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Aik Lapata Shehr Ka Suraagh
By Ramzan Baloch
Institute of Historical & Social Research
ISBN: 978-969-7985-38-8
326pp.
Most cities in the world grow and prosper with time. The lives of their inhabitants improve as their infrastructures expand, with the perennial issues of cleanliness and civic management being addressed gradually. But Karachi is different. It has grown certainly — expanded far beyond what anyone could have predicted — but in many other respects, it has stagnated or deteriorated. The problems that once plagued it remain unresolved. In some cases, they are now worse than they were around a century ago.
Karachi is the commercial hub of Pakistan. No one denies that. Yet, one cannot shake the feeling that it has been reduced to little more than a cash machine. Its value is measured mainly by the money it generates, and everything else, including the lives of its people, has been (and still is) treated as secondary. This attitude, which is shared by almost everyone in the city, has turned it into a city that is very difficult to govern. No policy, no matter how well-meaning, seems capable of addressing the chaos that is ever-present.
This is what one understands when one reads Aik Lapata Shehr Ka Suraagh
[In Search of a Lost City], a recent book by Ramzan Baloch, a social activist and writer who hails from Karachi’s oldest settlement Lyari, where he was born in 1944. The introduction to the book is written by veteran journalist Mahmood Shaam, with additional reflections from scholars Dr Syed Jaffar Ahmed and Dr Riaz Shaikh.
The book is primarily a review of historical accounts and research works written about Karachi, along with the author’s own views and detailing of his experiences. The quotations from other books, the reflections of other writers and their comments collected in the book also paint a vibrant picture of that Karachi which, as the title suggests, has vanished, and which the author tries to trace.
Ramzan Baloch traces the history of the city from 1729, a time when it was a small settlement of around 100 people, who were mostly fishermen. Also among them was Mai Kolachi, who held a sort of administrative position among those people. It was by her name that the area was known and which has since morphed into Karachi after several variations. There were also Baloch tribes who lived in villages in the Malir and Gadap areas and were mainly engaged in agriculture.
A well-researched book details a people’s history of Karachi and how gradual negligence turned the city of lights into a city of darkness
But the founder of the city was Seth Bhojumal, whom the author calls the “Columbus of Karachi.” He came here in 1729 from the nearby Kharak Bandar in the Hub area, where Mubarak Village is now located. He was the rich Sindhi merchant who built the fort with the gates Kharadar and Mithadar, the township within and who operated the port along with his associates.
The book provides a detailed account of how Karachi was governed by the Kalhoras and the Khans of Kalat in intervals and later the Talpurs, until 1843 when the British took full control of Karachi and from where the journey of modern Karachi began.
The seaport always held importance in the history of Karachi but no one except for the Talpurs paid much attention to it. Then the British developed it in a manner it deserved. And not only the port — the British, along with the Parsis (mainly), Christians, Hindus and some Muslims turned the town of Karachi into a beautiful and vibrant metropolitan city in just 100 years. Later, our governments managed to reverse this.
It was Sir Charles Napier, according to the author, who was a “true lover of Karachi”, the likes of whom the city never found again. It was Napier, the first governor of Sindh, who put his heart into developing the city and its key civic institutions.
The book provides an overview of the pre-Partition political environment in the city and how things changed after the creation of Pakistan. Here one gets to read a lamentable story of how corruption and incompetence led to a human crisis of managing the millions who migrated to Karachi from India. Many were left without any help, with thousands living on footpaths and in makeshift settlements for years. The author has also harshly criticised the class division that was in evidence in the treatment of the immigrants.
In a chapter titled ‘Sindhi Abadi Kahaan Gayi? [Where Did the Sindhi Population Go?]’, Baloch criticises the exploitation of Sindhis by feudal lords. He discusses why Sindhis did not have much of a role in the city’s economic, industrial, educational and journalistic sectors, particularly after the Sindhi Hindus left Karachi during Partition. He asks why, despite many years of Sindhi rulers’ governance in Karachi, the small Sindhi population was unable to contribute to the city’s development and live a decent urban life, and stresses the need to research this.
There are also sections where he has discussed Gen Ayub Khan’s rule and how it shaped Karachi, from depriving it of being the country’s capital to the issues that emerged as part of his political legacy. The politics of language in Karachi is also deliberated upon, with controversies surrounding the declaration of Sindhi as the official language in the province.
Despite every problem and issue, however, the city’s peace and prosperity remained largely intact, he says. Things dramatically turned ugly, however, after the death of college student Bushra Zaidi by a speeding minibus in 1985, which led to an ethnic bloodbath.
Thereafter came the gang wars, the surge in terrorism, and the rise of the Altaf Hussain-led Mohajir Qaumi Movement, which the author largely blames for spoiling the city’s peace and other issues, because it remained the strongest party in the metropolis for many years. In the book, the author seems to favour and defend the Pakistan Peoples Party here. He also shows how social tensions had been boiling for long in Karachi, as the basis for hatred and conflict had been set in the city during Gen Zia’s experiment with ‘Islamisation’.
Sadly, since the riots of 1985, Karachi has been constantly witnessing terrorism and other forms of violence. It has not seen peace for long. The author talks about all those who made this city of lights into a city of darkness.
There are multiple other chapters, but the one deserving particular mention is the last one on Karachi’s future, wherein the author reflects on the current issues and problems facing the city and says that, unless key issues such as that of the constantly expanding population are resolved, the city will remain difficult to govern, as it has been for so long.
The book is a must-read for anyone who loves Karachi and is concerned about and interested in its past and present. It can serve an equally important resource for thinkers and policy-makers of this city and this country.
The book ends on the note that Karachi needs a lover like Charles Napier. Only such a ruler can heal its wounds, Baloch says. “It is a historical fact that, in the 178-year history of Karachi, Charles Napier was the only ruler who truly understood the city, adorned it, and then loved it with all his heart.”
The reviewer is a member of staff.
Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, March 23rd, 2025
