FAISALABAD, Pakistan – A dervish in a scarlet whirling skirt, bells strapped to his chest, raises his fist to salute a Sufi saint buried in a soaring shrine on the outskirts of the capital Islamabad.
The dervish, Ghulam Mohammad says he loves the saint, Bari Imam, because he comforted the afflicted. Muhammad wishes more people would do the same. Lately, all he sees in his travels from shrine to shrine across the length of Pakistan are poor and hungry people.
Since the pandemic, Pakistan has been battered by calamities that have pushed up the price of food and fuel: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and two events made more extreme by climate change: a spring heatwave that shriveled harvests, then summer floods that drowned them. Now there’s an economic crisis so dire, the country risks default.
Inflation reached nearly 25% last year, but the figure conceals dramatic variations. In poorer rural areas, prices of food rose even higher.
Now, the World Food Programme expects that 5.1 million people are likely to be a step away from famine-levels of hunger by the end of March – an increase of 1.1 million people from the previous quarter. “That number is frightening,” says Chris Kaye, the Pakistan country director of the WFP.
And it has put a proud Pakistani tradition of feeding the hungry under strain just when it is needed the most.
In one hall at the Bari Imam shrine complex, a cook dishes up plates of greasy rice. A waitress slaps them down on benches where women and girls have gathered. One woman fights with the waitress, demanding more rice.
Salima-Bibi, 52, hovers at the hall entrance, hoping the waitress will forget she’s already been served once. She clutches a plastic bag in one hand, which she hopes to fill with free rice for her four children. Salima-Bibi, who does not have a family name like many Pakistanis, says she can’t afford to bring her kids because bus rides are now too expensive.
The meal she’s already received is stuffed in a different plastic bag tucked under her draping headscarf. “I haven’t eaten any of it,” Salima-Bibi says. “I’m a mother. How can I eat without my kids?”
Salima-Bibi is not alone.
At the feeding halls at the Bari Imam shrine, cooks at open-air stalls prepare enormous cauldrons of food. They have to pay for the food themselves and rely on donations to cover their costs and their salary.
For a price, the cooks will serve up a plate of meaty stew or a plainer meal, like buttery rice.
But cooks tell NPR that they’re receiving fewer donations because people are too hard up. Inflation means everything costs more so they’re making less food.
Bilal Khan, a 28-year-old cook, says last year, he was tending to about 20 cauldrons a day, each holding about 22 pounds of food like chicken and beef stews. Now, with fewer donations, he’s cut back on the number of cauldrons and they’ve got less food in them. Requests to prepare meat dishes for the poor are rare. “This year, people don’t want to even order chickpeas with their rice,” he says.
Across the sweeping shrine, 13-year-old Sheba chases her friends down a marble-paved courtyard. She’s from a nearby crowded slum, and this is where she’s always come to play. Now, she comes to eat as well. Sheba says her father, a security guard, can’t afford to buy lentils, – once their staple. Now it’s just tea and bread at home
It’s already early evening, and she says, “I haven’t eaten today, not yet.” She and her friends were going to eat after playing, but as she speaks, a security guard rushes over and smacks Sheba across her shoulders – and she scrams. The guard later tells NPR that he thought Sheba was trying to pickpocket fellow NPR reporter Abdul Sattar and me.
Reports of crime are growing as tentacles of hunger spread. It’s even reached a prosperous area where the poor have long flocked to work: the textile mills on the fringes of Faisalabad, a city about a four hours south from the capital. There, one charity recently opened a roadside cafeteria to serve free meals to workers, like Mohammad Imran, a quality controller at a textile mill.
He sits with his back to the entrance so nobody can see him. “I came here with a heavy heart,” says Imran, as he mops up a plate of curried goat with a piece of flat bread, or naan. “But I have no choice.”
About six months ago, Imran says the price of wheat, oil and vegetables doubled in his village. His family cut down on food, but even so, his monthly wage of $115 no longer stretched to the end of the month. He began sleeping at the mill on weekdays after the price of bus ticket home doubled to 80 cents.
