Former PPP Leader Nabil Gabol. — File Photo.

While he was being welcomed into the MQM, in Lyari people danced in the streets on his exit from the PPP. Now, he may be the most hated person in his old constituency but Nabeel Gabol doesn’t seem to care. As armed men stand guard outside his palatial Defence residence, he holds back-to-back meetings. Charged about being included in the MQM’s central executive council, he seems to have found a renewed sense of purpose.
Asked about people’s reaction, he shrugs and remarks: “I wasn’t criticised as much as I thought I would be [on joining the MQM]. Many people knew how I had been sidelined for four years, so maybe that’s why.”

Nabeel is the only one amongst his siblings that has taken a keen interest in politics. His two brothers chose business over politics like their father, Ahmed Khan Gabol, but he followed his grandfather, Khan Bahadur Allah Buksh Gabol. The latter was elected as a member of the Bombay legislative assembly in 1927 and as a member of the Sindh Assembly in 1936; he also served as the first deputy speaker of the Sindh Assembly and twice as the mayor of Karachi. Nabeel Gabol’s uncle, Sattar Gabol, was elected a PPP member of the National Assembly in 1970 and later 1977, contesting from Lyari.

Nabeel, born and raised in Lyari, studied at St Patrick’s College. He entered politics at the age of 24, joining the PPP from Lyari. In 1988, Nabeel was elected as a member of the Sindh Assembly. Since then, he has been winning elections from Lyari. In the 2008 general elections, he won a whopping 96,000 votes from Lyari, against Wasiullah Lakho of the MQM who won 4,200 votes. He resigned from his seat in January 2011, after having issues in getting complete control of the ministry of state for shipping.

Nabeel spent a turbulent few years in Lyari, mainly due to continuing strife between him and the Uzair Baloch-led People’s Amn Committee (PAC). He was ‘banned’ from entering Lyari, allegedly because of the rift with the PAC, though Nabeel denies this vehemently. “They cannot stop me from entering Lyari,” he asserts. “I left the party, not the people of Lyari.” About the nomination of a leader linked to the PAC from Lyari in the coming elections, Nabeel observes: “These people ruined Lyari so much that now the PPP is forced to give its party ticket to such people.” About the party he has joined, according to Nabeel, between Azizabad and Lyari the problems are the same, but the way to sort them out is different. “The MQM is more disciplined. If you have a grievance, the party leader asks you himself,” he comments.

Apart from contesting elections from Azizabad, Nabeel is contesting from Lyari too. Does he think there will be resistance to his return there? Only three union councils (UCs) in Lyari are under the control of the PAC, he explains, with eight other UCs where it has no hold whatsoever. “I don’t see why I can’t go there,” he adds confidently.

His number one aim, if elected, is to bridge the gap between Urdu-speaking and Sindhi people. Being “half-Sindhi and half-Baloch,” Nabeel says he wants to “reduce the fear” between different ethnicities. He adds that the MQM is not predominantly an Urdu-speakers’ party. “I have met a lot of Sindhis and Baloch at the MQM headquarters, Nine Zero,” he adds.

Nabeel believes that the next Sindh chief minister will be from the MQM. Asked whether the nationalists would allow such a development, he says “the nationalists are irrelevant.”

As for the challenges that he faces in his old constituency, he retorts instantly: “It’s not resistance any more, it’s a war between politicians and criminals. I can’t fight with them with a gun, elections are the only way to tackle such people.” Here, he takes a deep breath: “But let’s get elected first.”

For example, the following is what Sindhi nationalist leader and scholar, G M Syed, said about Pakistan’s future way back in 1953: “In the years to come, Pakistan will not only become a problem for itself, but it will pose a danger to the world.”

More than 50 years ago this man had somehow realised and predicted a future that is currently haunting not only Pakistan but also the world at large.

This was a man articulating a rather breathtaking insight that he had experienced long before Pakistan had become an anarchic dystopia where bread is promised and blood is shed in the name of faith.

But Syed was not the only one in those days casting a pessimistic shadow across the possible future of the newly-founded country. Those who agreed with Syed were various Bengali and Baloch nationalists, along with Pushtun nationalist icon, Bacha Khan.

Sindhi nationalist and scholar, G M Syed, spent most of his adult life as a political prisoner either in jail or under house arrest.

Very early on these Sindhi, Pushtun, Baloch and Bengali nationalists and thinkers had started to raise an alarm about the cosmetic nature of what was beginning to be devised by the state as the ‘Pakistan ideology’ – even though this term was never used by the country’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah and would only come into play in the 1960s.

The trigger was the 1949 Objectives Resolution initiated by the government of Liaquat Ali Khan, and which, for the first time, described Islam to be the binding force of the young nation.

Men like Syed and other ethnic-nationalists correctly saw through the maneuver and explained it as the beginnings of a process that they feared the ruling elite would exploit in its attempt to suppress the country’s multicultural and multiethnic make-up.

They thought that with the Resolution the state was creating an illusion to counter a reality that it did not fancy.

The awkward reality was that Pakistan was not exactly a single nation with a single language. It was a diverse country with multiple ethnicities, religions, Muslim sects and sub-sects.
Each one of these had their own literature, language, culture and interpretation of faith, society and history.

The illusion naturally went the other way by describing Pakistan to be homogenous nation-state with a monolithic strain of faith that would cut through the ethnic and sectarian diversities. These were described by the state as being dangerous cleavages that could tear the young country apart.

The ruling elite began seeing these diversities as divides and an existentialist and political threat to the country.

___________________________

It is interesting to note that there is little or no evidence to suggest that there was ever a concrete plan to immediately turn Pakistan into an Islamic republic or state.

Birth of an illusion: Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan announcing the passing of the 1949 Objectives Resolution in the Constituent Assembly that for the first time stated Pakistan’s goal to become an ‘Islamic Republic.’ Liaquat was assassinated by a lone gunman in 1951.

However, when agitation by Bengali nationalists in former East Pakistan over the issue of making Urdu the national language broke out, instead of democratically addressing the issue, this suddenly prompted the government to officially introduce certain theocratic declarations in the 1949 Objectives Resolution.

Even though these declarations were no more than an eye-wash and the Pakistani leadership and society remained largely secular in orientation, men like G M Syed and Bacha Khan were quick to sight a dangerous trend. To them the ruling elite was now willing to use religion to suppress centuries-old ethnic identities of the Sindhis, Pushtuns, Bengalis and the Baloch. They saw these identities being forcefully replaced with a cosmetic and monolithic ideology based on the state’s ‘elitist’ understanding of Islam and nationhood.

Over the decades, the governments and the ‘establishment’ of Pakistan painstakingly constructed this supposed ideology, so much so that (ever since the 1980s) it eventually started being used by intelligence agencies, politico-religious parties, and some media personnel to actually justify the folly of the Pakistan state and military patronising brutal Islamist outfits.

‘But wasn’t Pakistan made in the name of Islam?’ They would (and still) retort.

Was it?

