NOT only does our thought process move at a snail’s pace but in the bargain we self-destruct. For over half a century, the lives of the citizens of Pakistan have been ruled by the ‘core issue’.

Now, fortuitously, we have a man, a soldier at that, who has finally admitted that war over this issue is not an option, and that compromises must be made by both sides. President General Pervez Musharraf has steered the right and proper course. By acknowledging our weaknesses and our shortcomings he has made us stronger.

Why are we now stuck on the ‘uniform issue’, which should, under all circumstances prevailing, be a non-issue? Day after day we are bombarded with conflicting statements, those dependent on Musharraf for their political and official survival begging him not to give up his post of COAS, those opposing him ‘demanding’ that he step down. The ruling coalition is weak and corrupt, the opposition the same. It is not the clothes that count, but who and what is inside them.

There are few alive today who will remember the meeting of that great leader of men, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, with King George V on a wintry rainy day at Buckingham Palace. The King’s courtiers politely suggested that Gandhi wear a suit for the audience rather than his habitual loin-cloth. However, the ‘naked fakir’ chose to ignore them and met the King Emperor attired as always. It was what he told George V that mattered, that counted. On his way out the pressmen jokingly asked him “Don’t you feel our English cold? Aren’t you freezing?” “No,” replied Gandhi, “The King’s clothes kept us both warm.”

On to the serious issue of the violation of the city of Karachi, on which voices raised in protest could well count. It is an established fact that the city has no qualified master planner. News has it that tenders have been invited from firms of master planners. All very well, but then what starting point do they have, what data do they have with which to work? And who cares? That is exactly the point in question — but a mere handful of concerned citizens.

The people of Karachi, for ever grousing and grumbling about its filth, its hazards, its congestion and its lack of infrastructure, are apathetic when it comes to standing up and demanding their rights as citizens and taxpayers. They obviously fail to realize that those in charge of the development of the city have, over the years, violated and ruined the initial well-laid-out area development schemes drawn up by qualified, committed men. The corrupt followers have made no urban renewal plans, they have provided no additional utilities, they have reinforced no infrastructure — in fact, it would seem that they have, for illegal gain, or through ignorance and carelessness, deliberately decided to destroy Karachi, leaving nothing but an unmanageable mess for the generations to come.

Let us take one case in point. A builder-government nexus out to make a profit of some three billion rupees is planning to ‘commercialize’ a strip of land around St Andrew’s Church in the centre of Saddar Bazaar (on the corner of Abdullah Haroon Road, Preedy Street and Garden Road). This is one of the few remaining open spaces in the area. But who amongst our elected and non-elected officials bothers about the rules and regulations specifying that amenity plots cannot be commercialized, that the church is a notified heritage, that road-widening cut-lines affect two boundaries, and that this particular area is already choked and smothered with traffic and illegal parking?

An attempt to do this same wrong way back in 1976 was quashed by an upright commissioner of Karachi who correctly stated : “Since Saddar is a congested area, and no amenity plot can be converted for commercial purposes under law, the case stands closed and cannot be reopened.” That upright commissioner was Syed Sardar Ahmad who now sits in a higher chair, that of the MQM senior minister of finance of the government of Sindh. The case has been reopened by his administration. Has he forgotten his order?

A hundred yards or so down the road from the church a giant crater straddles Victoria and Garden Roads. The intended project is a huge 17-storey commercial complex (shown in the builder’s brochure) to be known as ‘Al-Najeebi Electronic Bazaar’. If and when it rises, it will add some 300-400 vehicles to the already chaotic traffic and parking in the area. (Syed Sardar Ahmad in 1976 called the area ‘congested’. Now, when the population of the city has increased threefold, the description ‘congested’ is a gross understatement.)

Moving further down Abdullah Haroon Road, plans are afoot to convert another amenity plot, the Star Cinema, and set up yet another monstrous electronic market. Again, the mad traffic scenario permits no parking or loading/unloading spaces.

The going rate for shops in this popular area is Rs.60,000 per square foot and there is no dearth of takers. Our present rampant and senseless consumerism has converted the entire Saddar area into a public nuisance of horrible proportions.

Back to the powerful and influential Syed Sardar Ahmed, senior minister of this province, who once, many years ago, felt for Karachi, its citizens and its welfare and who did right. Can he not revive his old self and come to the rescue of this city so rapidly being destroyed?

This newspaper yesterday carried a highly relevant editorial, the third (which I always read first) under the caption ‘Flawed flyovers’, and on the front page of the Metropolitan section was a news item headlined ‘Amenity plot in Gulistan occupied by land-grabbers’. That the local government connives at all this cannot be doubted by any of us.

When Shaukat Aziz was a mere finance minister he was convinced by the local Karachi building mafia and the then Sindh governor, myopic Mohammadmian Soomro, that by regularizing illegal constructions and land use changes the government coffers would swell by some Rs.10 billion. He was wrongly convinced. The building industry has not jump-started as was forecast, and by further multiplying illegalities less than one tenth of the expected amount flowed into the government treasury.

Now that Mr Aziz has assumed greater responsibility will he perhaps realize his mistake and as one of his first acts in government suspend the ill-conceived regularization ordinance so damaging to this city of Karachi?