It was uncommon in the 1940s for a scion of a landed family in Sindh to opt for a career in engineering and go on to attend Columbia University for a master’s degree. Yet Elahi Bux Soomro, a veteran politician and civil servant who passed away in Karachi on October 9, 2024, aged 98, did exactly that.

His father, Maula Bux Soomro, a supporter of the Indian National Congress, was more progressive than most of his landowning counterparts in Sindh: he sent his daughters to school in Karachi in 1937, after the family moved to the port city from their hometown of Shikarpur.

“Our girls went to school — they were educated,” Soomro told Eos, when the writer called on him one winter afternoon in 2016, at his residence on Beville Lane, in EI Lines, Karachi. Seated in a wood-panelled study, he reminisced about the old days.

Soomro grew up in a family of Congress party politicians in pre-Partition India. His father, Maula Bux, an outspoken man, had opposed the Lahore Resolution and the creation of Pakistan, according to Soomro’s nephew, Rizwan Kehar. Soomro’s uncle, Allah Bux Soomro, also a member of Congress, was twice elected as premier — or chief minister — of Sindh, in 1938 and 1941.

Elahi Bux Soomro, who passed away recently at the grand old age of 98, was more than just another politician from a landowning family…

“Whenever I was free from school, I would go to the Sindh Legislative Assembly,” recalled Soomro. “I remember asking my uncle [Allah Bux], why is it that you and GM Syed [a prominent Sindhi nationalist leader, who was a member of the Muslim League at that time] fight like cats and dogs while the house is in session, but when you come out, you behave like the best of friends?

“I remember my uncle replying, ‘We are not enemies. Our only difference is within those four walls. When we are outside, I go to his house if he is unwell, and he comes to mine.’”

BHUTTO’S FRIEND

After graduating from Karachi’s NED University of Engineering and Technology, Soomro was admitted to Columbia University in the late 1940s, where he lived in the International House. The late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, then a student at the University of Southern California, was a close friend and would visit Soomro frequently.

“He used to come from Los Angeles to New York and stay with me,” recalled Soomro. On one such visit, when Bhutto got into a fight with an Indian at a local bar, Soomro intervened and found himself at the receiving end of a punch that was intended for his friend.

Soomro also knew Nusrat Sabunchi Isphahani very well. When Bhutto was back in Karachi from California for the summer break, Soomro introduced him to Nusrat at a dance party at the Palace Hotel. “I told Nusrat, ’He comes from a good family. If he asks you to dance with him, please do. He will not misbehave.”

Soomro described Nusrat as “a fine lady”, adding, “Zulfikar came to me a week later and said, ‘I want to marry her.’”

It was Soomro who drove around Karachi looking for a shia cleric to carry out Bhutto and Nusrat’s nikah. When he returned home later that day, his housekeeper warned him not to go inside, as his father had asked for him twice, angrily.

Sitting with Soomro’s father was none other than Khan Bahadur Ahmed Khan Bhutto, the father of Zulfikar’s first wife, Shirin — a cousin to whom he had been wed when he was younger. Clearly, word had gotten around of Soomro’s involvement in getting Zulfikar and Nusrat married. “I didn’t go home for two days,” Soomro recalled.

Later, when Bhutto became president of Pakistan, he would imprison his old friend. Soomro was arrested days before the signing of the 1973 Constitution. The reasons behind his arrest are unclear. According to Soomro, Bhutto did not like the fact that he wielded considerable influence as a civil servant.

BUREAUCRATIC HOOPS

After graduating from Columbia with a master’s degree in engineering, Soomro decided to work for the Pakistan Public Works Department, despite his father’s concerns that it was a corrupt department. But as it turned out, he hardly worked there. “I worked more in other departments [such as Irrigation],” he told Eos.

Soomro was employed as an assistant executive engineer for Sukkur Barrage for a period of three years. “I had come through the Public Service Commission and not through the recommendation of anybody,” he said. Sukkur Barrage had developed cracks at the time and a British firm had been hired to carry out repairs. Its employees found Soomro easier to deal with, owing to his proficiency in English and insisted that he remain there till they completed their work.

On his first promotion, Soomro was briefly transferred to Nawabshah as an executive engineer, before being recalled to Sukkur, where he was delegated to give Saudi royals a tour of the barrage.

He remained in Sukkur until 1956 and was subsequently transferred to Khuzdar, after some members of the civil service had become “angry” at him, he recalled. “After they found out that I wasn’t as bad as they thought I was, they would post me wherever they needed an executive engineer who could handle the situation,” he added. “My last posting was as director general of KDA [in 1968].” Soomro was instrumental in the development of Clifton as a residential area.

Thereafter, he served as the principal of his alma mater, the NED University of Engineering and Technology, and it was during his tenure that the institution acquired a new campus.

DALLIANCES WITH DICTATORS

Soomro entered politics in 1980, when he joined the cabinet of the military dictator Gen Ziaul Haq. When Gen Zia first came to power, he appointed Soomro’s father, Maula Bux, as one of his advisers.

Later, when Zia decided to form a cabinet, he felt Maula Bux was too old, and asked him to nominate a member of his family for the post of cabinet minister. At the time, the two obvious candidates for the slot were Rahim Bux Soomro — who had served in the provincial government — and Elahi Bux’s brother, Ahmed Mian Soomro, who had been a deputy speaker in the West Pakistan Assembly. But for reasons unknown, Maula Bux selected Elahi Bux, who had no prior political experience.

Soomro’s ties with the old political families of Sindh, Balochistan and Punjab — thanks to his father and uncle — helped Zia consolidate his grip on power, according to Kehar. 

Soomro persuaded the members of some of these families, who were his close friends, to join Zia’s Majlis-i-Shura (parliament), in 1982. Soomro was the first member of his family to face defeat in an election. “Till Elahi Bux sahib’s defeat in the 1988 election in Shikarpur, the Soomros had not been defeated in Shikarpur,” said Kehar.

In 1985, Zia almost made Soomro prime minister, but then changed his mind at the last minute, after Pir Pagaro insisted that Mohammed Khan Junejo be given the post instead, according to veteran politician Sherbaz Khan Mazari’s memoirs, A Journey to Disillusionment.

Gen Pervez Musharraf also briefly considered making Soomro prime minister. “I said to Musharraf — look, if you want me to be prime minister, then wherever we disagree, you will give me a chance to explain why I am disagreeing,” recalled Soomro. He added, “He dropped me then and there.”

Soomro remained a member of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) throughout his political career.

During Nawaz Sharif’s second run as prime minister, Soomro was made speaker of the National Assembly. “When I was speaker, Nawaz used to send me chits during sessions, asking me not to speak too much,” he recalled. “I would tell him that I’m the speaker of the House and not the party. I would refuse whatever he would say and he did not like that,” he added.

Soomro retired from politics after being defeated in the 2013 general elections, which he contested from Jacobabad on a PML-N ticket.

This article has been amended to indicate that Mr Soomro was admitted to Columbia University in the late 1940s, not early 1950s as earlier written.

The writer is a journalist who has written for local and international publications. His work can be found at alibhutto.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, October 20th, 2024