IT seems that torrential rains and delimitation are issues that don’t seem to go away from Karachi’s geopolitical landscape. Obviously, both have to do with the daily lives of citizens, and both, if not dealt with correctly, can cause a great deal of inconvenience.

On Sept 7, 1970 G A. Madani, a former commissioner of Karachi criticised in a statement the delimitation process that was taking place before the general election in the city, calling it highly undemocratic and arbitrary. Highlighting what he described as glaring anomalies, he argued that one constituency in the city had only 50,000 voters while the adjacent constituency in Nazimabad had as many as 132,000. He pointed out the natural corollary of the principle ‘one-man one-vote’ was that no area was overrepresented or underrepresented.

Be it a densely populated locality of the Sindh capital or one with fewer inhabitants, inclement weather can wreak havoc on all of them. On Sept 8, heavy rains lashed the city as a result of which 900 telephone lines went dead and several localities plunged into darkness because of power outage. According to a report, 2.60 inches of rain was recorded in two days. The Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC, now KE) received 630 individual complaints out of which it claimed 600 were ‘attended’.

The Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC) was pretty alert to the situation. As it always happens, roads and streets were covered into rainwater. On Sept 9, the KMC’s ‘pumping sets’ were brought in to drain out water accumulated in low-lying areas. At 5pm that day, the rain stopped, allowing the municipal employees to easily move their sets to over 15 affected areas. The worst-hit neighbourhoods were: Lyari, Shershah, Mahmoodabad, Bhutta Village, Chawkiwara, and Shah Beg Lanes.

Excessive rains often result in the spread of a variety of diseases. On Sept 10, it was reported that the outpatient departments (OPD) of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) and Civil Hospital were crowded with thousands of patients despite occasional drizzling. The media attributed the unprecedented rush to an increase in the number of cases of malaria, flu, asthma and gastroenteritis. A lot of sick men and women could not reach the hospitals the day before because of the heavy downpour; the next day, when the weather relented a bit, they flooded the OPDs.

But if there was gloom and doom all around, glowing tributes paid to Father of the Nation Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah on Sept 11 turned things brighter. On the Quaid’s 22nd death anniversary, the All Pakistan Youth Association organised a seminar at the Arts Council in his memory. Speakers included vice chancellor of the University of Karachi Dr I. H. Qureshi, Syed Husain Imam, Nawab Siddique Ali Khan, M. H. Syed, Hassan A. Shaikh and Rizwan Ahmed. They were of the view that unless we followed the example set by the founder of the country in our everyday life, all ceremonial formalities and meetings held to mark important days associated with him were of no use. They said Muslims of the subcontinent were fortunate to have the Quaid-i-Azam as their leader who piloted the freedom movement to glory. Absolutely right.

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2020