From red to green to orange

Traffic-lights the world over are sequenced — red for stop, orange for prepare to move and green for ‘Go’. By the time these words are read work on the Orange Line Metro Train (OLMT) in Lahore will have recommenced in line with the Supreme Court verdict on Friday 8^th December. The Punjab government has said that it plans to complete the project on a fast-track basis and is saying that April 2018 is the ‘Go’ date operationally. Civil society activists are now planning to fight a rear-guard action, and considering their capacity for organising themselves in their long fight against the project a further delay cannot be entirely ruled out. Even allowing that their chances are slim in appealing against the SC, the bottom line is that OLMT will eventually get finished, though whether the Punjab government will ever heed the lessons it has been given in terms of consultation with stakeholders and the value of heritage is a very moot point.

That Lahore needs OLMT is in no doubt whatsoever. Equally, such developments have little by way of architectural value and are never themselves ever going to be seen as a part of our cultural heritage, they are utilitarian and must be viewed as such. Unfortunately for the planners of OLMT, Lahore is thick with sites, several of them designated World Heritage sites, that are of incalculable value architecturally and treasures within our collective heritage. OLMT was always going to have to be built in close proximity to them if it was to have a viable route — and there lies the rub.

The government has now driven a coach and horses through its own laws preventing civil works inside a 200-foot radius of heritage sites. Work has now commenced within that radius and who knows what damage may be done down the line, and the precedent is now set for other projects that may impinge on heritage locations in other cities. Cultural vandalism trumps our collective inheritance now and in the future, the bitterest of pills to swallow and the cruel price of ‘progress’.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 10^th, 2017.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.