In 2022, floods submerged approximately a third of Pakistan’s total land area, leaving thirty-three million people in need of humanitarian aid and seventy districts being declared “calamity-hit.” The August of that year marked the country’s wettest month in over sixty years, with rainfall 243% above the national average. Extreme heat waves also accelerated glacial melting. The floods were neither unexpected nor the first of their kind. Similarly disastrous floods occurred in the Indus River basin in 2010. They affected around twenty million people, destroying millions of acres of cropland and houses, catalyzing various waterborne diseases, and killing over a thousand people. These latter floods received extensive attention from scholars, including Daanish Mustafa (2011), David Gilmartin (2015), and Ayesha Siddiqi (2019) among many others, although they were rarely mentioned in global media representations of the 2022 floods, possibly because literature regarding the 2022 floods is still being developed.

According to scholars writing in the last ten years, the 2010 floods were a culmination of increased systemic vulnerabilities that were rooted in trajectories that date from the colonial era. British intervention in the Punjab’s irrigation systems was meant to increase agricultural output for commercial ends. It was accomplished through the construction of barrages and canals, supplanting traditional inundation canal systems. These constructions disrupted natural river flow and dispersed water away from the Indus delta and towards inland irrigation. They have caused loss of biodiversity and have increased flood risk. They have also been reinforced by post-colonial trajectories. The Taunsa Barrage, for example, which dates from the colonial period, received funding from the World Bank between 2005-2008 to prevent it from collapsing if “severe flooding occurred…causing massive devastation to agricultural lands.”¹ This was despite expert criticism, which foresaw increased sediment deposition, elevated riverbeds, and, in fact, heightened flood risk, which then played out in 2010.

British intervention in the Punjab’s irrigation systems was meant to increase agricultural output for commercial ends. It was accomplished through the construction of barrages and canals, supplanting traditional inundation canal systems.

Following the 2010 floods, Pakistan’s government sought reforms that would alleviate the chances of devastating floods occurring again. Rather than tackle water management, however, they principally focused on the shortcomings of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), which was the primary actor in flood response. A judicial commission set up by the Supreme Court of Pakistan concluded:

1. The NDMA had not fulfilled its obligations for the pre-disaster phase.
2. The NDMA did not accomplish its assigned tasks and roles.
3. The NDMA did not report its failure of accomplishing its assigned tasks and roles to the National Commission or the Parliament.
4. The absence of early modern warning and forecasting systems was a gray area in the disaster risk reduction policies and practices.
5. Lack of a well-defined strategic plan at the national level, which had to establish a framework for the Provincial level plans, exposed the ad hoc approach prevailing in the disaster management authorities.

As an arm of the larger civil services, the NDMA can be further criticized for its bureaucratic inefficiency, whose structural roots in the colonial era mean that it is designed to enforce authority rather than support democratic governance.² Civil services, new and existing, are understood to be disconnected from and unresponsive to public needs.

It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that similar institutional and structural failings are observable in relation to the 2022 floods. A judicial commission has yet to be set up to examine the aftermath, but certain patterns persist. Notable examples include the fact that a National Flood Response and Coordination Centre was only established on August 30, 2022, although rainfall began mid-June. The NDMA and its provincial counterparts did not take rapid measures to strengthen embankments, clear major drains, or stockpile commodities for potential mass displacement. Furthermore, despite warnings by the country’s meteorological department, the response from federal and provincial authorities was haphazard and inadequate. Despite the NDMA arranging a comprehensive Monsoon Contingency Planning Exercise, which included federal and provincial stakeholders and the international community, its systems were not equipped to deal with the extreme environmental conditions. Despite federal, provincial, and district governments asserting the need to learn lessons, listen to warning signs, and to become better prepared, the ill-defined nature of such calls limits current response.

Persistent path-dependent policies from the colonial era, which are meant to exert authority rather than serve a constituency, remain in place, and limit flood response and preparedness.

While 2010 was a traumatic national tragedy, the exposition of deficiencies and the lessons learned were not fully implemented in time to mitigate against the effects of extreme rainfall and glacial melt in 2022. Notably, Pakistan’s relationship with floods reveals a pattern of historical neglect, whose roots can be understood through a long-term approach that considers the legacies of colonialism on postcolonial states. Persistent path-dependent policies from the colonial era, which are meant to exert authority rather than serve a constituency, remain in place, and limit flood response and preparedness. The socio-political fabric which targets already vulnerable communities remains firmly intact since British rule, perpetuating vicious cycles of inequality and a disconnected bureaucracy.

Feature Image: “Flooding in Pakistan August 4, 2010” by NASA Goddard Photo and Video is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

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Notes

¹ Pasha, M. (2012, November 14). Taunsa barrage a lifeline for millions. World Bank. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2012/09/07/taunsa-barrage-lifeline-for-millions

² Kalia, S. (2013, March). Bureaucratic Policy Making in Pakistan. The Dialogue — A Quaterly Research Journal — Qurtuba University of Science & IT, Pakistan. https://www.qurtuba.edu.pk/thedialogue/