Pakistan floodwaters also bring new life

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In Pakistan, the floodwaters that wiped out whole communities this summer also brought new life to an ecosystem that had been sucked dry. Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with Adil Najam, a professor of international relations, geography and the environment at Boston University.

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LISA MULLINS: A crisis in Pakistan began in July. That’s when floods began to engulf the south Asian nation. The floods eventually put one-fifth of the country under water. The floodwaters have mostly receded now. They’ve left behind remains of houses, roads and bridges. But they’ve also left behind opportunities. Adil Najam is a professor of international relations, geography and the environment at Boston University. He points out three consequences of the flooding. All three, he says, provide Pakistanis with some reason for hope.

ADIL NAJAM:  They are buying large number of nets. What are they doing with the nets?

MULLINS:  Fishing.

NAJAM: Fishing nets. What they’re doing with the nets is that as they see the water receding you put the net there. The water receded, whatever fish might have come with it, you can now catch as the flood water recedes. And there’s the survival livelihood that’s developed around that. Second, we are hearing reports that already people are beginning to plant inside of the flood because as the water recedes, you have this flood agriculture of subsistence and none of this is going to be [INDISCERNIBLE] agriculture, but it is a way to subsist, to survive, to react to the calamity. A third very real consequence is that you always see that after disasters the GNP goes up.

MULLINS: The Gross National Product?

NAJAM: Right. And the same thing happens with [INDISCERNIBLE] because what happens is the GNP is a measure of how much is being put into an economy and it’s only [INDISCERNIBLE] to the last year.

MULLINS: Are we seeing this yet? I mean people are still homeless.

NAJAM: Yes, but they have to survive, so they have to spend. And one would never have wanted to wish this on anyone.

MULLINS: Of course.

NAJAM: Right. But the fact that they are now homeless, chairless, wallless means they have to buy new chairs and new walls and new homes.

MULLINS:  So were you seeing that happening already?

NAJAM: Sure. People have to buy food. Most people aren’t being fed by international assistance, particularly in this case, because the international reaction has been so bad. But they have to get books for their children, they have to get clothes. Now, they will make sacrifices to do that, but [INDISCERNIBLE] stop doing that.

MULLINS: Of course, one would hope that there would not have to be floods that would produce a survival economy, but is there any way that a survival economy can ultimately in financial terms outweigh the damage done by the floods?

NAJAM: So here is my [INDISCERNIBLE] what gives hope as a Pakistani. What gives me the hope of hope is the devastation to the infrastructure in the lives of people has been so massive. At such a large scale, 22 million people, one fourth of a very large country, an area of land the size of England. It has been so large that you have to reconstruct. You have to re-plan at a very big level. Countries usually don’t do that. Usually development happens in increments. Here is a chance to say let’s take everything we have learned in the last 50 years and do it right this time. On the other hand, the human species has not have a good track record on that when we rebuilt. It happened in New Orleans, so I wouldn’t – remember what first we did after New Orleans? The first thing we did after New Orleans was to remove the building codes.

MULLINS: Another after effect of the flood is something that’s not domestic at all within Pakistan, but it has to do with Pakistan and India. What’s the [INDISCERNIBLE]?

NAJAM: India-Pakistan relations is the single biggest issue that everyone talks about is Kashmir. But if you open up the Kashmir issue, it is partly about water because the Indus flows into both countries from this region of Kashmir. Water has been a source of serious contention between the two countries. And therefore the impacts of the floods are very important to the relations between the two countries.

MULLINS: How would this work?

NAJAM: Partly, currently, it works through the creation of hydro dams for electricity in India. And Pakistan’s reaction toward India is a galloping economy. It’s a growing economy. It has large needs for energy and amongst other things is building these dams, both for water and for electricity. Pakistan is concerned that that will affect the amount of water that it gets. And therefore the floods haven’t damaged any particular infrastructure there, but it adds one more dimension. As Pakistan starts rebuilding its own hydro infrastructure on how India is going to react to that and whether the two countries can find it in them to cooperate again. The good news here is that the only issue on which there has been real India-Pakistan cooperation in 60 years is the water issue. That’s the only issue on which you’ve had real meaningful cooperation. The question is whether these floods sort of jolt the two into realizing that this river does bind them together [INDISCERNIBLE].

MULLINS:  So, this could provide an opportunity for more talks. As you say, they might be jolted into something.

NAJAM: They will certainly talk. The question is will they be jolted into real action. And by real action I mean planning the use of the Indus waters together and looking at it as an ecosystem and understanding that their fates are really intertwined along the banks of this river. I mean the Indus is a river that gives India its name. And Indus is a river that gives Pakistan its livelihood. So both should take it seriously.

MULLINS: Thank you. Adil Najam, professor of international relations, geography and the environment at Boston University. Thanks for coming in.

NAJAM: Thank you.

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