Operation Okara

JUNE 2003 - They give us cereals at breakfast, oil for our transportation, cash and credit when we go banking, cement to build our homes, insurance when we want to secure our future, air services when we wish to go flying, roads when we want to travel about and before we can have our jelly and custard and hit the sack, they have added another few dozen services to our lives. All this is fine and dandy, but the armed forces are sadly much misunderstood. When you think that they guard our skies, watch our oceans and prowl along our lands, protecting us from all manners of enemies, then you begin to get an idea of how important they are to our well being.

Clearly, the army has been badly misunderstood over this Okara caper. Being the strong silent types, they have stood by stoically with exemplary discipline and fortitude while the likes of Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy and others of his misguided tribe, have wagged fingers and made disapproving noises. Now, a Swedish diplomat accompanied by some misguided NGO and that troublesome bloke from Wah Cantt. Micky Shafi have hightailed it to the troubled farmyards and rightly sent packing home. It seems so sad but really no one seems ready to defend the boys who have been holding the fort while the natives have grown restless and reckless, hurling taunts and occasional dung cakes at the heavily moustached, but lightly armed Rangers. Only when the dung cake rains turned heavy did the Rangers act in self-defence and now that too has been blown out of all proportions. The poor soldiers and their professional senior officers, used, as they are to defend our freedom at all costs, have been fairly perplexed at the outburst they have had to endure.

What’s all the hullabaloo about one might ask? A piece of land it seems where the rustics have been farming and doing all the things rustics do. Now as the DG RVFC – love those abbreviations, I really do, declared in front of a receptive and appreciate crowd a couple of weeks back in Islamabad, the land in question was ‘handed’ over to the army in 1913 for ‘defence use.’ And there it stays. This is a perfectly valid basis to hold on to what was given to you in the first place for a very noble cause. Some mischief-makers have been spreading a campaign of disinformation, claiming that the army lease expired in 1933 and the lands since then belong to the Punjab government. This frankly is a bit thin and I agree with the army brass that has pooh poohed this silly piece of drivel. The land was given for purposes of defence and let me assure you, that purpose has even more validity today than it did in 1913. The forces of evil are constantly conspiring to undo our state and it is only by maintaining constant vigil that we can thwart enemy designs. Okara, as we all know, is a hotbed of intrigue, espionage and skullduggery. Behind every bush lurks a terrorist and every rustic is not what he seems to be. Some could be well-seasoned and equally well-cooked RAW agents.

However just to keep those troublesome rustics from spreading more trouble, the powers that fight out the great battle between good and evil, thought that since 67 years had passed since their lease on this land had supposedly run out, it might not be a bad idea to ask the Gov. of Punjab, a comrade in arms, to ensure that the land was permanently handed over to the army for growing turnips, milking cows and carrying on with other counter-espionage activities. The Gov. handed over the matter to the Board of Revenue who never comprehending the gravity of the situation ruled against the forces of good or in other words, the brave jawans battling it out in Okara. They said that were the land to be required, the central government would have to buy it out at prevailing market prices. There is verily no justice in this cruel world. The heartbroken, but unbowed jawans went back to their cabbage patches and sought solace in the company of carrots and goats. Out of the goodness of their hearts, they offered the rustics to take the opportunity of a lifetime and sign yearly contracts with them, renewable of course. The rustics, led by miscreants (you might recall this lot was responsible for us losing East Pakistan), claimed that since they had tilled the land forever, had been born, raised and would die here; they wanted propriety rights, not contracts. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. To add insult to injury, they reminded the gentle Rangers that they were trespassing on land that did not belong to them in the first place and worse, called them an armed Qabza group. What nerve and what blasphemy. It is to the everlasting credit of the good Rangers they didn’t mow down the whole crappy lot who poke about in all those evil-infested chaks. Once more, insults were swallowed in silence, taunts taken in stride and patience tested to its nth limit.

The sad truth is that farm income has been on the decline, down from 41 million per annum to a bare Rs 16 million. This is because people farming here are busy wasting their time, too lazy to plant, irrigate, sow and reap without falling asleep leaving all the dirty work to the boys in brass, who mind you have their hands full polishing brass all day. There is no appreciation for diligence and hard work it seems; certainly none in that place called Okara. While the Rangers have been hard at work weeding and making furrows, it seems the miscreants have been having a field day – if you will pardon the slip, selling trees worth Rs 20 million. Investigations have revealed that the miscreants are hooked up with the timber mafia in South American and have been denuding the area. That is pretty serious stuff when you consider that anything to do with denuding is going to send the MMA into a heavenly trance. Just as well they haven’t heard about Okara, too busy measuring their shalwar-kameezes. To spoil the broth, some incompetent Auditor General – surely not a general who is an auditor also, has gone and in a special report, identified at least nine cases of mismanagement and corruption with pilferage amounting to a cool Rs 236 million. This is of course too much for the Rangers to take, blamed as they are for every thing that’s gone bad in Okara.

In all this, about 18 rustics have kicked the bucket, although here too the forces of evil are plotting and scheming against the good guys. The Rangers say only 4 or so have died, shot most probably by other rustics or stray bullets from Al Qaeda operatives on the run. If the Rangers are responsible, it can only be in self-defence. A rustic armed with a staff can be a pretty scary sight for the bravest of jawans. And so it goes on and with miscreants, terrorists and criminals all ganging up, things are grim at the farm. As usual, there is no one to defend the cause of the Rangers and if the President looks the other way, their goose is as good as cooked. A fund for the defence of our beloved defenders is the need of the hour and all good folk should line up at full speed.