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Hidden treasure at the Sindh Archives

Feature published in The Friday Times.

A faded, brittle manuscript titled “Secret Department”, signed “H. Pottinger” and dated “3rd February, 1832” quotes Mir Murad Ali Talpur. “‘We know nothing’, said His Highness, ‘about accounts, or traffic, or writing. We hardly know that two and two make four. We all trust to Hindoos to bring us what we want from abroad, and our business is to fight amongst each other, which we do daily.’” Pottinger’s handwritten letter, addressed to the Governor-General’s secretary, details his day-to-day conversations with the ruler of Sindh eleven years prior to conquest. The letter goes on to provide an “Outline of a treaty sent to Meer Moorad Ali Khan on the 2nd of February, 1832”, under which the Indus was to be opened up for ‘trade’.

This is a sample of the treasure waiting to be dug up in one of Old Clifton’s tamarisked dead-ends. The Sindh Archives building lies tucked away behind Federation House and Park Towers, in Karachi. It contains correspondence and reports, the earliest of which date back to the 1830s, providing first-hand accounts of life in colonial Sindh – in the kind of vivid detail not found in history books. It also hosts a collection of old maps and rare books.

It is these very records that British historian David Cheesman accessed during his PhD research, which formed the basis for his work Landlord Power and Rural Indebtedness in Colonial Sind 1865-1901 (1997, Curzon). Recalling his experience of the archives, Dr Cheesman tells me “In 1976-77, when I carried out my PhD research, the records were stored in the Commissioner’s Record Office, which came under the Commissioner of Karachi. Access was at the Commissioner’s discretion. I had to convince him that I was only interested in people who were long dead. The records staff used to bring me my dusty bundles of old papers from the nineteenth century while they got on with their main business of filing modern records. Because the work of the Karachi administration was going on around me, it really felt as if I was in the old ‘Sind Commission’.”

“What I found especially fascinating” recalls Dr. Cheesman, “was that they still had stores of unsold official publications and so long as they had sufficient copies in the archive, they were very sensibly selling off the unwanted duplicates – at the original prices. So, for example, I got the 1933 guide to ‘Sind Government Records’ for 12 annas(i.e. Rs 0.75), the 1954 Bund Manual for Rs 5 and various British settlement reports. Selling them was certainly more cost effective than the alternative, which would have been to destroy them. When I came away clutching the 1918 settlement report for Thul, Kandhkot and Kashmore, for example, I really felt time had stood still!”

Old records of the commissioner in Sindh are filed under the following classifications: revenue, judicial, administrative, political and miscellaneous. In addition, there are the proceedings of the September 1929 session of the Legislative Assembly of India (the same assembly that had been bombed by Bhaghat Singh and BK Dutt six months prior), the proceedings of the Bombay Council from 1919 onwards and Bombay Government Gazettes from as early as 1850.

It is the records of the British – who left no stone un-surveyed – that largely make up the archives. However, according to historian Hamida Khuhro, “Prior to the British period, a lot of people in Sindh who engaged in scholarly pursuits valued their manuscripts. There are families that have a collection of handwritten manuscripts: written by their ancestors, or by someone who would write on their behalf. Therefore, there was a tradition of collecting old material.” The Sindh Archives have a 450-year-old Persian manuscript and more in Arabic.

While it is the archives that are the ‘treasure’ and not the building itself, one cannot help but wonder whether its architect anticipated it as a blank canvas on which you could build your historical imagination. Built in 1988, the complex has an unfinished feel to it. Perhaps the way Karachi felt in its early days. Or the way parts of the city still feel.

Architect Navaid Husain says, “It is a naive building. I was young when I designed it. At this age I am of the view that it should have been a historic building.” Yet, somehow, its appeal lies in the fact that it does not demand appreciation. The wide-open spaces and a lack of theme are filled up by images of the history you uncover in the archives. You associate the smell of the building and the old documents with the period under study.

Hamida Khuhro argues, “The building is very badly placed. It’s near the sea; it is humid and absolutely destructive of paper. It should be shifted to KDA or even further away. The weather is better there, believe it or not.”

The manuscripts are fumigated, chemically treated, bound and stored in acid-free boxes. The stack area is the only area I’ve seen in Karachi that is furnished with a functional (waterless) fire safety system. It is air-conditioned and the temperature and humidity are strictly monitored every three hours. Old newspapers, stored in another room, are undergoing preservation.

Akash Datwani, a qualified archivist and stack area in-charge, is highly efficient in facilitating researchers. He is the man to go to when carrying out research at the archives. Datwani has provided training in archival management to the Sindh Coastal Development Authority and to students of Karachi University’s MA program in Library and Information Sciences.

Sakhidad Kachelo, who worked at the Sindh Archives from 1979 until his retirement as an assistant director in January 2016, is a part and parcel of the relics found in the archives. “Part of the record used to be stored in Hyderabad,” he recalls, “and while it was there, a significant portion of it disappeared, or was stolen. The record was shifted to the current building in 1992. In 1993, Martin Moir, former deputy director of the India Office Library, gave us six months of training in record management.”

