Fatima Jinnah Park – Metaphor for Pakistan's Problems and their Solution

The park and its surroundings give numerous examples of what's wrong with our society and those who manipulate its laws and institutions. Only the intervention of the Supreme Court can correct the injustices and ills in and around the park, and help create a model for change in the country. That

would truly honor the person after which it is named.


A year ago I stood in the middle of a round-about with a hideous centerpiece of two interwoven concrete arches hiding. Within their inners is a fountain which is barely visible even when it works. This is Ghauri Chowk named in honor of the conqueror who was the rival of the Hindu ruler Prithvi Raj in the late 12th century. Before the current tasteless structure was put up, a tall Ghauri missile stood in its place after its test in April 1998 – also called Hatf-5 (meaning "Deadly" or "Vengeance").

Looking north at the southern tip of Fatima Jinnah Park I spot the small group of NGO-types with placards whom I have come to join in protest against the illegal allocation of land for a junk-food outlet. Behind them and the Park's fence shrouded in green synthetic sheets away from public view rises the international eatery, McDonalds, the food franchise owned by Lakson Group.

The U.S. Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has criticized the food at McDonald's restaurants as generally high in fat and cholesterol. As a result their products contribute to heart disease, certain forms of cancer, and other diseases the link between such died and certain diseases are clearly established. Lakson for years having killed with smoke and cigarettes has now moved to doing it with cholesterol and high-fat.

CDA has carved out a large corner (6000 sq yards) of the park for McDonald's at a ridiculously low rental of about Rs 0.3 million per month, and a lease of 33 years. [Even at domestic rates, which are much lower than applicable commercial ones, the rental should be at least Rs 0.36 million or 20% higher than what the burger giant pays to CDA!] Five additional acres will be taken and developed by McDonalds.

A national daily [Dawn, 29th Aug, on its Metropolitan page] headlined, "CDA chief wins the day for McDonald's". This was a report about Mr Kamran Lashari meeting the Public Accounts Committee of the Parliament. It seems easy for sharp civil servants to dupe ill-prepared legislators. The poor reporting failed to mention the context. The controversy surrounding the use of parks by private developers was laid to rest in February 2007 when the Supreme Court ordered Mr Shah Sharabeel, a crony of Mr Kamran Lashari, to stop building an illegal mini golf course in the F-7 Jubilee Park. This judgment with direct bearing on the illegal activities of CDA in the Fatima Jinnah Park, including the McDonald's lease, has been elaborated in papers and petition lodge with the Court by Senator Saadia Abbasi. Sadly, the CDA has also flaunted the Environmental Protection Act for nearly 10 years, and never as blatantly as during the current chairman's reign.

Since the early 90s, when I started to live near the Park, CDA has failed to pay it much attention. There was once talk of the park being converted into a housing estate for Peoples' Party parliamentarians. This was averted by the astute Mr Iqbal Jaffer, the then CDA chairman, who preempted this request and declaring that the Park was to be preserved according to the city's revised master plan of 1988.

Before long, though, there was a successful attack on the park. This was the setting up of Hot Shots, a large entertainment complex inside the F-10 gate of Park. It was common knowledge that this business had the blessings of Pakistan's bomb maker, Dr A.Q. Khan, and no one dare oppose it. The traders and sycophants in the F-10 Markaz cashed in on the explosion of the atomic bomb and named the Markaz after Dr Khan, and set up a black marble obelisk honoring him. After Dr Khan became the fall-guy to quell the nuclear proliferation allegations against Pakistan, Hot Shots fell on hard times, as did the black marble monument, which has crumbled. Also, the Ghauri missile (copy of the liquid-fueled North Korean Nodong) vanished from the roundabout to be replaced with even more ugly concrete arches.

Turn right coming out of the Park's F-10 gate and head towards the Margallas. Soon you cross a skeleton of a tragedy on the left. There in stark grey is the major victim of the Oct 2005 earthquake, the Margalla Tower. Its owner and contractor fled the country to escape punishment. Where's their extradition order! The second anniversary of the falling of the towers still has its old residents and owners not compensated for loss of property. Why, though, have the engineers and surveyors of CDA who certified the building not been hauled up?

