As the philosopher Bertrand Russell said: `A non-believer is one who forsakes the factual history of his people`. When the Holy Prophet (PBUH) allowed the playing of `daf`, it was seen as part of a larger celebration that promotes happiness. Sadly, our `paid mullahs` and incompetent rulers ignore the spirit of happiness.

On Sunday, Feb2, 2025 is Basant day, the ancient festival once harvesting is over.

The evidence of its existence is well over 3,000 years plus, much before Christianity or Islam came about. All over the world, the harvest festival is associated with different belief systems, all trying to make sense of happiness.

Humans thrive on beliefs. It is a very human way of explaining happiness.

In Lahore and the Punjab, the Basant festival is associated with wisdom, intellect and artistic inspiration. It is thus, intrinsically, dependent on facts, not beliefs. These are attributes missing from our current rulers. The annual harvest is a fact of life.

Without a harvest we would have no food. As industrialisation expands the role of agriculture, in comparative mone-tary terms alone, lessens. But then without harvests there would be no industry. That is why we must understand that having an excellent harvest means a lot, it means lower prices for the poor and better outputs for industry and higher exports. That is more than enough reason to celebrate.

But we live in an age where the poor, as well as the educated unemployed, or underemployed, or under-paid, want to escape the land of their ancestors. But when it comes to Basant, everyone wants to return. It is a festival of the people. But then the question arises just why have `half-educated mullahs` informed our `half-educated` cunning political leaders to ban Basant. How dare anyone be happy is the bottom line. This piece is about this ban, which needs to be understood in its actual context. It has a history that needs narrating.

In 1947, when Pakistan came into being, Quaid-eAzam in the very first week ordered that the city of Lahore needs an excellent bus service. As the city was expanding because of mass migration on Partition, travelling from one end to the other became impossible. Today the extreme ends are almost 70 miles apart. This is an undeniable fact. So, Mr Jinnah sum-moned a gentleman by the name of Zulfiqar Taha, who, in the British days, went to London, became a bus driver, studied in London`s Imperial College`s `transport engineering department` to become a transport engineer, topping his class. He returned to British India to organise the Srinagar Bus Company, then moved to Amritsar to set up the Amritsar Bus Company, and in the 1947 Partition moved to Lahore. Jinnah ordered him to study Lahore and come up with a plan. Mr Taha reached the conclusion that a `not rich` Lahore could not afford importing British double-deckers. So, he imported six Bedford doubledecker bus chassis, deployed a bus bodybuilder to build them to a set design. The buses passed every test. When Mumtaz Daultana was the chief minister of Punjab (1951-53), Mr Taha presented the six finished buses before the Punjab Assembly. That was the beginning of Lahore`s amazing bus service, called the LOS standing for the Lahore Omnibus Service.

Very soon the city had a service second to none. The LOS was making impressive profits and buying new chassis to expand from their own funds.

But then the armed ruler appointed a senior officer as its head, who immediatelygave a massive loan from LOS funds as his institution`s `needs` were greater. An undying old story. The entire `surplus` funds of the bus service were legally -handed over. The LOS started to collapse as the buses rusted because of scarce spares.The much-loved LOS collapsed.

What happened to that loan is another story.

By the time Mr ZA Bhutto came to power in 1971, he tried to retrieve the situation by importing finished buses from Sweden. But without spares they also rusted and collapsed. The city was soon without a transport system.

Severalproposalstosetupthe system were rejected by transport bureaucrats. That remains the case still. Why our readers know full well.

Just what could the poor bus traveler do? They initially went for bicycles, but the distances of the city ends were so large that motorcycles were the answer. People have a way of finding solutions. Today Lahore has the world`s largest motorcycle population.

Officially it has 4,2m motorcycles, or in practical terms two motorcycles per household of seven. For details simply look up the Lahore Police website.

Now let us remind readers of the law as per the use of motorcycles on the roads of Lahore. They are (i) a drivershould be over 18 years of age with a proper license, (ii) he must wear a helmet and the motorcycle should have a protective wire as it is an open vehicle, (iii) every driver must adhere to the speed limits on different roads, and (iv) every driver should use his or her common sense. It is a fact that less than 63pc have licenses, only 41pc have helmets, only 11pc have wires, and over 50pc are underage teenagers speeding like it was their last ride. It is an undeniable fact that our police are unable to cope with these non-wired, helmetless, non-licensed speeding youngsters. This is the core of the problem. We ignore thefactthatthe threat of kite string deaths in one whole month is less than those killed crossing a road in one day. But then string deaths make headlines. Instead of the government making sure flying a kite in a safe environment as is now common all over the world, they banned kite flying, blaming kite strings, which certainly is a case for less than one per cent of kite strings. Wires imported for surgical operations today, one source claims, is ten times the hospital requirement. The question is what should be done, given that the police have convinced the politicians that kite-flying is the fault. To hide its incompetence thepolice bureaucracy seems to have used the services of money-hungry mullahs to declare kite-flying an `unIslamic` act. For this piece I looked up severalsources and it came as a shock that kite flying is permitted in even Saudi Arabia, including Medina and the outskirts of Mecca, let alone all the other cities.

Every `Muslim ruled` city has a Basant festival. Kites mean happiness to the world.

In the USA, the Washington State International Kite Festival is the largest in North America. In South America, the Sumpango Giant Kite Festival in Guatemala is wellknown. In China this week there will be kite-flying all over the country. Let us not forget India where Basant Panchami is a national sport, with Gujarat`s `Uttarayan` being an unmatchable festival. But the decision in Pakistan`s Punjab needs to be understood in the context of the incompetence of our ruling classes, especially the transport bureaucracy and the `much-deplored` Punjab Police. There are ways to celebrate, and being happy is what keeps the rulers in the good books of the people. That does not seem to be the case in Lahore. It is time to relent.

After all every leader in his youth was a kite-flier be it Nawaz Sharif or Imran Khan.