Fort Munro, formerly known as Tuman Leghari in Balochi language, is a famous hill station in Koh Sulaiman mountain range near Dera Ghazi Khan district in South Punjab. The local markets in Fort Munro are mainly based on tourism and livestock. The whole land has no medical facility, infrastructure, or educational institutions and people are bound to live in slum houses with extremely rigid landscape and weather conditions.
Then the real trouble was faced by women in Fort Munro who were facing male oppression. Being considered as a household item they are forced to spend their entire lives in four walls. No woman in that area is allowed to go to the market or talk to anyone else outside the family. Beating women and forced marriages with young girls is common. Afterwards, due to no education and outside experiences, this tradition has been common for centuries and if nothing is done to impose change, it will remain common centuries after.
Our team of Youth Front NGO we went to the local territories among the Balochi people with the motive to spread awareness of education and women’s liberty. Some professional NGO members also brought the medicines and other daily use equipment to help the needy ones. I am thankful to our team members who had given me the chance to write about our experience in Fort Munro.
The first interaction did not go well as the locals didn’t even allow us to enter their homes and meet with their families. However, they offer us to come to their local gathering where there would be only males and heads of families. After a deep conversation, it was very disappointing to know that elders who have family control don’t even want to go for better opportunities. However, it seems that youngsters there have some worst past experiences. They didn’t share many things but the first day ended with great hospitality and respect from the locals.
Afterwards, along with team members and nurses, we established our medical camps especially for polio vaccines and medicines. Our medical members gave free medical check-ups for common day-to-day infections. Locals did not show any kind of hesitation as they are familiar enough with such camps because many NGOs are working to uplift those hilly tribal areas.
However, these medical camps and distribution of daily use items are temporary help. Our main motive was to encourage locals to follow the education stream for a better future. On the second day, we met them again to motivate their minds for education. The locals treated us even better than the day before.
Surprisingly, we got to know that previously, a school from the government had been opened in that area to which some locals dared to send their children. But they argued that it was just a waste of time as there was no capable teacher and, as a result, children were learning the wrong norms. Afterwards, practically that school shut down which in newspapers and social media was shown as active and working. Hence, instead of helping the locals prosper it did great damage to their constructive approach toward education.
Similarly, the medical camp had been opened by the government which is still there and we ourselves are the witness of its poor and worse conditions. There was no electricity, water supply etc. and medicines were of cheap low quality.
We had an interview there with a father whose son was lying on the bed with a broken leg. He said, “My son’s leg was broken while he was grazing our livestock. Two days had passed, there was no effective treatment, and we are waiting for the seniot doctor to come for an inspection. Since, he was given some painkillers and temporary treatment by the wardboys. He is in severe pain but we can do nothing but just to wait for the doctor to come and look after him.”
In respect to these scenarios, the hate had been developed in the locals for the government and for their country as well. They are bitterly surrounded with narcissism. I assumed that if nothing is done, these feelings will result in nihilism which foreighn powers will take as an advantage to encourage them to step into terrorist groups. And we all know that this is so common in inner Balochistan, where people, after facing severe famine, started taking life as meaningless and went on to sucide attacks just for the sake of punishing those they think are the cause of their circumstances.
Our team tries its best to change their wrong mindset that had been developed due to unplanned and immature governmental steps. Instead of promoting the area, but these namely school and medical camps had pushed the people even more away from modernism or urbanization.
Afterwards, three days of good gathering with the locals, the few elders allowed only our female team members to meet their family and womens. Their scenario is the same as discussed above. They are just restricted to the four walls under the male oppression. Our team tries to teach them the importance of women in society from the social and as well as religious perspective which I guess little bit affected them but, as a fact, the hundred and thousand years of chauvinism cannot be replaced in just a few days.
Lastly, after spending three days with the locals, we wrote a letter to the government officials (can’t name them here) that included our all research and concluding remarks of the project. We let them know the current scenarios and negligence from the government side which are greatly affecting the local lives and for which they should be ashamed. Professional NGO members appealed to the government for reopening the school with better planning and initiatives.
It was one of many amazing tours with the NGO. Before communicating with the locals, we were thinking that they themselves don’t want to step in the urbanization but after a deep conversation we got to know that they were being distrubed or misguided by unplanned governmental steps and that was very much shocking. Realities are bitter to taste. Hopeful for government consideration of Fort Munro and as such many tribal areas of Balochistan and Punjab.