Three lanes down, the British Council library has re-opened its doors. The Sindh Archives – a ten-minute walk from there – may not have a cafe, but it does have the first edition of Joseph Davey Cunningham’s controversial A History of the Sikhs, published in 1849 by John Murray. A faded handwritten note in its front matter section reads “The rare first edition – suppressed upon publication on account of certain passages which gave offence.” On another shelf lies the first edition of Alexander Burnes’s Cabool, published in 1842 by John Murray. Its endpaper contains the signature of its first owner, dated May 1842. Nearby, is the first edition of Charles Masson’s Narrative of Various Journeys through Balochistan, Afghanistan, The Panjab, & Kalat, published in 1844 by Richard Bentley. There is also the first edition of the 7th Earl of Dunmore’sThe Pamirs, published by John Murray in 1893, with a silver Buddha embossed on its cover. Eye-catching titles such as, ‘The Indian Alps and How We Crossed Them by A Lady Pioneer’ and ‘A History of the Thugs’ cannot be missed.

However, the rare book collection – already in delicate condition – is located in a space where sunlight, heat, dust and humidity can wreak havoc on it. The rare books have been put into the same room as regular books, near large windows that are left open. It is evident that the adjustable open shelves on which the rare books are placed are not contributing to their preservation and are, if anything, damaging their covers. As the shelves are open from the sides, some books lying on the edge are leaning outwards.

When I first visited the Sindh Archives in 2007, the rare book collection was kept under lock and key in a windowless room specifically designated for it. A visitor needed permission to be able to view it. After Naeem Daudpota became the librarian in 2010, the collection was shifted to its current location. Daudpota, an MA in Library Information Science as well as History, explains, “It doesn’t make sense to keep rare books locked away and hidden from public viewing. On the contrary, people must be made aware of their existence and be encouraged to come and read them.” While such intentions are promising, accessibility must not come at the cost of preservation. The rare books must be shifted to an air-conditioned room, devoid of windows, where temperature and humidity are closely monitored – as is done in the stack area.

Referring to the personal collections in the library of the Sindh Archives, Hamida Khuhro opines, “I don’t think it is right that books in a library be organised under personal collections. They should be organised according to subject. Otherwise it is not helpful to researchers.”

The lone researchers that are seldom found in the corridors of the archives are either lawyers – compelled to visit for work – or foreign historians, or simply those driven by a carnivorous curiosity for an accurate picture of what was.

Colonel (retd) Hassan Imam, who has carried out research on his grandfather Wadero Ghulam Kadir Dayo, a landholder of Ratodero Taluka, tells me he is convinced that “Somebody has tampered with the Blue Book of Larkana District. The photocopy of the Blue Book preserved in the Sindh Archives is different from the one preserved in the Sindhology Institute, Jamshoro.” In my own research, I did notice that certain entries in the copy of the Blue Book in the Sindhology Institute were missing from the one in the Sindh Archives. According to Imam, “The pages covering the years 1901 to 1926 are missing. Furthermore, some entries that bear the signatures of different Collectors are all in the same handwriting. Whoever had an interest in destroying this record has deliberately done so.” According to Dr Cheesman however, “The handwriting may or may not be significant. Security was surprisingly lax in those days compared to now and, before photocopiers, even sensitive documents were frequently transcribed. You would probably be able to tell a lot from the style of writing – modern handwriting is very different.”

The past, encapsulated in the archives, is relevant, as are its missing pieces. Factual specifics, although limited, are more revealing than any vague, romanticised fable. Sensibilities and perspectives uncovered in old manuscripts relating to Sindh can provide history-lovers with a fresh perspective of the present: a new way of ‘seeing’ and understanding their current reality.

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A forgotten kingdom

Feature published in Newsline.

On the edge of the desert in Khairpur District, a cluster of ghostly bungalows and ornate halls of audience make up the remnants of a royal court. They point to an earlier era of aesthetic fusion between East and West. Casting its protective shade over these is a hilltop fort. Its towering ramparts have gazed down at travellers for over two centuries.

These relics, camouflaged in dust in the village of Kot Diji, belong to the Khairpur branch of the Talpurs, who ruled Upper Sindh from 1783 till 1843. Thereafter, until Partition, they continued to reign over an autonomous Native State carved out for them by the British.

The approach to the village of Kot Diji from the old national highway is marked by a sudden change in topography. A flat and fertile alluvial plane is interrupted by the emergence of isolated hillocks. These limestone formations are part of a greater ridge of hills that runs south from Rohri, known as ‘Gharr.’ The sweltering heat of a May afternoon is overshadowed by a mountain of rainclouds moving in from Naara and the Indian border – the eastern peripheries of Khairpur District. Kot Diji is located at the exact spot where the fertile green plain that lies to its west gives way to the desert that sprawls eastward, to Jaisalmer and beyond.

After the Talpurs seized Sindh from the Kalhoras in 1783 and divided it up between themselves into three independent units, Mir Sohrab Talpur established his court in Khairpur. Having two sons from Talpur wives, Mir Sohrab took a third wife from the house of a Marri nobleman. This marriage gave birth to his youngest son, Mir Ali Murad I. In 1830, while at Sohrab Manzil in Khairpur, Mir Sohrab mysteriously fell off its balcony while watching a Muharram procession, and died soon after. The current members of his family suspect that he may have been pushed off. They feel it would have been particularly difficult to fall off a balcony that was surrounded by a chest-high brick wall.

