The container city

Islamabad is my second home, as I live and work here now for the last few years. My romance with the hills of Margalla brought me back to the federal capital. Earlier in the 1990s, as I used to work for a media group, it was an altogether greener Islamabad with little traffic and people being on their own. Though Islamabad had been the pulse of national politics since early 1960s, as the seat of government was moved here from Karachi, it was never so terrifying and unpredictable. The city has now undergone unmanageable horizontal expansion and witnesses day-to-day administrative squabbling - bringing to a naught its credentials of a planned and serene capital.

Mark Tully, former BBC correspondent, had once opined that Islamabad is a 'city of the dead' with no life after sunset. But it seems, the city has gone into reverse gear as it now comes to life as dusk sets in. Notwithstanding its mushroomed network of eateries, cozy housing schemes and environmentally-apt greenbelts of the 350 square miles sprawling city, there are those who find it of little value. Renowned economist Shabbar Zaidi tongue-in-cheek says "neither is there anything 'Islamic' in Islamabad, nor it is 'abad' (developed)!"

My contention while writing these lines is not to wail over encroachments on Margalla Hills, the unfinished Islamabad Expressway or the off-and-on forest fire, but the way the populace of the twin cities (Rawalpindi-Islamabad) are being treated by the district administration and police. For the last two years, commutation in Islamabad has been an uphill task, as one comes across undesired obstructions and closure of alleys in utter public inconvenience.

The capital city resembles a dry dock where there are containers all over, and a brigade of traffic police and workforce is seen struggling day in and day out to simply keep them in order by opening and closing intersections as and when desired. It's a pity that these elongated iron-containers should have been part of our import-export dispensation, but here these hundreds of junked tin-cans are rotting in rain and sunshine for the expedient purpose of hampering commutation.

All the entry and exit points to the capital are closed, delinking the city from GT Road, Motorway and Expressway in a jiff. Even if a public rally is planned at Tarnol, 26 km away from the Red Zone, the city is cordoned off, schools and colleges are shut and officer-goers are left high and dry! The prime zones of sector 'G' and 'F', besides the Blue Area, often wore a deserted look as traffic is non-existent, creating inconvenience for businesses, hotels and banks as well as private and public employees. But who cares? Perhaps, the express intent of the not-so-competent officers remains to oblige their hierarchy who sit in judgment at the displeasure of civic sense in a paranoid mood of political bias.

The Islamabad Traffic, District Administration and others apparently do not exercise their writ of making decisions in good faith for public convenience, in contravention of what they are there for, and the only 'logical' solution at hand for them is to block the roads with containers. It reminds me of the script by Karachi Police to ban pillion-riding on any and every public occasion to hide their incompetence. Perhaps they do not believe in crowd management and traffic articulation or are ignorant of it! The million-dollar question is: why bring down the city dwellers on their knees even if a protest is planned inside the federal capital?

There is a flip side of favouritism too. Notwithstanding the claim that no one will be allowed to march on Islamabad, especially near its super-sensitive Red Zone, it is recent history that many blue-eyed groups dared make their way till the doors of the Supreme Court, and had the audacity to get away after scolding the state and trampling the writ of the government! This is where the bias of the administration is exposed, proving beyond doubt that they are not doing their job as per injunctions of law! The 3.5 million people of the twin cities deserve a better deal.