We always look to the military to save people in flooded areas or places where landslides and earthquakes take place. Surely that is no less a matter of gratitude than the defence of our frontiers. Certainly, the army has as big a stake in our foreign policy as in the military hardware it possesses; surely it is natural that defence services be involved in determining our international relations. How can an army defend untenable, strategically indefensible frontiers? By the same token how can a military be effective against aggression by a state whose economic, political, military or diplomatic status can’t be matched by its country? Naturally the failure of the economy, politics and diplomacy will affect military success or cause failure. Why should the army take the fall for a failure of other state institutions unless it can influence them? Although reluctantly, but I am willing to go this far.
But why should the army be employed for police purposes? Are insurgencies natural for modern states and should the defence services be required in aid of civil power as a norm for suppressing lawless elements? Surely military intelligence for political management is an admission of defeat of political power. Surely the protest of citizens, even if they are misguided, is symptomatic of failure of administrative and political structures of the state. When we fail and even before that, we tend to look to the army to bail us out. The case in point is the involvement of the army in the network of transport and communication.
The National Logistic Cell, created in 1978 for the transport of ‘essential commodities’ is a military concern. It was initiated by general Zia to ensure the road link from Karachi to Khyber for containing Russia in Afghanistan. As part of its mandate it undertook the task of maintaining the national highways on its routes. From the same beginning emerged the NHA, through different stages, to take on the task of improving on the work of the NLC. A third organization, that predates the others, is the Frontier Works Organization [FWO]. Initiated during the Ayub Khan era in 1966, this engineering organ of the army builds and maintains roads in frontier areas where the national defence needs are paramount.
I doubt that there is a motorist who has known the roads of the 60’s and 70’s in Pakistan who doesn’t feel a sense of gratitude for these three organizations while travelling on one of the roads they have completed since then but cursed them while the roads were being made. Yet few remember their gratitude or annoyance within weeks of the completion of a patch of road; we take it so much for granted once it is done. Similarly we fail to realize how much of the development of Pakistani cities has occurred in cantonments, Defence Housing authorities and Askari apartments! I doubt that there has been even a tenth of an increase in the “Civil lines”. Perhaps assorted housing schemes and “colonies” will match military housing in some cities in the last three decades. But what is more interesting is how many of the military schemes house non-military personnel.
NO! I have not forgotten the title of this essay, nor have I lost my way. AND I am neither here to praise the army nor curse it. Management of traffic in Pakistan is related closely to the network of roads where the army is involved in one way or the other. Cantonments and convoy routes inside cities and highways of various denominations outside the cities are the main source, but sundry roads subcontracted to a military concern that is allowed to undertake ventures of the civil government are also an important part of its network of facilities. The object of this essay is to discuss three issues related to urban traffic and one to the highway network in which the civil and military establishments of Pakistan have a stake and need to resolve on priority basis if this activity is to become profitable.
Being an organization which thrives on obedience to command and training of personnel, the army looks to its own convenience, housing its employees close to the place of work. Civilians aren’t so well organized and often don’t have the means, they live in one place and work in another. The hawker, who sells his wares on a cart, and the soldier, who is on parade daily, can’t be expected to think alike even if they are brothers from one home and locality. This civil-military dichotomy is a cause of several urban problems.
Another source of urban problems arises due to miscommunication between government departments; inadequate resources; or mal-intentions of individuals. We all witness to the digging up of an urban facility by one department and, within days of being constructed, it is dug up by another department. Gas/water pipes, telephone lines, drainage and other facilities retard any attempt at urban uplift whenever possible. A third source of problems is due to a modern phenomenon; political allocation of resources makes it impossible to develop areas on need or management priorities. On the highway, my main concern is the varieties of innovation in overloading vehicles that our transporters have invented.
No doubt, ignorance of law is no excuse. It is a duty of citizens to learn what laws of the state apply to them; but it is also the duty of the state to make laws that are not inimical to its society and to institute plans that can be implemented with minimum inconvenience to the people. History presents considerable, consistent evidence to show that any ruler who ignores this dictum is risking his government. In order to be able to implement orders, a government should first ascertain the acceptability of its laws. If they do not have public appeal, people should first be convinced of the utility or advantages of the plan. Next the state should provide necessary facilities for people to act in accordance with law, without undue inconvenience so that then a crackdown against miscreants has no backlash.
In a country like Pakistan, where the economic base is not strong enough to facilitate too many ventures or institute reforms/reconstruction over a large area, this problem becomes compounded. When political issues are added to the mix, the solution lies in involvement of communities in their own uplift as suggested in: management of urban waste. This will need a complex study of communities involved in management of urban traffic. However a relatively simple procedure can be followed in varieties of innovation in overloading in the case of goods transport. Most goods transporters specialize in some kind of cargo and prefer to ply along routes which they have frequented. They form well knit communities, and can therefore be negotiated with for fair terms of administrative control.
Actually the unrecognized trade and skill communities of Pakistan are our greatest asset. They have an internal governance structure and work-ethic, applied almost universally by them internally. If the terms of state laws regarding dimensions of vehicles, the extension permitted in width and length, and the axle weight that is to be allowed on different roads are settled with relevant communities of trucks and trolleys, violation will be minimal.
Generally these communities are not unreasonable but they have certain concerns of their own. In the matter of dimensions and axle weight for example, the optimum which suits them does not match with the road specifications that the government has determined for its contractors and road builders. This is an area where the government must take the lead as a sympathetic servant of the nation which is to facilitate its service providers, either by its alteration of road specifications or its policy of transport management.