This past Sunday, the Lahore-Islamabad stretch of the Motorway collapsed. Let me explain.
The Motorway is not just a road.
It is a system with a structure, an
environment that impacts behaviour and is in turn affected by it. To put
it another way, the Motorway is a physical communication system, which
allows for uninterrupted, relatively high-speed travel through a number
of road safety measures that are both physical (rest areas, eateries,
restrooms, petrol pumps, ATMs, a culture of cleanliness) and legal
(rules and regulations about speed levels for different vehicles, where
and when to stop and rest, lane discipline, road signs, reflectors,
mobile workshops, ambulances, et cetera).
The efficient functioning of this system rests on two pillars:
normative and coercive. The normative aspect of the Motorway, the internalisation of the culture,
has developed to a point where occasional morons are either scoffed at
or proactively chided by other commuters. This is complemented by the
coercive aspect, i.e., through the enforcement of rules and regulations.
The Motorway Police, decidedly the best component of the police force
in Pakistan, acts with alacrity, enforces rules and does not like
influence peddling. (NB: Sadly, some of their sheen is going but that is
another story.)
This is what makes travelling on the Motorway a pleasant and much
less tiring experience even though it is a roughly 110-km longer stretch
between Lahore and Islamabad than the Grand Trunk Road.
On that fateful day, it being a sunny Sunday, I left Lahore with a
book, comfortably ensconced in the back seat, looking forward to a nice,
productive four-hour cruise. Instead, my journey became a nearly
six-hour harrowing experience home to home. Reason: the Motorway had
been assailed by thousands of medieval faithful returning from the
Tableeghi Jamaat’s
ijtama at Raiwind. They were in trucks,
buses, big and small vans, mini-vans, cars, jalopies, jeeps and anything
that could move on four wheels. They were sitting inside and on the
roofs of the vehicles, with buckets, cooking stoves, utensils, the
ubiquitous
lotas, bedding, etc. often dangling outside — a hazard to themselves and others.
The vehicles, for the most part, could not have passed the fitness
standards required for the Motorway and the manner in which vehicles
were packed was against Motorway rules. This was bad enough. Worse, the
drivers and the passengers showed no respect for the system’s rules and
regulations. They parked on the sides, alighted and loitered around, sat
cooking and prayed in collections of 20-25 at various points on the
Motorway, throwing safety and security to the wind. They drove their
vehicles with no regard for lane discipline, zigzagging and cutting into
lanes. I sat in the back, the book forgotten, seething at the ugly
spectacle unfolding before me.
This was as far as the road itself was concerned. The other component
of the system, the rest areas were also chock-a-block with more of
these people sans brains and civic sense. The usually serene and clean
places were littered and many faithful spat around, pursing their lips
and ejecting spittle with the precision of a guided missile.
Here, too, they sat eating, squatting, performing ablutions, some of
them doing it in the open, others in the restrooms, noisily clearing
their throats and blowing their noses, putting their feet in the basin
to wash off the grime, making the washrooms unusable for all others. It
was difficult to figure out whether those doing the ‘needful’ inside
were worse than those who sat, often scattered, just off the roadside,
squatting and pissing. Micturating in the open is an exercise that
requires years of practice and also the ability to squat and bend one
leg at a certain obscene angle before (un)doing oneself. And if there is
no water, one can do what is known as — though I am sure completely
unknown to the 20-something upper-crust urbanites —
butwani where the ‘u’ in ‘but’ is to be pronounced as the ‘u’ in ‘put’, thank you.
This incredible exercise in cleaning the musty underpinnings cannot
be described here but readers are welcome to make their discreet,
individual inquiries. For once, they will find Google at a complete
loss!
The Motorway Police were nowhere to be seen. Throughout the agonising
journey, I spotted one officer leaning against the median, his patrol
car parked on the opposite side, looking on helplessly while a group set
out mats to pray by the roadside.
On that day, dear reader, the Motorway was a microcosm of this country. As happens in our beloved country, laws go out the window
the moment someone demonstrates piety. And the enforcers tuck tail when
those that demonstrate piety descend on civilisation in hordes. This is
how states lose their writ and with it their sovereignty. That loss was
a fact poking one in the eye that day.
Where were the police? Was there a policy to let the uncouth faithful
be, more interested as they are in the life hereafter than civilised,
decent behaviour in this world? Did the government tell the police to
make themselves scarce or did the police high-ups recommend this
strategy to the government? Why was my right to travel safely on the
Motorway ignored?
Someone must answer these questions or else I am growing a beard,
losing my brains, raising a religious militia and telling the state to
piss off.
Will some cleric tell us why piety doesn’t equal civic sense and
regard for the laws and why the supposed spirituality of such
congregations as the Tableeghi
ijtama doesn’t translate into responsible civic behaviour?
Thomas C Schelling wrote in
Micromotives and Macrobehavior:
“How well each [individual] does for himself in adapting to his social
environment is not the same thing as how satisfactory a social
environment they collectively create for themselves.” He was talking
about us.
Unlettered zealots, lacking the spirit of religion, pushed the
Motorway back to the Dark Ages. If we don’t take heed, they will throw
this entire country back in time. When that happens, we will end up a
monument to oblivion like Ozymandias’ half-sunk, shattered statue.