KARACHI: These are challenging times. Karachi faces a lockdown, as does almost the entire world. History, not palatable, is being made. All human knowledge, wisdom and claims of being well-informed are being put to the test. And yet, the only solution, as of now — if it’s a solution at all — is for us, humans, to remain aloof from one another. It is a perfect setting for an existentialist novel, but not for those who are experiencing it. The agony is indescribable.

Karachi is not new to such frightening maladies, though. In the 1890s, when Karachi’s population had burgeoned to nearly 100,000 from 15,000 (some say 20,000) when the British conquered Sindh, a plague hit the city hard. This was the phase when the British had invested a great amount of money and time with local labour into the city’s infrastructure, and they should be credited with tapping the ‘urban’ potential it had. It was a bubonic plague which crossed over to Karachi from, one account suggests, Calcutta by a ship that had reached from West Bengal to this part of the Bombay presidency. The disease had originated in China in 1855 (the last of the three great plague pandemics known to, and suffered by, mankind).

More than one million people died in India alone, and although no exact casualty figures are available with reference to Karachi, so many people lost their lives in the city that the authorities had to quarantine people. The British were not prepared to cope with the social, cultural and economic damage caused by it. So what they did was that they made a committee, chiefly consisting of volunteers divided into groups. It was their job to separate people from one another.

In the 1890s, a bubonic plague crossed over to Karachi from Calcutta by a ship

But the reason, and it can be argued, that things began to improve in a few years was that the demographics of the city were not as alarming as they are today. There is a yawning difference between the number 100,000 (in the 1890s) and, as per the 2019 census, 15,741,000. These are official figures, and who doesn’t know that it can or cannot be accurate. Some town planners believe that Karachi’s population has now increased beyond the 20,000,000 mark. In that case, it is no joke to expect such a huge number of men, women and children, belonging to distinctly diverse cultural backgrounds at that, to remain in their homes. But remain they should.

What the Sindh government has done should be commended wholeheartedly. It has taken the right and only decision that any government with an understanding of health scares can take. Why was the federal government dithering on the subject is for analysts to figure out. The point that cannot be emphasised more here is that the government has played its role — and will keep doing it, and should not stop thinking on its feet. The rest, and it’s the major part of the entire effort, is up to the people, the citizens of Karachi. It is about everybody’s well-being, especially the safety of the elderly.

We live in a society where the joint family system has been in place for as long as one can remember. Most of us are part of that system. We need to be cautious on two counts: one, keep a safe distance from one another within the confines of our houses; two, we need to constantly monitor those whose ages are 65 and above.

The other day, a newsman reported that women in Liaquatabad were playing with their children in the streets. This is disturbing. If things are not brought under control, history will not remember us as compassionate human beings, but as a careless species.

Published in Dawn, April 5th, 2020