RECENTLY I read in the newspaper of the city government's plan to demolish a number of historic Sindhi goths in Karachi Yousuf Sahab Goth, Faqeera Goth, Jamali Goth and Mulla Essa Goth in Gadap Town; Madhoo Goth and Juma Khan Goth in Gulshan-i-Iqbal Town; Kandhoo Goth in North Nazimabad Town; Mawach Goth in Keamari Town; and Yousuf Goth in Baldia Town.

Apparently the City District Government Karachi is denying that the order was given by the nazim to destroy these goths, but opposition members in the city council insist the CDGK is grabbing land from Sindhis, raising the spectre of ethnic discrimination.

Any land or goth that has been given a lease to be regularised up until March 1985 cannot be legally demolished, but those not listed in the regularisation formula are considered illegal and can be removed by law. We all know how easy it is to produce or hide documents as needed, so whether or not the goths are proved illegal is really only a formality if there's a determined effort to get rid of them.

Doing so would be a crime against the city, however, as these villages date back to the time of the British, some as old as 1917. Besides that, demolishing these villages could displace hundreds, if not thousands, of Sindhi, Baloch and Makrani citizens of Karachi, throwing them out of areas that they've been living in for generations.

I'm not all that familiar with the goths, but I once received a letter from a Karachi-based reader of my columns on Sindh, who described so beautifully to me the way his life was enriched by having Sindhis living in close proximity to his neighborhood in the 1960s. “Around Lasbella Chowk there exist many old Muslim Sindhi settlements (where the people) lived in true native style in all their glamour, and speaking Sindhi in their goths. The Sindh women from these scattered goths worked as domestic help in the locality as well as in our home.”

He wrote to me of the joy he felt on Eid Day, seeing the little children of the goth dressed in their Eid finery, and of the neighbours who came to share with his Memon family the traditional Gujrati dishes prepared for the festivities. “I fondly remember sharing joy with many, sharing in their happiness, to celebrate the joys of Ramazan nights, Eid mornings, and a chance to see Sindhis in their native dress, to imitate a few words of Sindhi, the smiles, the joy, and the hearty laughs we learned to share. Sindhis coming from the nearby old goth were treated like a novelty.”

If these goths are demolished, Karachi will lose something that can never be replaced a vital part of its culture and history. We all know Karachi was originally made up of a myriad of tiny fishing villages, where Sindhi and Baloch fishermen eked out a living at the edges of the Arabian Sea.

Even Gizri, where the richest citizens of Karachi cross a dozen times a day to leave Defence for the rest of the city, was once a fishing village under a separate administration until it was absorbed into the rest of the growing city.

Today, Karachi's all about modernisation, catching up with Dubai, the Far East and the West. But do any of us ever stop to think about what Karachi would be like for the people that still live in these hamlets and old villages once they have been forever excised from the map?

Instead of demolishing the goths, why not preserve some of the goths, and turn them into historical quarters of the city, the way it's done in so many other cities all around the world? In Europe, Prague recently received funds from the European Union to regenerate its very rundown historical centre; today it stands as a major tourist site and source of revenue for the city. Bucharest is following suit, learning from Prague's example.

Closer to home, in Dubai, skyscrapers and luxury hotels abound, but they haven't forgotten that their own city too was once a fishing village in a sleepy port. Every sightseeing tour of Dubai includes visits to their Heritage Village at the mouth of the Dubai creek. Here, potters and weavers practise traditional crafts and there are exhibits and demonstrations of pearl diving and other ways and means that fishermen earned their living from the water. Visitors to the city are able to forget the madness of the malls and instead see Dubai as it was at its most humble beginnings.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could do the same thing in at least a few of our city's Sindhi goths, cleaning them up, making them beautiful and turning them into tourist sites for the visitors to our city who long for a bit of culture to remember about their trip to Karachi?

Imagine ajrak weavers and potters and tile-makers setting up stalls and studios in these goths, practising their crafts and selling them to tourists. Imagine cultural centres where the musicians and poets of Sindh can entertain guests with the Sufi music and songs of our heritage. Imagine Sindhi residents employed as guides and entertainers, dressed in traditional

clothes, telling stories and legends of Sindh to all those who want to experience the mysticism of the region here in Karachi.

The transformation of the goths into heritage villages could create jobs and bring in tourist revenue that could change the way the city is seen by the rest of the world.

However, this scheme will only work if there's anything of the goths' original character left. If, on the other hand, these tracts of land are known as goths but are actually masquerading as city slums, with few of the original residents left, the issue is not actually one of ethnic discrimination, as it has been suggested in the city council, but a case of land-grabbing for profit.

The authorities must find out how many Sindhis and Baloch are living in the goths, carry out the necessary inquiries, and make their findings transparent to the public before any decision is made on the future of the goths and the people who live in them.

The writer is a novelist.

binashah@yahoo.com