Mir Mehdi Raza represents the current generation of the Talpur dynasty. He is the son of Mir Ali Murad II and a direct descendant of Mir Sohrab (seven times removed). According to Mir Mehdi, “Some members of the family took exception to Mir Sohrab adding his youngest son’s name to his will. The fact that his mother was not a Talpur made it unacceptable to them.” Nevertheless, Mir Sohrab’s youngest son, Mir Ali Murad I, ascended to the throne in 1842, the year General Charles Napier arrived in Sindh.

The more discerning visitor may notice that the old structures in Kot Diji and Khairpur, in all their magnificence, would not have made practical residences. And while today they may be passed off as ‘palaces’ or ‘bungalows,’ their owners confirm that with the exception of one or two, they were not meant to be living quarters, but darbars (courts). At the time they were built, their owners preferred living in tents.

Mir Mehdi told Newsline that up until (and including) his great-grandfather’s generation, living in tents was the norm for the Talpurs, who were nomadic Baloch tribesmen. “While women and children lived in houses,” he explains, “it was considered unmanly for men to do so.” The heat was never a problem, he says, as “these people were out hunting for most of the time, even in peak summer. Therefore, they were adjusted to the hot climate.” The tents were usually made of velvet, or in some cases, tiger skin, the latter having been gifted to Queen Victoria by Mir Ali Murad I. Mir Mehdi learnt of these habits from his father, who was told by his father, and in this manner, details of day-to-day living were handed down from one generation to the next. They are backed up by the memoirs of British travellers, who witnessed them first hand.

Edward Archer Langley, a former captain of the Madras Cavalry, spent a substantial period of time in the court of the then Rais (turban-holder), Mir Ali Murad I, in 1857-8. In his memoir, A Narrative of a Residence in the Court of Mir Ali Moorad, while commenting on the Mir’s bungalow in Kot Diji, Langley observes that the Mir “Never occupies the house; but passes his days in a Landee [shed] in front, and sleeps in a small tent close to the building.” Langley further notes, “His Highness… rarely sleeps three nights running in the same spot, for his habits are exceedingly nomadic, and even when in a city he generally sleeps in a tent.”

The bungalow Langley refers to, no longer exists. In its general vicinity stands Shahi Mahal. The previous bungalow, reports Langley, had interiors painted in fresco and was located “in the midst of a garden of… twenty acres, enclosed with a high wall.” Within this wall roamed numerous wild boars and crosses between wild boars and English sows, which would often charge at gardeners and court jesters alike, much to the amusement of the Mirs. The layout of this darbar, Langley describes, was similar to the old residency of the British political agent in Khairpur.

British explorer Charles Masson passed through Khairpur in 1829, while Mir Sohrab was still alive, and saw his court, Sohrab Manzil, from the outside. In his Narrative of Various Journeys, he notes that the Mir’s “palace” was located in the “the very centre of the bazaars,” that its boundary wall contained battlements, and that “from the exterior, the only prominent object is the cupola of the masjit [masjid], decorated with green and yellow painted tiles.” By the time Langley saw it, almost three decades later, “the ruinous old house,” which stood within “the crumbling walls of a mud fort,” had fallen into disuse and was completely empty. “As the place reminded Mir Ali Murad of his father’s death,” explains Mir Mehdi, “he avoided staying there altogether.” Instead, he would pitch tent in a garden called ‘Dobagh,’ on the outskirts of the town.

Langley, it appears, did not have an eye for detail. Limited perhaps by cultural differences, he fails to elaborate on the appearance of the tents, and insinuates that living in them demonstrated a lack of civilisation. Marianne Young, wife of Captain Thomas Postans of the Bombay Army, on the other hand, displays a more acute sense of observation. In her May 1843 article for The Illuminated Magazine, a monthly publication based out of London, Young describes Mir Ali Murad’s tent as being “made wholly of bright crimson cloth, richly embroidered, and surrounded with an outer wall, to keep off the people. The interior,” she continues, “was decorated with hanging lamps, rich Persian carpets, and large cushions of purple velvet, worked with seed pearls and gold, while the entrances were sentinelled with a body guard, dressed in a uniform similar to that worn by the soldiers of the Punjab.” She adds that “Of all the princes of Sindh… I was most charmed by Meer Ali Moorad of Khyrpoor, who is the very beau-ideal of a strong-hearted and independent chief.”

The custom of living in tents was not primitive, but served a practical purpose. It enabled the Mirs to remain in a constant state of transience, which best suited their passion for sport. Being land-owning barons, it also allowed them the mobility to inspect their territories and subjects. There would be little inconvenience or fatigue, since their ‘home’ would move with them wherever they went. At the same time, constantly being on the move provided security. An enemy could not plan a strike, since it would have been hard to predict where the Rais would decamp to next. Langley reports that Mir Ali Murad “will never allow his people to know where he means to halt for breakfast, and his intending sleeping place is even kept a more profound secret.”

