Nowshera remains safe during the floods except few property damages and no casualties — only because of this lady Ms. Qurat ul Ain Wazir and her team. She is the Additional Deputy Commissioner Nowshera in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). The lady did whatsoever was possible in her power (including walking tall!) to evacuate the residents of nearby communities of the Kabul River.
Ms. Wazir went door to door with law enforcement officials and visited many mosques for public announcements. “She is better than those political leaders of the country who divert the attention of the media from the flood toward themselves instead of rallying the people to help the flood victims,” Jawed Ahmed who shared her pics being on the frontline commented.
A day earlier, international security analyst Dr. Syed M. Ali shared BBC’s short on Qurat ul Ain walking with ‘danda’ (stick) — she’s been operating in the domain aka men’s world in the Tropic of Cancer region, so BBC taking notice of her ‘unusual way’ of consuming her bureaucratic responsibilities and authority under the open sky, drizzling rains, etc. with results is obvious and understandable.
Her pic holding the ‘danda’ I expect will soon become iconic in my view, in the South Asian country and even beyond — “Babus et al draw inspirations operating from their pristine offices, and the powerful & moneyed elite from their living rooms,” a professional belonging to the middle-class says.
“For the last five days, she has been in the flood affected areas saving hundreds of families. She personally visited the stranded and the affected one’s, and been accommodating them at relief camps. The lady did what she could. She’s not PM, CM, MNA, MPA, etc.,” commented another professional to DesPardes.
Ms. Wazir’s modus operindi is indeed a rare view and a rear window snapshot of how women in the country are slowly but gradually stepping up — some without and some with ‘danda’ (stick) sans ‘wasta’ (Arabic for favor) –affirmative action notwithstanding.
Writing about Qurat’s rendezvous, and posting her pic at office and then the video showing her out in the flood-striken area of KP, reminds me of Napoleon Bonaparte’s famous quote: “Give me good mothers and I shall give you a great nation.” I believe.
Pakistan Zindabad —Irshad Salim, Karachi (Aug. 29, 2022)
Honorary contributors to DesPardes: Ajaz Ahmed, Ammar Jafri, Anwar Abbas, Arif Mirza, Aziz Ahmed, Bawar Tawfik, Dr. Razzak Ladha, G. R. Baloch, Jamil Usman, Jawed Ahmed, Ishaq Saqi, Khalid Sharif, Masroor Ali, Md. Ahmed, Md. Najibullah, Shahbaz Ali, Shahid Nayeem, Syed Hamza Gilani
Pakistan needs more people like her. Not thrives , thugs and opportunists.