Twenty years ago a person had a heart attack during a meeting in Shikarpur. People put him in a car to take him to Larkana as there was no ambulance service available. Due to the heat and bad roads his condition deteriorated and he died on the way. Shook by the incident, Iftikhar Soomro who was present at the meeting, decided that a facility was required in the city to help people who needed immediate medical aid. He talked to heart specialists in Karachi who helped set up a small centre of 14 beds for heart patients in Shikarpur which became successful overnight.

People were given basic treatment and after stabilising, they were shifted to the major cities. Today, this centre includes diabetes and kidney dialysis sections as well and works under HMB Trust set up by Soomro in his father’s name. Due to poverty and diseases in the area, Soomro’s ambition is to open up a medical university at par with the leading hospitals in Lahore and Karachi.

It is difficult to gauge that this soft-spoken and mild looking person has achieved and done so many other things in life also. An industrialist, politician, social worker, philanthropist, honorary consul general and agriculturist, Soomro says it is not difficult for things to happen when one puts one’s heart into it.

Belonging to an illustrious family of politicians, Soomro’s uncle Allah Baksh became president of the movement for a united India, establishing the family in the arena of politics. After his assassination, his father Maula Baksh Soomro became a provincial minister and then federal minister in the cabinet of Feroz Khan Noon and Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy. His elder brothers Ahmad Mian Soomro and Illahi Buxsh Soomro have also held positions in past cabinets.

This background impacted but never inspired Soomro, the youngest of the siblings, to become a politician, preferring to do business instead. But in 1985 in Ziaul Haq’s era, he participated due to family pressure and got elected unopposed from Shikarpur to the provincial assembly. He was inducted into the cabinet in General Jahandad’s time as a minister for industries and again in Ghous Ali Shah’s tenure when he was chief minister of Sindh. It was a great experience, he recalls, but he got disillusioned after a year with that government and resigned, but continued as a member of the provincial assembly. Soomro distanced himself from politics after losing elections in 1992.

Reminiscing its past glory, Soomro said that Shikarpur was known as the Paris of Sindh before Partition. The people were enterprising and made money from their ventures abroad and invested it in the city. It had the best schools, havelis, buildings and thriving artisans. During Partition there was a massive exodus of Hindu businessmen who were replaced by working class immigrants who had no money and occupied the spectacular havelis which Shikarpur was famous for. To make ends meet they sold its adornments ruining the palatial homes. Shikarpur’s beauty was destroyed after these enterprising traders left and due to corruption everywhere, things became worse in the city.

“The degeneration is still continuing,” says Soomro sadly, “and the law and order situation is just as bad. The beautiful gardens have been destroyed and katchi abadis are on the increase.”

Having an enlightened background, Soomro’s mother could read and write, and his father did his Senior Cambridge from Quetta. His father was a man of vision and wanted his children to be educated, sending his sons to England for higher education and his daughters to college at a time when it was looked down upon for girls to step out of their homes. Soomro’s early education was in Karachi Grammar School as his parents had shifted to Karachi. Completing his A-levels he joined Adamjee Government Science College and did BA honours in economics from the University of Karachi.

Soomro wanted to go abroad for higher studies but went into textile business at his father’s behest, relinquishing a scholarship. This was his first taste of the industry. After 1967 he set up ginning and rice factories and did well. Later he became chairman of All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) for two years and travelled extensively, exporting cotton yarn to China, Europe and South Africa.

Due to the high profits, a ministry for the textile industry was set up some years ago. Unfortunately, Soomro says, the government has not paid attention to the infrastructure such as gas and electricity; otherwise this industry would be thriving. He emphasised that 40 per cent of the total labour was employed in the textile industry.

Soomro’s experience in the industry is extensive and as a result he is on the boards of many pharmaceutical companies. He is a trustee of Karachi Grammar School and part of the governing body of Sukkur Institute of Business Administration as well as founder and ex-president of the Shikarpur Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He says that though chambers play an important role in commerce, the government does not heed their suggestions due to a trust deficit. He emphasises that separate chambers for commerce and industry are the need of the day as commerce and industry have different problems.

Through the years Soomro has added education under the Trust’s umbrella, setting up a law college which has made a name for itself. The reason he says is good administration and dedicated teachers. A nominal fee is charged and scholarships are awarded to deserving students purely on merit. Apart from this the Trust has also set up a school, again charging nominal fees. Due to the lack of institutions for the youth, the Trust has established a diploma vocational centre as well as a computer centre, and plans to start an electrical diploma centre soon.

He deplores the fact that education, a very important pillar of society, is being ignored. Sadly most schools have been turned into ghost schools in the rural areas and money is being pocketed by corrupt people.

Due to the disparity between the rural and urban people, Soomro says a lot needs to be done on the agricultural front. If the government focuses on the needs of the farmers, their education and health, they would not leave the rural areas and come to the cities. He says it is a myth now that feudal lords mistreat peasants as there aren’t big landowners anymore. Why shouldn’t progressive cultivators be allowed to own huge farmland, he questions, citing the example of the West in this regard. “Businessmen can have eight factories, so why can’t landowners have huge landholdings.” In his view one of the causes of the low yield in Pakistan is that farmers here own very small pieces of land.

Though he is not in mainstream politics anymore Iftikhar Soomro has recently joined a political party that has a chance, he says, to win if fair elections are held as the youth, the poor and women are supporting the party. On the home front, his children do not share his interest in politics and business and are pursuing their chosen careers.