___________________________

Until about the late 1960s it was fair to suggest that Pakistan as an idea was carved out as a country for the Muslims of the subcontinent who were largely seen (by Jinnah), as a distinct cultural set of Indians whose political and cultural distinctiveness might have been compromised in a post-colonial ‘Hindu-dominated’ India.

As Jinnah went about explaining his vision of what Pakistan was supposed to mean, there are no doubts about the historical validity of the notion that he imagined the new country as a cultural haven for the Muslims of the subcontinent where the state and religion would remain separate, but driven by a form of modern democracy that incorporated the egalitarian concepts of Islam such as charity, equality and interfaith harmony.

There is also no doubt about Jinnah’s distaste for religious zealots whom he feared would actually harm the ‘Pakistan Movement.’ Maybe this is why some of his most vocal Muslim critics included certain Islamic fundamentalist parties.

However, in spite of the fact that a number of speeches by Jinnah can be quoted in which he is heard envisioning Pakistan as a progressive and non-theocratic Muslim state, there are, at the same time, examples of speeches by the same man (especially in the former NWFP), where he actually uses terms like Shariah and Islamic state.

No matter how intense the debate between those who saw him as a secular, liberal Muslim and those who claim that he was okay with the idea of Pakistan being turned into a theocratic state, the fact is that we might never really know exactly what it was that Jinnah actually stood for. He died of TB just 13 months after the birth of Pakistan.

Founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah: The intellectual and political debate rages on between liberals and conservatives about exactly what sort of a Pakistan Jinnah envisioned. This debate has no easy conclusions thanks to the unfortunate death of the man just one year after the birth of Pakistan.

Jinnah’s death in 1948 reduced his party the Muslim League from being a dynamic organisation of visionary action, into a rag-tag group of self-serving politicians.

Gone too was the party’s ability to bring into policy the modernist aspects of Jinnah’s otherwise rather undefined vision. The idea of a progressive Muslim country got increasingly muddled and shot down by the same Islamic forces that had opposed the creation of Pakistan and had labeled Jinnah as a ‘Kafir-e-azam’ (leader of infidels).

One such force, the fundamentalist Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), went on a rampage in 1953 in Lahore, hungrily overseeing the country’s first major anti-Ahmadi riots.

By then the famous August 1947 speech by Jinnah in which he had underlined the idea of religious freedom in the new country was conveniently forgotten as the ruling elite grappled confusingly with the crises thrown up by the anti-Ahmadi riots.

Though the government crushed the riots, three years later it eventually caved-in to the demands of a handful of vocal Islamic leaders by officially declaring the country as an ‘Islamic Republic’ in the 1956 Constitution.

Misunderstanding Islamist activism to be an expression of mere emotionalism, the ruling elite gave the Islamists a bone to play with in the shape of the Islamic provisions in the 1956 Constitution.

This the government did without bothering to explain to the rest of the people exactly what an Islamic Republic really meant in the Pakistani context – a country comprising of a number of ethnicities, ‘minority religions,’ and distinct Islamic sects.

Prime Minister Chaudhry Muhammad Ali (seated centre) in discussion with some Muslim League colleagues shortly after overseeing the passing of the 1956 Constitution that replaced the name Republic of Pakistan with Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Ali, however, had to resign in 1957 due to a rift within the League. The constitution was scrapped when in 1958 Field Marshal Ayub Khan took over power through a military coup.

Field Martial Ayub Khan’s regime changed Pakistan’s name from Islamic Republic of Pakistan back to Republic of Pakistan, and initiated various liberal social, agricultural and economic reforms. Though the Islamic parties were kept quiet during his 10-year-regime, so were the secular parties that opposed his dictatorship. His was perhaps the most secular government in the history of the country, but it was equally repulsed by the concept of liberal democracy. His reforms modernised Pakistan’s economy and society but also created huge economic gaps between the upper, middle and working/peasant classes. Accused of presiding over a regime run on ‘crony capitalism’, he was forced to resign in 1969 by a concentrated movement by left-wing student groups, trade unions and political parties.

___________________________

But was democracy really the answer to the dilemma of the state and government imposing a monolithic idea of faith upon a diverse polity? The truth was that the state’s Islamisation project was actually scrapped and halted under a military dictatorship (Ayub Khan).

Therefore, it is ironic that the second major step towards the Islamisation of politics in Pakistan (after the secular Ayub Khan interlude), was actually taken during a democratically-elected left-liberal regime in the 1970s.

Stung and perplexed by the devastating defeat faced by the Pakistani armed forces in the 1971 war against India, and by the consequent separation of the former East Pakistan (that became the independent state of Bangladesh), the Z A Bhutto/Pakistan Peoples Party regime set about putting into practice its idea of socio-political and economic regeneration of what remained of the country.

This idea eventually saw the regime trying to synthesise socialist and nationalist populism with political Islam.

In 1973, the government invited a number of secular nationalist intellectuals, historians and some Islamic scholars for a conference in Islamabad, asking them to thrash out a more concretely defined and well-rounded version of Pakistan’s ideology that would help the government in salvaging the country’s lost pride.

By the end of the conference, both secular and Islamic intellectuals concluded that Islam should clearly be defined as the core thought in the constitution of Pakistan.

Recommendations were made to promote this core idea through state-owned media, school text books and government policies.

This so-called ‘core idea’ was the answer to the question, ‘how to carve out an identity separate from India?’

If India was secular, then Pakistan had to be Islamic, if for no other reason than to justify the Partition of India in 1947 and the ‘two-nation theory’ that had otherwise all but collapsed after the 1971 East Pakistan debacle.

Scholar and historian, I H Qureshi was one of the leading voices advising the government and state of Pakistan to clearly define Islam as the core thought in the constitution of Pakistan. In 1973 he recommended the Z A Bhutto regime to promote this core idea through the state-owned media, school text books and government policies.

Pakistan was renamed as the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in the 1973 Constitution, while in 1974 the Bhutto regime (on the insistence of the religious parties), outlawed the Ahmadis as an Islamic sect.

Furthermore, although the government and society (until about 1977) remained largely secular and modernist, the idea of an Islamic state put forward by the government-sponsored conference ironically turned into a rallying cry for religious parties during their 1977 movement against Bhutto.

While Bhutto (like Anwar Sadat of Egypt) was busy taking to task his largely exaggerated communist, far-left and ethnic-nationalist opponents, religious parties that had been sidelined after the 1970 elections began filling the political and social vacuum created by Bhutto’s strong-arm tactics against leftist student groups, intellectuals, trade unions and Baloch and Pushtun nationalists.

After being badly shaken by the Islamist resurgence that he himself had (albeit indirectly and unwittingly) set into motion, he was heckled all the way to the gallows by the very forces he had tried to appease.

Part-socialist, part-democrat, part-Islamist, Z A Bhutto however became an entirely unwitting victim of his own Machiavellian maneuvers when he was paraded to the gallows by the very forces he thought he was cleverly appeasing.

General Ziaul Haq’s reactionary dictatorship that followed Bhutto’s downfall is correctly blamed for finally turning the Pakistani society and politics on its head through controversial laws and propaganda in the name of faith.

