IT would be interesting for those who like to keep a record of the demographic charts of different communities in Karachi to know how many Buddhists lived here when intolerance hadn’t become a norm in the city. Make no mistake: they were in a pretty decent number in the 1960s. They used to regularly arrange their cultural events and were a significant part of Karachi’s social fabric. How quickly they have disappeared from the cityscape is a matter that needs to be analysed. Or not.

On July 21, 1967 the Buddhist living in the Sindh capital celebrated their sacred festival Asari Purnima. It was a daylong programme held under the auspices of the Buddha Dhammiya Sangha. A large meeting was organised on the occasion at the Giri Buddhist Centre to discuss Buddha’s teachings. P. M. Barua, general secretary of the Pakistan Buddha Kristi Prachar Sangha and the Pakistan Centre of World Fellowship of Buddhists, presided. In his speech he said there was a universal note in the teachings of the Buddha and his message of love, compassion and peace.

Speaking of communities, Karachi today has a sizable population of Burmese origin. Not many would know that in 1967 they even had a Burmese Muslim Association. On July 20, the association sent telegrams to the provincial government and city commissioner alleging irregularities in the allotment of plots to families being shifted from the APWA college grounds to Orangi Township. They complained that while the families that shifted from the Lyari riverbed under instructions of the government were without allotments, the ‘non-genuine’ ones had got them. It was a question of merit.

Merit was something that the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation at the time was pretty fussy about (not sure if that’s the case today). On July 19, the KMC issued a circular to its 15 department heads saying it had introduced a scheme of rewards for KMC employees ‘for their good performance during the year’. The chairman of the corporation had asked them to provide him with a list of workers they deemed deserving to be rewarded.

To be honest, as it has been written before in this column, the KMC wasn’t doing a bad job in 1967. On July 17, its health department launched ‘Operation smallpox’. On the first day of the campaign, more than 5,000 people were vaccinated against smallpox in the New Karachi Township. The assistant health officer of health ward III had decided to begin the drive from that area following reports of smallpox cases there; and also because the KMC chairman had ordered him to work outside municipal limits. Mass vaccination started at 3pm and continued till 5pm. In just two hours, most of the 800 quarters in the vicinity were covered.

Another campaign that was needed to be launched that week was against what was termed ‘pavement service stations’. As per a media report on July 17, the city already infested with pavement auto-repair shops was now faced with an invasion of pavement service stations. The one mentioned in the report was near the Quaid-i-Azam’s mausoleum. The oil dripping from the station on to the road made it slippery and therefore dangerous for the fast moving traffic. That was not it: the vehicles parked for service on the road caused traffic obstructions. The oil, mostly used and adulterated, supplied cheap by those stations added to the exhaust fumes in the environment as well. And who patronised these pavement service stations? Auto-ricksha wallahs! Interesting? In 2017, this does not seem to be a newsworthy issue at all.

Published in Dawn, July 17th, 2017