What’s a corridor without cultural backup?

Islamabad diary
“Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?” – Twelfth Night
The British came to the Subcontinent and brought with them notions of white superiority…and whisky and convent schools, and in time a railway network, a canal system for Punjab, and the concept of rule of law. The foundations of their imperial empire were strong and survive to this day, although we have spared no effort to dig them up.
The railways are a shambles. The canals survive although we could have made them better by lining them with brick and concrete. The courts are not what they should be but they chug along, providing a good living for the endless swarm of our lawyers…few countries more lawyer-infested than ours. Indeed, but for the law or the equally productive field of the media, what would become of the man/woman of high ambition and imperfect qualification? The law and the media are therefore indispensable. As indeed is the oldest profession. Where would we be without them?
The convent or English public schools continue to thrive because the dominating classes can’t do without them. English remains an emblem of superiority, the deepest and most enduring division in this country not between tenant and landlord, or rich and poor, as between the English-speaking and the vernacular-speaking classes. There is more social mobility in our society today than there was, say, 30-40 years ago but a necessary rite of passage as we go along is some knowledge, however rudimentary, of the English language.
In a republic still dedicated to mediocrity this is a good enough tool for getting ahead. My immediate neighbours in Chakwal are maulvis. They run a madressah where young boys from far-flung areas are taught to memorise the Quran. There is no other schooling. Their own children go to private schools…which is not hypocrisy but simply an acceptance of reality.
Even Maulana Muhammad Khan Sherani – the head of the

Islamic Ideology Council who can’t seem to get the Islamic concept of marriage out of his system, every meeting of the council either beginning or ending with this subject – had one of his sons put in Aitchison College. The young lad couldn’t qualify for anything – O or A levels – and had to be asked to leave but the important thing is that his scholar-father instead of putting him through a madressah had him sent to Aitchison.
The British set up Aitchison for the sons of the native nobility. They knew how to do these things. The last Sikh maharaja, Duleep Singh, youngest son of Ranjit Singh, was taken to England and there given an English education. His children – including Princess Bamba who is buried in Lahore – converted to Christianity.
If we are serious about licking militancy let us reserve in all our English and convent schools and army cadet colleges special seats for the children of Taliban commanders and warlords. Madressahs don’t need to be registered. They need to be taken over by the state and their students provided free board, lodging and O-level education. Every half-literate mullah commander would postpone his wish to ascend to the heavens immediately, first wishing to see that his children get this privilege.
Suicide bombers do not become so out of choice. They are the lowliest of the low, the poorest of the poor, their minds easily brainwashed by mentors as unscrupulous as any to walk the earth.
Children of Fata did not create the problem of militancy for themselves. It was the collective folly of others which brought this calamity on their heads. For the children of Fata let us open the doors to the kind of education which I am giving my son (he is in Aitchison) and which the most reverend Maulana Sherani wanted for his son.
Money in education is what we need…free and quality education for all, beginning with the young of Fata and Balochistan. The luxury of heavily-subsidised and ultimately wasteful metro-bus services – undertaken more as a political gesture than anything else – can come much later.
Still, it should be a sobering thought, that standards of English are not what they used to be. Everywhere this decline is evident, whether in court language or the language of government. It is the new universal lingua franca, the Latin of the modern age. We who inherited this legacy are neglecting it. All over the Gulf and in Saudi Arabia wherever English is a requirement you will find Indians and Filipinos, and even Bangladeshis, working…few Pakistanis. Yet our priorities remain skewed because this does not bother the well-off classes.
One gift of the Raj, however, remains undiminished in all its glory. Whisky, whatever appearances may suggest to the contrary, is the unofficial national drink of all the countries of the Subcontinent, including the Islamic Republic where nominally prohibition prevails. Respect for rule of law may have gone down, other things may have been destroyed, but this one spot shines as bright as ever.
This is what came with the British. What will come with the Chinese? The British changed our cultural habits. We started, or at least our urban classes started, having eggs and porridge for breakfast, and crème caramel for dessert – go to any British-era club and there it will be on the menu. But what change will come with the Chinese?
Other societies work hard and then go and have a good time, whatever the pocket can afford. We are a funny people, little work and no play. Initially, some Chinese set a good example by opening in Islamabad what are conventionally known as ‘massage parlours’. This was during the Musharraf era and seeing those early enterprises it was not unrealistic to expect that in days to come the business would flourish and at least our larger cities if nothing else would start to loosen up a bit.
Some eating places started tolerating the imbibing of spiritual substances and, as I say, there were enterprising ladies – mostly ladies, mercifully – who went about opening the massage establishments, to general acclaim I should not fail to add.
But Musharraf had entered his bad times, lawyers taking to the roads against him, and the Lal Masjid maulvis choosing just that moment to become vigilantes in the cause of the faith. At their word, their female squadrons dressed in black burqas and armed with long staves took to entering and terrorising what their inflamed imaginations took to be places of ‘evil repute’. There was a lady said to be engaged in the oldest profession and there were these massage establishments. As far as Islamabad was concerned, that was the end of the massage revolution.
When the Tarbela Dam was being built foreign workers and engineers working on the site had their own clubs and in the evenings would sit back and take the surroundings in. The Chinese we’ve already scared with kidnappings. What will they do when they are building all those roads and power houses? In the evenings where will they go? They are used to a different kind of scene back in China where every kind of thing is open and is done, and virtually nothing is taboo.
Confucian cultures, in any event, do not have the taboos and restraints, and the resultant repressions, which are a feature of societies shaped by the strictures of the three great monotheistic creeds: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Confucian cultures are not more laidback…they just have a different conception of integrity and honour. We go more by appearances. Bottling up our urges, we don masks of virtue and propriety. Whenever the trapdoor is lifted, those repressed urges come bursting through…and then we declaim about sin and damnation.
So my heart goes out to our Chinese comrades. But, come to think of it, there’s always the option of guided tours of the Faisal Mosque and talks by Mufti Muneeb-ur-Rehman of the Ruet-e-Hilal Committee, who should soon be coming into his own when the Ramazan moon and the Eid-ul-Fitr moon are to be sighted. All hope then is not lost.
Email: bhagwal63@gmail.com