CONTRARY to what many of us think, two words which nowadays have gained currency in our daily conversations with each other — epidemic and vaccination — are not new to Karachiites. There have seldom been time periods when the city has been totally ailment-free. Fifty years back, smallpox was thought to be a disease about to go away from citizens’ lives. But its sudden outbreak in Lyari and its adjoining areas in February 1971 rang alarm bells for the administrative units of the Sindh capital.

So, on Feb 15, 1971 the administration of the Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC) came under heavy fire when the city fathers met at the KMC council hall. A member, Dr Azhar Qureshi, during a question-answer session, asked the health department of the corporation to explain the reasons why the smallpox epidemic had broken out in Bihar Colony and Lyari. He alleged that every union committee had its own vaccination staff and they never reported on duty in times of need.

There was one field which looked pretty healthy in those days, though: students’ union. On Feb 16, elections of the Karachi University Students Union and 50 of its affiliated colleges were held in a peaceful and orderly manner in which over 60 per cent of the students participated. The total number of votes exceeded the 120,000 mark in the institutions. In most of them the polls were held on a party basis. The two main rival parties were seen carrying flags — the National Students Federation (NSF) had a red flag while the Islami Jamiat-i-Talaba (IJT) had a green one. At the university, 31 polling booths were set up, one in every department. There were 3,358 registered voters including 1,784 in science, and 1,574 in the arts, faculty. By the time this piece of information was published in Dawn, counting was still going on. Some of the results of successful candidates received for the Univer­sity of Karachi were: Zahid Husain (president), M. Farrukh Qaiser (general secretary), Kaniz Fatima and S. Azhar Yazdani (joint secretaries).

Another notable sociopolitical development that week was some comments made by G.M. Syed, president of the Sindh United Front, on Feb 20 while talking to a news agency in Karachi after his return from a visit to Dacca where he’d gone to meet Awami League (AL) chief Sheikh Mujibur Rehman. Mr Syed said chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was a product of dictatorship and wanted to gain power through the backdoor. He argued the league’s six points were not against Pakistan or any province. In fact, they were beneficial for Sindh. The AL would give equal rights to all other provinces if it came to power, he maintained and added the party would seek the cooperation of political parties from West Pakistan in framing the constitution.

As far as the world of art was concerned, on Feb 19 a students’ mushaira was broadcast from Radio Pakistan Karachi as part of its students’ festival. A select number of boys and girls from colleges and the University of Karachi (KU) took part in the event. The following won the top honours: the first prize went to Parveen Shakir of KU and Wafa Kanpuri of City College. Imran Razzaki of KU came second, and Shaukat Abid of Jamia Millia, third.

Published in Dawn, February 15th, 2021