Orange is the new black

Orange Line may end up blighting lives and cityscapes, and we would pause for thought before damage is done

The latest vanity project of the Punjab government is the Orange Line in Lahore and it is earning black marks and even blacker looks from civil society and commentators on urban development and preservation, across the board. Lahore is a city that is literally garlanded with sites of immense cultural importance stretching back centuries. Such sites must be preserved and maintained, and the city fathers are the custodians of a heritage that belongs not only to Pakistan but the wider world as well. A balance has to be struck between the modern needs of the city that is fast expanding, and its ancient — and not so ancient — past. In its desire to concrete over just about anything remotely related to historicity, the Punjab government is building another mass-transit system and driving a literal coach-and-horses through the heart of Lahore.

Whilst modernity is not something this newspaper would normally find fault with, in this instance we find ourselves in sympathy with the protesters who gathered at GPO Chowk on January 29. They represented a range of issues, from migrants who had lived in the path of the Big Orange since 1947 and who stand to lose their houses; to those concerned at the fate of historical structures in its path. They were calling for the route to be tunnelled rather than over-ground and for an end to what they claimed was harassment by government officials. Others protested that the project is little more than a political stunt aimed at winning the next general elections, and were critical of the way it had been steamrollered through with negligible consultation. That Lahore, as with every other large city in Pakistan, is in need of mass-transit systems is undeniable. Equally undeniable is the cack-handed way in which the federal and provincial governments have gone about bringing these creatures to life. One has only to look at the desolation beneath the flyovers on the Rawalpindi end of the Pindi-Islamabad Metro to gain an insight into its negative effects. The Orange Line may end up blighting lives and cityscapes, and we would urge a pause for thought before irreparable damage is done. 

Published in The Express Tribune, February 2^nd, 2016.

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