On June 11 there was an advertisement in the newspapers asking people to donate generously to the Rescue 1122 service of the Punjab government. This advertisement is distasteful but more than that, it is cruel. It highlights the arrogance and ineptness of the rulers of the province of Punjab, from the political leadership to the civil service. Just as it is cruel and stupid on the part of those who rule Punjab, for us, the citizens of Punjab, it is outright shameful that we have let things get to this point. We cannot simply pass the buck to the government when something like this happens because our decisions have played a part in creating the mindset to rule Punjab the way it has been.
The advertisement is shameful because it came out within a week of the opening of the Islamabad Metro (a project of the government of Punjab), which cost tens of billions of rupees and, along with the Lahore Metro, will have subsidies of a few billion rupees a year. It is shameful because during the same week, there was news that 12 helipads were being built for the Chief Minister of Punjab’s visits to Ramadan bazars across the province, for one month of photo-ops. It is shameful that in a province with a budget of over a trillion rupees, the Punjab government could not find a billion or so to sustain Rescue 1122. It is shameful that the government is gradually drifting away from its basic civic responsibilities and reaching the heights of showmanship, and that we the citizens either approve of it or are not bothered.
Again, if you intend to blame the government for this, do not. The reason they do this is because we, the citizens of Punjab, let ourselves be swayed by their showmanship. The metros and motorways are ages ahead of their time, though underutilised, in times when the basic civic amenities like education and healthcare keep deteriorating. The drinking water keeps getting polluted and becoming scarce. The crumbling security apparatus gives way to the private security business for those who can afford it and to mafias for those who cannot.
It is us who are swayed by the glitter and glam of the photo-ops of “mega projects”, instead of focusing on the uninterrupted provision of basic amenities. It is us who hail Shahbaz Sharif as a hardworking Chief Minister, when he stands at a flooded Nisbet Road each year to oversee the drainage of rain water, instead of seeing this yearly occurrence as a colossal administrative and personal failure. We have allowed ourselves to be indoctrinated by the glitz of governance as displayed by the media, instead of exploring for ourselves what governance is and what its priorities should be for society. We are blinded to the degree that the arrogant rulers of Punjab felt no humiliation at publishing the advertisement for Rescue 1122.
The mere fact that one of the advisers of the Chief Minister thinks that they can not only get away with this advertisement, but ultimately create goodwill, highlights how twisted our priorities as a society have become. It seems as though the Sharifs have a thing for outsourcing national responsibilities to donation drives, rather than finding administrative solutions. The donation drive for the Qarz Utaro Mulk Sanwaro (repay debt to save the country) scheme of the 1990s also had a similar purpose. It is shameful that the journalists and the media of this country did not bother highlighting the failure and ineptness that this advertisement displays. This advertisement is a bigger scandal than any kickback or commission could be, because it scandalises the whole governance paradigm in this country. This advertisement is even worse than dollar freezing because in that case, the government could do nothing. In this case however, the government chose to shy away from its responsibility.
All that is left is shame. Shame on a society that is comfortable with cheering for glitter and glam, whilst the basic amenities are being taken away from it. Shame on the media, which considers the real estate wars of Karachi, kickbacks in a project worth a few billion rupees or the launch of a megaproject bigger news than the ability of the state to fulfil its basic responsibility. And shame on me for highlighting this decay now, when one could see the imminent collapse and deterioration all along. For those who rule Punjab, kudos to their arrogance, which is a result of our collective shamelessness.
The writer is a freelance columnist and may be contacted at [email protected]