On The spot
Tavleen Singh
From the moment I crossed the Wagah border into Pakistan I noticed that there was something different in the air. Something joyous and optimistic that was definitely not there when I came here last in those sad, awful days after Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. I noticed the new hopefulness first in the small terminal building in which you pass through immigration on the surreal border that divides the fields of Indian Punjab from those of Pakistani Punjab. There was no electricity when I got there and the immigration officer said cheerfully, ‘You’ll have to wait a while.’ I told him that I was eager that he let me through as soon as possible because a friend had come to receive me and I did not want to keep her waiting. He said, ‘She is here already waiting in that room over there and you can go and sit with her.’
So technically I entered Pakistan before having my passport stamped. I had not seen Nuscie for more than two years and we had much gossip to catch up on while we waited for the electricity to come back. Inevitably power cuts became the first thing we talked about. She told me that in Lahore there were eighteen-hour power cuts and those who could not afford generators were suffering terribly. She said it was gross mismanagement that had caused the problem. After an hour the immigration officer returned and said that I could come and have my passport stamped now because they had turned on the generator. I asked why they had not done this earlier and he said with a smile ‘because there isn’t enough diesel to run it’.
With an economy in dire straits, with serious problems of terrorism and ethnic violence, with mullahs and military men daily infusing their own kind of terror why did I detect a new buoyancy in the air? Some of it had to do with Imran Khan’s election campaign that had about it the electric quality of a rock concert. Young people seemed to become interested in the politics of their country for the first time ever and I noticed this from the moment I checked in to the Pearl Continental hotel. There was a pretty, young girl at the reception desk and her first question to me was about the election. Instead of asking about the check in formalities she asked who I thought would win. I pointed out that she was in a better position to know this than I was and she laughed and said, ‘I like Imran Khan but I won’t vote for him because I don’t think he can deal with the mess that has been created in the past five years. So I will vote for Nawaz Sharif.’
In the days leading up to the election I was to hear this often in Lahore’s bazaars and drawing rooms. Nearly every young person I met said excitedly that they would be voting for Imran Khan but older people were more cautious and said that although he had brought real magic into the campaign they were not sure that they could vote for him yet. They said that they were worried by the ‘messianic’ quality of Imran’s campaign and his decision to give tickets to untested young people most of whom had never had anything to do with politics before.
So when I wandered about the city on polling day I was already certain that it would be Nawaz Sharif who would win. I decided that I would begin by going into the old city to talk to people who lived in the narrow lanes and crowded bazaars that surround the magnificent Wazir Khan mosque. When I told a friend about my plans she warned me that it could be dangerous. Instead I found that same optimism in the air and long queues of women at polling booths. Voters were happy to tell me who they had voted for and nearly everyone I talked to said that they had voted for the ‘sher’. The lion is the symbol of Sharif’s Muslim League (N). What I also observed on my wanderings was that Lahore was cleaner and more beautiful than I remembered it. When I made inquiries about this I discovered that municipal cleaning and waste disposal services had been outsourced to a Turkish company by Punjab’s Chief Minister, Shahbaz Sharif.
On my last evening I Lahore I met the man himself. The election was over and his older brother all set to become the next prime minister so he was in a relaxed mood. Almost the first question he asked me was how Lahore compared with Delhi and I said that Lahore was definitely cleaner. My answer pleased him and he explained how he had gone about his cleanliness drive and how he had started the metro bus service in which red buses travel in dedicated lanes like trams did in another time. It had made all the difference to the life of ordinary commuters he said.
We talked of things other than municipal governance as well. He came across as a man obsessed by the need to try and do everything in his power to make Pakistan a better place. He talked of how he had set up special ‘daanish’ schools in which the children of the very poor were being given ‘education as good as Aitchison College’ and he said he believed that these schools would go a long way towards reducing his country’s glaring class differences. And, he talked of the importance of peace between India and Pakistan and said his brother had every intention of working towards this.
When I crossed back across the Wagah border the next day I continued to analyze why I thought there was a new cheerfulness in the air of Pakistan and like an epiphany it suddenly came to me that in the three days I spent in Lahore I had met nobody who talked to me about Kashmir or Islam. It was as if the two things that have been at the root of the divisions between India and Pakistan had been relegated to the past. If this has really happened then there is little doubt in my mind that the optimism I detected will grow and grow. Pakistan seems to have moved on but will India seize the moment? If only I could tell you with certainty that we will. I cannot because the baggage of history will surely continue to come in the way.
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