Illustration by Abro

Generally, cities are characterised as old and new. The ‘old city’ is a repository of historical heritage with its buildings, monuments, streets and market places reflecting the different historical periods through which the city either flourished or withered, adopting and preserving a variety of cultures, customs and traditions.

The city’s ancientness links its past to the present while maintaining the continuity of the historical process. In this way, it becomes the conserver and protector of past values. As a result, its inhabitants acquire a special character, which gives it a separate identity through which one city stands apart from other cities. People living there speak a different dialect, enjoy a different taste of food and have different culture in their day to day lives.

New cities, on the contrary, have different features as compared to older ones. They are not associated with the past, but instead look forward to the future and accept modern values and traditions. This modernity creates a cosmopolitan outlook among its inhabitants. The old and new characteristics of several cities together play an important role in constituting the political and social culture of the country. As a conflict is generated between the conservative and modern forces, the society gradually moves away from backwardness, towards progress.

There is also a conflict between small and big cities. Small towns usually play an independent role and acquire their own identity. Taking the example of Sindh before partition, Karachi was a small town and a port city, with a small population comprising business communities like the Khojas, the Bohras, the Kachhi Memons and the Anglo-Indians. Therefore, in the absence of the ‘big city’ (that it has now become), the small and medium-sized cities of Sindh such as Hyderabad, Thatta, Larkana, Shikarpur and Sukkur flourished and prospered. Each town published its own newspapers, magazines and patronised its poets, novelists, artists and artisans. Each city was famous for its special art, craft and industry. During this period, the city culture developed and benefited its inhabitants. Shikarpur and Hyderabad produced traders and merchants, while other towns contributed to poetry, music and produced religious scholars.

Big cities evolve by swallowing surrounding smaller towns, thriving on their energy and culture

However, the entire scenario changed after partition as the immigrants arrived from India; the majority settled in Karachi and transformed it from a small town to a metropolitan city. It increased not only in size and population but also grew to become the centre of political, social and cultural activities. Gradually, the independent role of other, smaller towns ended as opportunities were being provided to talented people who migrated to the city and became integrated in its cultural life. The ‘big city’ was a huge attraction for writers, musicians, artistes, scholars and artisans from small towns that they left their hometowns and became a part of the cultural life of Karachi, as it had become impossible for them to get recognition while living in small towns. They came to Karachi to display their creativity and talent to a larger audience and get fame and prosperity. This is how Karachi devoured the energy of small and medium-sized towns of Sindh, reducing them to non-entities. Hyderabad, located near Karachi, suffered immensely. It could not retain its own daily newspapers or magazines and its literary activities died as the writers there preferred to settle down in Karachi where they found more space for their work.

In the case of Punjab, the city of Lahore has always played a leading role in attracting talented people from small towns who have readily absorbed its cultural fabric. Hence, before and after the partition, Lahore remained a dream city for writers, artists and musicians who would arrive and settle there for fame and fortune.

History shows that metropolitan cities have evolved by imbibing energy from the surrounding small towns, and in turn reducing them to a backward state, while the cities continued to prosper and progress at the cost of small towns. The talents of several famous literary people, musicians and artistes were recognised in big cities although they belonged to small towns. For those who preferred to stay back in their hometowns, it was difficult to find a suitable platform to display their creativity or skills. Living in a state of deprivation, their talents remain unrecognised and unacknowledged. The reason for the backwardness of the small towns is the lack of proper institutions which could contribute to increasing their knowledge and in the advancement of their social and cultural lives. Since big cities have more opportunities and institutions, they are in a position to accommodate the new arrivals and use their energy for further development. As long as this inequality between small and big cities continues, it will keep small towns backward, while the metropolitan cities will flourish at their cost.

When big cities begin to decline politically and culturally, small towns sometimes get an opportunity to develop their own culture. For example, Delhi and Agra which were previously centres of political control failed to patronise scholars and intellectuals anymore as the Mughal dynasty began to lose power. During this period, the Qasbati culture emerged and prominent personalities from the small towns of North India such as Baraily, Azam Garh, Deoband and Meerat, etc. began to produce some excellent work in art and literature.

It appears that in case of the subcontinent, small towns could not fully display their talents in presence of metropolitan cities. Although, the situation changed with time and communication has gradually brought small and big cities nearer to each other, yet the difference between the two still exists. Small towns still face a disadvantage in the presence of bigger cities in terms of development.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, August 9th, 2015

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