Nowhere to turn to
The way visually impaired persons are protesting in Lahore once again – demanding the Punjab government to regularise ad hoc employees among them and increase their job quota – is yet another reminder of the plight of the disabled in our country. Not many expect the authorities to take better care of the lesser privileged in a country where even many of the fit and able are under- or unemployed. Yet it is, at the end of the day, for the government to provide at least a bare minimum safety net.
That, no doubt, is why Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif lifted the ban on recruitment against reserved quota for the disabled and enhancing their quota in government from two to three percent. Yet subsequently the government realised that the province’s share in the national unemployment rate is the highest, and adjusting the disabled at a time of job market stress is simply unfeasible. Hence the deadlock of the last few days, which blocked Lahore’s Mall Road one day and the Metro Bus service the next. And no matter how much Rana Sanaullah, or whoever argues the government’s case to calm the protestors, claims a solution is around the corner, there is really no apparent way out of the impasse unless the government honours its claims.
The government must realise that such standoffs are problematic on a number of levels. Protests generally seek to choke important cross-sections, which in turn chokes traffic for miles. When this happens too often, as in the case of Lahore’s Charing Cross opposite Punjab Assembly, it hurts civic as well as economic activity. And the disabled, after all, are not in that state of their own doing. In fact, the government’s inability and sometimes unwillingness to provide safety to those at risk plays no small role in the swelling of the ranks of the disabled. It must do what it can to help them, especially those that want to work for an honest living. It will gain the government much needed points, and make life easier not only for the deserving disabled, but also the many, many people their protests hurt and frustrate.