresight. If the state cannot protect its people from preventable disasters, then it betrays the very essence of its contract with citizens.
The next time waters rise, let it not be said that we did not know who was responsible. The evidence lies not in the rivers, but in the riverbanks built over by greed and shielded by complicity. Only a state that enforces its own laws can break this cycle of ruin.