But all this was really the result of what that seemingly harmless conference in 1973 had suggested and advocated as an ideology, and the ideas that it gave to the religious forces to regenerate themselves and to a defeated military to revive its taste for state power, this time as ‘saviors of Islam.’

___________________________

Many years and follies later, and in the midst of unprecedented violence being perpetrated in the name of Islam, Pakistanis today stand more confused and flabbergasted than ever before.

The seeds of the ideological schizophrenia sowed by the 1956 proclamation followed by the disastrous doings of the Bhutto regime in the 1970s, and the Ziaul Haq dictatorship in the 1980s, have now grown into a crooked tree that only bares delusions and denials as fruit.

General Ziaul Haq announcing the imposition of Martial Law in July 1977. His 11-year-dictatorship would go on to finally express (through draconian laws and policies) the meaning of an ‘Islamic Republic and state.’ Many of these policies would eventually give birth to the sectarian malaise and violent Islamist radicalism that Pakistan is in the grip of for the last many years.

As Islamic parties, right-wing historians, military men and reactionary journalists continue to use the mythical and hyperbolic narrative of the ‘Ideology of Pakistan’, and consciously suppress the harrowing truth behind the chaos this so-called ideology has managed to create, a whole generation is growing up to the sound of this cosmetic ideological narrative.

This narrative has continued to alienate not only religious minorities and various ethnicities – (mainly Sindhi, Baloch and now even the Urdu-speaking Mohajirs who were once part of the ruling elite) – it has also created violent tensions within various Muslim sects and sub-sects.

General Pervez Musharraf who came into power through a military coup in 1999 promised to ‘save Pakistan’ through his philosophy of ‘enlightened moderation.’ Of course, this enlightenment didn’t have any bright thoughts about political parties and democracy and nor was it enlightened enough to realise that his double game of getting rid of ‘bad extremists’ while fattening the ‘good ones’ (so they could be used in Kashmir and Afghanistan) made him seem more like a Bhutto in uniform rather than what he really wanted to look like: the great Kamal Attaturk. He actively divided society into two extremes. One side he called the ‘liberal extremists’ the other ‘religious extremists.’ Of course, the ‘liberal extremists’ were those who were asking him to step down and revive democracy and use his ‘enlightened moderation’ to moderate the vicious draconian laws imposed (in the name of Islam) by Ziaul Haq, whereas the religious extremists were going about their business of slaughtering soldiers, cops and common civilians, as they are still doing today.

It seems the so-called Islam-centric ideology of Pakistan that began as a reformist project, has gradually regressed to such an extent that even the idea of having an informed debate on the subject has become a taboo. This so-called ideology has become stagnant and now suffers from intellectual decay.

___________________________

What is the ‘Pakistan Ideology?’

When we look at the salient features of what has been propagated (through various state initiatives, history text books and the media) as ‘Pakistan ideology’ over the decades, the following assertions stand out:
• The idea of a separate Muslim state (Pakistan) emerged to counter a possible post-colonial domination of the Hindu culture and politics in the region.

• Pakistan also came into existence to blunt historical conspiracies by the Hindus to absorb Islam and Muslims into their own belief system.

• The Muslims of Pakistan are a nation in the modern sense of the word. The basis of their nationhood is neither racial, linguistic nor ethnic; rather they are a nation because they belong to the same faith, Islam.

• Pakistanis may share a common history with the peoples of other faiths of the region (especially Hindus), but their faith is more importantly rooted in the history of Islam beyond the sub-continent.

• Since Pakistan came into being to assert the fact that Muslims and Hindus are two different nations, Pakistan should be a state where the Muslims should have an opportunity to live according to their faith and creed based on principles and laws of Islam.

• As a Muslim ideological state it is also the duty of the Pakistani state to defend the interests of other Muslim states and countries.

• Pakistan’s ideological and geographic borders are such that various anti-Islam forces are constantly conspiring against the Pakistani state from within and outside Pakistan.

• Pakistan needs a thorough security apparatus to fend off such forces.

• Such forces constitute countries run by Hindus, Christians, Jewish/Zionist, secular and Communist doctrines (from the outside), as well as groups and individuals propagating distinct ethnic nationalisms (from within).

• Though Pakistan does not recognise sectarian divisions between Islamic sects, it remains to be a Sunni majority country where Islamic laws based on historical legislative narratives of Sunni Islam have every right to take precedence.

• It is the duty of the Pakistani state to promote Islamic laws and practices in the society so the society can be prepared to collectively embrace them without hesitation of the emergence of an Islamic state run on the principals of the Shariah.

• Pakistan does not discriminate against non-Sunni Islamic sects and minority religions, but Sunni Islam (constructed on the modernist Islamic thoughts of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Muhammad Iqbal as well as on the Islamic scholarship emerging from friendly Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia), will rightfully dominate in the social, cultural, religious and political policies of the state.

___________________________

The critique: A new beginning and narrative

The critique of the ‘Pakistan Ideology’ became a concentrated project of various leftist and liberal intellectuals and scholars from the late 1960s onwards.

The critique is based on a deconstructive study of what finally appeared as the ‘Pakistan ideology’ in the 1970s. Bellow are some of the salient features of this still evolving critique that has taken a more urgent turn with the rise of Islamist terrorism and sectarian violence in the country.

The features are extracted from assorted critiques authored by scholars like G M Syed, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Hamza Alvi, Rubina Saigol, Dr. Mubarek Ali, Ahtizaz Ahsan, Dr. Parvez Hoodbhouy, Dr. Ayesha Jalal, Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa and Dr. Medhi Hassan.

* Pakistan even as a separate Muslim majority state is not a homogenous phenomenon. It is teeming with a varied number of ethnicities, religions and Islamic sects and sub-sects.

* A unified version of Islam and nationalism constructed by the state and then imposed upon the varied ethnicities, religions and Islamic sects was an insensitive and undemocratic attack on cultural heritages of these ethnicities, sects, sub-sects and religions. The act has created hatred and misunderstandings between them, and between them and the state.

* In the absence of a viable and continuous democratic process, Pakistan will continue plummeting as a nation state, and consequently, its ideology will become more and more myopic, suspicious and tyrannical – especially when it entirely becomes the domain of the military-establishment.

* The establishment uses this ideology to co-opt conservative and reactive Islamic forces as allies to justify its undemocratic political domination and to legitimise its otherwise exploitative and cynical Islamic credentials.

* This dangerous practice is then adopted even by democratic political parties who eventually become hostage to the myopic aspects of the ideology and are thus unable to bring any meaningful economic, social and political change and reform.

* All this is creating cleavages, violence and tensions between varied sections of the society and a possible state failure.

* The only thing that can help Pakistan avoid state failure is the granting of democratic rights, participation and autonomy to its various ethnicities and provinces. The provinces should be given the right to decide how much they would want religion to play a role in their provinces’ respective governments, if any.

* This so-called ‘Pakistan ideology’ instead of safeguarding Pakistan’s existentialist identity has actually gone on to be used by dictators, politicians, religious parties and Islamic radicals to justify oppression, religious apartheid and violence in the name of Islam.

