Will we ever rid our country of its VIP culture?

The public is sick of the abuses that VIPs inflict on the common man. And also those infernal motorcades with their wailing sirens that ferry the official freeloaders from place to place. My first experience of official brutality occurred when I spent a few days in the winter of 1958 at the residence of Moizuddin Ahmed. He was then commissioner of Lahore and lived in an old colonial mansion in GOR estate which was surrounded by a huge sprawling, well-kept lawn fringed by tall trees. One morning when my host was about to leave for the office I requested a lift to the museum. On one of the roads, a buffalo cart had accidentally strayed onto the hallowed thoroughfare. The chauffeur stopped the official car, leaped out of the vehicle, whip in hand, and lashed the poor bullock cart driver. I was absolutely appalled. In different circumstances I would have taught the chauffeur a lesson he would have never forgotten. But as I was a guest of the commissioner and the fellow was his employee I let the incident pass. But I never forgot the assault. It was my first taste of the darker side of VIP culture in Pakistan.



Brutality towards poor, defenceless citizens who get caught at the wrong time in the wrong place has continued unabated. Most incidents are not reported and the humiliated victim is left to suffer in silence. More than 55 years later, on September 17 to be specific, one witnessed the latest incident of official brutality, thanks to a TV cameraman who was covering the 12-car motorcade accompanying the chief minister of Sindh on his way towards the flood-hit areas of his province. Apparently, a donkey cart happened to be ambling along on the side of the road. The chief minister’s goons leapt out of their vehicles, soundly thrashed the driver of the donkey cart and left him unconscious. One reporter, who thought the poor fellow’s bones were broken, later telephoned me and said, “Long live democracy.”

Unfortunately, this boorishness and aggressive behaviour on the part of both private as well as official guards has become part of the official landscape. Even when a VVIP said he didn’t want police protection and would be happy driving his own car to work, as the late Mahmoud Haroon once told the IG of police when he was the governor of Sindh, he was prevented from doing so. And when General Musharraf was in full harness the citizens of Karachi dreaded the occasions when he was due to arrive in the port city. Shahrah-e-Faisal was invariably closed for hours before his expected time of arrival. On two occasions, because of the infernal traffic jams, two patients died because their ambulance could not reach a hospital. There was no sign of remorse. No letter of condolence to the victims’ families. The patients sacrificed their lives in the line of duty.

At times the disruption of an official motorcade has its droll moments. Like the time when a top freeloader was travelling along Abdullah Haroon Road in the direction of the Sindh Assembly building. His car was attended by nine security vehicles. The convoy was headed by an exceptionally corpulent motorcycle rider with a handlebar moustache who led the medley of wailing sirens. A motorcyclist who was tearing down Club Road at breakneck speed suddenly turned right before the signal and ran smack into the first vehicle of the motorcade. The policeman’s bike shot forward, hit the signal and a white uniform was seen pirouetting upwards. It was a sight I will never forget.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 21^st, 2014.

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