It got so bad, Imran pulled his daughter out of the ninth grade because couldn’t pay her $20 school fee. “My daughter had such a promising future. If there was any hope at all that I could pay her fees I’d send her back, but there’s no hope.”
Imran says this cafeteria is full of men like him.
It’s run by a charity called Saylani, which operates an industrial kitchen to meet demand. Bakers slap dough into thousands of pieces of flat bread. Butchers skin freshly slaughtered goats and chop them up, ready to be cooked in pots the size of bathtubs by men holding stirring spoons the size of shovels. Vats of prepared food are pushed into open-backed jeeps.
The drivers zoom off to distribute lunch to 40 cafeterias that feed around 20,000 people each day. Irfan Malik, a senior administrator, says just two years ago, the charity ran 26 cafeterias in town.
Already, Malik says the charity, which is funded through local donations, is making trims to keep up with demand as inflation climbs. They now add potatoes to once-meat only dishes. They’re building wood-fire bread ovens to replace those run on natural gas, which is now too expensive. They’ve limited serving times in free cafeterias so people can’t come for seconds.
And his staff expect the number of people needing food to double this year. That’s just one charity in one relatively prosperous city.
That’s partly because the government in February raised taxes and trimmed subsidies on fuel and electricity as part of negotiations with the International Monetary Fund to resume a stalled bailout.
Those moves have already triggered more price hikes locally and are expected to push inflation up by more than 30% this year. The problem is, without a bailout, Pakistan could spiral into chaos.
Back in Faisalabad, 45-year-old Ghulam Nabi keeps an eye on cotton looms in a one-room factory. He’s gaunt. His cheekbones protrude. His arms are bony.
He’s piling up debt to buy food for his family and now owes $70 – his monthly wage – at the local shop. But somehow, Ghulam Nabi says, he is managing. “I work,” he says, “I don’t need free food.”
At least for now.
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Transcript :
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Pakistan faces an economic crisis so dire it risks default on its debt. Catastrophic floods last year submerged nearly a third of the country. Food and fuel prices soared and are now beyond the means of many people. As NPR’s Diaa Hadid reports, that’s straining a Pakistani tradition of feeding the hungry just when it’s needed the most.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELLS JINGLING)
DIAA HADID, BYLINE: A dervish with bells strapped to his chest salutes the shrine of a Sufi saint buried in the capital, Islamabad.
GHULAM MOHAMMAD: (Non-English language spoken).
HADID: The dervish, Ghulam Mohammad, says more people need to support the poor the way this shrine does. In one hall at the sprawling shrine complex, a cook dishes up greasy rice. A waitress slaps down the plates, and one woman argues that she didn’t get enough.
Fifty-two-year-old Salima Bibi hovers at the entrance, hoping the waitress inside will forget she’s already been served once. She’s holding a plastic bag in one hand. She shows it to me and my colleague, Abdu Sattar.
SALIMA BIBI: (Non-English language spoken).
HADID: Salima Bibi says if she’s lucky, she’ll fill it with free rice for her kids. She can’t afford to bring them here. Bus rides are now too expensive. But she’s already got a meal. She stuffed that in a different plastic bag that she’s tucked under her draping headscarf. She was meant to eat it, but couldn’t.
BIBI: (Through interpreter) I’m a mother. How I can eat without my kids?
HADID: Salima Bibi isn’t alone. A boy in tattered clothes sells plastic bags to shrine visitors precisely for this. A little girl clutches a tiny pink plastic bag with rice – her leftovers.
The feeding halls at this shrine rely on donations from visitors. They pay cooks in open-air stalls surrounding the shrine to prepare enormous cauldrons of food that are shipped to the halls. But as needs soar, one cook, Bilal Khan, says they’re receiving less donations.
BILAL KHAN: (Non-English language spoken).
HADID: And because everything costs more, they’re making less food. Khan says he used to make 20 cauldrons a day. Now he prepares barely half that number. Last year, donors often requested he cook chicken or beef stews for the poor.
