| May 30, 2007 | Wednesday | Jamadi-ul-Awwal 13, 1428 |
Tahir Mirza — outstanding journalist
CLASS comes into it though not necessarily. The disease is not limited to those whose perfume you can smell without nibbling on their ears, or the murderous wannabes who emerged cockroach-like from their latrines on May 12. Save the odd voice of sanity, everyone is afflicted.
You know the sort. They’ll point to a piece of land and, without a hint of irony, explain how all this used to be a jungle but now it’s a golf course. The kind of people who would rather see a marina where a mangrove forest stands. Grown men and women who are impressed by shopping malls, tower blocks, gated communities, seven-star hotels, armed guards and other such facades of prosperity in a dismally poor country. They are everywhere.
‘Megacity’ ought to be a slur but is touted as an achievement, not least by our nazim from the singularly glorious MQM. (Let us ignore, briefly, the law that stipulates that local government officials must not be members of political parties.) On the ‘development’ front at least, the DHA is wholly in agreement with the delusion artists of Azizabad. So is the prime minister and the chief minister of Punjab.
The common thread here is that they all have an abiding interest in finance.
Those who are in any way opposed to this wholesale destruction of the environment are casually dismissed as ‘anti-development’. If this twisted definition qualifies me for the label, then so be it for I have no qualms about being anti this money-grubbing campaign.
At least I have no personal stake in the matter, save the simple pleasure of being able to lie on the beach, any beach, and watch the waves roll in. The motives of those who stand to make millions — dollars, not rupees — from the ‘development’ drive now sweeping the country are less homely.
They are but an aberration in the space-time continuum that will shortly be rectified, and they know it. So these modern-day Caligulas must seize the day and roll out those contracts while they may. Herrick had virgins in mind but the idea’s the same.
The death of Bundal and Buddo islands, as well as the DHA waterfront, was not enough to sate the appetite of those devouring Karachi piece by piece. Now we must contend with the curiously named Sugarland City, a monster project that may uproot some 200,000 people from the villages their families have called home for centuries and privatise vast chunks of the coastline from Sandspit to Cape Monze.
Sugarland City covers a mind-boggling 60,000 acres and is expected to cost 68 billion dollars to build. A developer based in Dubai (where else) is behind the venture that will evict residents, close off the sea to fishermen, hack down mangroves and restrict the public’s access to the beach to certain ‘select’ spots. The policy of apartheid — keeping the haves at a safe distance from the have-nots — is becoming all the more brazen in Karachi.
The marine turtle sanctuary in Sandspit is as good as dead, even if the land itself is spared. Large-scale human habitation in the vicinity, and specifically the garbage it will generate, will attract hordes of rodents and feral dogs that don’t know any better and will happily tuck into the eggs of an endangered species. Bright lights on what is still a secluded coast may also confuse the hatchlings, making them head inland instead of towards the sea.
Manora too will not escape the wrath of the developers. A luxury resort featuring a five-star hotel is planned for the island, and it stands to reason that all the residents will be shown the ferry. Or walled into a ghetto so their poverty doesn’t jar on the nerves of the revellers.
Enough said, for now.
imalik@dawn.com
Tahir Mirza, one of the outstanding journalists of his day, has left his mark in several areas of mass communication – as a reporter, leader-writer, broadcaster, columnist and editor.
He was born in a family that has won eminence for scholarship and literary pursuits. His father, Dr Waheed Mirza, was a renowned scholar of Arabic and a highly respected professor at the Lucknow University, who also worked in Lahore after retirement from teaching as editor of Encyclopaedia of Islam (a Punjab University project). His uncle, Mirza Muhammad Saeed, taught with distinction at Lahore’s Government College, and the family was also related to Maulvi Zakaullah Dehlavi, the famous 19th century historian.
A natural writer, Tahir Mirza took to journalism soon after completing his studies at the Lucknow University. The formative years were spent as a reporter in Dhaka and at the PPI news agency. He came to Lahore in the early 1960s to work as a member of the writing team at the ‘Civil and Military Gazette’, when the paper had a brief spell of revival under the editorship of Zuhair Siddiqui. The Ayub Khan regime forced the C&MG’s closure in 1963 and Tahir Mirza moved over to ‘The Pakistan Times’ to join its team of leader writers.
In 1975, Tahir Mirza helped Mazhar Ali Khan launch the weekly ‘Viewpoint’ which won high credit for its editorial excellence and for being a consistent champion of the people’s rights to democracy and social justice.
Breaking away from the oppressive regime of General Zia’s martial law, Tahir Mirza found an opportunity at BBC’s Urdu service to discover and polish his talent as a broadcaster. After several years at the BBC in London, he returned to print journalism (and English journalism) at Dubai’s ‘Khaleej Times’.
In 1994 began Tahir Mirza’s long association with ‘Dawn’ when he took charge of its Lahore edition as its Resident Editor. He was largely responsible for guiding this edition through its teething period. He was selected for overseas posting as Dawn’s special correspondent in Washington in 2000. The analytical columns he wrote during his two-year stay in the American capital were widely appreciated not only for relevance and comprehension of issues but also for their felicity of expression and maturity of style.
Appointed editor of Dawn under the guidance of Chief Editor Ahmad Ali Khan in 2003 he assumed full responsibilities as the paper’s editor a year later. In May 2006, he sought retirement from editorship of Dawn and after some time started contributing a weekly column to it.
Tahir Mirza was a fine embodiment of the Indo-European cultural traditions, especially of the Oudh. This was apparent from the way he dressed or followed his work ethics, or the courtesies he showed to acquaintances and strangers alike and, above all, when he played a perfect host to his friends, which was often.
Obliged to assume the role of the head of a fairly large family early in his life, Tahir Mirza quickly learnt the art of organised, responsible living, and of facing difficult challenges with good cheer. At the same time his amiable exterior could hardly conceal his firm commitment to liberal values and his intolerance of the spurious and the humbug.—I. A. Rehman