Monday, November 17, 2008

STORY OF KARACHI

STORY OF KARACHI


There was nothing much at Karachi until the Mirs of Talpur seized it from the 
Khan of Kalat in 1795 and constructed a mud fort at Manora. Under its 
protection, a small town grew up, whose population had reached 13,000 by 1818. 
Not much happened thereafter until 1st February 1839, when a British ship - the 
Wellesley - anchored off Manora. Two days later the little fort surrendered 
without a shot being fired on either side. The fickle finger of fate had 
suddenly shoved the sleepy back-water towards becoming a megalopolis, a world 
city. 

WRESTED FROM THE SWAMPS: The settlement was remote and swampy, isolated by 
hundreds of miles of bleak desert in every direction but the sea. Nonetheless, 
within four years, the capital of Sind was transferred there and building began 
in earnest. By 1847 the Napier Barracks (now governinent offices) were 
completed. A census next year showed that the population had already reached 
50,000. The filth and squalor proliferated, everything became plastered with 
smelly black mud from the mangrove swamps, so a Municipal Committee was formed 
to levy funds and provide public utilities. In 1848 the municipality's income 
was Rs.6,000; in 1849 it was Rs.18,000 and in 1850, Rs.27,000 - an increase 
reflecting the mind-boggling population explosion. 

The committee laid out a whole network of roads, named after itselt; in what is 
now Central Karachi. Preedy Street was named after the Revenue Commissioner; 
MeLeod Road after the Collector of Customs and so on. Even in those days 
Karachi had a traffic problem. There were so many carts and carriages that the 
roads had to be paved with gravel chippings (an unheard of refinement, way 
ahead of London.) The streets were watered daily by municipal bullock carts, to 
damp down the dust. As revenues increased, public works were undertaken on a 
grand scale. Frere Hall (a museum and library) was finished in 1865, 
Mereweather Clock Tower in 1867, Boulton Market in 1883, Empress Market in 
1889... The town turned into a city. 

As people poured in, the drinking water problem, always difficult, became 
acute. There is no natural source of water in Karachi; all water consumed there 
must be fetched from somewhere else. Last century, water drawn from the Indus 
was brought by camel train to the cantonment. The wealthier merchants sent mule 
carts to the sweetwater springs in nearby Clifton. Less fortunate people bought 
drinking water from municipal watercarriers until household pipes could be 
laid. Though provision proceeded apace, demand has always been ahead of supply. 
Karachi's poor, in places like Korangi, are still waiting for safe drinking 
water. 

At the turn of the century a public tram service commenced from Saddar (the 
cantonment) to the new harbour at Kiamari. The horses wore straw hats to avoid 
sunstroke and water for them was provided by the philanthropic "Drinking Trough 
Society of Karachi." The troughs can still be seen here and there in the city. 
Modernising the harbour commenced in 1860, proceeding by fits and starts. By 
1882 the Mereweather Pier was completed and pilgrims for Mecca no longer had to 
embark at Manora. By 1900, Karachi was one of the the biggest and best 
outfitted ports in the world. Nonetheless, it continued to be troubled by the 
ague and the plague until the sanitation system was completed, just after the 
first World War. The war itself brought immense prosperity to Karachi's 
merchants. Clifton's promenade, pier and park were gifted to the city by Sir 
Jehangir H. Kothari OBE in 1919. The complex Cost Rs.300,000 to build, an 
absolute fortune in those days. Other public parks, including the Zoological 
Gardens on Garden Road were laid out at this time. Even more new roads and 
buildings were constructed in the interwar period. As the population approached 
the quarter million mark, those who could moved out to the suburbs, building 
houses in a style best described as "South Asian Hollywood." commuting arrived 
with a vengeance and one of the world's first rapid transit systems was 
inaugurated. 

MELTING POT: The building of Karachi attracted Goan cooks, Anglo-Indian 
bartenders, Sikh bricklayers, and Chinese washermen. Parsi, Hindu and Jain 
merchants came from Gujarat and Rajasthan. Until Partition, their camel 
caravans regularly crossed the Thar. The Parsis built a Tower of Death out at 
Korangi. A few of the merchants' big mansions still remain downtown. The 
Lebanese community became sizeable. People of African descent can also be seem 
in and around Karachi. Tradition has it, they escaped from a shipwrecked Arab 
slaver at the mouth of the Hub River (hence their nickname 'hubshi"). 

At Partition, Hindus, Armenians and Jews left the city en masse. Muslim 
refugees from India, calling themselves Mohajir, migrated in by train, boat, 
air, truck, even on foot. It is not known how many millions arrived. Karachi, 
new capital of a new country, was so pushed for space that its government 
servants had to sleep in the public parks and gardens in tents! The Mohajir 
further diversify the ethnic mix of the city. Many English stayed on, their 
ranks now depleted by age. Vintage couples can be spotted at their usual 
watering holes, the Metropole Hotel and the statelier clubs in the early 
evening. 

Subsequent decades have seen the influx unabated. The Karachi Development 
Authority instituted the upgrading of amenities on a massive scale: new housing 
colonies, public buildings, roads, schools, colleges, markets, bazaars, 
business centres, to keep pace with development needs. Cycle rickshaws have now 
been replaced by thousands of scooter-rickshaws. 

After Pakistan's civil war in 1971, thousands of Biharis (Urdu-speaking Muslims 
from Bangladesh) arrived by boat. In the 1980s Afghan refugees joined migrant 
workers from the Frontier who have laboured as dockworkers and porters for 
decades. Meanwhile, "economic refugees" from Pakistan's less developed areas, 
like Gilgit, Chitral and Hunza head for Karachi in search of jobs. The original 
Sindhi speaking population is now a minority in the city. 

Gas supply lines from Sui in Baluchistan were laid, the Hub Dam Scheme extended 
the Greater Karachi Water Project and the Circular Railway was completed. In 
the 1960s, two huge industrial areas were built, at Sind Industrial Estate and 
Landhi and in the 1970s three more: the Export Processing Zone, Pakistan Steel 
Mills Complex and Muhammad Bin Qasim Container Port. In the following decade, 
work on KANUPP, Karachi's nuclear power station, was inaugurated. Industrial 
growth has been spectacular. 

RICH AND POOR: Original home of Pakistan's film and music industries, Karachi 
in the 1980s made more films and exported them to more countries than 
Hollywood. It houses the very latest in modern technology. The city works and 
sleeps in a haze of brick dust as buildings barely 30 years old are 
relentlessly torn down and replaced with something more up to date. The 
population of seven, maybe eight, million now extends over several hundred 
square kilometres along the coast and into the desert, residing in modern 
apartment blocks, prestigious cooperative housing societies called "Colonies", 
seaside mansions and sprawling shanty towns on the outskirts, areas of such 
appalling poverty that it is difficult to see how residents will ever be 
extricated from their plight. Working 16 hours a day, poor youths toil like 
slaves, earning a pittance to produce elegant costume for the city's elite. 

Piles of rubble surround new homes, hotels and condominiums. Limousines and 
rickshaws alike must pick their way through scaffolding jungles as artisans 
with age old skills produce ever more new buildings. Sometimes these are 
exquisite, and Karachi's modern architecture is the showcase of Asia. 

.......to be continued

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