Fatima
Jinnah Park –
Metaphor For Pakistan's Problems
And Their Solution
By Isa Daudpota
27 September, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Abstract: The park and its surroundings gives numerous examples
of what's wrong with our society and those who manipulate its laws and
institutions. Only the intervention of the Supreme Court can correct
the injustices and ills in and around the park, and help create a model
for change in the country. That would truly honor the person after which
it is named.
A
year ago I stood in the middle of a round-about with a hideous centerpiece
of two interwoven concrete arches hiding. Within their inners is a fountain
which is barely visible even when it works. This is Ghauri Chowk named
in honor of the conqueror who was the rival of the Hindu ruler Prithvi
Raj in the late 12th century. Before the current tasteless structure
was put up, a tall Ghauri missile stood in its place after its test
in April 1998 – also called Hatf-5 (meaning "Deadly"
or "Vengeance").
Looking north at the southern
tip of Fatima Jinnah Park I spot the small group of NGO-types with placards
whom I have come to join in protest against the illegal allocation of
land for a junk-food outlet. Behind them and the Park's fence shrouded
in green synthetic sheets away from public view rises the international
eatery, McDonalds, the food franchise owned by Lakson Group.
The U.S. Physicians Committee
for Responsible Medicine has criticized the food at McDonald's restaurants
as generally high in fat and cholesterol. As a result their products
contribute to heart disease, certain forms of cancer, and other diseases
the link between such died and certain diseases are clearly established.
Lakson for years having killed with smoke and cigarettes has now moved
to doing it with cholesterol and high-fat.
CDA has carved out a large
corner (6000 sq yards) of the park for McDonald's at a ridiculously
low rental of about Rs 0.3 million per month, and a lease of 33 years.
[Even at domestic rates, which are much lower than applicable commercial
ones, the rental should be at least Rs 0.36 million or 20% higher than
what the burger giant pays to CDA!] Five additional acres will be taken
and developed by McDonalds.
A national daily [Dawn, 29th
Aug, on its Metropolitan page] headlined, "CDA chief wins the day
for McDonald's". This was a report about Mr Kamran Lashari meeting
the Public Accounts Committee of the Parliament. It seems easy for sharp
civil servants to dupe ill-prepared legislators. The poor reporting
failed to mention the context. The controversy surrounding the use of
parks by private developers was laid to rest in February 2007 when the
Supreme Court ordered Mr Shah Sharabeel, a crony of Mr Kamran Lashari,
to stop building an illegal mini golf course in the F-7 Jubilee Park.
This judgment with direct bearing on the illegal activities of CDA in
the Fatima Jinnah Park, including the McDonald's lease, has been elaborated
in papers and petition lodge with the Court by Senator Saadia Abbasi.
Sadly, the CDA has also flaunted the Environmental Protection Act for
nearly 10 years, and never as blatantly as during the current chairman's
reign.
Since the early 90s, when
I started to live near the Park, CDA has failed to pay it much attention.
There was once talk of the park being converted into a housing estate
for Peoples' Party parliamentarians. This was averted by the astute
Mr Iqbal Jaffer, the then CDA chairman, who preempted this request and
declaring that the Park was to be preserved according to the city's
revised master plan of 1988.
Before long, though, there
was a successful attack on the park. This was the setting up of Hot
Shots, a large entertainment complex inside the F-10 gate of Park. It
was common knowledge that this business had the blessings of Pakistan's
bomb maker, Dr A.Q. Khan, and no one dare oppose it. The traders and
sycophants in the F-10 Markaz cashed in on the explosion of the atomic
bomb and named the Markaz after Dr Khan, and set up a black marble obelisk
honoring him. After Dr Khan became the fall-guy to quell the nuclear
proliferation allegations against Pakistan, Hot Shots fell on hard times,
as did the black marble monument, which has crumbled. Also, the Ghauri
missile (copy of the liquid-fueled North Korean Nodong) vanished from
the roundabout to be replaced with even more ugly concrete arches.
Turn right coming out of
the Park's F-10 gate and head towards the Margallas. Soon you cross
a skeleton of a tragedy on the left. There in stark grey is the major
victim of the Oct 2005 earthquake, the Margalla Tower. Its owner and
contractor fled the country to escape punishment. Where's their extradition
order! The second anniversary of the falling of the towers still has
its old residents and owners not compensated for loss of property. Why,
though, have the engineers and surveyors of CDA who certified the building
not been hauled up?
