A view of the demolished Hyder Manzil | Fahim Siddiqi/White Star
For three generations, Hyder Manzil was a part of the Syed family and party headquarters for the Sindh United Party (SUP). Up until a decade ago, SUP’s leader Jalal Mehmood Shah, one of Syed’s grandsons, lived in the residence with his family. He put the house up for sale sometime in April. Slowly, as the contractor started breaking down the house bit by bit, and rubble started to gather, other members of the family approached him.
His brother, Zain Shah, says that he was beside himself with anger as he could not imagine his childhood home being torn apart. “Our household help saw men taking down doors and windows, so I asked my brother what was going on. He said that he had sold the house. I asked him to not rush into anything but he did not listen,” Zain Shah tells Eos.
He explains the house was important not just from a political perspective but also a social one. “This neighbourhood was always very diverse with Parsi, Catholic and Muslim colonies. Some of the houses here were very old — Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s father’s house was on the same street as ours. Now, only the Khan of Kalat’s house remains.”
In an earlier interview with Dawn, Jalal Shah had claimed that the property belonged to him and he needed to sell it to provide a home for his family. “I have been living on rent for 10 years or so. It was time for me to make the sale,” he had said.
Preserving the bungalows
Could declaring the property as heritage have saved it? As per the current set of laws, this is a little complicated. For one, a building has to be at least a 100 years old to be considered for a listing.
Additionally, if a property is tagged as a heritage site, it has a negative impact on its financial value. Owners of pre-Partition buildings and homes claim that, instead of the full price, they would only get one-third of the market value.
According to architect and heritage consultant Marvi Mazhar there is a dire need to preserve historical residences in the city, otherwise residences such as Hyder Manzil will be in danger.
“These bungalows are deteriorating fast,” she says. “There is a gap in the heritage by-laws…What is the security and benefit of owning a heritage building? This is something the Sindh heritage law, or generally in Pakistan, have not been able to address. So people have this fear of owning or getting their buildings listed. Anywhere else in the world, [when] buildings get listed, it’s a prestigious thing, but in Pakistan it becomes a responsibility or a problem.”
PPP HQ
Like Hyder Manzil, political parties such as the PPP, the Awami National Party (ANP), the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) and the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) also have historical headquarters.
For example, the PPP’s Sindh secretariat which can be easily spotted from the Quaid’s mausoleum, is housed in a property which is a century old.
Lined with photographs of the Bhutto family, a gallery for the shuhada (martyrs) and party workers, the PPP secretariat is at the core of the party’s hold in Sindh.
According to former Senator Taj Haider, PPP bought the property in 1994. “We used to have our offices in the bungalow across from this property for the longest time, but the people who owned it were moving or wanted to sell,” he says. Anyway, another PPP leader [former Sindh CM] Abdullah Shah, was adamant about this property.
“We ended up moving to a property in Shirin Jinnah Colony for a while before coming back to this neighbourhood,” he adds.
The party, he explains, had to renovate everything from the inside. “The structure is quite old as this is a pre-Partition house,” he says. “My office used to be on the first floor.
We have also still kept the office of our party’s late leader, Benazir Bhutto, untouched on the first floor.”
“This office was inaugurated by BB,” he says. “She used to hold all her important meetings and dealings in the office here — which we have preserved. Her son, Bilawal, has also held meetings in our conference hall as has [Bilawal’s] father Asif Ali Zardari and aunt Faryal Talpur, while the family regularly attends meetings here.”
Haider says that it was a home away from home for the workers and party leadership. “This is where all the Sindh specific activities are held. We have also held several lectures on this property from intellectuals and policymakers such as Kaiser Bengali, Perween Rehman, Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim, Akbar Zaidi and Dr Jaffar Ahmed, to name a few.”
Haider was sad to hear about Hyder Manzil’s fate as he had been to the property for meetings frequently. “Hyder Manzil was a grand place,” he says. “I remember attending meetings there. I have also been to other party offices such as Jamaat-i-Islami’s Idara Noor-i-Haq, another beautiful property.”
“I feel that the PPP secretariat should be declared a heritage property,” he says. “There was once talk about rebuilding this property into a seven- or eight-storey building, but since you can’t build a high-rise building near the Quaid’s mazaar, the idea was dropped.”
The caretaker of the secretariat, Arif, says that the property was identified by the party back in 1993. “We used to have an office in Shirin Jinnah Colony but that was too far away for most workers so BB [Benazir Bhutto] thought this would be a better location. Today, this place is used for meetings on the city and provincial levels,” he adds.
“We have offices here for the general secretary and president,” he adds. “We also have a photo gallery for all of our party’s martyrs — almost 900 in the last decade. Their families come here to pay their respects to the dead. There are large events held here, to observe October 18 and BB’s death anniversary.”
At least 200 party workers visit every day, he says, to discuss party matters or just catch up.
“This office was inaugurated by BB,” he says. “She used to hold all her important meetings and dealings in the office here — which we have preserved. Her son, Bilawal, has also held meetings in our conference hall as has [Bilawal’s] father Asif Ali Zardari and aunt Faryal Talpur, while the family regularly attends meetings here.”
According to Arif who has been managing the secretariat since 1995, during Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s time, the party’s headquarter used to be the dilapidated building next to the secretariat. “While people used to meet ZAB at his residence, party matters were discussed at the residence across from us,” he says. “We were asked to vacate the property as it was someone’s personal property. I don’t know if they sold it or what, but it has been empty since we left.”
An important location for party workers, this is also the starting point for rallies, the staging of meetings and important days such as party leaders’ death anniversaries or election day.
Idara Noor-i-Haq