ON Jan 16, 1973, traditional enthusiasm and festivity marked the celebrations for Eidul Azha in the country. In Karachi, as has always been the case, large groups of men, women and children thronged places of entertainment and recreation such as parks and beaches. The Zoological Garden, Clifton, Keamari and Manora beaches, and some public parks, were seen packed with visitors and holidaymakers. For the young ones, the Zoological Garden proved to be the main attraction.

Another good nugget of information that came out on the third day of Eid (Jan 18) was when Sindh’s Minister for Local Bodies Jam Sadiq Ali inaugurated the 21st annual Book Collection Week organised by the Students Welfare Organisation (SWO) at the historic Khaliqdina Hall. Speaking on the occasion, he praised the young volunteers for serving the cause of education by collecting books and distributing them among the needy and less fortunate students in the city for the past 21 years. He said he would personally contribute Rs1,000 to the fund and join the drive for gathering and distributing old textbooks on his return from the tour of Sindh. Mr Ali reminded the students that their performance as future leaders of the country depended on the knowledge they acquired [at educational institutions and by reading books]. He also announced an annual grant of Rs5,000 each to be given by the Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC) and the Landhi-Korangi Municipal Committee to the SWO.

Although it all sounded good, things were not hunky-dory when it came to municipal affairs. The same day (Jan 18), at the first meeting of the Karachi Chapter of the Pakistan Group for the study of Local Government it was bemoaned that clearance and resettlement projects had failed to solve the problem of slums in Karachi, despite the fact that the government had spent Rs35 crore [Rs350m] on them. The problem was specifically discussed in a paper titled ‘slums and local government’ read by Dr S.H. Hashmi. Experts talked about the issues regarding resettlement, too. They pointed out that the overall development of new dwelling areas did not take place simultaneously with the resettlement.

If that was not enough to trouble the authorities, on the night of Jan 19-20 a large number of people braved the cold wind at Karachi airport waiting for the special Haj flight from Jeddah only to find out at a later stage that it had been cancelled. Another such flight landed at about 3am on Jan 19 catching some of the relatives of the pilgrims unaware causing them inconvenience. The scheduled plane was supposed to arrive at 11:40pm.

If on one hand, the poor passengers could not express their feelings to relevant quarters, on the other hand, on Jan 21, Maleka Baltistani demanded creation of a new province with Chitral, Gilgit and Baltistan, and representation in the assemblies on the basis of population. Apart from that, Mrs Baltistani — who was convener of the Chitral, Gilgit and Baltistan Action Committee — addressing a press conference at Hotel Intercontinental in Karachi asked for an end to exploitation of the people, calling upon the government to provide jobs to the educated persons belonging to the region.

Published in Dawn, January 16th, 2023