‘One who hasn’t seen Lahore isn’t born yet’ was an old saying about Lahore. The new one is: ‘one who is born in Lahore is going to die soon’. The city has earned the honour of being one of the most polluted cities of the world. It hasn’t happened in a day. The drift has been gradual.

Traditionally, Lahore has been a city of gardens from the Mughal era onward. Vestiges of some such gardens are still there as a historical memory such as Chauburji Bagh (Princess Zebun Nisa Garden), Badami Bagh, and Angoori Bagh. Shalamar Garden is still there in an unenviable condition though. It’s well known that Mughal emperors, princes and princesses loved Lahore and tried to keep its environment clean and healthy. Apart from gardens and green patches, the city had a sizable number of Rakhs (Rakh is a Punjabi word which means a protected forest/ woodland /timberland). The British Raj promulgated a number of laws to preserve and protect them.

The Rakh served three main purposes; 1, it provided timber to the army, 2, it provided grazing area for the cattle. 3, It was a source of wood for the local market. All Rakhs gradually disappeared after the emergence of Pakistan. Have you heard of Rakh Kot Lakhpat, Rakh Shahdara, Rakh Tallaha and Rakh Raiwind? They were mini jungles that functioned as a natural oxygen tent for Lahore.

It’s now difficult to breathe in Lahore because of polluted air. People especially the elderly and vulnerable are falling sick as there is no escape from what chokes their throats. The last three decades have been quite tough for the city. The administration and the decision makers despite their professed love for Lahore have done everything that ecologically and environmentally damaged it. The main reason is that there is no representative city government. Bureaucracy and political class neither sought people’s input nor allowed free public debate on the so-called projects they launched for the uplift of the metropolis.

Let’s look briefly at the initiatives that have created an asphyxiating mess with disastrous consequences. A, property sharks have been allowed to buy agricultural lands that surround the city for residential and commercial purposes. The officials call it development, which they claim, has eased the pressure on the housing problem. They first, it must be remembered, discouraged vertical construction by allowing only two floors for the houses. Then touting the housing shortage they gave licence to the property developers to gobble the lands that environmentally and ecologically protected Lahore with bush, crops, trees and flora and fauna.

B, In the name of broadening roads and creating signal-free corridors green patches and belts have been destroyed and millions of trees killed for the benefit of puffed-up motorists who don’t know how to drive sensibly. Instead of training and disciplining the drivers they encouraged them to indulge in reckless speeding at the expense of the city’s health.

C, in the north of the city there was a big area across the dried-up river Ravi that had fruit gardens and grew vegetables and flowers for the local market. In the year 2020, the then government launched with great fanfare the Ravi Riverfront Urban Development Project in this very area. It displaced farmers, indulged in land grabbing by forcing the owners to sell the pieces of their lands at throwaway prices for the benefit of commercial developers.

The Ravi Urban Development Authority (Ruda), concerned with the project makes tall claims in highfalutin language about reviving the river whose waters Pakistan had sold to India long ago. The Ravi is now a stinking sewer as everything that contaminates and pollutes is thrown into it by industrial units.

Low and behold, without fresh water and regulating the industrial waste they claim we would see the river flowing as it was seven decades ago. This area which is now with the property tycoons along the Ravi used to function as the lungs of north Lahore. It’s not a small area by any standard. It is spread over 40,000 hectares ( 100,000 acres).

D, Central Business District (CBD) was established in 2021 in Lahore in a high density posh area called Gulberg. Land measuring 158 acres was in possession of Walton Airport which was initially taken from the Forest Department in Rakh Kot Lakhpat and village Bhabhra in 1930. The Punjab government later transferred more land to it. Its land worth Rs350 billion was sold for Rs50bn flouting all the rules, it is alleged. The racket is being probed by concerned agencies. CBD was handed over 295 acres of land at the expense of a number of nurseries and green belts and patches. The area would have vertically constructed in concrete facilitating the corporate sector. The scale of activities and traffic congestion would further pollute Lahore’s air and sky. With the destruction of the area’s ecology and environment, CBD plans to work ‘towards a prosperous future by promoting comprehensive and sustainable projects that enhance the urban landscape.’ By urban landscape they surely mean constructed monstrosity in a city that pants breathlessly.

The lords and the masters of Lahore have made it unlivable with their plans and projects designed to the advantage of the rich and the powerful. Now when it’s crunch time they are out looking for a scapegoat. The easiest target is the farming community which is accused of choking the city with their stubble burning while the fact is that auto vehicles, poorly regulated industrial activities, elimination of trees and construction dust hugely pollute the atmosphere, environment and air at local level. They cannot even stop the steel industries from using the used tyres as fuel that emit highly poisonous fumes making 40 of the per cent population in the area beyond Baghbanpura seriously sick. They take cosmetic measures to improve the situation. Soon they would advise the people groaning under the unbearable inflation and high prices of consumables to buy air purifiers. Can someone count how much it would cost the people and public hospitals to treat allergies, respiratory diseases, lung cancer and heart conditions caused by air pollution in the wake of official inaction? Above all, the uplift programmes conceived in snooty isolation will get us nowhere. — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, November 4th, 2024