By: Javed Mir
At a time when Punjab is drowning in floodwaters and families are counting their losses in homes, livestock, and dignity, the government has committed an act that history will remember with shame: plastering the face of Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz on relief food bags meant for desperate victims. Videos and images circulating widely on Twitter/X have shown these aid packages, meant to sustain life, being reduced to props for a personality cult. What should have been a symbol of compassion has instead become a grotesque advertisement.
This relief is not a gift from Maryam Nawaz’s personal fortune, nor from the coffers of her family. It is the taxpayers’ money—the collective funds of the very people now marooned in villages and clinging to survival. To use their own money to stamp the Chief Minister’s photo on their rations is not leadership; it is exploitation. Where in the civilized world does such a spectacle occur? Which democracy reduces disaster aid into a billboard of its rulers?
Unfortunately, this is not the first time. Only last year, flour bags distributed under Punjab’s Ramazan package carried the image of Nawaz Sharif, Maryam’s father. Now history repeats itself, only under circumstances far more tragic, when flood victims are in dire need of medicine, tents, and clean water—not political branding.
Social media has erupted with anger. “How long did it take to print the image of Minister Maryam Nawaz on the flood relief aid packages?” one viral post asked bitterly. Another accused the government of forcing NGOs and volunteers to carry the Chief Minister’s picture if they wished to help the flood affectees. If such claims are true, it is not only disgraceful, it is inhumane. Blocking independent volunteers and NGOs unless they plaster a politician’s photo on food bags is an insult to every suffering citizen.
This obsession with optics has already led to mockery. When the Chief Minister’s awkward statement about “torrential rain caused by rain” went viral, it became a national punchline. But the current stunt is far worse—it is not just embarrassing, it is cruel. To mock flood victims by turning their hunger into a campaign poster is a wound that will not be forgotten.
Where is Pakistan’s accountability process? Who authorized these stickers? Which government department paid for them? Why are there no audits? Why is no one in the bureaucracy standing up to say that this is a disgrace to governance? These are not questions for tomorrow—they demand answers today.
History is ruthless. It remembers leaders not for their photo-ops, but for their principles. Maryam Nawaz still has a chance to stop this debasement of relief aid. She must immediately ban any leader’s photo from state-funded aid, publish the record of procurement, and let relief work continue free from vanity.
Flood victims need dignity, not propaganda. They need bread, not branding. And they deserve leaders who understand that compassion is sacred, not a commodity to be packaged with a smiling portrait.