Langley again generalises when he says that “The entire household furniture of Khyrpoor can be comprised in a single word, ‘the charpoy’… for neither table nor chair does His Highness possess.” Young, in her article, describes the “magnificent posts of a charpoy, or native bedstead,” being “encrusted with precious stones, emeralds and rubies; the value of each… estimated at two hundred guineas.”

Since only women and children lived indoors, the oldest known zenana of the Mirs of Upper Sindh is located inside the fort of Kot Diji, built in the 1780s by Mir Sohrab. The zenana’s ceiling was, according to Mir Mehdi, once inlaid with decorative mirror work, which served the function of multiplying/reflecting the light of candles and lanterns at nighttime. From 1811 onwards, it was here that Mir Sohrab spent the latter part of his career – in a tent outside the zenana – watching Mir Ali Murad I grow up. By the 1850s, the zenana had already moved outside the walls of the fort, and into the village of Kot Diji.

Like families, bungalows and fortresses too have generations. The first generation of monuments of the Mirs, described in detail in nineteenth century memoirs of various British visitors, were made when the family first established its foothold in Upper Sindh. Other than the fort at Kot Diji, none of these remain. The second generation of bungalows and autaqs (halls of audience) came up in the 1890s, during the reign of Mir Faiz Mohammad I. It is these that can be seen today in Kot Diji and Khairpur. Like their predecessors, they were used to receive and entertain important guests. According to Mir Mehdi, Mir Faiz Mohammad’s advisors and viziers emphasised the need for impressive-looking darbars as tokens of sophistication and stature, where British officials could be hosted. And so, they were erected, explains Mir Mehdi, “to keep up with the Joneses.” Architect Arif Hasan points out, “They were made at a particular time, when there was a merger of the European revival styles and local classic Indo-Islamic architecture.” Thus, he says, they are a mélange of many styles.

In the late 19th century, an increasing number of halls of audience, based on a common prototype, could be seen on the estates of Sindh’s nobility. According to Dr Anila Naeem, Co-Chairperson of the Department of Architecture and Planning at NED University, “Colonial-vernacular hybrid architecture became a symbol of wealth, power and prestige. Hence we see examples of it all over the region, commissioned by the nobility and later by the upcoming class of zamindars or waderas.” Over generations, some of the darbars were transformed into living quarters. A number of these ancestral properties survive across the province.

According to Mir Mehdi, the sizzling temperatures in Sindh did not permit structures as elaborate and palatial as those found in princely states. While the layout was kept relatively simple, the focus of the design was to enable an effective cooling system and airflow. This is why the Mirs’ bungalows are surrounded on all four sides by arched verandas up to 12 feet wide. The thick, brick-and-lime-mortar walls keep out the heat in summer and the cold in winter. The diwan-e-aam, or the hall of audience, lies at the very centre of the structure, its ceiling significantly higher than the rest of the bungalow. At the very top of its four walls are windows (badwaan), through which hot air escapes the building. The latticework covering the verandas is lined with mats made of khus-khus leaves, which, if sprinkled with water from the outside, have a cooling effect on the air that flows through them.

Mir Mehdi’s grandmother, who witnessed the transition from this old-fashioned system of cooling to that of the air conditioner, never felt comfortable in the recycled air of the latter. But even as early as the 1850s, there already existed in the subcontinent, a precursor to the air conditioner, in the form of the thermantidote. This was a box about the size of an oven, containing a built-in hand-operated fan and windows on all sides that were lined with moist khus-khus. Langley saw one of these inside Mir Ali Murad’s darbar in Kot Diji.

Takkar Bungalow (‘House on the Hill’), in Kot Diji, was built to accommodate the guests of Mir Faiz Mohammad I. Located at the top of a steep butte, this impressive mehman khana (guest house) remains closed to the public as it is the current home of Mir Ali Murad II and his family, who occupy it when they visit their ancestral village. At all other times it remains locked. The narrow road that leads to it winds along the edge of a cliff and culminates at the bungalow’s old gate. The canon outside this gate was, according to Mir Mehdi, bought from Queen Victoria’s grandfather, King George III, whose initials it bears.

Takkar Bungalow was built in the Anglo-oriental style common in the 1890s. Its circular-shaped bedrooms are located at the four corners of the house, their walls surrounded by windows, to enable a maximum flow of air through linings of khus-khus. Some of these windows were later closed off and turned into wall closets (darri) and shelves. The rooms have been fitted with false ceilings – the original ceiling being too high to allow effective air conditioning. The latticework of the verandas has been replaced with meshes, to keep out mosquitoes. At some point in its lifetime, the bungalow caught fire and had to be repainted in the original style. “The new paint job is not a good one,” laments Mir Mehdi. Parts of the structure, one bedroom in particular, have been reinforced with concrete blocks, which take away from its aesthetic appeal. The mansion faces south, overlooking a two-level courtyard on the edge of a cliff. It was in this courtyard that Mir Faiz Mohammad pitched his tent, while his guests slept inside the house. On its lower level is a small, unkempt garden. The courtyard affords panoramic views from west to east. Mir Mehdi explains that a forest bordered the southern side of the hill up until the 1950s and black buck could be spotted around the peripheries of Kot Diji. Takkar Bungalow is unique in that its interior does not have an uplifting atmosphere like those of the other bungalows. Instead, a ghoulish sense of heaviness prevails. Mir Mehdi refers to it as a “house of horrors.”

