Hajj Odyssey Part 2: Unbridled local economy of holy cities —By Saeed Minhas

[Lahore_Real_Estate]

A Hajj journey wrapped in absolute mismanagement, fiefdoms of corruption and heaps of officialdom was a brain child of various mafias working within and with the help of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, headed by Secretary Agha Sarwar Qazalbash and monitored by Religious Affairs Minister Hamid Saeed Kazmi, State Minister Shagufta Jamani, parliamentary committees of both Houses with constant bugging of the Khans such as Pakistani Ambassador Umer Sher Zai, a well entrenched translator Behrullah Hazarvi and scores of middlemen patronised by various bigwigs of the ministry.

From ground zero in Makkah and Madina, every pilgrim was subjected to extra physical and psychological torture because many had problems with residences, transportation and lack of guidance. Every official in the Pakistani Hajj Directorate or missions one visited in both holy cities had a story to tell, making one believe that except him everyone else had benefited from an accumulated corruption of around Rs 5 billion. It included the selling of Hajj forms and quotas from the offices of Secretary Qazalbash (a distant relative of renowned film-star Reema) and the office of the minister at an estimated cost of Rs 17,000 to Rs 20,000 per form. Only on this account, it is estimated that the big offices of our religious ministry benefited to the tune of over Rs 2 billion, confirmed not one, but many people who themselves bought these forms from one of the two offices. Then the corruption saga included hiring of the buildings, arranging the transportation, selecting ‘khudamul Hajjaj’ (servants for pilgrims), arranging tents at Mina and Arafat and even doling out contracts for canteens in these camps.

While passing through the rituals of Hajj, I was not the only one to find out that a majority of the pilgrims were placed within three to nine kilometres, resulting in making the pilgrims pay more than Rs 1,200 for cabs to reach the holy mosque in Makkah, thus overburdening them with financial worries. Interestingly enough, the Saudi government, which is known for having more undercover police than its citizens to ensure complete grip over the visitors and population, seems to turn blind eye towards these fleecing cab drivers. If fares during normal days was 15 Saudi Riyals, then all of them were asking for over 50 Riyals from those performing the religious journey. Even if you ask the only Arabic speaking police bolshies’, no one will first understand you, and if you manage to convey your protest, they will only yell at their highest pitch yallah (meaning, if not literally, then metaphorically, shut up and move on).

One wonders why on earth we all hit on the Pakistani government for failing to control fleecing at the advent of Ramazan or any other religious festival, because if the Kingdom cannot control these kind of things at one of the most pious Muslim places on earth, then what should we expect from the rulers of the land where God sent neither any prophet nor any million-men gathering taking place at least four times a year.

Taxi drivers or transporters are not the only ones to blame because even vendors were selling half full tea cups for two Riyals, whereas in normal days it is sold for one Riyal and similarly all food items are charged at double price from pilgrims who throng to these holy places by collecting their life-time savings just to ensure that they stand purified of all sins.

Besides this, I also had the experience of buying a 20 Riyal calling card by paying an extra two dollars to a vendor just outside the holy mosque in Makkah, because shopkeepers and vendors had no fear of any authority and felt it their responsibility to extract maximum out of these religious visitors, who come there believing that no worldly sin can be committed in Makkah or Madina.

Enlightening was the comment from a young Arab, who said, “Why should we control the fleecing, because our king believes that no matter whether we have facilities or not, more and more pilgrims should come to both the holy cities so that every poor citizen of the Kingdom should make money from this holy event.”

No doubt, whether the Saudis learn to manage this holy event or not, they have certainly found out that money matters not only for them, but also for their poorest of subjects.

Pilgrims start feeling the hardship – not the proverbial care and kindness as mentioned by the arrogance-filled king’s-men and versions pasted on websites – from the very moment they set foot on the holy land. From Immigration officials, who are equally untrained for speaking English and work as per their shifting moods to landing in over-crowded hotels – if we may call them hotels by any stretch of the imagination – rooms, to visiting the dish-throwing restaurants, riding a cab to buying minutest of things like a water bottle, pilgrims just cannot ignore the ‘hospitality’ and ‘friendly’ atmosphere they find themselves in.

Just a casual estimate reveals that every single pilgrim pumps in around 10,000 Riyals into unbridled and unaccounted local economy of the two holy cities and just imagine when there are over six to seven million pilgrims visiting these two cities every year for Hajj, then another four to five million throng to these cities during the month of Rabiul Awal and then another eight to ten million come to collect religious bounties from the two mosques during Ramazan, then how much finances these uncontrolled local economies collects from these hapless pilgrims.

In most of the hotels that I happened to visit, there were hardly any standards maintained. The Barajul Makkah, where I had to stay, had a fifteen-storey building, but there was neither any fire exit, nor was there any reception for the name sake. There was no room service at all and for fifteen floors, only two sweepers were available and they too were hard to find because many of the rooms with over eight per room were complaining of choked lavatories and even no water for ablution.

I am sure there must have been some kind of hotel standards department in the Kingdom, but was wondering whether it ever works and how on earth it allows such hotels and worst then these ones to operate and endanger the lives of visiting pilgrims.

Officially we were told that the Saudi government holds all these events on a non-profit basis, and that many sponsors from developing countries visit for Hajj, but one can only hope that the Saudis also feel something for the visitors by ensuring some kind of control if not of the same level that they exert to ensure their political grip. That way, not only will they be helping millions of pilgrims financially, but also psychologically. Whether they listen to all this or not cannot be ascertained because the local media people have no issues with these kind of loose arrangements for vendors, cab drivers and even for hotel owners.