* Thus, this is an ideology that though constructed to keep the state of Pakistan intact has actually become a weapon in the hands of those who both wittingly and unwittingly are pushing Pakistan towards becoming a failed state.

* Pakistan’s Muslims have more in common with civilizations that thrived in India, Persia, Turkey and Central Asia than those in Arabia.

* A majority of the cultural, religious and political ancestry of Pakistani Muslims has roots in areas and cultures that were dominated by Muslim regimes with vast and diverse polities that included people belonging to different faiths and Muslim sects.

* A number of non-Muslims were made part of the economic, political and social structures of these regimes. These regimes were Muslim rather than ‘Islamic.’

* We will continue to stagnate if we go on trying to keep afloat the now obsolete ideas of the ‘two nation theory’ and ‘Islamic Republic.’ We have to move ahead with new ideas, even if it meant casting out the old ones.

* That’s why Pakistan should redefine itself as a progressive, democratic Muslim majority republic and state. The term ‘Islamic republic and/or state’ is a modern concoction to politicise Islam and use it to grab state power.

* Pakistan should be a Muslim majority state where all Muslim sects and non-Muslims are free to practice their faiths according to their own cultural norms, within their homes and places of worship.

* We have to realise that this is not what is going to ‘endanger Islam’ and our identity. Quite the contrary, in fact. Because the extreme expressions of the ‘Pakistan ideology’ in the shape of violent Islamist terrorists, sectarian outfits and reactionary military dictators are the ones whose doings have been chipping and clipping away the energy and spirit of Islam in Pakistan.

* And this energy comes from Islam’s emphasis on justice, charity, tolerance and gaining all kinds of knowledge, and not when it is used as a populist slogan or a political and ideological stunt to maintain state and social power and in the process cynically advocate paranoia and hatred towards the ‘others’.

* The state should be discouraged to propagate any single or preferred form of Islam or ethnic culture. The public sphere too should be free from any religious interference or presence of any one particular denomination of the faith.

* Islam is universal and cannot be associated with a single nation. Pakistan has its own culture that has many aspects, one of which is Islam. It does not have a monopoly on Islam.

* We should be constructing a new Pakistan that is driven by multi-party democracy, ethnic, sectarian and religious diversity, and a progressive Muslim majority state that does not limit the economic, cultural, intellectual and political genius of its polity’s diversity by imposing restriction after restriction and calling these restrictions ‘Islamic laws.’

Nadeem F. Paracha is a cultural critic and senior columnist for Dawn Newspaper and Dawn.com

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.

Faiz Khoso shoots an episode with his cameraman. – Photo courtesy KTN

“I know we are expecting a guest but who is this Faiz, anyway?” The informer was asked.

“He’s coming from Hyderabad.”

“But which one of your friends is named Faiz?” The question persisted.

“Yaar he is a Khoso.”

“But… Anyway, we will see once he comes. I still don’t understand who this Faiz Khosao is.”

“Faiz Khoso from KTN TV. Tareekh Wala.”

“What?” Several  voices shrieked with great interest and bewilderment.

“Saeen Faiz Khoso Tareekh Wala. Wow! Saeen, there will be festivity at mach (fire) tonight”, said the person who was the first one to be surprised at Faiz’s name. And so, a group of young men began discussing Sindh and its history, courage and ancestry, wealth and standing, honour and esteem. Amongst these tales of history, Faiz Khoso stood tall .

This is the story of a village in Sindh where journalists, intellectuals, historians, TV hosts and most importantly, a learned honest Sindhi was about to reach the far-away destination to record his TV program.

Sindhi cable television channel KTN’s series of ‘historical’ documentary series, which had surpassed a hundred episodes and on a Sunday in May, 2012, was to be broadcasted one last time.

With the arrival of the 21st century, the media industry went through a massive transition. Pakistani media went from print media to broadcasting media and this was made possible by private cable television channels. Now, after almost a decade, news broadcasting is still a work in progress. Where Urdu and English channels came in view, so did the first Sindhi news channel named ‘KTN’.

Sindhi print journalism has a steeped history; its roots can be found at the end of nineteenth century. It further strengthened after creation of Pakistan but the initiation of Sindhi news and journalism was through daily ‘Kawish’.

Around two decades ago, when Ali Qazi presided over the commencement of Kawish, there were more than a dozen Sindhi daily newspapers in circulation. Some boasted strong roots but gradually, aggressive reporting and modern layout made Kawish Sindh’s most popular daily.

When private TV channels went live in the country, Kawish Television Network came out with its acronym, ‘KTN’ and became the first complete news channel in the Sindhi language. Even today, its popularity remains strong. Aggressive reporting, straightforward conversation and love for Sindh are some of its unwritten basic principles.

Several years ago I met a traveller from Mumbai named Jay Prakash in Sukkur’s Sa’dhoo Bela temple. Prakesh’s parents had migrated from Hyderabad to India at the time of partition. Prakash told me that his father fought with the cable operator to be able to watch KTN channel. Now he tells me and the kids to watch this channel, and that it is a representation of Sindh. “Correct your Sindhi by listening to it.”

Jay Prakash’s father wanted KTN to improve his children’s language, but Faiz Khoso was two steps ahead of him. He was already a part of the KTN team. He was interested in history and its promotion, so he forwarded a proposal to the administration.

“At a time when no TV channel of Pakistan was airing a purely educational program; giving such a proposal required a lot of guts,” he tells Dawn.com. “But it’s the administration’s courage and appreciation that they took the risk and we were successful,” he adds, smiling.

Faiz proposed that a 50-minute documentary program be produced, covering Sindh’s cities, towns and villages. It was proposed that it also include Sindh’s history, views from historians and traditions kept alive by the elderly. The aim of the program was to revive Sindh’s forgotten heritage and discover new facets of history.

The idea was accepted after a briefing and it was decided that the first program would be on the awareness of history among the public.

“We went to bazaars, streets, educational institutions…everywhere. We asked people what they knew about history. The responses which we received were disheartening but instead of losing hope, we turned it into a victory. We started the program ‘Tareekh’ and after the first program, the response we received from the audience and Sindhi scholars was positive,” Faiz recalls.

‘Tareekh’ had its first weekly program broadcasted at 8pm on a Sunday of March, 2010. The documentary program then gained so much popularity throughout Sindh that the marketing team deemed it as a successful endeavour.

Faiz said, “These days Pakistani TV channels don’t give slots to purely educational programs, that too at primetime, it’s quite unlikely. This history documentary series changed the common perspective that the audience is not interested in educational topics and dry subjects like history.”

‘Tareekh’ was immensely successful in its two years. It was the first documentary film series to be made in Sindhi or maybe even Urdu which was focussed on one topic. Yet, one hundred episodes were broadcasted with a total airing time of around 5000 minutes. This program gained so much popularity throughout Sindh that it became my identity,” says Faiz Khooso.

Faiz was the researcher, host, script-writer and director. “Now, wherever I go in Sindh, people recognise me by this program and add ‘tareekh wala’ after my name. It makes me very happy.”

