Daily Times

Even the Prime Minister (PM) rebuked the younger brother. In a rare display of displeasure, the PM told the Chief Minister (CM) that there were other projects besides the Metro. The very next day the CM signed up a deal for the loan of a colossal Rs 162 billion from the Exim Bank of China to build the Orange Metro project. At the same time, a few miles away from this flamboyant, record-breaking ceremony of the most expensive 27 km project in history, 19 small children died in Children’s Hospital due to the non-provision of anti-diphtheria serum (ADS) by the Punjab government. As I write, the death toll has reached 32 and is increasing. Lack of medicines and lack of ventilators due to lack of funds is the reason. Just imagine the agony of a mother, parent or family who sees their child die due to the misplaced priorities of the government. Just imagine trying to explain to them that this metro will make up for the missing vaccine, non-functional ventilators and the death of a child on whom their happiness and hopes centred.

Now just try to understand the campaign going on to justify the Orange train. It is the cure for all diseases. It is the bane of happiness. It is an environmental gift. It is a heritage dream. It is history in the making. History in the making it surely is. Never has such an expensive project been built since Pakistan was created. Spread over 27 km it is going to benefit 250,000 people daily. This practically means that it will benefit 0.48 percent of the people in Punjab. What about the remaining 99.52 percent of the people? It is indeed a record breaking project as it is going to cost six billion rupees per km, definitely worth going into the Guinness records and other world records as the most expensive of its kind. But then it is all for a good cause and even if it is for a tiny portion of the people and even if it is at the expense of millions of lives, once the orange colour starts running up and down Lahore it will silence all the critics. The fact that in the year 2015 we have slipped to 147th position in the human development index, placing us in the countries least caring about their people’s development, is also something 70 percent of this population is too unaware to care about.

Financial feasibility aside, the socio-cultural imperatives should make this project questionable even if the budget is not an issue. Activist, architects, town planners, environmentalists, lawyers, citizens, UNESCO and civil society have all — with legal and hard facts — protested for months against this encroachment on the land, degradation of environment and damage to the heritage. However, the CM and the administration of Lahore have brushed aside such allegations and have termed them ignorant rants. Their logic may be that these are old timers who want to keep Lahore backward and cannot understand the grandiose vision of the CM to turn Lahore into Paris.

Lahore is the cultural capital of Pakistan. No other city has the diversity of heritage and history comparable to Lahore. Take this away from Lahore and it becomes another soulless town that has no identity and character. According to the Lahore Conservation Society’s report, almost 15 major law protected heritage sites will be affected, including Shalimar Gardens (protected under the UNESCO World Heritage Convention), Gulabi Bagh Gateway (protected under the Antiquities Act 1975), Dai Anga’s tomb (protected under the Antiquities Act 1975), Buddhu ka Awa (protected under the Antiquities Act 1975), General Post Office (protected under the Antiquities Act 1975 and under the Punjab Special Premises Preservation Ordinance 1985), Chauburji (protected under the Antiquities Act 1975), Mauj Darya shrine (protected under the Antiquities Act 1975), Zebunnisa’s tomb (protected under the Antiquities Act 1975) and the railway station. The bureaucracy has been assigned the job to counter these protests with letters to the editors and advertisements showing how far from the truth these claims are.

Environmentalists have been trying their best to explain how dangerous this fatal attraction for brick and mortar is. Their cries have been dismissed by people who travel by air and sit in air-conditioned cars, and thus can never understand the importance of transport in the lives of the ordinary man. The city of gardens and greenery is now the city of signal free corridors and signal full pollution. This project itself is going to cut hundreds of trees in its way and, though replacements have been promised, when and where on these hard surfaces it would be possible is anybody’s guess. The fact that Lahore has reached another milestone of being classified in the top 10 most polluted cities in the world may be one of the reasons why at the onset of every winter babies and elders suffer at the hand of outbreaks of strange lung diseases. But then a few deaths here and there are all justified when we envision the Orange train juggernauting across the city.

Government departments not sharing this noble vision of the CM are duly taken to task. As reported, the district officer in the environment department of Punjab had reported that the installation of a wastewater disposal station at Bhobtian Chowk was not only illegal but would affect two schools as the noise pollution and foul odour would affect the students. The result of this report was that the Water and Sanitation Authority (WASA) advised the CM to transfer this shortsighted officer, and he was. This follows the Director General (DG) Archaeology being made Officer on Special Duty (OSD) as he was insisting that Chauburji and other sites would be harmed. When Shahjahan made the Taj Mahal, he cut the hands of the labourers so that they would not make that design again and now it is classified as a wonder of the world. Thus, the CM understands that a few dismissals here and there will fade in the memory of the public when the Orange Metro will be classified as the wonder of Lahore.

It is not just the rejection of a few officers or a few sites or a few laws or a few trees or a few reports, it is the rejection of the best minds in the country that have devoted their lives to giving this city and country the glorious memory of its unique culture and heritage. But then the intellect of the likes of Nayyar Ali Dada, Kamil Mumtaz and I A Rehman cannot compete with the indecent obsession of somebody bent on turning this city into the underpass capital of the world.

The writer is a Lahori who can be reached at andleeb.abbas1@gmail.com