VIP Movement

MARCH 2001 - Yousaf is at the wheel of the yellow, slightly rickety Suzuki Mehran taxi, as we detour past a heavily barricaded, military policed Blue Area in Islamabad, last Sunday. He curses loudly and swings out into the side lane. The wide, sweeping dual boulevard of the Blue Area is totally deserted except for the barricades and the starched policemen. More or less, that has been the picture, off and on, for the past month and more as rehearsals for the 23rd March parade have continued in royal indifference to public complaints and outcry at the gross inconvenience these activities have caused.

As the 737 lands at Lahore airport later that day, it is strange to see it parking miles away from the main building in an area where foreign flights usually end or originate. As we trundle to the terminal in a bus, more deserted vistas sweep before us. There is not a soul around at Lahore’s main terminal and neither is there any aircraft. A glittering, white solitary executive jet however stands in splendid isolation. I spy a PIA employee and ask him the silly question why our flight has been made to park so far away. He looks at me slightly sheepishly, glances at the sleek jet and says, ‘VIP Movement.’ ‘Which VIP?’ I ask. ‘The president,’ he replies. ‘So?’ I ask, ‘does he fear us? What will we do to him?’ In reply he shrugs resignedly. ‘It is our misfortune,’ he says quietly. ‘This VIP culture is a curse and it will never go away.’ I mutter a few choice and chaste Punjabi expletives and we go our respective ways.

The parade is the pride and joy of all those who wear starched clothes, shiny black boots and decorated chests, sashes and other adornments galore, but it does nothing for the ordinary man. On the Islamabad morning, Yousaf cursed heavily as he tossed an Urdu paper that lay across the dashboard. ‘Gas is up 15%’ he told me ‘and they still say it will not affect the common man. You know why?’ I shake my head. ‘Because there are no common people. They don’t exist for the rulers and the faujis are the rulers, always have been even when they were not ruling directly. I get into this wretched taxi at daybreak and get out close to midnight – maybe with 400 or 500 rupees, but whatever I earn, my expenses waiting at home are always more. It will never change. And I am still the lucky one. I have some ‘rozy’. Others are worse off and we have parades.’ His next few curses are drowned out as 4 F-16s scream past us. ‘They have been doing this day after day,’ he shouts over the noise. ‘When there is a war on, you never see them.’

As the faujis have settled in for another innings, gradually the privileges and touches of royalty that surround our exalted highnesses, have all started to become more and visible. It is the only way our rulers have always understood and taken as their divine right. Therefore, under cover of that monster word, security, all kinds of insults and degradation are heaped on the people, who suffer in silence as they have almost all their lives. The VIPs aircraft must stand alone because the person who rides in it is the President and he can’t mingle with the people, because he is so special. He is not here to serve the people. The people are here to serve him. What would happen were the PIA flight to disembark next to His Highness’s jet? Is it likely that a mother with two children would be able to juggle the two infants, bags, milk bottles and still manage to toss a hand grenade to blow up the empty jet? The mind boggles! But security is serious business and VIP Movement, which excuse me, reminds me always of ‘bowel movement’ is even more serious business. When General Pervez Musharraf arrived on this unhappy land some 17 months back, he spoke like an average Pakistani, no airs, no frills, no rhetoric. From BB’s shrill denouncements to the Big Turnip’s moronic pronouncements, the no-nonsense General sounded like a man who was above the petty trappings of power that go to the head of whoever is ruling in Islamabad. About the great and lofty promises made to the people – the famous 7 point agenda, not much needs to be said since the CE recently declared he had failed on most, but there certainly was an expectation that VIP culture which is an infection the Pakistani people loathe, was finished. We were all wrong.

What purpose does the 23rd March and its ensuing frivolities serve other than to waste more of the people’s money on more meaningless charades? Does the sight of our military might send a shiver down our hostile neighbour’s spine or does it send a message to the Pakistani people to remember who has the gun and who doesn’t? The entire exercise is a colossal waste of money and no one knows precisely how much is spent on this event which has no public demand or public popularity, but who is going to tell GHQ that? Even the defence forces are strapped for cash, but that is a very relative situation. Why waste this time and money and cause untold inconvenience to the people, particularly those who by misfortune live in Islamabad or have work to do in areas where the parade takes place? And why must it be on public roads and why must it disrupt public life? If the bright idea is to build a viable corporate image for the defence forces, then the exercise is a PR nightmare because ask Yousaf or anyone else in Islamabad and rest assured that it will be unprintable.

It is not for hacks like us to offer advice to those who know and understand far more than we do, but the truth is that once again, the rulers are separated from those they rule and are no longer able to gauge what their fellow Pakistanis in the street so to speak, feel. The sight of black limos swishing down empty avenues with people herded like criminals to the sides, may send a charge up their excellencies but the reality is that it is one more nail into the coffin and one more stake into the heart of all those who only dreamt about a country where the rulers would rule for the common good of their people.