Download Sham illusionists

Editorials
Sham illusionists
EDITORIAL (April 20, 2014) : Whatever little movement we seemed to be making
towards strengthening of democracy, improving the national economy and, beefing up internal
and external security systems all of it gets outfocused instantly when we come across weirdly
myriad accounts like the one that took place in Multan the other day. Twenty-year-old Zeeshan
died as the 40-foot deep narrow well he had dug in search of treasure caved in burying him
under tons of loose earth. A fake spiritual fortune-teller had told his family that under their house
there was a huge treasure trove of gold and jewels. The next day, in Lahore, a young girl was
raped by a fake 'pir' and his accomplice invited by her mother to dispossess her of evil spirits.
The same day, a man slit throats of his three nephews - Qadir Ali, 4; Zain Ali, 9 and Mahir Ali,
11 - in a forest near Abbottabad in compliance with the advice of his spiritual guide. This is only
a sampling of what havoc the fake spiritual healers are wreaking on simple folks. And theirs is
not a surreptitious, underworld business; they do their business in the open - even advertise
their 'expertise' by word of mouth and through mass media. There is absolutely no check on
their proliferation. Then there is this whole host of quacks brandishing titles like 'hakeem' and
'tabeeb' who proclaim, mainly through mass media, their specializations to cure all sorts of
human ailments. As this laissez-faire obtains in Pakistan, manufacturing of spurious medicines
is rampant, often patronised by those who are supposed to be checking it. In rural Pakistan it is
a matter of sheer luck if one gets genuine medicine. So is the case with soft drinks, bottled
drinking water, foreign currency notes and college/university degrees. There are also cases of
selling meat of dead animals. It's no wonder then we have amongst us a flourishing class of
hoodwinks, cheats, and pseudo doctors. Among the international community we as Pakistanis
must be a class by itself. Is there a cure to this all-pervasive curse? Yes, there is; but only if this
is confronted as a now-or-never national challenge by the government and civil society. At the
government level there is plenty of law in existence to take on fake spiritual healers, medical
practitioners, and manufacturers of spurious medicines and soft drinks. The problem is that
these laws are not being implemented as the entire bureaucracy at this level of implementation
is corrosively infested with corruption, idiomatically called 'monthlies' the inspectors receive from
the swindlers. The government, particularly at the local levels of management, needs to tighten
its grip. One doesn't hear much about fakers being held accountable while their businesses
have flourished. Perhaps, with the introduction of local governments at grassroots level the
situation may improve. But the government can do only so much, given that the curse of fake
spiritual healers is too deep-rooted in our culture, in some cases tinged with religionist
sentiments. It is reflection of backwardness and ignorance that still rules supreme in large
segments of our people some six decades of our independence. And with GDP allocation for
education being one of the lowest in the world there is not much of hope to turn the page on the
curses of exploitation of poor uneducated masses anytime soon. But that doesn't mean society
as a whole should remain indifferent to these curses and be content with merely issuing
condemnatory statements. The foremost role of exposing this hypocritical, deceptive section of
our people lies with the media. Not that it is not already in cudgels with fake 'pirs' and cheaters it is in fact because of the TV channels that the nefarious elements and their anti-humanity
businesses have come under a sharper public focus - but more has to be done. For instance,
1/2
Editorials
the media should pressurise the censor boards not to allow public screening of bombastic
claims made by fake spiritual healers, untested medicinal cures and untenable remedies to
myriad worries. At the same time, in conjunction with various branches of civil society, it should
seek intensified official interventions by higher levels of government to ensure effective
market-level inspections. There is no beef whatsoever with the government's efforts to
strengthen democracy and enforce law and order in the country. But no less important is the
responsibility that society moves forward in pace with the outside world by weeding out
outmoded customs and traditions, shuns illusionists of quick-rich prescriptions, and rejects
sham spiritual healers.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2014
2/2