A Buzzing
but Sizzling Pakistan
(As Found in Pre-Monsoon Heat)
By Mohammad Ashraf
Chaudhry
Pittsburg. CA
Pakistan
is moving fast, no doubt, but this movement is
without a method. The heaps of packing-foam, card-boards
and plastic bags that drifted in the morning breeze
and covered a good portion of Murree Road, were
too much for the lonely broom-sweeper whom my
wife and I encountered every day in the morning,
and who half-heartedly attempted to clean up the
mess made by the Electronic & Frigidaire dealers
who minted money during the day, and left the
trash and the city behind, and lived in Islamabad.
The trash and packing-foam hinted clearly that
they did booming business here. According to my
authentic estimate each one of them who owned
a shop in the Gul-Nur Market pocketed every night
close to 2-5 lac rupees. This trash- scenario
is neither an isolated happening, nor an unintentional
lapse. It is symptomatic of a larger malaise,
of a bigger divide.
Never had I yearned so keenly in my life for power,
even for a very brief period, than this time.
I needed it to use it to its last limits to inflict
the heaviest fines on such businessmen as they
so blatantly and defiantly defaulted in the basic
conduct of how to do business. This attitude has
also been reflective of the schism between the
rich and the poor, and a clear manifestation of
the poor governance which I painfully found more
pronounced this time. It was sad to note that
the general rule in Pakistan has been to keep
those places clean where the big Boss and his
associates are to pass by. Common people have
learnt to live near dumps like rats, and they
are hardly ever mindful of their predicament.
Hiding poverty or alleviating it?
The entire focus of the government machinery appears
to be to hide poverty or to deny its existence
rather than to confront it boldly and alleviate
it. The government’s claim that the percentage
of the population living below the poverty line
has fallen from 34.46% in 2000-01 to 23.9% in
2004-05 would sound like a crude joke if you personally
interact with people and live for a few days with
them. I did that by living and moving with them
for over three weeks.
Invariably I asked one question to a wide and
varied segment of people coming from all walks
of life: “If ten people gave you two hundred
rupees each, how much money would you have in
all?” Nikku, my old fruit vendor, replied,
“ Sir Ji, not enough to pay the school fees
of my three kids”. Ferozdin, the washman,
retorted, “By adding five hundred more I
think I should be able to pay this month’s
electric bill”. Victor, my barber, came
up with a very interesting answer, “I can
get my three pairs of scissors sharpened”.
A high-school student replied, “ This is
not enough even to buy a cheap brand of cellular
phone”. “ With 640 rupees per head,
hardly three people can dine at the Village or
the Islamabad Club”, was the answer of those
who had taken my wife and me to these places for
dinner. Nobody gave me a direct answer. Each one
saw the two-thousand rupees in the light of their
urgent and pressing needs.
The pre-monsoon heat stripped people and the government
of their false garbs and silly claims. The linen-suited
government functionaries and the almost naked
common people yearning desperately for a drop
of clean water and a few tea spoons of sugar for
their children clearly smack of the disconnection
between t people and those who rule them. Things
may be moving, but not in the right direction.
The government revised the petrol prices 45 times
and the diesel prices 42 times in one year. According
to Dawn of May 18, 2006, the quality of water
in the twin cities of Pakistan, namely, Islamabad
and Rawalpindi, as per the report prepared by
the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources
(PCRWR), is such that it is not drinkable at all.
Samples collected from 26 locations in Islamabad
confirmed that only at one location the water
was drinkable. The analytical data confirmed that
65% of water was contaminated with Coli form bacterium;
23% with E-coli, while 73% samples had excess
of Ca etc. In Rawalpindi, out of 15 locations,
only two tube-wells were found pumping water that
could be termed as safe for drinking. The government
acknowledges the problem of shortage of water,
but offers the use of mineral bottle water as
a solution. The fixing of old leaking water pipes,
and better extraction of underground water could
have improved the situation. Things this time
were worse than they were two years ago when I
visited Pakistan.
A comparison with India is unavoidable. India
takes pride in five things these days, and is
never tired of mentioning them: its huge potential
market of 1.1 billion people; its wealth of English-speakers;
its façade of being the biggest democracy
in the world; its 15-year record of social and
economic reforms, and its able and honest top-leadership.
The question, according to the Economist of June
3rd, 2006, being asked today in the world with
regard to India is no longer whether India can
fly, “but how high - and whether the success
of its business class can be spread throughout
the country”.
India, like Pakistan, has its bottlenecks, too.
It is still chained by the world’s most
bureaucratic bureaucracy; it has as lousy and
dilapidated infrastructure as Pakistan has; and
its 38% poverty-stricken population is still an
ugly blemish on its claim that soon it may “partner
up with the world’s richest democracy -
America”. India dreams of attaining the
same level of trust and partnership with America
which Britain and Israel have. And as my Indian
dentist from Punjab firmly told me before I left
for Pakistan, “Mr. Chaudhry, you watch,
in ten to fifteen years, India will be as good,
if not better, as America”.
