Cities are alive because people live in them. Grand structures, high-rise buildings, glittering glass facades, gleaming metal fixtures, broad roads and sprawling parks do not necessarily denote life in a city. These pieces of real estate merely support any activity that a city might have to generate. A dense mob of men and women, thousands of cars, vans and motorbikes, blocks upon blocks of houses, flats, shops, hundreds of kilometres of roads and posh restaurants do not lend soul to a city. A city which essentially is elitist in most parts of its being, non-inclusive, dotted with gated communities, interrupted rudely by road blocks, barbed wire fences, check posts and bomb proof walls has no rhythm. Islamabad lacks those priceless centuries that add grace and stature to cities with treasures of culture, history and architecture that they accumulate. The nearby Taxila is more graceful with its thousands of years old ruins than the flashy but upstart Islamabad.
Islamabad is a gifted city. Nestled into the lap of the majestic Margalla Hills, watered by the Rawal Lake, lush green and gently terraced landscape, extraordinary weather and numerous fresh water streams trundling down from mountain slopes are truly unique. An hour’s drive from the picturesque Murree Hills, Peshawar, the scenic Kalar Kahar resort and two hours to the Thal desert provide its inhabitants great variety and flexibility to plan their outings. Farther afield, it is within three hours of the sparkling Nathiagali, Rawalakot, and Abbottabad. Dwellers of a city with so many different options must show great sociability, openness and culture. Regretfully they do not.
Quite the opposite, Islamabad conveys an aura of desertion and a distinct impression of a city that is disintegrating into chaotic disuse with uncontrolled population and widespread administrative apathy. Municipal authority seems to have been relegated to abject servitude of their political masters leaving the township open to the pillage and ravages of the lawless mighty in their expensive SUVs flanked by their fully armed guards in double-cabins rudely waving off ordinary citizens like insects. A few traffic policemen and an odd sanitary worker struggle around to do their duty but look pathetically comical when no one cares about them. When rot seeps down to such basic levels it becomes rather out of place to talk of finer aspects of urban life like its core character, culture, collective festivals, group recreation and its general sense of wellbeing permeating harmony.
Whatever was left of the city’s soulless ambience is being systematically eroded by mushrooming sectarian groups headed by militancy-oriented madrassas and fortress-like mosques, which are expanding in some of the most posh localities. The areas worst affected by this seditious affliction have been green belts, community parks, playgrounds and random green patches. All successive CDA administrations have failed to arrest this irresponsible civic behaviour. The fake blasphemy case against Rimsha Masih had been a direct result of the land-grabbing militant mullah epidemic. It is useless to expect this evil group of real estate-hungry men ever to say that a mosque constructed on state land without proper permission is as illegal as a robbery, because most of these people have a number of similar crimes under their belts too. The remaining few are too weak to speak up.
This nuisance was also faced when the Grand Trunk Road was being widened between Peshawar and Karachi. Any mullah who could build an illegal mosque on the way did so, and made loads of money agreeing to shift the premises. Those who did not created deadly choke points on the highway. Such graceless sites abound in Islamabad too. Just take a drive on the city’s main roads and see how these have been disfigured by our self-appointed keepers of public morality. Madrassas here, invariably, are a matter of fear and fret for the neighbouring localities. Their denizens look quaintly out of place and disconnected. Their sullen faces and appearances tend to cause a hush and arouse anxiety among those who they happen to pass by. Like clandestine gangs, their colours of the turbans denote the secret creed they belong to. It does not project pilgrimage for learning or any innocence of underlying intent but only an air of uneasy mystery. If you ever noticed, there are children from four years of age to adults among the alumni of these madrassas. But it is so strange to see none of them play in the numerous playgrounds in the capital, take part in healthy sports or simply take a walk in the parks. This is an extraordinary omission and can create a serious personality disorder. It also tends to shroud them in suspicion and a kind of uncomfortable aloofness, which prompts one to ask if these young people are normal and will they integrate into society tomorrow? The ambience that their whole construct radiates is not helpful.
The city is truly a bureaucratic dream gone berserk. Layered, reserved and mute. Islamabad remained immersed in decades of slumber and officious laziness, which seeped into its capillaries fed by swarms of federal government officials of all shades and grades with their drab state residences in choice localities. None, naturally, expected them to put some life into their mechanical living, racked helter-skelter like case files in their office trays.
Only a few years ago, the city began to rise from its deep sleep. Kamran Lashari, the man who brought about this titanic change was a remarkably gifted bureaucrat who with much less service had performed a similar miracle earlier in an otherwise vibrant city of Lahore. Single handedly, he restored the fabled gardens of Lahore, the unique Canal Bank, created the world famous inner city Food Street, and gave a pleasant facelift to historic localities like Model Town, Jail Road, Samanabad, Mughalpura, Dharampura, Anarkali and Badami Bagh. Fortunately, he was placed to head the CDA, Islamabad. A small but passionate request was made to him to try to give Islamabad a definite character and cultural landmarks of her own too. He obliged as that must have appealed to his intelligence. Very tastefully sited and designed hill top Monal Restaurant, the extensive Rawal Lake Park, a lovely Kohsar Market leisure zone, the redone Daman-e-Koh and Zoo complex, the widened seventh and ninth Avenues, Islamabad Expressway, wider and well marked roads, numerous flyovers, the Shakar Parian monument, Arts and Crafts Village and Lok Virsa came up with amazing speed, élan and imagination. In a matter of a few years, this versatile civil servant transformed Islamabad from a sleepy but expensive suburb of Rawalpindi to a truly capital city.
That was a superlative performance coming from someone whose peers had worked like sleepwalkers. As has always happened, he was unceremoniously removed and is now being hounded. There has not been a word of gratitude from the forgetful residents of this migratory city to the man who gave their city an identity and a character. What he left behind has served the citizens very well but is falling apart because his successors have not been as worthy.
(To be continued)
The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan army and can be reached at [email protected]