Karachi may have once been the gateway to British India, but Saddar is now a gateway to the city’s past. And like the rest of the old city, it has largely fallen to ruin. However, efforts are underway to renovate and rethink how Saddar can be best utilised as public space.

In light of these efforts, the Herald reached out to a few eminent citizens who call Karachi home to discover what Saddar means to them, and how they would envision its future. Here are some highlights.

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Hasan Ali Khan

Assistant Professor at the School of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Habib University

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"Its legacy, as told to me by veteran architect and urban planner ArifHasan, is its recreation as an icon to express the writ of thecolonial administration after the Mutiny of 1857."

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Durriya Kazi

A Karachi-based artist, who heads the Department of Visual Studies, University of Karachi

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"While I would love to say restore buildings, create historicalprecincts, pedestrianise areas, revive trams, create walks withplaques recounting the history of buildings and streets, I know thisis not possible. This area is an important commercial centre andcannot be disturbed for some romantic nostalgia. What I would doinstead is focus on Sundays downtown. The area is mostly deserted onSundays. It could be pedestrianised on Sundays, cleaned, and by thelate afternoon, when Sunday wanderers surface, be full of stallsserving different foods, music , street theatre, tea shops, bookstalls, crafts, art exhibitions, the occasional open air concert,street cricket and other sports, cycling, or even cycle rickshas.Schools could have educational fairs, competitions."

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Bilal Tanweer

A writer, translator and author of The Scatter Here is Too Great

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"We need to eschew the idea that Saddar – or any other place –essentially means one particular thing, and instead embrace themultiplicity of realities of a place. It is precisely an essentialistview of Saddar which has recently allowed the city magistrate to ordera displacement of hawkers, terming them ‘encroachers’ in order to maketheir displacement easier and possible."

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Shahana Rajani

A curator and educator

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"On the surface, restoring colonial buildings to their past glory seemslike a good cause. But we need to ask: Restoration and beautificationalong whose standards? The political elite’s, of course."

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This article was published in the Herald June 2014 issue. To read the full article subscribe to the Herald.

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