In Pakistan, I found no reflection of such feelings.
Often people sympathized with me for coming to
Pakistan in May. A majority urged me to move to
Islamabad and make my visits to Rawalpindi as
few as possible as if the place where a majority
of people live has been infested with plague;
very few said a positive word about the boom and
buzz that is taking place in Pakistan; a great
majority of people spoke unfavorably against President
Musharraf and the façade of the democratic
government Pakistan is having these days, and
to whom they term as a club of the corrupt and
the opportunists; religious fanaticism has not
been on the decline; in fact, I found new cults
emerging in one form or another. 100% people grumbled
about corruption; about bad governance; inflation
and high prices. A stoical disinterestedness appears
to have settled in the general public as if they
are the ones who have been abandoned and forsaken
by those who have chosen to rule over them.
The opposition is singularly united on one issue:
how to dislodge the government and remove President
Musharraf. What happens after him, or who will
replace him, hardly matters to them. Their search
for issues that can be used to oust President
Musharraf has reached a ludicrous level. In four
weeks of stay in Pakistan, I witnessed amusedly
the creation of two such issues. The death of
Amar Cheema, a student in Germany in police custody,
was picked up and turned into a big issue, and
finally lead to the demand that Pakistan should
sever relations with Germany and Amar Cheema be
declared a national hero. One columnist wrote,
“One of Amar’s teachers dreamt that
he found himself in a very sacred and big gathering
of pious people. On inquiry he found that they
were all Sahaba. He also felt that the Holy Prophet
was also nearby. Then he heard the holy voice
of the Prophet saying, “Hasan, Hussain,
where are you? Look, who is coming. Take Amar
with you”. The imams repeated this dream
in their Friday prayer Khutbas. By the time I
left Pakistan, the Amar shaheed issue had subsided.
Then came the 28th of May, the day Pakistan went
nuclear in 1998. The opposition celebrated it
as The Takbeer Day. Since the government remained
on a low key, because clearly the country “did
not get the kind of national security into eternity
as it had claimed; nor did it feel to reduce the
need for conventional weapons, slashing the defense
budget and using the funds thus saved for education
and development. In fact, in the words of Pervez
Hoodbhoy, a nuclear scientist, “Pakistan’s
nuclear acquisition of nuclear weapons has made
it effectively a less independent state…Pakistan
is clearly now the most watched and monitored
country… the bombs did not unify the country”.
The indiscreet opposition found a good material
in this whole issue to project the image of their
respective leaders; People’s party claiming
Zulfiqar as the pioneer and father of the nuclear
program and PML (N) claiming the event as the
boldest feat of their very bold leader, Mian Nawaz
Sharif. While the government remained embarrassed
on these two issues, Pakistan as a country suffered
substantially image-wise.
The cat-and-mouse tussle between the government
and the opposition is clearly telling upon the
economic potential of the country. While India
has taken off and is assessing how high it can
fly; Pakistan due to internal and external factors,
is in danger of sliding off-track or even tripping
at the very take-off stage. The government could
have done much more in the social, political and
economic sectors, but it soon became complacent.
And now, it appears to be just marking time. If
it re-elects President Musharraf, as is hinted
by Mushahid before the next elections of 2007,
it would definitely hurl the country into a chaotic
situation. The crutches of uniform should not
be used any longer to prolong ones right to rule.
President Musharraf, in all earnestness, appears
to have outlived his best. Seven year is a long
period to deliver; the rest that follows is a
mere repetition
The opposition is vindictive, short-sighted and
vision-less. President Musharraf, as I discovered
during this visit, has been wasteful of the opportunities
that came his way. As a soldier, learning from
the bad examples of General Ayub and General Zia,
he could have revolutionized the society by starting
programs that pertained directly to the well-being
and welfare of the common people on a war-footing.
He delayed reforms in the education and health
sectors; deferred the arrival of true democracy
in the country by aligning himself with people
who never had the true trust of people; he admits
that corruption is the biggest curse in the country,
but has allowed the known corrupt to sit with
him. Worst of all, and the most painful had been
the division of society into the elite and the
very poor; one living in the walled cities, and
the other on dumps and slums. To me what I witnessed
on the Murree Road happening day after day, and
no one appearing from anywhere, gave a good peep
into how the government is functioning; how the
economy is delivering for some; and how the general
public is getting affected by its residue.
In the next article, I will share the views of
President Musharraf’s spokesman, Maj. General
Shaukat Sultan, and the rosy picture he painted
on behalf of his boss, and the new Milaad cult
in Pakistan.
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