The people who live in Muslim Colony are the early architects of Islamabad, but are still denied basic utilities
ONCE in a while, I visit Islamabad to keep myself abreast with the latest scams and political shenanigans — who is doing what and making how much in the bargain. There I meet my bureaucrat friends who are never happy with any regime, in spite of all the powers and perks they enjoy. I get an update about the grades distribution, suspensions, O.S.Dships and out-of-turn promotions — the game Islamabad-based friends play with such fervour and zeal that it appears an end-all, be-all activity. There, I also have chance encounters with ‘wizards’ of all kinds who have risen to the level of their incompetence and commensurately rewarded by all successive regimes.
Since I have an NGO connection also, I meet NGO stalwarts, too. There are many of them in Islamabad. My meetings with NGO friends lead me from one meeting to another. It is interesting to know how many workshops, training programmes, seminars and symposia are in progress in Islamabad on any given day (from ‘Local-Local Initiative’ to ‘Global Governance’) and how much money is being spent on them. NGOwallas announce the demise of the government with great relish and claim to have all the answers to this poor nation’s problems. It is another thing that most of them have the same weaknesses for which they criticize the government: dependency on foreign assistance; lavish expenditure on overheads; lack of transparency; fixed notions about development and a fondness for borrowed ideas.
One day, I was having lunch with a glamorous foreign journalist in the coffee shop of the only five-star hotel of Islamabad (which, at any given time, is full of foreign consultants, con men, budding and burnt-out politicians and surveillance staff — all in that order) and discussing the causes of Karachi’s worsening situation. She appeared to be listening to me rather carefully and also taking notes, as if I had all the answers. I gave her the historical background of Karachi’s travails and highlighted the incapability of our out-dated system to meet the challenge of managing a megapolis, coupled with continued lack of investment by most governments which has resulted in a near breakdown of civic services, and given rise to high unemployment for educated youth.
Both the things are perceived to be great injustice to Karachi which provides 60 per cent tax revenue to the central government. To top it all, eleven years of Zia’s rule brutalized the society to a great extent and promoted divisiveness, bigotry and militancy. Easy availability of arms in the aftermath of the Afghan war made it easy for unemployed youth to take to crime.
She didn’t believe a bit when I told her that in spite of incidents of sniper firing and a large number of killings during the last few months, Karachi is still a bustling city. A feeling of insecurity, a strange type of uncertainty and lurking fear was no doubt there, but schools and universities were open; cinema halls and theatres were full; business and trade was thriving (specially in peri-urban areas and kutchi abadis); construction activity continued unabated and surprisingly there was an upswing in the real estate market. This showed the great economic potential of Karachi and the resilience of the people, but to outsiders this was a baffling phenomenon.
She also didn’t believe me that in spite of the organized terrorist activity, which apparently aimed at destabilizing the government and using the troubled Karachi as a springboard for some undefined adventurism, there was a strong desire in the people to fight back and face the adversity with equanimity. It was this dignity and courage of ordinary Karachiites which was a sign of hope in an otherwise depressing situation. For the first time, the middle classes, professional groups and even women were organizing themselves and trying to find answers to the deteriorating law and order situation. Discussions recently held by the Women Peace Committee and other concerned citizen’s groups were a case in point.
I had hardly finished my comments when two young men from a kutchi abadi in Islamabad came looking for me and ignoring the presence of my companion (a little to my annoyance), asked me to visit their basti. They needed my advice in tackling some of their problems. I reluctantly agreed to go with them. From the rarified atmosphere of a five-star hotel to a kutchi abadi was quite a change. But it was an interesting visit and an eye-opener.
This kutchi abadi (known as Muslim Colony) is situated on Noorpur Shahan Road and is almost in the shadows of Aiwan-i-Sadar. These people came to the Federal Capital Area in the mid-60s and were the early architects of Islamabad. When they came here, they were kept in camping areas and were allowed to improvize their shelter with their own money. This settlement now has around 1,200 houses with a population of 8,000 people. Even after 25 years of continued stay, they live in constant danger of eviction. And in spite of the fact that they live very close to the planned area of Islamabad, they have no electricity, no sewerage lines, no roads and hardly any water to drink. There are no facilities for health and family planning. There is only one three-room primary school which caters to the needs of this sprawling settlement. This is the primary school I want to write about in this piece.
The condition of this school is symptomatic of our iniquitous system, centralization of authority, incompetence to deliver social services to the target groups and weaknesses of our entire development strategy. The primary school building consists of three kutcha rooms which do not have any doors or windows. The floor is also kutcha and so is the compound. What is most striking is that there is not a single bench in the school, nor even a mat or a dari. The children have to sit on the dusty floor in the semi-lit, dingy rooms in the nearly-freezing temperatures of the Islamabad winter. There is no arrangement for drinking water or toilet, too.
Some people may say that the condition of the school is deplorable because it exists in an unauthorized settlement. No! This school represents all those thousands of primary schools which are spread over the length and breadth of Pakistan, and face the same fate even after 56 years of independence. Some of them may have beautiful buildings, but most of them lack teachers, benches, blackboards, drinking water and clean toilets. In addition, there are thousands of ‘ghost’ primary schools and teachers who, in collusion with their respective education departments, draw salaries without doing any work. On the other hand, 32pc of primary schools in Punjab alone are without shelter while 39pc are being run in single rooms.
What is most striking about the Muslim Colony primary school is that it exists in the heart of Islamabad which is burdened with an oversize education ministry, large number of international organizations, political parties of all hues and colours, and to cap it all, a plethora of NGOs. What do the children of this primary school feel when they see brand new BMWs and shining Mercedes’ cruising all day along their basti? NGOwallas sometimes visit their school, but they also have their own Land Cruisers. The poor children must always be comparing these expensive showpieces with their school building and the kutcha floor they sit on. What conclusions they must be drawing is for everyone to guess.
If I am not wrong, there are several projects for opening new primary schools, funded by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. Everyday we see notices in newspapers inviting tenders for new buildings. But is it going to solve our problems? Do we really need foreign assistance to open new schools and to improve the conditions of the existing ones? Can the World Bank ensure that the teachers would attend to their duties regularly? Can we increase the level of their competence through the Social Action Programme? Isn’t it surprising that in spite of all the claims, Pakistan perhaps is the only country in the region where 50pc children even now have no primary school to go to? How can we increase our literacy rate with this approach?
What is ailing our primary education? It is neither lack of money nor lack of manpower. It is basically the problem of our approach and the way we manage our resources. Should we continue to spend our scarce resources on brick and mortar alone, and ‘waste’ Rs1.5 million on each primary school building which takes five years to complete, or improve our existing schools by appointing local teachers, authorizing them to arrange benches, blackboards, drinking water and toilets at their own level? And at the second stage, devise small refresher courses for the teachers and improve the textbooks.
The organization of our primary education needs total decentralization and participation of communities, so that the teachers may be recruited from the area (where schools function) and supervised by a committee appointed by parents. New schools should start with one room, provided a local teacher (preferably a female one) is available. The school building can be constructed incrementally if the number of students increases each year.
If we don’t adopt the innovative, cost-effective approaches for our primary education right now, we are sure to enter the 21st century with a horde of illiterates, all our rhetoric and political sloganeering notwithstanding!
The people who live in Muslim Colony are the early architects of Islamabad, but are still denied basic utilities 
