Generosity is not a substitute for justice

Many Pakistanis have long told themselves a comforting story. Despite all the problems in the country, no one really goes hungry. If someone is struggling, family members and neighbours' help, mosques distribute food, wealthy philanthropists step in. There is considerable truth in this. Pakistan has a deeply rooted tradition of private charity and philanthropy. But generosity is not a substitute for food security. The scale of Pakistan's hunger and malnutrition makes that distinction impossible to ignore. The World Food Programme estimates that 20.7 per cent of Pakistan's population is undernourished, while 40 per cent of children under five are stunted. The latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, an internationally recognised system for measuring levels of food insecurity, found that 7.5 million people, or 21 per cent of the population in the 45 rural districts assessed, were facing 'crisis level' food insecurity or worse between December 2025 and March 2026. Of these, about 1.25 million were experiencing an 'emergency level' of food insecurity. These numbers should challenge the comforting idea that charity can ensure that no Pakistani goes hungry. The problem is not a lack of generosity. Pakistanis give extensively in the name of God and to support a wide range of social causes. Philanthropy can provide an important lifeline, and in many cases, it can mean the difference between eating and going hungry. But individual acts of generosity cannot address the consequences of concentrated wealth, low incomes, high food prices and an economy in which access to the most basic of necessities is increasingly determined by purchasing power. Charity addresses consequences, it does not change conditions that produce them. Consider childhood malnutrition. The World Food Programme reports that four in ten Pakistani children under five are stunted. These are not simply children who missed a meal. Stunting reflects chronic nutritional deprivation, with consequences that can persist throughout a person's life. The aforementioned IPC assessment also identifies inadequate diets, poor dietary diversity, seasonal diseases and inadequate feeding and care practices among the factors driving acute malnutrition. No amount of charitable food distribution can substitute for policies that ensure families have adequate incomes, children have access to nutritious diets and food markets function fairly. Yet charity can sometimes create the illusion that the problem is being addressed. But such sporadic individual donations, no matter how generous, cannot fix the underlying problems of elite capture, exploitation and marginalisation. This is the uncomfortable question Pakistan needs to confront: what happens when generosity becomes a substitute for justice? A nation cannot address hunger by relying on benevolence. Nor should the right to adequate food depend on whether a hungry individual happens to encounter a generous donor. The concentration of wealth matters because it determines who can absorb rising food prices, who can provide children with nutritious diets, who can access healthcare when malnutrition occurs and who can withstand economic shocks without sacrificing basic necessities, which poorer households often need to do. Philanthropy should not be dismissed or disparaged. But neither should it be romanticised as a justification for extreme wealth accumulation, or as an alternative to public responsibility. The measure of a functioning society is not how generously the wealthy give to the poor. It is whether people have enough income, opportunity and social protection that they do not have to depend on charity in the first place. Pakistan needs more effective taxation, less corruption and more efficient delivery of social welfare programmes. Only such measures can help ensure that generosity remains a virtue, rather than becoming a vital resource for feeding its starving citizenry.