Page 292 - James Caan - The Real Deal

The Real Deal

‘One of the problems we have in Pakistan’, he told me, ‘is that
girls are not encouraged to go to school, so we are going to use
the money to persuade more girls to attend.’
I thought that was fantastic. ‘How are you going to do that?’
‘We are going to give each girl 200 rupees for each term she
attends.’
While there was no doubt that this would encourage girls to enrol,
it seemed to me to be little more than bribery. What would happen, I
asked, when they turn up and find out there are only six desks for a
class of 100 pupils and only enough teachers for a few lessons a day?
They will get bored and they won’t bother going back.
‘If we talk in three years’ time,’ I said to him, ‘what will you
have to show for the £100 million? Will you have trained any
teachers? Will you have bought any desks?’
A few days later, I was staying with a friend in Karachi who had
heard similar stories many times before.
‘Don’t you realise what he’s doing?’ he said.
I had to say that I didn’t.
‘He’s a minister, right? So that means he’s elected. And that
means he needs votes. And you can be pretty sure that he’s just
bought his next term in office. All those families who get money
just for sending their daughters to school occasionally aren’t going
to vote for anyone else.’
I realised I still had so much to learn about Pakistan, and in the years
since I have been back on average every six weeks. It is a country with
which, despite its problems, I have fallen in love, and, coincidentally,
so has my brother Adam. He met and married a girl from Lahore a few
years ago, and in the first year of their marriage they visited Lahore so
often that Adam really got to know the place. He realised they could
have a fantastic quality of life if they settled there, so they bought a
house and started a business which is doing extremely well.
Having my brother in Lahore has helped me develop a really
good social network out there. That old saying, ‘It’s not what you

282