Earlier this year, in one of the peri-urban areas of Lahore, villagers were surprised to find one of the small canals flowing with milk instead of water. The proverbial doodh ki nehar. Exactly the sort that the founding fathers had promised Pakistan would have.
Well, it turned out that the republic wasn’t that magical; it wasn’t a canal of milk that the villagers were seeing, but the semblance of another idea that the founding fathers might have had: a functioning state.
You see, the gujjars in question had been tipped by one of their kin in the city that a squad from the efficient Punjab Food Authority was on its way over to raid their containers of milk. Knowing full well the harsh fine the recently emboldened authority would slap on their adulterated milk, they decided to dispose off their product in the nearby small canal. Those huge upended vats of milk turned it white for a good hundred meters, puzzling those downstream who didn’t know the full story.
How is that for magical realism?
Behind the terror that the food authority has come to inspire, of course, is its no-nonsense Director Operations, Ayesha Mumtaz. Her unforgiving standards in following the letter of the law, coupled with her deft use of social media in publicising the authority’s raids on various food outlets, made her instantly famous, all over the country.
Lest the public at large assume that the drive, like all else in this elitist state, was going to be directed only at those without connections, she was undiscriminating in her raids, treating working class hole-in-the-wall joints and the swankiest of eateries alike. It was the latter, understandably, that generated more interest. There was a delicious schadenfreude that came from knowing that the uber-rich who frequented those extremely expensive outlets would be squirming in their seats after seeing those pictures.
The drive also showed exactly how filthy the Pakistani public is. An infestation of rodents and cockroaches right in the kitchen was not uncommon amongst the mentions on the authority’s Facebook page. And as the closed outlets were reopened, they were thronged by patrons yet again. Because the restaurants would have presumably learnt their lesson? No. In a number of follow-up checks, the authority still found the restaurants wanting.
Credit where it is due: Ms Mumtaz had been fully endorsed by the chief minister to do her thing. It certainly was earning the provincial government a lot of goodwill. Insider reports say that the province’s first son intervened on behalf of a key supporter’s restaurant, only to have her tell him to ask his father to call her instead. Ouch.
During this heady stuff, the courts gave a rather controversial judgement. They ruled that the authority should not be allowed to post pictures of its raids online, till verdicts regarding individual restaurants had not been finalised. That argument does not stand to reason: though the PFA’s decisions are justiciable, it is still the first competent authority to pass the verdict.
In any case, this new, court-ordered lack of coverage only catalysed the rumour that her absence of late was because her subordinates had raided a dairy concern owned by the first son (him again!) and that she had been cut down to size. These rumours prompted her to release an online video to clarify that she was away only to attend a food safety seminar in Brussels.
At the end of the day, her whole tenure has served to show that civil servants, especially those working in specialised authorities, really can lead by example and serve as an inspiration for others.
And it also leads the public to believe, yet again, in a fully-functional state. One that enforces the law, in letter and spirit. Which is something tougher to achieve than doodh ki nehrein.