The exterior of Suffaid Mahal, or ‘The White Palace,’ built as a darbar in the 1890s by Mir Faiz Mohammad I, displays a strong influence of nineteenth century Sikh architecture – its arches in particular. It is still used as an autaqby its current proprietor, Mir Ahmed Talpur, a cousin of Mir Mehdi. His family resides in the old zenana opposite Suffaid Mahal. The ceiling of Suffaid Mahal’s diwan-e-aam is, like that of most others, lined with wood and contains mirror work and floral patterns. According to Dr Naeem, this style of interiors exhibit a Persian influence that was also employed in Mughal architecture. Suffaid Mahal’s frescoed walls, however, have been retouched. And it is furnished with an antique swing and cabinets. Among the numerous old photos and portraits that hang on its walls are, an original lithograph of Alexandra of Denmark who was Princess of Wales from 1863 to 1901, and a photo of Lady Curzon.

“The protruding balcony, or jharoka, on the first floor,” explains Dr Naeem, “is a typical feature in the palaces and havelis of Rajasthan. Since this particular one faces towards the open grounds within the boundary of the bungalow, it is quite possible that it may have been used for ceremonial purposes by the royals, for public sightings, as was the tradition among the Mughals, and British royalty as well.” The Endowment Fund Trust (EFT) is currently repairing the pillars of Suffaid Mahal’s veranda. “We are using bricks from Rahim Yar Khan,” explains Hamid Akhund, secretary of the EFT, “as these are of the required thickness and are made of earth that doesn’t contain salts.” EFT is also in the process of rebuilding a boundary wall around Suffaid Mahal.

In the 1890s, Mir Faiz Mohammad’s son, Mir Imam Bux, hired a French nanny for his firstborn, Mir Ali Nawaz. The house built for her became known as Mandam Waro Bungalow, or Madame’s Bungalow. This home of Mademoiselle de Flo is one of Kot Diji’s best-kept secrets. It exudes a quaint and understated charm, owing to its smaller scale. Yet its exterior displays, arguably, the most intricate carvings and stucco work of all the bungalows in Kot Diji. Dr Naeem describes it as being “less Anglo and more oriental.” She says it is possible that the other bungalows too had carvings as intricate, and that they may have been spoiled due to alterations in the name of ‘renovations.’

Two opposite ends of this symmetrical redbrick structure open up into entrances while the remaining two ends have latticed verandas. Dr Naeem explains that deep verandas were a traditional feature of bungalows in Sindh, as they provided shade from the tropical sun and at the same time allowed the provision to enjoy the outdoors. The roof of Madame’s Bungalow is furnished with a small pavilion where Mademoiselle de Flo undoubtedly spent many a summer night. Geo-climatic conditions in the plains necessitated an architectural layout that, in light of the large retinue of domestics employed, would have allowed minimal privacy. Mir Mehdi recalls little or no privacy in the time he spent in Takkar Bungalow as a child. Dr Naeem points out, “the notion of privacy would have been very different for the people of those times and places than what we perceive in our urban context.”

In the end, it all proved worthwhile; Mir Ali Nawaz, reared by a French nanny, went on to attend Aitchison College, followed by the Imperial Cadet Corps in Dehra Dun. In 1921, he was inducted in the Chamber of Princes, in Delhi. Madame’s Bungalow, now empty and neglected, is in a state of disrepair and has not seen any conservation work. Mohan Lal Ochani, Project Director at the EFT, says that the main problem afflicting heritage sites across the province is that of rising dampness. “There are several methods of dealing with this,” he explains. “We can either inject the structure with synthetic material that prevents salinity from affecting the paint (also known as damp proofing), or,” he continues, “we can use the Aquapol system.” This groundbreaking new method, invented in Austria, involves the installation of an antenna-like device in the ceiling of a building. The device uses wireless technology to dehydrate the walls above and below ground level. It has a coverage area of 500 square metres and costs Rs. 1,595,000.

Also in a state of decay is Shahi Mahal, the court of Mir Faiz Mohammad I, constructed in the 1890s. It stands to the northeast of Kot Diji, adjoining the nearby village of Abad. Unlike the other bungalows, which are located inside Kot Diji, Shahi Mahal is surrounded by agricultural fields and as such, has a pastoral feel. It remained a court until the 1920s, when, under the reign of Mir Ali Nawaz, Khairpur State adopted the British legal system. The frescoes on its interior are more detailed than any other in the current bungalows of the Mirs of Khairpur. And unlike any of the other bungalows, the ceiling of its main hall is arched. The exterior has, on three sides, porticos varying in detail and design, which serve as main entrances for the public. On the fourth side, which is the back of the building, is a columned veranda, at the corner of which lies a segregated entrance for women: a stairwell leading to the upper level. This stairwell has crumbled and all that remains of it is a pile of bricks. Referring to the smaller rooms/wings that surround the main hall of audience, Dr Naeem explains that these were either used for “private meetings and conversations that could not be carried out in the main public hall,” or as “resting chambers by the royalty.”

