Saraikistan, the whole Saraiki Waseb, endured devastation without receiving even a fraction of the media coverage that a single housing society in Lahore commanded in Punjab-centric headlines. It is unfair. Saraikistan is the solution.
Even though a Lahore housing society—built on the Ravi riverbed against the Lahore High Court’s ruling, later overturned through the Supreme Court by the PTI government under Imran Khan—also suffered in the floods and deserves sympathy, it is troubling that Punjab-centric media lavished attention on this enclave while the vast devastation across Saraikistan passed in near-silence.
This selective vision is not unprecedented. In the catastrophic floods of 2022, when Balochistan’s villages were submerged, families displaced, and livestock swept away, much of the national media instead fixated on the hospital theatrics of Shehbaz Gill. He was filmed at PIMS presenting himself as frail, only to walk unaided to court once bail was granted. The charade was exposed, yet no apology followed. The cameras lingered on farce while the cries of Balochistan went unheard.
The pattern is unmistakable: Punjab is projected as the axis of Pakistan, while other regions—Saraikistan, Balochistan, Sindh, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa—are relegated to silence, their suffering treated as peripheral. Such a hierarchy of attention is not only unjust; it corrodes the very idea of shared nationhood.
Floods in Pakistan are not merely natural disasters but failures of governance and planning. They are social, political, and moral events. When rivers overflow, they expose the absence of foresight, the weakness of institutions, and the neglect of communities left to fend for themselves. To treat floods as accidents of fate is to betray both memory and imagination. A new grammar of response is required—one that shifts from lamentation to transformation.
The first principle is deceptively simple: rivers must remain rivers. Encroachments upon riverbeds, unplanned construction over floodplains, and the clogging of natural water channels transform seasonal rains into catastrophe. Town planning must learn that absence, too, is an architecture. Cities must breathe through their waterways, or else they drown in their own hubris.
Alongside this, artificial intelligence and satellite monitoring should not remain the preserve of global corporations. Predictive models, real-time flood alerts, and data-driven coordination can turn chaos into preparedness. Technology must become a democratic tool—accessible in local languages, simplified for local administrators, and linked to community decision-making.
Governance, too, must be brought closer to the people. Local bodies are not an ornament of democracy; they are its foundation. A mayor in a small town, a village council with resources, or a district-level planning board can act with immediacy no distant capital can match. Active local governments ensure that rescue boats arrive faster than speeches, and that relief funds flow without dissolving into bureaucratic opacity.
The creation of smaller provinces is not merely about identity; it is about justice. Smaller administrative units ensure proximity between rulers and the ruled, fairer allocation of funds, and accountability that cannot be hidden behind geography. Punjab’s dominance in media, governance, and resource allocation has created a structural blindness toward other regions. Smaller provinces offer not only efficiency but also symbolic justice: they affirm that all lives matter equally, whether in Multan, Gwadar, or Tharparkar.
Consider the arithmetic. Punjab alone commands 173 out of 336 seats in the National Assembly—more than half the House. This monopoly means that even if Balochistan, Sindh, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa combined, they could not produce a prime minister without Punjab’s blessing. Such an imbalance reduces federalism to a formality and ensures that national policy is written through the lens of one province. The creation of Saraikistan would begin to correct this equation, dispersing power, deepening representation, and reminding the federation that Pakistan is not Punjab alone.
Institutional innovations could reinforce this shift. Environmental guardianship councils, elected at the village and town level, could be tasked solely with protecting local ecosystems, enforcing building codes near waterways, and monitoring river health. Disaster memory archives—digital and physical repositories of every flood, every act of loss, and every lesson learned—could ensure that tomorrow’s planners and citizens inherit wisdom rather than rubble. A society without memory repeats its tragedies; one with archives preserves the dignity of resilience.
The government’s efforts in mobilizing the military, setting up camps, and issuing early warnings deserve recognition. Yet appreciation must not breed complacency. True governance lies not in the heroism of response but in the quiet discipline of prevention.
Floods remind us that governance is not only about laws and funds; it is about philosophy. A civilization that learns to live with its rivers, respects the rhythm of its seasons, and empowers its smallest communities is one that has turned disaster into a teacher rather than an executioner. To learn from floods is to learn that no province should drown in silence. Saraikistan is not just a demand; it is a philosophy of fairness, memory, and survival.
The writer teaches English at NUML, Islamabad, and writes on language, governance, and social issues.
