Over the top

Sunday, June 07, 2009 By Masood Hasan

I am now utterly convinced that the more some of us try to reform the zoo at Lahore, the more spectacular will be our failure. After years of writing, serving on the Zoo Management Committee, lobbying with chief secretaries, governors and chief ministers, raising public awareness and highlighting what goes on behind those iron gates, we have failure slapped in our faces. Nothing it seems can probe, evaluate and resolve the terrible affairs that continue to flourish in the Zoo. The scandals multiply, the amounts of commissions, grafts and corruption rise like space probes, the animals continue to be at the receiving end and life carries on. The only victims of all these horrible practices are the animals – voiceless, powerless and friendless. They are totally at the mercy of selfish, unfair, cutthroat career opportunists and money seekers. What will it take to set the balance right, I haven’t a clue but for starters it might not be a bad idea to transfer all the animals to the offices of the zoo caretakers and put all the officials inside cages? Visitors should be encouraged to throw stones, burning cigarette butts and plastic trash at the hapless officials who might find defending themselves a bit of a problem. The animals have coped with these insults for years. Let them try and emulate them for a change. Many people will feel that a discussion on the welfare of the animals is pointless since the people of this land – superior beings supposedly, fare no better. This is fallacious thinking. If a country has allowed its people to descend into hell why must the animals follow suit? They are absolutely innocent which you cannot say for many people who have ensured that the system of exploitation endures and flourishes as long as they can get a whopping profit for themselves. I think it was Mr Gandhi who said that a nation’s worth can be measured by the way it looks after its animals. So with the beards audaciously changing the very way we live, defiant and fearless, their shallow perceptions of faith affecting closure of schools and colleges and spreading a tidal wave of terror through this country and its sorry citizens, why should animals receive any importance at all? And for that I am afraid one has to listen to what Mr Gandhi said a long time ago. So what is wrong with the Lahore Zoo, other than the fact that it propagates a concept of keeping animals in captivity that globally finds less and less support. The concept of caged animals is at variance with this apparently enlightened age of mankind. There are of course zoos but then those are designed, managed and maintained by people who genuinely care for animals and are acutely aware of their wellbeing. Not here, where all that the animals mean to their keepers are a source of power and money. And the Lahore Zoo has been flush with money for years, in spite of large-scale cases of corruption and financial scams. That a miniscule amount of this has found its way to genuine uplift of the animals, their diet, habitat, medical care and general wellbeing, is established beyond any doubt. The money earned putting these animals on display has gone into long-term investments and open pockets of whoever has half a chance to pilfer a note. Simply stated, the Lahore Zoo has more revenue than expenses and is cash rich. To find a post at the Zoo is fiercely fought for. Everyone sees a golden goose here and wants a piece of the action. While financially the Zoo has made great progress, it has nothing but failure in everything else it has touched. There is no adequate medical cover for animals. There is no sick bay, no examination room, no diagnostics, no medical record, no pharmacy, and no system that can remotely handle the smallest of emergencies, no trained animal handlers (the security guards have taken this task over by default) and no plan worth the name that promises to make things better. The much-touted Master Plan has more holes in it than a leaking piss pot. In any event, if and when it is ‘implemented’ it will be no more than a grotesque parody of what it should be, but no heads will roll. They never have and they never will. Accountability in Pakistan is a leper. Over 80 per cent animals suffer from TB but nothing has been done to combat the disease. Animal mortality is at an all time high which is why many people think this is not a zoo but a morgue. And over all this hell sit a band of petty officials, ill-trained, ill-qualified and ill-motivated to rise above themselves. The last thing on their minds is animal welfare. The first thing is to grab a ride on the gravy train and make a tidy sum before being shunted to some obscure department and an obscure existence. The Zoo has financial scandals that run from here to Buner but no has ever been apprehended. It is like the FM Radio Station in Swat which no one can seem to find and which remains one of life’s great mysteries. A Karachi-based national newspaper has unearthed another killer scandal. This one relates to the import of two white tigers in the absence of any kosher paperwork or required permissions. Four rare white tigers (their trans-boundary movement is very restricted and requires a great deal of genuine paperwork before it can happen), were ‘imported’ from Indonesia through Allama Iqbal International Airport where they were detained and the traffickers (a well-connected mafia operating without fear in Lahore, Karachi and God else knows where) were accosted. Enter a Lahore-party aka another crook and hey presto, the Lahore Zoo management ‘buys’ two of the tigers without so much as obtaining any permission. It later approached the Feds for ‘permission’ to import the animals without revealing that the two tigers were already in the zoo and money had changed hands. The zoo’s complicity was revealed by the media which continued to pursue leads. Lahore Customs too initiated an enquiry which continues. Last month, the Lahore Zoo broke more rules and using the ‘good offices’ of a federal secretary sought Islamabad’s permission for an NOC conveniently bypassing the Punjab Wildlife Department. In the meantime, the animal smuggler in connivance with the Lahore Zoo attempted to mislead the customs in order to ‘regularise’ the smuggling of a rare species. The media once again exposed this and the NOC was hastily withdrawn. The latest czar of the zoo is now ‘looking after things’ – whatever that means. His predecessor, who has disappeared into the twilight after being charged with the illegal import of the white tigers has been ‘transferred’ or in Paki-speak, absolved of any misdoings. The service always closes ranks when a comrade is in trouble. If all this is not fraud and misuse of office, I honestly don’t know what is. This is not the only scandal but the most recent one but no one has been taken to the cleaners ever and no one is likely to be ever indicted. Who are these people that the government cannot touch? Is everyone on the take? What magic potion, do the crooks, the cheats and the frauds have that makes them invincible? The Zoo will lurch from one scandal to another unless, as is very much permissible under the law, the Zoo’s nomenclature is changed and it is made into an autonomous corporation with a proper representative board comprising members in good standing from civil society and some sprinkling of officials so that the Zoo and all it does is finally accountable. The former chief secretary, Mr Randhawa, told me that it required a two line note to do this since it was all laid out but he was moved before he could do anything and I wonder the present CS can make this historic move. Nothing else will change any thing and animals will die in vain. The writer is a Lahore-based columnist. Email: masoodhasan66@gmail.com