THE past is not just about nostalgia for tangible things which changed shape and form with the passage of time. It is also about attitudes, about the notions associated with life, about how people treat one another. Today Karachi’s central jail is bursting at the seams with prisoners, and the sad thing is that, apart from bits and pieces efforts (which are no less significant), not much is done to bring them back into the fold of civilised society.

On July 31, 1965 the West Pakistan minister for auqaf and jails, Jam Mir Ghulam Qadir Khan, paid a visit to Karachi Central Jail. There he inaugurated a prisoners’ interview room which, among other things, provided seating arrangements on the other side of the window for the visiting relatives of prisoners. Speaking on the occasion Jam sahib lauded the treatment meted out to prisoners. He called it helpful in creating conditions conducive to their healthy rehabilitation in society. Conditions is the key word here. Fifty years back, the authorities concerned considered it their duty to make conditions favourable for the citizens to lead a dignified life.

This is the reason that the shortage of basic amenities was dealt with on a war footing. The same day, July 31, addressing the press, the deputy chief engineer of water and sewerage of the Karachi Development Authority (KDA), A. I. Qureshi, said water supply to the city would be increased from 70 million gallons per day to over 100mgd during the third five-year period. The newsmen were invited to study the different ongoing projects, where they were told that a water purification plant at Pipri and a pumping station at Dabeji would be set up to further increase water supply. Now compare this to the current water situation in the city, and you would know the difference between ‘attitudes’ towards the public of those who called the shots then and those who are at the helm today.

Another potent example of this is that on July 30, the West Pakistan government announced it had opened a new subsidiary TB centre in Nazimabad at a cost of Rs455,000. Steps were also being taken to install an X-Ray plant in the centre to help patients in Nazimabad and Liaquatabad to diagnose the disease through modern scientific methods. Liaquatabad and Nazimabad: two neighbourhoods that we seem to take for granted in 2015.

The noun ‘new’ seems innocuous. It is not. Because it sounds like a constant but actually hints at the transient nature of existence. On July 30 it was reported by the media that there would be six more mobile post offices in the country. At the time there was only one mobile post office consisting of an old mail van which ran in Karachi serving different areas at fixed hours. The post office department proposed to import half a dozen chasses either from Japan, Sweden or Finland at a cost of Rs30,000. Now think of email, WhatsApp and Skype. The now is fickle.

That said, there are certain things which never happen, and because they don’t happen, things change, not necessarily for the better. On July 25, the Chittagong Welfare Association (yes, there used to be one) at it its annual general meeting reiterated its demand for a Bengali-medium college in Karachi. The association reminded the West Pakistan government of its promise that it had earlier made about establishing a Bengali-medium educational institution. Did the government keep its promise? No comment.

Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2015

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