Naming names —Salman Rashid

The onus of naming roads lies with the local and district government. Names are selected and approved by a committee. But in this sorry land, there are few bureaucrats who do an honest day’s work and scarcely a politician and so the procedure has never been followed. In the past forty years the city of Lahore has not seen its mayors, deputy commissioners and whoever else should have been worried about the thousands of nameless roads being taken over by the dregs of this society.

In fifty years, if something drastic does not befall us, the people of Lahore will think of the Akbars and the Aslams and the Butts and Gondals and Ameers (all of whom have named crossings after themselves), to name a few, as some great scions of this land.

Shame on us that we cannot celebrate our Abdus Salam, Sirajuddin, Faiz, Hoodbhoy, Karrar, Kashfi, Cyprian, Cornelius, Boga, Phailbus or the hundreds of other luminaries who have brought the light of knowledge and justice to thousands upon thousands of Pakistanis.
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