According to Faiz this series took him to far-away, dangerous places of Sindh. “At times police officials told us not to go, but we pursued. People who were branded as dangerous, greeted us affectionately. They opened their hearts and their houses for us. This is their love for their land, its history and those who present it on TV.”

Faiz Khoso says that Sindh’s greatest Sufi poet Shah Abdul Lateef Bhittai’s wife Syed Bibi was of Turkish origin. Sindh’s late historian Dr Nabi Bux Baloch had verified that Shah Bhatti’s father-in-law Mirza Mughal Baig’s grave was somewhere around Hyderabad but exactly where, nobody knew.

“Once when preparing for the program, we arrived at the Toor Ki graveyard in Tando Allayar. It was also known as Baiglaron cemetery. We presumed that Toor Ki was a distorted version of ‘Turkey’ and the word Baiglar was from ‘Baig’. This assumption is further strengthened by the fact that most Turks are buried here. Whilst reading gravestones there, we came across one and were left astounded. Our curiosity was accurate. The gravestone’s writing and year were of Shah’s time and it had the name ‘Mirza Mughal Baig’ inscribed on it. He was the same man who had the honour of being Shah’s father-in-law. We had made a historical breakthrough and several historians agreed with us,” Faiz said.

There were two cameramen involved in the filming of this series, Fahim Lodhi and Javaid Solangi.

“Initially we thought this would be an easy task but later realised that it is actually very difficult. Honestly, the more we progressed, the more enjoyable it became,” says Fahim.

Javaid Solangi agrees, “We faced obstacles but learnt a lot. Especially about our history, its understanding and learning from elders our historical evidences advanced our knowledge greatly.”

When it comes to obstacles Faiz says, “In terms of technicality, this was very difficult. We did not have access to archaic footage; it was very difficult to find old pictures of Sindh’s towns and villages. We had to narrate as well as show everything but we were able to make a hundred documentary films successfully.”

The executive director of Centre of Environment and Development, Nasir Panhwar, “Faiz’s program, possibly for the first time in Pakistan, portrayed the history of Sindh’s jungles. It showed such astonishing aspects that I was shocked. It was the history of Sindh’s jungles and environment.”

Nasir advised that KTN should make DVDs of these documentary films to make them accessible to the public.

The late historian Dr M. H. Panhwar had a multi-dimensional personality and a strong knowledge of Sindh’s history. He used to say that after Moen jo Daro, the following 2,500 years of Sindh’s history are lost and there is a need to excavate them. Our present history starts after those 2,500 years.

Unveiling history is the work of researchers and historians but surely the history Faiz wanted to uncover, understand and present; he was more successful than expected.

Within the time span of two years he has made a hundred documentary films on Sindh’s scattered history – 5,000 minutes of broadcast time and discoveries…

There lies a lot in these films.

There is a need for research institutes such as Institute of Sindhology and Sindh Archives to obtain copyright of these films and save them in their video libraries so that an important piece in Sindh’s history is available for future researchers and historians.

The author is a novelist, documentary filmmaker, columnist and author of several books.

Shamsher-ul-Hyderi speaks during an interview. – Photo from YouTube video grab

BADIN: Renowned Sindhi poet Shamsher-ul-Hyderi passed away on Friday after protracted illness. Hyderi, 79, was in Karachi at the time of his death and also lost his sight during his last days. He was born on September 15, 1932 in the Kandhan town of Badin district.

Besides being an acclaimed poet and writer of the Sindhi language, Hyderi was also a well-known columnist and drama-writer. He authored over a dozen books – ranging from poetry, travelogues to fiction novels – during his prolonged career.

In the early days of Pakistan Television’s Sindhi broadcast, Hyderi hosted several programs for the state television. He also wrote several Sindhi-language drama serials for PTV.

As a journalist, Hyderi served as editor of several Sindhi dailies and magazines, including Mehran, Hilal-i-Pakistan and Naee Zindagi.

Hyderi was also one of the founding fathers of Sindh Graduate Association and remained at the forefront of struggle against military dictatorship from the era of General Ayub Khan to General Pervez Musharaf through his literary work. Hyderi was jailed for issuing a pamphlet against former military dictator Ayub Khan, during his one-unit scheme period. His novel ‘Kak Mahal’ earned great popularity in Sindhi literature and his poetry was sung by the likes of Abida Parveen and Ustad Mohammad Yousaf.

The Sindhi Adbi Sangat (organisation of Sindhi poets and writers), where Hyderi served as secretary general for seven years, will observe a seven-day mourning period, the organisation’s Chairman Dr Mushtaq Phul announced.

“Sindhi literature has been deprived of a revolutionary poet, journalist and great son of soil,” Phul told Dawn.com.

Well-known writer and broadcaster Naseer Mirza as well as other literary figures of Sindh including Dr Ayaz Gul, Dr Akash Ansari, Jami Chandio, Firak Halepoto, Dr Adal Soomro, Sindh Minister for Culture Sussui Palijo and others termed Hyderi’s demise a great loss for the world of literature and journalism of Sindh and Pakistan.

In the last decade or so, Lyari has constantly been appearing in the news whenever Karachi erupts into ethnic or gang-related violence. This is not to suggest that this area was a bastion of peace before the 2000s; but it is true that the political and criminal violence emerging within and from Lyari in the last 10 years has had a bigger impact on Karachi than ever before.

Criminal gangs dealing in drugs, guns, kidnapping and land scams with some of them even enjoying patronage from assorted political outfits and groups are a common sight in the narrow, crooked and overpopulated streets of Lyari.

But all this was not a sudden phenomenon emerging in the last decade or so. Nor is this all what Lyari is about.

Lyari also has a rich political and cultural history; a history that, rather ironically, has to be understood for anyone trying to make head or tails of the constant social and political turmoil and strife this large, awkward locality has been experiencing almost on a daily basis now.

First in line

Lyari is by far the oldest locality of Karachi having begun life centuries ago as a small fishing village.

Lyari in early 19th century.

The locality always had a large Afro-Indian/Pakistani population (Sheedis).

The Sheedis are believed to be the descendants of slaves, sailors, servants and merchants from East Africa who arrived between 1200 and 1900 AD.

In what is today Pakistan, these slaves largely settled along the Markran Coast in Balochistan (they are also called Makranis) and in lower Sindh.

Linguistically, they speak variations of Balochi and Sindhi and (in Karachi) they are also known to have created a distinct dialect of Urdu referred to as ‘Makrani’ in which Urdu words are mixed with Balochi and Sindhi expressions and even popular English terms, manly picked up from British and US films and TV series, are also regularly used, mostly in a tongue-in-cheek way.

Most Sheedis in Karachi were and still are associated with the fishing business (as fishermen, sailors and small boat operators). They also constitute the largest labour force employed at the Karachi port and harbour.

Over the years, especially after the creation of Pakistan in 1947, Lyari also began to witness the influx of Pushtuns, Sindhis and Mohajirs (including Memons) and (in the last 30 years), many working-class Afghans, Bengalis and Burmese migrants have also settled here.

