Remember ‘Imagine’? John Lennon wrote and sang this song in 1971 when Vietnam War was raging. The widespread destruction caused by the US aggression against the people of Vietnam had created an air of despair but had also brought people together in worldwide protests against the imperialist savagery.

This song which envisaged a different world became a lasting emblem of hope in a bitterly divided world. Let’s try to create a sort of local version of the song.

Imagine we have a decolonised state; democratic and representative of people’s aspirations with its welfare agenda. People would not fear the organs of the state having coercive power as it’s to be used only to avert anarchy and chaos. State employees from the lowly to top ranking follow the law to make things easier for the people who pay for their upkeep so that we wouldn’t end up in the situation we are in where government servants are paid for doing nothing and are bribed to do things they are supposed to do.

Imagine we are less in number. Overall resources of the planet are limited and our country is especially resource poor. It’s especially so in human resources. Less in number we get bigger share of the national pie and have a brighter chance of having better life. Rid of temptations to raise large families we have less stressful life. Thus we leave the situation behind where elite encourages increase in the population with the hideous motive of ensuring the continuous surplus supply of cheap labour. Working and middle classes, assured of social and economic justice, don’t feel compelled to make more babies in a desperate bid to buttress their uncertain future. How horrible is the current situation in which no one helps the people ‘because it’s so many who are suffering’. But ‘should one not help them all the more because they are many? One helps them less’.

Imagine we in Punjab and Sindh have our fields rid of sugar mills. These fields because of hot and dry weather conditions are most suitable for cultivating cotton crop that consumes less water and is in demand the world over. Greek armies when they saw the crop ready for picking thought that it was white wool that grew on plants. But now it is sugarcane area as per official policy. Sugarcane crop is what one may call water guzzler. The areas officially designated for sugarcane plantation have low annual rainfall and are semi-arid. Canal water is insufficient. Massive pumping is done to extract water from the underground aquifers. The result is that underground water level has dangerously gone down which is an omen of impending disaster. Sugar can be imported easily and cheaply but our rapacious elite with its policy of no holds barred indulges in the dirty of making a quick buck at the cost of ecology and economy. How does it ruthlessly exploits the growers or evades taxes is another story.

Imagine the Potohar plateau as it was before the appearance of cement factories. The plateau with its gently undulating terrain is one of the most magical places in the country. It’s as beautiful as it is old. It has thousands of years old history. Its spectacular forts and wonderfully carved temples, now in ruins as a result of Punjab’s partition, are testaments to its past glory. It sports a range of wild and bird life with a number of lakes, falls, streams and fresh water natural ponds. Its prized animal ‘Urial’ is world known for being a rare breed.

Cement factories allowed in the area without diligent deliberation and input from the people who are the biggest stakeholders have wreaked havoc with its biodiversity and ecosystem. Bulk of raw material used by the factories is local. They eat up the hills looking for limestone. Secondly, they are fast depleting natural aquifers to satisfy their gargantuan appetite for water. It’s believed that factories were supposed to have water supplied from the river Jhelum. But the powerful can circumvent the law at will. Now you see many hills with their tops lopped off and misshapen slopes denuded of shrubs and grass. The situation has come to such a pass that the very existence of invaluable historical Katas Raj complex with its built and delicately carved Shiv temples and magnificent Buddhist stupa is threatened. The sacred pond, it’s believed, created by the tears Lord Shiva shed after the death of his beloved wife Sati in a state of inconsolable grief has almost dried because the streams that fed it have been sucked dry by the cement factories. On this revered site Pandava brothers, Mahabharata tells us, spent quite some years after their banishment from the kingdom of Hastinapur.

Imagine the Potohar with its plateau, historical sites and sacred monuments intact. Imagine how hauntingly beautiful it would be if the predators stop mauling it. May be you would see towering Al-Biruni measuring radius of the earth at Nandana using trigonometry.

Imagine our land peppered with trees, forests and mangroves (Bela) from north to south. Tall and stately deodar (Indian Cedar) trees up in the north merging with the blue of the sky not only produce oxygen for the residents to breathe but also hold the green and muddy mountains together minimising the chances of soil erosion and landslides. Belas (mangroves) in Punjab and Sindh provide grass for the cattle and help in saving the soil from eroding. They sport a variety of river and sea life, and keep the air clean. But whatever grows in our land is either spoilt or destroyed by our insatiable greed. So let’s imagine the past as future in some way to ensure the survival of all species native to our land.

Realists and rationalists would ridicule this imagine thing as a futile mental exercise cut off from the ground reality. It may seems so but let’s not forget that anything that has improved human life first came as an idea, a thought, or a fanciful suggestion triggered by imagination. Our imagination is what distinguishes us from other species; we can build future plans in imagination. So why not to imagine our land the way we want it to be? —soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2024