Burden Beneath The Road

Asem Mustafa Awan

Islamabad: The picture is stark and unforgiving. A steamroller flattens the gravel on the so-called New Airport Road, yet the real weight is borne not by machines but by men.

Two labourers, barefoot and without protective gear, haul a scalding drum of tar a single slip away from disfigurement, perhaps death. Their sweat, their toil, their risk, is the invisible foundation of the mega-projects that glitter in reports but crumble in reality.

Read More: https://thepenpk.com/children-of-the-indus-left-to-hunger/

This is how development is built in the “land of the pure” with human lives discounted as expendable, with safety standards treated as a luxury, and with contractors minting millions from the national exchequer while giving their workers nothing. The millions flow upward, into the pockets of the rich and connected, while the men who carry the load quite literally take home wages that can barely feed their families.

It is no wonder nothing here is built to last. Projects are not executed to serve citizens; they are engineered to become cash cows, golden geese bleeding national wealth. The result is fragile roads, crumbling bridges, collapsing flyovers structures that mirror the precarious condition of those who built them.The cruelty is layered. These labourers are sometimes told to buy their own safety gear, an impossible demand when the cost of a helmet or boots equals many days’ wages. Faced with hungry mouths at home, they choose work over safety, survival over dignity.

The tar drum they carry in this photograph is not just a load of molten bitumen it is a symbol of how the system burns its weakest.

Such exploitation is not hidden; it is performed in plain sight. Yet accountability is absent. Contractors are rarely punished, departments look the other way, and every inauguration ribbon cut by a politician hides the scars of countless nameless workers.

Read More: https://thepenpk.com/another-first-for-the-british-pakistanis/

The tragedy is not only the cruelty of the few but also the silence of the many. Roads like this one will be driven over by air-conditioned cars, praised as “progress,” while the men who risked their lives to build them will never even afford a ride on them.

Until labourers are treated as human beings rather than disposable tools, every road built will carry not just vehicles but the burden of injustice and every mile paved will be a testament to how cheaply life is valued in Pakistan.