The area is a working-class reflection of the stunning ethnic, religious and sectarian diversity that is the hallmark of Karachi’s bulging cosmopolitanism and indigenous secularism.

But Lyari is also the area that hardly benefited from the industrial growth and economic progress that Karachi enjoyed between the 1950s and early 1980s.

In fact by the late 1960s Lyari was well on its way to becoming a modern, urban slum.

The right stuff

But all this did not just produce a locality riddled with only crime, violence and economic desperation. The equation of poverty, overpopulation, diversity, crime, radical politics and the presence of a majority having a proud African lineage also gave birth to a working-class polity, spirituality and aesthetics that have generated a unique cultural scenario.

A young Lyari girl in a traditional ‘Makrani dress’ at a wedding. –Photo courtesy South Asia News.

It is this mix that has correctly painted a perception of Makranis as being open-minded, large-hearted, hard-working people who speak a distinct slang-riddled version of street-Urdu and are passionate about football, boxing and the movies.

Some of the best international level boxers in Pakistan have almost all emerged from Lyari and same is the case with football. It is also perhaps the only area in Pakistan where these two sports actually overshadow cricket!

Two Lyari football fans in Brazilian soccer jerseys. -Photo courtesy Akhtar Soomro.

A majority of Makranis belong to the so-called Sunni ‘Barelvi’ school of faith – an indigenous sub-continental variation of ‘folk Islam’ that emerged in the 18th century as a reaction against the rise of puritanical Islamic movements.

Barelvi Islam is not a concrete doctrine. In essence it is highly decentralised and anti-dogma. It connotes the practice in which sub-continental folk mores are fused with the ritualism of Sufi Islam and the pluralistic and ‘poor-friendly’ culture of devotional music, charity and festivity found around shrines of Sufi saints across Pakistan and India.

Most Makranis of Lyari are the devotees of the legendary 12th century Sufi saint, Pir Mangho, whose shrine in the Mangopir area of Karachi is believed to be one of the oldest in the city.

The shrine also has hot sulphur springs and a large pond where the shrine’s keepers have harvested crocodiles for hundreds of years. Feeding these reptiles is considered to be a celestially ordained and beneficial ritual.

The Makranis come here in their hundreds, especially during the birth celebrations of the saint. Here they re-enact the dancing, musical and devotional rituals of their African ancestors.

Shrine keepers feed one of the many crocodiles at the shrine of Pir Mangho. -Photo courtesy AP

Between the late 1970s and 1990s Lyari also produced its own music scene, popularly known as ‘Lyari disco’.

Music has always played a major role in the lives of the people of Lyari, both in the spheres of faith and entertainment – especially music driven by pounding and rhythmic drumbeats.

One of the first areas outside the privileged populace of Karachi to embrace the invasion of classical American and European disco music of the late 1970s was Lyari.

Throughout the 1980s dimly-lit small recording studios sprang up in Lyari where talented young Makrani men and women would record bouncy Balochi tunes that fused basic disco beats with traditional Balochi and African musical dynamics.

First the resultant albums were almost entirely bought and sold in Lyari but a massive ‘Lyari disco’ hit by one Shazia Khushk (a Sindhi) helped the genre to break out and turn Khushk into a national sensation.

The song was ‘Bija Teer Bija’ – recorded (at a Lyari studio) and released in 1988, it was a funky, driven tribute to the charismatic chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Benazir Bhutto.

The song was first used by the PPP during its electoral campaign for the November 1988 general election.

youtube::rl0BTvJgROM::

People’s power

Recently, Lyari has been treated by the media as an area whose politics is rather complex. This is mainly due to the growing influx of working-class people belonging to various ethnicities settling here. With them have arrived attempts by different political parties close to these ethnicities to carve out a vote bank for themselves in Lyari.

Also related to this is the way street crime, land scams and politics have mixed in Karachi in the last two decades in which street thugs and gangs have been used by political parties to generate funds and garner votes.

The complexities in this respect are further heightened when some gangs and criminals ‘become too big for their boots’ and become an embarrassment for the parties, especially when gang warfare conducted purely on criminal grounds become politicised due to the gangsters’ past or present association with political parties.

In the last few years, Lyari has become a hotbed of this particular phenomenon in Karachi. Otherwise, its politics has remained rather uncomplicated.

Donkey cart racing is a highly popular sport in Lyari. Bets are placed on races that begin in Lyari and end on the beaches of Karachi’s Clifton area. -Photo courtesy Akhtar Soomro.

Ever since the 1970 general election, Lyari has been an unbending vote bank of the PPP. The party has won every national and provincial election that it has contested from Lyari from 1970 right up till the 2008 election.

The credit for this goes to PPP chairman, Z A. Bhutto and his party’s original socialist manifesto that resonated successfully with the people of Lyari.

The populism and socialist policies of the first PPP government (1972-77) were hugely popular with the voters of Lyari, but the PPP and the Bhuttos became enshrined as perpetual heroes here after Bhutto was toppled by a reactionary military coup orchestrated by General Ziaul Haq and then hanged to death through a sham trial in 1979.

Lyari witnessed a number of violent protests against the Zia regime throughout the 1980s, many of these turned into armed conflicts between the police and youth belonging to the PPP’s student and youth wings.

Lyari also became the breeding ground of radical left-wing politics and activity during the dictatorship. A number of young residents of Lyari were jailed and some were even hanged for their supposed involvement with Murtaza Bhutto’s Al-Zulfikar Organisation (AZO) and other supposedly clandestine ‘communist outfits.’

On her return from exile in 1986, the first large rally that Benazir Bhutto held in Karachi was in Lyari. Her marriage to Asif Ali Zardari also took place in Lyari (1987).

To date, though parties like the MQM, ANP, Sunni Tehreek and some militant Baloch and Sindhi nationalist parties have opened offices here, the PPP support base and vote bank remains steadfast and secure in Lyari.

A video grab showing members of a radical Baloch outfit replacing the Pakistan flag with a Bloch nationalist flag at a college in Lyari.

Attempts have also been made by puritanical Islamic evangelist groups like the Tableeghi Jamat to recruit young poverty-stricken Lyari residents, but the Jamat’s attempts have failed to bag much interest.

Gangland

Lyari is also known for gang-related violence. Though wild and often deadly, many Lyari gangsters have ultimately been portrayed by most Lyari residents as victims of their circumstances; some have even been casted as Robin Hood like characters in Lyari’s many urban folklores.

The first well known gangster here went by the name of Kala Naag (Black Serpent). He was active in Lyari in the 1960s, peddling hashish and running a network of pickpockets.

Kala Naag who emerged from poverty to become a toughie ‘trained’ two angry young men from the area, Sheru and Dadal. Both men were huge American movie fans, loved to drink whisky, smoked hashish and made a living by selling black tickets outside cinemas.

They began to encroach upon Naag’s business and became rivals. Gang fights between their individual groups became common but in which only fists and knives were used. Then in 1967, Kala Nag was killed while fleeing the cops.

