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KARACHI: A simple question: what was Karachi’s population in 1968? The answer: 2.9million. Yes, from a little more than 400,000 at the time of the country’s independence to two decades later, the population had an addition of a whopping 2.5m. And today? Let’s not go there. So, how do we know about the 2.9m figure?
Well, on Oct 31, Nov 1, 1968, I. Jafri, assistant director of Basic Democracies Karachi, gave a statement that the city’s population was 29 lakh as per the census carried out in the district in January (1968). He pointed out that a population of 40,000 to 50,000 might have been added to the Sindh capital in the previous 10 months. The census was conducted to ensure delimitation of electoral units in Karachi district.
The other thing that was on the rise in those days was the number of malaria patients. On Oct 30, it was reported that the incidence of malaria in the city had increased by 50 per cent in 29 days. The Jinnah Post-Graduate Medical Centre and Civil Hospital received 1,689 patients in October alone. A total of 146 patients were rushed to hospital in an unconscious state due to high fever. Most of them were children and old men. They were brought from almost all the localities of the city. Doctors believed the sudden rise in malaria cases was nothing unusual –– it happened at the beginning of the winter season in Karachi.
All was not doom and gloom, though. On Oct 31, for the first time in the history of the city a local surgeon at the Spencer Eye Hospital, Dr M. H. Rizvi, transplanted plastic cornea; and the patient was a 50-year-old man named Charshambay. Corneal transplant, at the time, was a very costly procedure to undergo in Pakistan because one cornea cost about Rs750.
Staying on the subject of health, on Nov 3, the Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC) claimed that in the span of seven days it had served more than 150 notices to private property owners in the city for violating various sanitation laws. Most of the offenders had failed to keep their neighbourhoods clean and had indulged in throwing garbage and sewage on to the roads. Others were served with notices for having failed to repair or whitewash their buildings despite repeated warnings by the municipal health department. Some of the offenders were served with notices for breeding mosquitoes in their homes (in broken-down flush tanks, standing water on empty plots, rooftops etc). The notices gave the offenders one to two weeks — varying with the nature and gravity of the offence: to clean up or face prosecution.
Wow! If the KMC tried to do that in 2018, it would have to serve Lord knows how many such notices.
Mind you, 50 years back, the well-being of human beings was not the sole concern of local authorities. They cared about animals, too. On Nov 3, it was announced that the West Pakistan Government had closed the whole of Karachi district and some other areas for shooting partridges during the current gaming season. Lasbela district had already been closed for all games for two years to conserve and protect animal life in the zone.
Now from the well-being of people and animals to intellectual pursuits: on Nov 2, V. Staukalin, the Soviet consul general inaugurated an exhibition of Soviet books at the library of the University of Karachi. Over 5,000 books on a number of subjects had been put on display in the show. Which meant books by literary giants such as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Gorky!
Published in Dawn, October 29th , 2018
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