A similar concept applies to the layout of Faiz Mahal, Mir Faiz Mohammad I’s court in the town of Khairpur, also built in the 1890s. “Its east wing,” explains Mir Mehdi, “consists of royal chambers, for the sovereign to prepare for royal ceremonies, as well as six waiting rooms.” The west wing, on the other hand, comprises eight waiting rooms for high-ranking courtiers, nobility and visiting foreign dignitaries. “On the first floor,” he continues, “are two corridors overlooking the darbar from either side, from where the zenana would watch the proceedings. The central tower contains two rooms, which were formerly the library and billiard room.” On the second floor, at the top of the central tower, lies a room that provides views of the garden and city. In the hall of audience, a photo of the wedding ceremony of Mir Faiz Mohammed II in 1932, shows the Nizam of Hyderabad (the bride’s cousin) in attendance, accompanied by his two famous daughters-in-law – Princess Durr-e-Shehvar (daughter of Abdul Hamid Khan, Turkey’s last Ottoman Emperor), and her cousin Princess Niloufer, who would, in the course of that decade, be renowned internationally for her beauty.

Behind Faiz Mahal lies Dilkusha Manzil, once a zenana, but now used by the Deputy Commissioner of Khairpur as his office. In the vicinity of the Mahal is the Summer Laandhi, a guest house where, according to Mir Mehdi, Lord Kitchener briefly encamped at some point during his tenure as commander-in-chief of the Indian Army, between 1902 and 1911. An orchard near Faiz Mahal housed a prison in the days of the Khairpur State. “Prisoners used to assist palace staff and gardeners until the system was modernised and the jail was turned into a technical training institute for convicts,” says Mir Mehdi. “The products that were made included blankets, which were sold to the military, and other items of basic need. The income from the sale of these was divided into two equal portions. One was provided to the families of the convicts as a means of support, while the other half was collected and handed to the prisoner upon release.”

Mir Ali Murad II, Mir Mehdi’s father, currently resides in Faiz Mahal. He ascended to the throne in July 1947, shortly before Partition, at the age of 14, after which he attended Cambridge University. “The decision of whether to remain independent or join India or Pakistan was a burden thrust upon him at a young age,” explains Mir Mehdi. “There was immense pressure on the family, from the British, to join Pakistan, as they felt it would be beneficial for us.”

The family tradition of living in tents had faded away by the 1930s, during the reign of Mir Faiz Mohammad II, who, having attended Mayo College in Ajmer, followed by Oxford University, was more Anglicised than his predecessors. Mir Mehdi himself attended the State University of New York (SUNY), from where he was suddenly called to the front lines in 1995 to help deal with a territorial dispute. The husband of the then sitting prime minister, had made attempts to purchase Khairpur House in Karachi as well as the one in Lahore, explains Mir Ahmed. “He went so far as to threaten to forcefully occupy these properties. But instead,” laughs Mir Ahmed, “the only thing he occupied was a prison cell, after his wife’s government fell.”

The residents of the village of Kot Diji are predominantly Jaths, Khashkelis, Chandios, Lasharis and Gopangs. Some of them are descendants of individuals who had been in the service of the Mirs over a century ago, as accountants or munshis. “Some people work in banks, while others run dhabbas,” says Mir Ahmed, “but there is still a lot of unemployment. And there are power outages for 12 to 18 hours everyday.” He explains that the flour mills that have been put up outside Kot Diji have provided some locals with work. Gopangs tend to be peasant farmers and Jaths have taken up jobs at stone-crushing plants set up by Sachal Engineering Works (Pvt) Ltd. Pointing to the limestone buttes around the southern and western peripheries of Kot Diji, Mir Ahmed explains that these, along with others in the Mehrano and Nara regions, had been leased out by the Mirs to the Frontier Works Organisation as quarries.

Sher Khan Rajput, a labourer, makes his way home in the long shadow of the fort at the close of day. Although his children are educated, he says that the Mirs are his family’s only hope and guiding light. While Mir Mehdi maintains a distance from politics, his cousin, Mir Shahnawaz Talpur (also known as Mir Shaanar) made his political debut in the 2013 general elections. “Both Mir Mehdi and Mir Shaanar are honest men who treat their people in a respectful and just manner,” reflects Rajput. “This is all that matters to me.”

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The Karachi Theosophical Society

Feature published in Newsline.

The chaos of Karachi’s MA Jinnah Road is muted inside the library at Jamshed Memorial Hall – a nostalgic byword for Karachi’s generations past. Leather-bound volumes of the first edition of Helena Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine line the shelves. This is the home of the Karachi Theosophical Society, a relic of a more enlightened period in the decaying city’s lifeline.

The Society’s genesis in Pakistan lies in inspirational lectures delivered by Annie Besant, a leader of the Indian Independence Movement and one of theosophy’s most influential figures, in Karachi in 1896 and Hyderabad, Sindh, in 1901.

Universal brotherhood is a central tenet of the Theosophical Society — as is scientific, philosophical and mystical inquiry, open to all religions and bound by none. Theosophists believe an ancient wisdom underlies all creeds. They seek to access a higher spiritual plane, through meditation, intuition and the study of theosophical literature.