KHAN: (Through interpreter) This year, people don’t want to even order chickpeas with their rice dishes.
HADID: Across the shrine, 13-year-old Sheba chases friends down a marble-paved courtyard. She’s from a nearby crowded slum and comes here to play and to eat. Sheba and her friends say their parents can’t afford to buy once-cheap staples, like lentils.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #2: (Non-English language spoken).
ABDU SATTAR: “We don’t eat at all at home. We come here and eat.”
HADID: As we chat, a security guard rushes over and smacks Sheba hard against her shoulders.
(SOUNDBITE OF THUMPING)
SATTAR: Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na (ph).
HADID: Hey.
UNIDENTIFIED SECURITY GUARD: (Non-English language spoken).
HADID: Sheba scrams. The guard apologizes. Later, he tells us he thought Sheba was trying to pickpocket us. Reports of petty crime like this have been increasing as hunger spreads. And the hunger we hear about in the shrine reflects what the World Food Programme sees in its data. The organization expects that by March, more than 5 million people will be a step away from famine levels of hunger. Chris Kaye is the Pakistan country director.
CHRIS KAYE: That number is frightening. It’s frightening – and particularly when you balance it against what’s happening next door in Afghanistan.
HADID: What’s happening in Afghanistan is that since the Taliban seized power, a humanitarian crisis has spiraled out of control, and more than 6 million people there are close to famine.
KAYE: So we’re not far away from a food insecure situation in Pakistan to – in terms of absolute numbers, to the numbers that we’re seeing in Afghanistan.
HADID: The hunger has even reached a prosperous area where the poor have long flocked to work.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR HORN HONKING)
HADID: The textile mills on the fringes of Faisalabad, a city about four hours’ drive from the capital. There, one charity recently opened a roadside cafeteria. It serves free meals to workers like Mohammad Imran. He sits with his back to the entrance so nobody can see him. He mops up a plate of curried goat with a piece of naan.
MOHAMMAD IMRAN: (Through interpreter) I came here with a heavy heart, but I have no choice.
HADID: About six months ago, Imran says his monthly wage of $150 stopped stretching to the end of the month. The price of wheat, oil, vegetables doubled in his village, and his family cut down on food. He began sleeping at the mill after the price of bus tickets home shot up to 80 cents. It got so bad, Imran pulled his daughter out of the ninth grade. He couldn’t pay her $20 school fee.
IMRAN: (Through interpreter) My daughter had such a promising future. If there was any hope at all that I could pay her fees, I’d send her back. But there’s no hope.
HADID: Imran says this cafeteria is full of men like him. It’s run by a charity called Saylani, which operates an industrial kitchen to meet demand. Bakers slap dough into flatbread. Butchers skin and chop up goats. They cook them in pots the size of bathtubs. Vats of prepared food are pushed into open-back jeeps.
(SOUNDBITE OF ENGINE REVVING)
HADID: Supervisors check off items…
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).
HADID: …And free lunch is distributed for around 20,000 people.
(SOUNDBITE OF ENGINE REVVING)
HADID: In his office, administrator Irfan Malik says they’re scaling up.
IRFAN MALIK: (Non-English language spoken).
HADID: From 26 cafeterias two years ago, they now have 40. And his staff expect the number of people eating food to double this year. That’s one charity in one relatively prosperous city.
Down the road, 45-year-old Ghulam Nabi keeps an eye on cotton looms in a one-room factory.
(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINERY WHIRRING)
HADID: His cheekbones protrude. His arms are bony.
GHULAM NABI: (Non-English language spoken).
HADID: He’s piling up debt to buy food. He owes $70 at the local shop. That’s his monthly wage. But somehow, Ghulam Nabi says, he’s managing. He says, I work. I don’t need free food for now.
Diaa Hadid, NPR News, Faisalabad.
(SOUNDBITE OF LOREN CONNORS’ “AIRS NO. 1”) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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