Soon as you cross this tragic
site, on the right you witness death of another kind. Here Pakistan
Tobacco Company has been given the western corner of the sector by CDA
to set up a nursery of trees from its city plantation. It is allowed
to put up billboards to soften its image while it continues to be one
of the largest killer of Pakistanis. It is rivaled in this by Lakson
Tobacco, which now cleans its image by selling food having captured
the southern corner of the park.
As you turn northwards onto
Margalla Road notice a new large development on the left. Here Army
engineers have taken over two sectors covering 8 square kilometer for
transplantation of the Pindi Cantonment. Billions worth of infrastructure
will be left behind in the town that the British set up for the military.
There's no promise that the military land and buildings in Pindi will
be returned to the public. Also, what about the environmental and cultural
impact of such an invasion of Islamabad? No one dare ask, least of all
the Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (PEPA) or the political
parties who are vying for power. Such a hugely expensive and wasteful
move in times of electronic communication and video conferencing cannot
be justified on rational grounds.
Take one example of the environmental
impact of this move extrapolating from the tube-well water usage in
two sectors currently occupied by the Navy and Air Force. There are
about 30-odd tube-wells working 20 hours daily and pumping water up
from a depth of 250 feet at huge cost. The water table of Islamabad,
fast sinking, will need to cope with 30-odd more tube-wells for the
Army, thereby further depleting the ground water that's needed by the
civilians.
Nearby, as one enters the
E-9 gate of the park, Mr Lashari is busy filling the place with concrete
at huge cost. Alteration on this scale needed an environmental impact
assessment but PEPA was never consulted. What ought to have been a haven
for shady trees and beautiful natural paths and places for wildlife
to prosper is being turned into a concrete jungle.
On the northern corner of
the park one finds an intact missile on display. This is the Shaheen
missile (Haft 6, based on a Chinese design) build by a team headed by
Dr Khan's rival bomb-maker Dr Samar Mubarakmand. His missile is proudly
displayed showing off our ability to kills our neighbors with nuclear
weapons that this beast is capable of carrying and delivering in 10
minutes with little chance of interception. Should a country be proud
of having such deadly ability? Our military and political hawks tell
us that the nukes and the missiles are merely a deterrent to an Indian
attack. The real enemy is deprivation though, and it lies within. This
is born out of lack of good education, health, justice and enlightenment,
which are essential social responsibilities of the state which are currently
subverted to build lethal weapons.
Look toward the Presidency
at the park's eastern corner and you see nearby the biggest construction
project in Islamabad's history, the Centaurus. This elitist enterprise
inaugurated by General Musharraf is illegal as it was started without
a proper EIA. The press has covered this project in considerable detail
as has this author – use Google on the Internet.
One wonders what the ghost
of Miss Fatima Jinnah thinks as it flies over the park, surrounded by
woeful structures and with its center fast filling up with cement. The
only bit of filling she knew of was the amalgam she had used as a dentist
in Bombay starting in 1923 as the first qualified Muslim dentist in
India.
Paying tribute to her sister,
the Quaid once said, "My sister was like a bright ray of light
and hope whenever I came back home and met her. Anxieties would have
been much greater and my health much worse, but for the restraint imposed
by her". The park named after her was meant to provide the same
peace to those who lived in Islamabad as she provided to her brother.
In the 1960s, Miss Jinnah
ran for the presidency of Pakistan in opposition to Ayub Khan the country's
first dictator. In her early rallies nearly 250,000 people turned out
to see her in Dhaka, and a million lined the 293 mile route from there
to Chittagong. The crowds hailed her as the mother of the nation.
She lost the election, but
only narrowly, winning a majority in some provinces. The election did
not conform to international standards and journalists, as well as subsequent
historians, have often suggested it was rigged in favor of the Field
Marshal.
Today the park named after
her is in jeopardy of being surrounded by illegal projects and developments
that smack of inequity and poor taste. She may need the services of
the most astute lawyer available to plead the case for restoring sanity
to the park. Could she persuade her famous brother to take up the cause
in today re-energized Supreme Court. Victory for fairness and good sense
would then be assured.
The author is an engineer
and physicist interested in the environment.
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