When the cart is guilty and the farmhouse is under process
Urban Bystander
The question reached Islamabad before the tomato did.
The tomato had travelled through heat, diesel, toll plazas, middlemen and the slow disappointment of a planned capital. By the time it reached a kitchen in G-11, it had seen more agriculture than many farms in Zone IV.
The question had been asked by Mr Kashif Abbasi, one of those reporters who still hears the city coughing beneath the official music.
It was simple, therefore dangerous.
If the capital had 551 agro farms meant for vegetables, fruit, poultry and dairy, what were they producing?
The answer came in classic Islamabad form. CDA did not produce tomatoes. It produced future compliance. Regulations would be ensured. Leased properties would be used for the purposes for which they had been allotted. Proper utilisation would be achieved.
Mr Abbasi had asked for a harvest. The Authority supplied intention.
That same morning, however, the present tense was fully operational against a vegetable cart. By 9:31, the cart had been lifted, photographed, entered in the register, and placed inside the truck with tomatoes, coriander and a weighing scale that had committed no known offence except poverty. The vendor said, “I was selling what the farms were supposed to grow.”
Constable Tufail sighed. “The file says vegetables should be on the farms.”
“And the farms?”
“Under process.”
Nosy Mynah arrived from Zone IV, carrying numbers like contraband.
“551 agro farms, Dawn reported,” she announced. “Orchards were to carry 150 fruit trees per acre and vegetables on 80 percent of the land. Poultry farms were to send 5,000 eggs a day into the stomach of the Republic.” Babloo looked hopeful.
“5,000 eggs a day?” he said. “Then breakfast is safe.”
“No,” said Nosy Mynah. “Breakfast comes from elsewhere.”
Mirza Chughal Khor descended on the boundary wall.
“You are being literal. A farm need not produce vegetables to remain agricultural.”
“What else can it produce?”
“Lawns, fountains and excellent silence.”
“Fruit perishes,” said Mirza. “Covered area matures.” Some cities grow crops. Islamabad grew covered area.
The farmhouse began as a 2,250 square foot caretaker’s room. Then the room discovered influence. It became 5,000 square feet, then 9,500, then 12,500 if polite enough to pay a fine.
This did not happen in darkness. It happened in meetings, notices, surveys, board decisions and gazettes. The December 2014 gazette recorded that “illegal commercial and residential development” already existed in the sub zones.
The violation submitted its field notes. The gazette took dictation. Illegality, if sufficiently patient, becomes policy.
At the farmhouse gate, the gate opened just enough for the law to feel underdressed. A lemon tree was offered as evidence of agriculture. Nosy Mynah circled the property and returned. “No vegetables sighted. Boundary wall confident. Public purpose absent.”
Tufail wrote, “Agriculture present in representative capacity.”
Mirza beamed. “Balanced wording. Suitable for record.” The affliction was not forgetfulness. It was selective memory.
In the invisible organogram of the capital, this work is handled by the Directorate of Selective Memory, which remembers downward and forgets upward. It remembered the cart, the kiosk, the weak wall and the poor roof with astonishing eyesight. At the gate of influence, memory became manners. There, the state remembered procedure, litigation, regularisation and the need to avoid haste in matters involving lawns.
A cart is an encroachment. A farmhouse is a case. This is how public purpose becomes private entitlement, not by rebellion against the state, but by patient cooperation with it.
Even when ministers promise to recover encroached land from elite spaces, the agro farms remain wrapped in softer cloth: utilisation, compliance, survey, regulation, future action.
No one demands 150 fruit trees per acre by sunset. No one sends a truck for Zone IV.
By evening, the cart was gone. The boundary wall was intact. The file rested in good health.
Nosy Mynah filed the report:
“One question asked. One cart remembered. 551 farms recorded. No production data recovered. Public purpose absent, believed to be under compliance.”
Islamabad had not run out of land. It had run out of equal law.
Nobody answered Mr Abbasi.
The answer was standing behind a wall.
—The writer can be reached at [email protected]
