Pakistan: Pleasantly Surprised, In Islamabad

[CMY]

Islamabad is surely the most well-organised, picturesque and endearing city in all of South Asia. Few Indians would, however, know this, or, if they did, would admit it. After all, the Indian media never
highlights anything positive about Pakistan, because for it only ‘bad’
news about the country appears to be considered ‘newsworthy’. That
realization hit me as a rude shock the moment I stepped out of the
plane and entered Islamabad’s plush International Airport, easily far
more efficient, modern and better maintained than any of its
counterparts in India. And right through my week-long stay in the
city, I could not help comparing Islamabad favourably with every other South Asian city that I have visited.

That week in Islamabad consisted essentially of a long string of
pleasant surprises, for I had expected Islamabad to be everything that the Indian media so uncharitably and erroneously depicts Pakistan as.
The immigration counter was staffed by a smart young woman, whose
endearing cheerfulness was a refreshing contrast to the grave, somber and unwelcoming looks that one is generally met with at immigration counters across the world that make visitors to a new country feel instantly unwelcome. Outside the airport, Nadeem, a driver sent to pick me up, gave me a warm handshake, and when, shortly after, he learnt that my grandfather was born in his own native Abbotabad, a town not far from the Afghan frontier, he pressed on me a hearty, sweaty hug.

‘Bhai Sahib, This is the land of your ancestors!’, Nadeem beamed. He
insisted that I travel with him to Abbotabad and stay with him in his
home and try and search for the house where my grandfather had lived before the Partition. I seriously wished I could, I told him, but the vexing visa regime between India and Pakistan strictly forbids
citizens of both countries from stepping out of the cities for which
they have been granted permission to visit.

No sooner has the visitor stepped off the plane in Islamabad and
drives into the city than he is forced to realize that whatever the
Indian media says about Pakistan and its people is basically bogus.
No, Pakistan is not a ‘fundamentalist’ country, teetering on the verge
of a take-over by ‘religious radicals’. No, Pakistan is not a
‘prison-house of Muslim women’, who are allegedly forced into wearing
tent-like burkhas. No, Pakistan is not a ‘failed state’ that produces
nothing. Flowing beards and skull-caps are conspicuous by their rarity
in Islamabad as are burkhas. Women drive and shop and work in
government and private offices. Most basic consumer items are produced within the country. And, as in India, despite government ineptitude and convoluted elite politics, the country survives and is not on the verge of total collapse, contrary to what Indians are made to believe.

The Islamabad Club, where the organizers of the conference I had come to attend had put me up, seems like a relic from colonial times, only that it was built much after the British departed. It is the favourite haunt of Islamabad-based bureaucrats, army officers and landlords, heavily subsidized for their benefit, as in the case of similarly stuffy elite watering holes in India. I would have actually preferred to stay in much more austere surroundings—after all our conference was all about democracy and social justice in South Asia—but I comforted myself with the thought that a bit of luxury for just a few days would not do me major harm.

Islamabad, in some senses, is like Chandigarh: a new, planned, modern
city, set up on decidedly Western lines. It was founded in the 1960s
when the capital of Pakistan was shifted from Karachi. It straddles
the foothills of the Margalla range, which leads on to Kashmir in the
north-east and the North-West Frontier Province, near Afghanistan, in
the west. It is divided into numerous zones, each having its own
markets, schools and other such institutions. The city’s roads are
fantastically smooth and wide and enclosed by broad grassy banks.
Carefully manicured gardens and thickly wooded parks stretch for
miles. Cobbled paths lead up to trekking trails in the nearby
mountains and enormous bungalows enclosed in private gardens line the streets. The air is remarkably clean and crisp, traffic jams are rare, and one can reach one end of the city from the other within just half an hour.

Since Islamabad is a new city, it boasts no historical monuments worth seeing. Yet, the city has its own share of attractions for the
visitor. The massive Pakistan National Monument atop a hill that
commands a majestic view of Islamabad is an architectural marvel, and so is the massive Faisal Mosque, one of the largest mosques in Asia, so expansive that it accommodates an entire university in its
basement. Equally bold and striking are the Pakistan National
Assembly, the President’s House, the Prime Minister’s Secretariat, the
Supreme Court and a host of other swank buildings housing government offices that line the main Constitution Avenue. The Rawal lake on the outskirts of the town extends far into the distance till it meets the horizon, and, like the rest of Islamabad, it is clean to the point of appearing thoroughly sanitized, at least to the Indian eye. On the banks of the lake are a number of welcoming restaurants, and a small, whitewashed temple, a testimony to the times when, before the Partition, there was a sizeable Hindu community in the area. Nestled on the other side of the lake is the glamorous Daman-e Koh or ‘The Lap of the Mountains’, a thickly forested valley, and the best way to spend an evening in Islamabad is to drive up there for the icy breeze, a dinner of biryani and an assortment of kababs, a live band singing melancholic Hindi film numbers from the 1960s and a panoramic view of the city below.

The suave and gracious Kamran Lashari, head of the Capital Development Authority (CDA), the body entrusted with developing Islamabad, was our host one night, having invited us to a sumptuous dinner at the fabulous Lake View Park, a large expanse of green located on the banks of a placid lake at the edge of town. I tell him, and I hope he knows I am serious, that Islamabad is the best city I have ever seen in South Asia and remark on how well-managed it is. And so do the other Indians who have also been invited that evening, fellow participants in the conference.

Lashari tells us, and he has every right to beam with pride at this,
that till he took over his present position some four years ago, the
annual budget of the CDA was a billion rupees, with some eight-tenths
of this being funded by the Government and the remainder being
self-generated. Today, the CDA’s budget has increased twenty-five
fold, and the ratios for government and self-generated funds have been reversed. He talks excitedly of his future plans, of the many new
architects, designers and construction companies that have come up in Pakistan in recent years and about how he hopes to work with some of them for projects that he has conceived.

For fellow Punjabis like myself, Islamabad feels just like home. Most
of the city’s inhabitants, as indeed most Pakistanis, are Punjabis,
and are essentially no different from fellow Punjabis across the
border in India, although, I personally feel, perhaps a shade better
looking! And, as an employee of the Indian High Commission in
Pakistan, who travelled in the same plane as myself on my return, also
a fellow Punjabi, quite rightly remarked, ‘If you want to learn
etiquette, learn it from the Islamabadis’.

But then, Islamabad is as representative or otherwise of Pakistan as
posh South Delhi or any other similar elite-inhabited part of any
other Indian city is of India as a whole. Islamabad is decidedly
elitist, the poor, mainly people who work in the homes of the rich and
for the CDA, being confined to a few anonymous working class
localities in the city or commuting everyday from neighbouring
Rawalpindi. As Zaman Khan, a burly, friendly worker in a posh
restaurant quipped when we got down to talking about mounting
inflation and rapidly expanding socio-economic inequalities in India
and Pakistan, ‘There’s hardly any difference between our two
countries. I am sure you have fancy quarters in cities in India that
are reserved just for the rich, just as Islamabad has. What difference
does it make if the houses and localities of the rich are so beautiful
and comfortable? The rich here and in India as well must be equally
indifferent to poor people like us.’

True enough, and yet another thing of the many things that India and
Pakistan have in common. But notwithstanding Zaman Khan’s astute
observation, Islamabad, I must admit, excited me in a special way, and I long to return soon.