Soon as you cross this tragic site, on the right you witness death of another kind. Here Pakistan Tobacco Company has been given the western corner of the sector by CDA to set up a nursery of trees from its city plantation. It is allowed to put up billboards to soften its image while it continues to be one of the largest killer of Pakistanis. It is rivaled in this by Lakson Tobacco, which now cleans its image by selling food having captured the southern corner of the park.

As you turn northwards onto Margalla Road notice a new large development on the left. Here Army engineers have taken over two sectors covering 8 square kilometer for transplantation of the Pindi Cantonment. Billions worth of infrastructure will be left behind in the town that the British set up for the military. There's no promise that the military land and buildings in Pindi will be returned to the public. Also, what about the environmental and cultural impact of such an invasion of Islamabad? No one dare ask, least of all the Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (PEPA) or the political parties who are vying for power. Such a hugely expensive and wasteful move in times of electronic communication and video conferencing cannot be justified on rational grounds.

Take one example of the environmental impact of this move extrapolating from the tube-well water usage in two sectors currently occupied by the Navy and Air Force. There are about 30-odd tube-wells working 20 hours daily and pumping water up from a depth of 250 feet at huge cost. The water table of Islamabad, fast sinking, will need to cope with 30-odd more tube-wells for the Army, thereby further depleting the ground water that's needed by the civilians.

Nearby, as one enters the E-9 gate of the park, Mr Lashari is busy filling the place with concrete at huge cost. Alteration on this scale needed an environmental impact assessment but PEPA was never consulted. What ought to have been a haven for shady trees and beautiful natural paths and places for wildlife to prosper is being turned into a concrete jungle.

On the northern corner of the park one finds an intact missile on display. This is the Shaheen missile (Haft 6, based on a Chinese design) build by a team headed by Dr Khan's rival bomb-maker Dr Samar Mubarakmand. His missile is proudly displayed showing off our ability to kills our neighbors with nuclear weapons that this beast is capable of carrying and delivering in 10 minutes with little chance of interception. Should a country be proud of having such deadly ability? Our military and political hawks tell us that the nukes and the missiles are merely a deterrent to an Indian attack. The real enemy is deprivation though, and it lies within. This is born out of lack of good education, health, justice and enlightenment, which are essential social responsibilities of the state which are currently subverted to build lethal weapons.

Look toward the Presidency at the park's eastern corner and you see nearby the biggest construction project in Islamabad's history, the Centaurus. This elitist enterprise inaugurated by General Musharraf is illegal as it was started without a proper EIA. The press has covered this project in considerable detail as has this author – use Google on the Internet.

One wonders what the ghost of Miss Fatima Jinnah thinks as it flies over the park, surrounded by woeful structures and with its center fast filling up with cement. The only bit of filling she knew of was the amalgam she had used as a dentist in Bombay starting in 1923 as the first qualified Muslim dentist in India.

Paying tribute to her sister, the Quaid once said, "My sister was like a bright ray of light and hope whenever I came back home and met her. Anxieties would have been much greater and my health much worse, but for the restraint imposed by her". The park named after her was meant to provide the same peace to those who lived in Islamabad as she provided to her brother.

In the 1960s, Miss Jinnah ran for the presidency of Pakistan in opposition to Ayub Khan the country's first dictator. In her early rallies nearly 250,000 people turned out to see her in Dhaka, and a million lined the 293 mile route from there to Chittagong. The crowds hailed her as the mother of the nation.

She lost the election, but only narrowly, winning a majority in some provinces. The election did not conform to international standards and journalists, as well as subsequent historians, have often suggested it was rigged in favor of the Field Marshal.

Today the park named after her is in jeopardy of being surrounded by illegal projects and developments that smack of inequity and poor taste. She may need the services of the most astute lawyer available to plead the case for restoring sanity to the park. Could she persuade her famous brother to take up the cause in today re-energized Supreme Court. Victory for fairness and good sense would then be assured.