Sheru and Dadal battled it out between themselves until the arrival of Kala Nag’s son, Allah Baksh, also called ‘Kala Nag 2 (sic).’

Till the early 1980s, Lyari gangsters were largely involved in the trafficking of hashish, in bootlegging and street crimes. However, with the arrival of large quantities of sophisticated weapons and heroin, brought into the city by the large number of Afghan refugees pouring into Pakistan at the wake of the so-called anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan, changed that.

Changing rules of the game and growing poverty and population in Lyari meant the emergence of deadlier criminals. Kala Nag 2 joined hands with one Iqbal Babu and brushed aside Sheru and Dadal.

Nag 2 and Babu’s new opponent was Haji Lalu. All of them were now arming their gangs with sophisticated weaponry and had begun to peddle heroin as well.

Lyari was distributed between Babu and Lalu, both of whose groups are also said to have had provided safety to anti-Zia radicals on the run from the police.

Rangers guard the entrance of Lyari Town.

Lalu’s gang and the gang operated by Babu and Kala Nag 2 were constantly battling in the streets of Lyari. Extortion had become big business. Babu hired Hanif Bajola, a contract killer to kill Lalu. Simultaneously, Lalu was training his friend Dadal’s orphan son to make a hit on Babu.

Meanwhile, Dadal’s teenaged son, Rehman (Rehman Dakait), entered the fry to take revenge for his father’s downfall engineered by Babu and Kala Nag 2.

Lalu’s son, Arshad Pappu also arrived on the scene. Yet another generation of Lyari gangsters was in the making.

Rehman Dakait.

Rehman’s anger was used by Lalu against Kala Nag 2 and Babu. Nag was arrested by police (in 1991), whereas Rehman and his men mowed down a large number of Babu’s thugs, including four of Babu’s sons.

In 1996 Babu was arrested and put behind bars. So was Rehman, but in 1997 he managed to break out and escape. He was now at loggerheads with his mentor Lalu who was put behind bars in the early 2000s, leaving his son Arshad Papu to run his gang.

For almost a decade after this, Rehman and Papu’s gangs battled to enforce their authority over Lyari’s deteriorating crime scene. This was also the first time when Rehman and Papu were said to have developed links with the PPP and MQM men in the area.

Rehman engineered the formation of the Peoples Aman Committee, a charity organisation that distributed money and food to the people of Lyari and was also patronised by the PPP. But the committee was also manned by Rehman’s thugs in the extortion and kidnapping business.

In 2009, the PPP, now back in power, felt that Rehman was becoming too big for his boots. It looked the other way when Karachi police shot dead Rehman.

In 2011, when the Committee, now under Uzair Baloch, got embroiled in a deadly tussle with thugs patronised by the MQM, the PPP’s Sindh government banned the committee.

Nadeem F. Paracha is a cultural critic and senior columnist for Dawn Newspaper and Dawn.com

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.

However, the struggle took a new turn after the creation of Pakistan, when Bengali, Pashtun, and subsequently Sindhi and Baloch nationalist movements rose to press for provincial autonomy. Later, a powerful federation embracing the idea of the ideological state also led to alienating the country’s religious minorities. Many have come to live in fear because discrimination against them has been given legal cover, in effect, depriving them of equal rights. Here, leaders from various political parties speak of their respective party’s stance on the issues that haunt Pakistan’s minorities, and on ways to redress the problem…

Titled “Pakistani Zabanon Ka Adab,” the session included panelists Sindhi poetess Amar Sindhu, who recited some poems from her new book; author and poet Ahmad Fouad, who recited his poems both in Pashto and Urdu languages and Nukhbah Langah, a critic who spoke on the new trend in Seraiki poetry. —Text and Photos by Suhail Yusuf/Dawn.com

youtube::TnFn1WqEer0::

The Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (PBC), commonly known Radio Pakistan, is facing severe financial crunch due to which its over 3,000 employees and artists all over the country are facing problems. - Photo by AFP

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (PBC), commonly known Radio Pakistan, is facing severe financial crunch due to which its over 3,000 employees and artists all over the country are facing problems.

Permanent employees of the corporation have not been paid the 15 per cent salary increase announced in the federal budget 2011-12, while contractual and daily-wage workers wait for their salaries for the last two months, Dawn has learnt.

Some of the employees while requesting not to be named said the management of the corporation had been telling them that the ministry of finance had not released the funds needed to pay them the 15 per cent raise. Besides, artists performing in different transmissions have also not been paid for the last one month.

A daily wage employee said “In Urdu unit there are 35 employees out of whom three are regular and the remaining daily wagers. Same is the case in the units of different languages like Punjabi, Seraiki, Balochi, Sindhi, Kashmiri, Balti and Hindi.”

Those employees who have good relation with the officers of the accounts section get their cheques on time while have to wait for months, another employee alleged.A news editor, who is permanent employee, said regular employees were also upset because no one was sure when their problems would be resolved. He said the management should resolve the issue before employees start protest for their rights.

An artist said usually they earned Rs8,000 to Rs10,000 per month but still the management did not give them their dues on time. Due to this, most of the artists want to leave the corporation.

Another daily wager said according to rules they cannot work for more than 26 days a month but usually they worked for 15 to 20 days. If a person works for 26 days, he gets about Rs15,000, he added.

When contacted, Station Director PBC Islamabad Abdul Hafeez said most of the corporations in the country were facing financial problems. Though 15 per cent pay increase was announced in the budget 2011-12, the ministry of finance has not released the needed funds. He expressed the hope that the problem would be resolved as the management was in touch with the ministry.

“You are not even from China, how can you be a hard-core Chinese?’ Nadir, my colleague said to me while we were having lunch once.

While facing these gigantic ‘culture shocks’, I isolated myself in my lovely home (my friends prefer to use the word ‘haunted’ to describe my hostel), and meditated for hours, with the help of divine beverages and Pakistani herbs. Sometimes, I went out for pleasure weekend-parties and Chinese food cooking parties, living it up with my local friends.

One fine day, while I was going through what they call the ‘self-realisation process,’ a question came to my mind, “Why did you come to Pakistan and what do you really want to do here?”

“Life is very short and there’s no time for fussing and fighting, my friend,” John Lennon tried to persuade me through my Sony Walkman, “Imagine all the people, living for today…” He was right. I longed to travel around this country, what was I waiting for?

Subsequently, I made my decision to head out for the long and exhaustive yet exhilarating and adventurous Pakistan travels. After one week of research on the route planning, my Pakistan discovery expedition, kicked off!

Saying goodbye to Karachi was not as painless as I thought it to be initially. It was joy and sadness both mixed up. I felt keyed up about what lay ahead of me as I said my goodbyes to my friends. The Chinese say, “The bitterness of saying goodbyes comes from the sweetness and the warmth contained by the sourness.” Partially it was because that I loved this metropolis too much. As quoted by Nadir, this city is “so alive and chaotic” that everyday can be a new experience. Unlike Singapore…that country is too calm remains the same everyday…not adventurous at all.

