KARACHI: It is an extremely healthy sign that multiple groups have decided to ‘reclaim’ Karachi’s cultural and physical space to bring back its lost glory. What prompted such an attempt is the increasingly worsening law and order situation with utter disregard for the city’s rich cultural past, which includes disrespect to its colonial buildings and neighbourhoods. So, the emergence of certain groups seeking to restore the city’s peace, tranquillity and aesthetic grace is more than commendable.

In this regard, programmes have been, and are still being, arranged comprising colourful events which basically highlight Karachi’s historicity through artistic pursuits. This is the best way to go about it. But all of this begs a very important question: what or who is their target audience?

Surely, you cannot convert the converted. A big number of people who live in district south, and who are actively involved in civil rights movements, are fully, nay acutely, aware of the situation. They know the significance of Karachi both as the central cog in the Pakistani economic machine as well as the most culturally diverse and demographically largest city in the country. The number of non-Muslim Karachiites (Zoroastrians, Hindus and Goan Christians) is perhaps the biggest in a single Pakistani town too. Then a vast majority of the people in the city lives in areas which were developed after independence (Nazimabad, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Orangi, Liaquatabad, Landhi, Federal B Area, Incholi, Gulshan-i-Maimar etc). Some of them may have existed before 1947, but they were developed or got densely populated after the country’s inception.

So when we are trying to reclaim Karachi’s lost space, what is our target audience?

To be honest, Karachi has expanded beyond expectation. Some experts suggest its population has crossed the 20 million mark. That’s huge. According to one official estimate (July, 2014), Sri Lanka’s population is 20,675,000. So Karachi has a demographic graph which vertically, and even horizontally, surpasses many countries’ demographic chart, leave alone cities’.

It is in this context that efforts to recover the city’s yesteryear splendour assume Herculean proportions. It is a colossal task, make no mistake! And that’s why it is all the more important to engage the people who inhabit thickly populated localities and, more importantly, non-Muslim communities in all of the reclaim Karachi initiatives.

Why non-Muslim communities? There are two very, very fundamental reasons for it. One, if you study the history of Karachi, especially its colonial past, when infrastructural development was taking place in the shape of beautiful buildings –– housing educational institutions, administrative offices, hospitals and recreational facilities –– it was the non-Muslim Karachiites who had a major, if not the biggest, contribution to it. They are the real native Karachi wallahs.

Two, in the last 20 to 30 years, these communities have been brutally marginalised. A couple of years back, when I used to write a column on the city’s pre-partition architectural gems, one day visiting the Empress Market area to cover an old residential block inhabited by the Zoroastrian community took me by an unpleasant surprise. The entire vicinity had been turned into a bus terminal, and drivers and conductors were using the outer walls of the residential compound as urinals. (I suspect the situation has not changed to date.) An old woman whose apartment faced that dreadful road where buses would be parked complained about the issue on a number of occasions, to no avail. When I discussed the matter with the brilliant Ardeshir Cowasjee during an interview session with him, he also saw the glass half empty. These are the real builders of Karachi we’re talking about here.

Now to the thickly inhabited areas. The street-smartness that Karachiites are often associated with, particularly in the cricketing world, relates primarily to those who live in middle-class localities in districts central, west and east (not that those who live in the southern part of the town are less smart, it is a generalised comment). What have we done to involve them in understanding and appreciating Karachi’s days of yore? They don’t feel any emotional attachment towards the history of the coastal town. And that’s the gist of this entire write-up: emotional attachment. We can only look back at something if we feel an emotional bond with it. Economic and political considerations only make us forward-looking. This one aspect must be taken into account by those groups that wish to regain lost space, cultural or physical, of the city.

PS: Social media is abuzz with the news that Karachi’s Christians, Parsis and Ismailis are selling their properties to greedy builders. Something to mull over!

Published in Dawn, May 18th, 2015

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