Day when whole govt was kept hungry

'When the state considers you an outsider, its generous provisions can be swiftly withdrawn and something dystopian can take their place. Aslam, 42, has lived in Denmark since 1987. For all that time, his home has been Mjolnerparken, a leafy public housing estate of squat red-brick blocks in the centre of Copenhagen. His children were born and grew up here; one has just finished law school, the other is an engineer. The government has classified Mjolnerparken as a 'ghetto', and plans to slash its public housing stock to no more than 40% of total

Dear Readers! Can you visualize a day in Pakistan, when the high-ups of the government, federal and provincial ministers and secretaries and some Generals are kept hungry for the whole day and when at around 3.00 pm lunch is arranged for them it is snatched by an uncontrolled mob of thousands of hungry people? God forgive us and not show such days, but I have seen one of such days where this seen was created by nature. Along with it, I also recall some other such incidents. During the Nawaz Sharif regime, the Sharif family established Asia’s largest sugar mill near Sahiwal. It was inaugurated by then-President Gen Zia-ul-Haq. Two Special trains lifted the guests from Lahore to Sahiwal and luxury coaches were plied between Sahiwal to the sugar mill. All the elite guests reached the venue much early than the chief guest. The inaugural speech of the then President of Pakistan ended around 3.00 pm. After the speech, the honorable guests came to the vast lawns where tables were set and the lunch was supposed to be served. I was standing by Mujeebur Rehman Shami who was well acquainted with many of the Sharif family members. At that time everyone was tired and feeling hungry. During this time, a prominent member of the Sharif Family, Sohail Zia Butt met Mr. Shami. Mr. Butt was the chief supervisor of the Lunch arrangements. He told proudly Mr. Shami that it is a VVIP lunch arrangement for more than 10 thousand people and is a memorable event for the people of this area.

His voice was arrogant. He didn’t finish saying that when we saw a mammoth crowd of people coming toward the lunch place. We observed some rowdiness among the crowd and came to know that they were snatching the food which the organizers were trying to bring to the lunch tables. Guests waited and waited for long hours but nothing reached the tables. In the meantime, then Prime Minister Mr. Nawaz Sharif had a glance at Mr. Shami standing over there and came near us. He took Mr. Shami’s hand and asked to follow him. Mr. Shami took my hand and we both followed Mr. Nawaz up to the President’s special enclosure. Mr. Nawaz Sharif himself arranged a plate full of rice for Mr. Shami who shared the rice with me and I was able to manage a spoon also for my small plate. But I wanted to be a part of the group of high-ups who were standing hungry outside of the enclosure. As I was about to start eating food, I found my Vice-Chancellor Khairat Ibne Rasa standing helpless without any food looking at me. I immediately passed on my plate of rice to him and stayed hungry like hundreds of others. There was no lunch for hundreds of high-ups from Punjab and the federal governments. It was all eaten up or destroyed by the rowdy crowd.

I also remember many other huge parties where I witnessed rowdiness by the people. Secondly, I would like to mention one of the occasions. It was during the regime of former president General (r) Pervez Musharraf when teachers of Imran Khan’s fans invited him to Punjab University. On that calm and pleasant evening, lavish arrangements were made. After completing the arrangements one of the teachers who was looking after the arrangements made tall claims by waving his arm and shouting: “This will be the best function in the history of the campus”. The moment he finished these words there was a wind storm and rain following which, the caterers wrapped up their carpets and folded the sofas. The gusty winds ruined the arrangements. Imran Khan reached in time but there were no red carpets, sofas, and beautifully decorated tentage. On three other marriage occasions, the hosts and their guests experienced the same shocks when they didn’t care about the number of their guests. There was Sheikh Fiaz one of the Provincial Ministers of PPP, who arranged his daughter’s marriage function at Jinnah Garden. Tariq Ismail, former Chief Reporter of daily Nawa-i-Waqt told me about it. He was requested by Sheikh Sahib to reach early and help him with the arrangements.

At the venue, Sheikh Sahib started showing some arrogance by saying: “See Tariq Sahib, It is going to be the biggest marriage function in the history of Lahore City.” According to Tariq Ismail at the same moment when he was boasting, black clouds started roaring on his backside. Before he ends his boasting thunderstorm was there completely ruining the arrangements. Similarly, there were two other marriages with such mammoth gatherings, where the indignant crowds attacked the food and none of the respectable persons could grab anything to eat. These were the marriage ceremony of Mian Asif who was also the parliamentary secretary during the Zia ul Haq regime, and other was the marriage of Javed Hashmi’s brother in Makhdoom Sharif.  Keeping in view these examples, on one occasion, when one of my old students, who own mills, sent me an invitation of his Walima, I advised him not to invite all of his guests in one gathering, but rather split his Walima into four-five dinners. He did it according to the advice and was very happy with the benefits of that practice.

With 50 years of teaching experience, Professor Dr. Shafiq Jullandhry, a noted writer and author of award-winning books, is former chairman of Punjab University's Mass Communication Department (now School of Communication Studies); also heads Elaaf Club and Pakistan Media Guild as president. He can be reached at [email protected].