One nation, two roads

Populist & pecuniary gains seem to be the driving force behind so-called development plans launched by governments.

The road leading out of Lahore towards the Motorway is choked with traffic. Donkey carts vie with motorcyclists defying every law in the book, even the law of gravity itself. Trucks belching diesel fumes loom over fragile three-wheelers stuffed to the gills with people. Women sit precariously on these ‘chand garis’, a child or two balanced dangerously on each lap, faces resigned to inhaling the fumes and dust and daily dose of despair, with baskets of shopping half-empty.

A speeding sports utility vehicle (SUV) pays no heed to those waiting with fatalistic resignation in this terrible traffic snarl. It hits a chand gari, tipping it over, the driver hanging on to the motorbike which steers it, his leg caught awkwardly beneath the wheel. The women and children are not so lucky; the flimsy contraption overturns, crushing the women beneath it. Hands reach out from under the rickety frame of this novel form of transport for the poor. Children wail with shock and pain. People stare, one or two run towards the accident, the SUV speeds off into a service lane, disappearing into a neighbourhood where houses are decorated with pride and bathroom tiles in lurid colours, metallic ‘MashAllahs’ fixed on the façade to ward off the evil, envious eye.

We are on our way to the desert of Cholistan. Two hours later, we are still stuck at the juncture of Lahore Canal and the Jinnah Hospital. Trees which had been marked for felling along the Lahore Canal Road have been struck down with vengeance, following the Supreme Court’s judgment which permitted the Punjab Government to widen the Canal Road at specific junctions, instead of the original plan proposing the removal of 10 thousand trees and shrubs along an 18-kilometre stretch. After a five year battle waged by environmentalists, architects, economists, urban planners, traffic managers, social activists, engineers, artists, landscape developers and the civil society, the Punjab Government went into action as soon as the Supreme Court’s decision was announced. The argument of the Punjab Government that “trees are killers” and “impede development” sounded the death knell for Lahore’s natural and cultural heritage.

All over the world it has been recognised that eco-systems are vital to existence. The need to preserve and sustain a healthy environment is as important as the construction of concrete buildings and asphalt roads. In fact, the growing awareness of the hazards of a decimated global environment leading to climate change has convinced governments all over the world to increase forest cover and green spaces in urban centres. In our country, tragically, the emphasis on steel and concrete appears to be totally out of proportion to the benefits accrued by the larger mass of people. Instead, populist and pecuniary gains seem to be the driving force behind the so-called development plans launched by governments.

If one is to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of many of these projects, the adverse impact on the environment within which all life thrives or withers, shall outweigh the supposed benefits of ‘faster traffic and shorter travel time’. And in an existential sense, the question must be asked: Where are we going, and what is the hurry in getting there? In a country where roads barely exist outside of urban metropolises, where the nether parts of town have roads which are a series of potholes, where farmers struggle to get their produce to the market in the absence of decent communication, where women die for lack of access to health facilities, where children walk miles to get to ghost schools, where factory workers spend a large part of their earnings travelling on vehicles which are not roadworthy, roads do not lead to prosperity, or even to the barest minimum standard of human survival.

One frenetic hour later, the women and children from the overturned three-wheeler have been transported to the closest hospital. The person who volunteered to take them had a small car with a CNG cylinder fit into its trunk. He smiled as he pointed out that the cylinder was safe since it was empty, so there was no danger of it exploding. He wound his car through the stalled traffic, a knight in rusty armour. Had an ambulance been called, it would not have been able to make its way through the traffic, halted in the name of progress.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 17^th, 2012.