On 24 April, my journey officially commenced with the company of my colleague, Farooq, to interior Sindh, meeting our friend, Abib, in Nawabshah. Well, let’s be frank, I was at a farewell party a few hours before my departure. So, you could imagine how exhausted I was when I saw Farooq. I was saying goodbye to my American-desi friend the night before as she was leaving this country after silently helping the Pakistani society for four months, while my friend, Zeeshan, suddenly panicked because he realised that he had lost his car key at three o’clock in the morning. We had no other mode of transport. After a long discussion we found our way to Zeeshan’s house. I slept for a few hours and then woke up with a severe headache. It was a boiling, sun-drenched, long day and now I was sitting in Farooq’s car. The weather was so blistering hot that even the air-conditioner refused to work properly, marking a noteworthy start of my journey.

On my way from Karachi to Hyderabad (while the car was still working smooth). – Photo by author

After dropping Farooq’s mother at his relative’s house in Hyderabad, we headed straight for Nawabshah. Having a glance at the vivacity of one of Pakistan’s primeval towns, I swore to myself that I would come back again and pay a visit to Hyderabad.

Traveling in between the narrow crannies – they were too narrow! – Photo by author

Well, it kind of came true pretty easily as 20 minutes later our car broke down and so we were on our way back to Hyderabad. The car could not stand the Sindhi heat anymore and its engine refused to work. We had no other alternative but to stay a night in Hyderabad.

In Hyderabad, I met Farooq’s friend, Ali Shah, a young Talpur. I did not know how influential the Talpur family was before the colonization period until I left the town, although I overheard a conversation about the feudal system in interior Sindh and I couldn’t believe that landlords still existed in this day and age. That evening, we had dinner together, along with Ali Shah’s friends. Unlike the image of brutal landlords I had in mind, he was a well-mannered and helpful, young man.

We decided to take public transport to Nawabshah; leaving Farooq’s car at Ali Shah’s place for maintenance. On our way to the bus station, Ali Shah said to me, “You should see this place.”

Standing in front of the Talpur family’s tombs…one word: Amazing! – Photo by author

Here we were, standing in front of the Talpur family’s tombs. Hyderabad, being one of the oldest towns in Sindh, was founded in 1768 by the Kalhoros upon the ruins of a fishing village. It was known as “Nerun” at that time. Fifteen years later, in 1783, the Baloch tribe-Talpurs took over power and built the Talpurs dynasty in Sindh. The family settled down in Hyderabad and most of them were later buried in these domed burial chambers.

Located five minutes away from the centre of the town, the navy marble-carved tombs stood out pompously in front of me. Sadly, they were completely ruined, veiled in a congested neighbourhood.

I was extremely surprised. Conservation of country heritage was barely visible in this part of the world. – Photo by author

Not only that, the colours on the decorated walls were fading away and some marble pieces seemed to have mysteriously disappeared. It seemed people had ruined the site by carving their loved ones’ names on the walls leading to permanent damage.

“Why did anyone not protect this site from being defaced?” I asked, with resentment. “I am sure that if it was in Malaysia, or Singapore, it would have been guarded soundly.”

“It is registered under the Department of Archeology, and when they did not get any money from the government, what could they do?” replied Ali Shah. “Now, we are using our family’s power to protect the tombs from being destroyed, but what we can do is limited.

The family’s legends were being narrated by the old Talpurs to the young. – Photo by author

Ali Shah had the key to the heritage, so we went into the tomb to pay our respects to the deceased. It was absolutely quiet inside the room and the temperature turned cool and pleasant, compared to the hot-and-dry weather out in the open. Traditional Islamic paintings covered the walls.

“So, if the money did not go to the tourism industry and the people, where did it go, weapons?” I asked.

There were no replies to my question.

The Talpur dynasty lasted for over 50 years before the British came with the incursion of expanding their colonial map, and their interests in the Punjab region. The Talpurs hence signed a peace agreement after several gory battles. The fort was smashed and thousands were killed. Some of the Talpur family members were banished to Burma and Rangoon, and never got to see Sindh again. The glory of the family lay in damaged ruins and architectural tombs while Hyderabad became a major commercial centre which the British used to call ‘The Bombay Presidency.’

The tombs of the Talpur Mirs are registered under the department of Archaeology, Pakistan. They remain in a dreadful shape. – Photo by author

In Nawabshah, daily life usually meant no-worries.

In Nawabshah, there is nothing to worry about as long as friends are around. – Photo by author

We met Abib in the evening and headed for his swimming pool, immediately after we had lunch, to cool ourselves from the heat wave. I was not a swimmer, so I tried to make myself float on the surface while Abib shouted, “You are a Chinese, how come you can’t swim?”

I knew that it would be a Sindhi speaking night when I noticed that Abib’s friends did not speak proper English. I wondered how the conversation between us would work out. “Sain chahala,” I greeted them in Sindhi (one of the only Sindhi sentences I had learnt). Farooq and Abib were the translators between the Sindhis and I.

I remained silent for the most part of the two-hour conversation, while observing the way the Sindhi language sounded. I was exceptionally amused by the out-of-tune, gigantic laughs during the conversation, which I later observed almost all Sindhi’s typically laughed this way. “Sindhis believe that if you enjoy the conversation, you need to show it to everyone by laughing out loud,” Farooq said trying to explain the custom to me.

Nawabshah is not a tourist attraction. Everything that I captured dealt with their unique mode of living. – Photo by author

We visited several places the next day, surrounded by banana trees and sweltering Sindhi air, it seemed to me that the rest of the world, or even Pakistan, was very far-off. The people looked as if they walked in slow motion, living life their own traditional ways. It looked like there was nothing for them to worry about, despite the poverty written in their sad eyes. Life could be tough, yet simple.

Consequently, people in Nawabshah were more conservative – there were only two civil hospitals in Nawabshah where one was for men and another for women, and men were not allowed to enter the women’s hospital, vice versa. The rationale of it, I am sure most of the readers know well. So, I asked Abib, “If I met a car accident right in front of the women’s hospital and I was about to die, would they send me all the way to the men’s hospital, instead of the nearest hospital?”

“You are a foreigner, maybe a different rule would apply for you. But, for us, yes, to the men’s hospital we would go.”

Waiting for the train to Lahore. – Photo by author

Joyful moments flew past. Before the sun set, I was already standing at the railway station in Nawabshah, waiting for the train heading to Lahore. I would have to say goodbye to the company of Farooq and Abib, and the rest of the journey would be on my own.

“Man, I am very excited and nervous,” I said. Farooq examined my checklist to make sure that I had everything with me before I headed for Lahore unaided.

“Don’t receive food from others, don’t talk to strangers…” reminded Farooq.

“Hey, I am not a child! You are talking like my parents,” I complained. In Pakistan, there is nothing to worry about as long as friends are around. I placed the Sindhi topi and Ajrak gifted by Farooq and Abib at the bottom of my backpack. They claimed that giving gifts was part of the Sindhi custom to show hospitality.

I waved goodbye to my friends, seventeen hours before I would arrive in Lahore, wish me luck!

Jia Wei is an intern at Dawn.com

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.