“We are all renegades here,” says Hamid Mayet, General Secretary of the Karachi Theosophical Society and President of the Theosophical Order of Service, Pakistan. Having defied social norms and challenged the status quo for much of his life, Mayet is the best man for the job. Beneath his casual, easy-going demeanour lies a steely resolve. He moves across its corridors of Jamshed Memorial Hall with the air of a man who has broken free of the baggage of tradition.

Hailing from an affluent Indian family of Johannesburg, Mayet grew up in South Africa during Apartheid. “Within the Indian community itself – whether it was Hindus or Muslims – there was discrimination against blacks and a pronounced class inequality,” he recalls. “I found it all very hypocritical; attitudes seemed to contradict the religions that were so ardently being followed.”Inspired by anti-Apartheid leaders such as Dr Yusuf Dadoo, chairman of the South African Communist Party, Mayet started rebelling at a young age and became a conscientious objector. At the age of 16 he joined the youth wing of the Pan African National Congress. “In my heart of hearts, I was trying to identify with the common man,” he says. “I felt embarrassed that I was from a well-off family, when all around me there was racial and economic inequality.”In Pakistan, theosophists prefer to remain below the radar. The Karachi Theosophical Society’s website doesn’t give away any names. The fate of Dara Mirza, a former chapter president, is testimony to the darkness that engulfs the city. Mirza’s portrait hangs beside those of Blavatsky – co-founder of the Theosophical Society – and Jamshed Nusserwanjee, a former president of the Karachi chapter and the city’s first mayor. A descendant of Sindhi literary scholar Mirza Kaleech Baig, his ancestors migrated to Sindh from Georgia in the mid-nineteenth century. He was the president of the Society for over three decades, until September 14, 2007, when his body was found in Mauripur, Karachi. He had been kidnapped on the way to work earlier that day. The episode remains buried in a deafening silence.

“Dara Mirza, a learned man, had a strong grasp of esoteric philosophy,” says Mayet. The Esoteric school focuses on accessing the higher spiritual plane – described in theosophical texts as “the unexplained laws of nature and powers latent in man.” According to Mayet, the previous generation of members, such as Amir Ali Hoodbhoy and Hatim Alvi, carried out a deep study of theosophical literature. The current membership of 50, however, gravitates towards the Theosophical Order of Service (TOS) – a social services wing.

The ever-expanding Montessori at Jamshed Memorial Hall provides underprivileged students with a quality education at a fee of Rs 1,700 a month. Nusserwanjee and Minwalla felt that Italian educator Maria Montessori’s emphasis on creative and independent thinking had much in common with the values of theosophy.

The theosophists of Karachi are currently working towards opening a Montessori at the Besant Lodge in Hyderabad – a structure that Mayet describes as being “far more impressive than ours.” After the demise of the Lodge’s president – the renowned scholar and political activist Ibrahim Joyo in 2017 – membership has dwindled. A member of the Progressive Writers’ Movement, Joyo’s controversial work Save Sindh, Save the Continent – From Feudal Lords, Capitalists and their Communalism, published in 1947, resulted in the termination of his teaching post at the Sindh Madressa. Joyo was not the only theosophist to find himself at odds with the Madressa. A few decades earlier, Hatim Alvi, a student at the institution, was expelled for writing an article critical of the British rule.

“The Theosophical Society attracts people who tend to think out of the box,” says Mayet. “It has nothing to do with political orientation. Nor are we a religious organisation. This is a society that promotes unity.” He says it was Joyo’s interest in Sufi culture that made him gravitate towards theosophy. “Sufism is closer to esoteric philosophy.”

“If you want to find God, you can find him in the garden,” says Mushtaq Jindani, Joint Secretary of the Karachi Theosophical Society and Director Education, TOS. “You can cultivate God in the garden.” Jindani heads a small club called The Linkers, a group of people interested in mind sciences – the kind that deal with spirituality in relation to the mind and body.

Mayet is doing his best to make the Karachi chapter sustainable, so that he can hand it over to the next generation in working condition. “It has existed for over a hundred years, and I want it to be there for another hundred,” he says. 

Theosophists of Hollywood

Of Hungarian descent and a Gnostic bishop, he is an author and incumbent President of Besant Lodge in Los Angeles. The name is Stephan – pronounced Stephaan – Hoeller. The eyes, half-closed, look neither up nor down, but see everything. And despite his advanced years, the bearing is sturdy. He holds his cup of coffee at a tilt. This may look like a mannerism, but it may also be because his grip is not quite firm. Tellingly, the initials ‘S.H.’ are embroidered on the cuffs of his crisp shirt.

Stephan hands Winter Lazerus, fellow theosophist and property manager at Besant Lodge, a letter he received in the post. “God knows what it means,” he says, amused by its cryptic content. Lazerus proceeds to examine the note and its accompanying talisman – an aboriginal woman holding a wand.

I pray you understand.  I can only hope to sit with you again over eggs and beacon. The time is now.

