Basant remains a controversy

Lahori’s were deprived of the basant for the last two years and were given false hopes that ban on basant will be uplifted until 15th march this year, however the hidden motive of the government was a big question mark at that moment. Long march was announced on 15th march and the government chose the exact same date to lift the ban on basant. Basant from many years has been celebrated in February because of the fine weather is suitable for kite flying and it’s the first time since I started celebrating basant that the date has moved to march. The main purpose of basant was not to let the joy and colors of basant spread amongst the people of Lahore but to divert their attention from the long march. From the last two years economy had to bear a loss of more than Rs 200 million annually. Around 500,000 families, directly related to the kite flying business, have lost their sources of livelihood because of the ban on Basant, ignoring all this government restricted Lahori’s to celebrate basant and deprived these families of bread and butter. Many people were forced to quit their business and had to do labor in order to survive. No aid being given to these families government acted irresponsibly towards its motive of giving people social and economic stability yet again. Cultural events like basant should be promoted rather than forcefully made a part of politics. It is still unclear that, Will Lahore see the next basant? or it was just dirty politics this year to make the long march unsuccessful.