1.  Fix a tall drink, 2.  Listen to the next song, 3.  Remember, 4.  The gift is yours so tear it open. Love, H E S

On an enclosed page torn out of a dictionary, the word ‘wizard’ is underlined.

Lazerus, clad in all black and sporting a pony-tail, cuts a tall, shadowy figure. He lives in an old cottage behind Besant Lodge. This is the quaint and leafy neighbourhood of Beachwood Canyon. It is the home of Stephan, Lazerus and the Theosophical Society. It is also home to the sprawling Hollywood sign – an intruder in this quiet part of Los Angeles. But the Society predates Hollywood – cinema was a comparative latecomer in these parts.

“The theosophists came to these hills because they believed that the spiritual and creative energy was strong here,” explains Stephan. And so in 1912, Albert Warrington and his associates founded the hamlet of Krotona – the society’s first national headquarters. The colony, located up the hill from Besant Lodge’s current location, is a collection of Moorish structures that have been converted into apartments. “Dora van Gelder Kunz, a former president of the Society, writer and famous clairvoyant, also believed that there was an angelic energy present in this particular part of Southern California,” continues Stephan.

The Lodge’s stained glass windows give its interior a church-like quality. They display the celestial symbols illustrated in theosophical teacher Geoffrey Hodson’s The Kingdom of the Gods. “Many think that this building was part of the old colony of Krotona,” says Stephan, “but that is not the case.” It was in fact a neighbourhood movie theatre, built in the early 1920s. “The first silent film theatre in Los Angeles,” Lazerus proudly adds. His cottage, even older, was once a bookshop. The Society bought both properties in 1954, while Stephan was on the board of directors.

This easternmost tail of the Santa Monica Mountains has always lured theosophy into its fold. Although Krotona relocated to Ojai owing to financial difficulties during the Great Depression, the Society returned in the incarnation of a rented facility near Beachwood Canyon before acquiring its current location. The commune in Ojai, now the Krotona Institute of Theosophy, is a thriving centre of research and spiritual learning.

Unlike many residential areas of Los Angeles, “there is a sense of community here, in Beachwood Canyon,” says Lazerus, “a real sense of the old part of L.A.”  To locals, Besant Lodge is a community centre of sorts. “The Los Angeles chapter has about 20 to 30 members,” says Stephan. It hosts lectures, classes, readings, joint activities with the Gnostic Church, and has “offered Spanish lessons for the last 20 years.” 

Further west, in the winding lanes of Bel Air, lifeless mansions gaze coldly at passing cars. Beachwood Canyon, however, has a soul. A nameless canyon and remote farming community in the 1880s, it became the site for an ambitious yet short-lived housing project – Hollywoodland – in the 1920s. “We border the largest municipal wilderness preserve in the world, where mountain lions roam,” says Lazerus, referring to Griffith Park.

Stephan produces a rare photo of Annie Besant. She is about to board a Goliath airliner with Charles Blech, general secretary of the Theosophical Society in France, and an unnamed gentleman. On the Lodge’s wall hangs the charter of Krotona, bearing Besant’s signature. It is dated 1920 – the year she visited the colony, as the Society’s international president.

Stephan, an aristocrat, struggled against oppression in his early years. When a Soviet-style communist regime consolidated power after the Second World War, his family lost all their property and lived in great need. He left Hungary, arriving in the US in 1952. “The Nazis had destroyed a lot of theosophist literature during the war, and subsequently, so did the communists,” says Stephan. “Totalitarian governments do not like organisations such as the Theosophical Society.” At first, Stephan dreamt of becoming a Catholic priest. And although he was 15 when he first heard of theosophy, it wasn’t until his arrival in Southern California that he joined the Society.

“Gool Minwalla was concerned that the Muslims’ suspicions of other religions would one day become a problem for their own countries,” says Stephan. “She was a fine lady,” he says of the former president of the Society, whom he had met in Ojai in the early ’80s. According to Stephan, it was during Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s tenure that religious intolerance first surfaced in Pakistan.

When Stephan first joined Besant Lodge 60 years ago, there were over 100 members. The current membership is only a fraction of this, owing to the existence of numerous other spiritual organisations. In what seems like a valedictory remark he emphasises the need to reconnect the “threads” that link theosophical societies across the globe.

[ali-bhutto-blog]

Murder ink

Published in Newsline.

On November 2, 1896, Wadero Ghulam Murtaza Bhutto, grandfather of Pakistan’s former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, boarded the 7:35am train from Naudero to Larkana. The young wadero was a grandson of Doda Khan Bhutto, the largest landholder in the Upper Sindh Frontier district and among the most distinguished in the Shikarpur Collectorate.

Earlier that morning, and on the previous day, events had transpired that would alter the fate of Ghulam Murtaza and his immediate family. This included his minor son, Shahnawaz Bhutto, who would later be knighted.

Arriving in Larkana in 41 minutes, Murtaza, accompanied by his retainer Chuto Khashkeli, travelled onwards in a hired horse-and-carriage. Their destination was the town of Qambar in the Chandio heartland.

In the meantime, at 9:15am, the Collector of Shikarpur, Colonel Alfred Hercules Mayhew, received an urgent telegram from the tapedar in Naudero. It reported that Rao Jeramdas, the mukhtiarkar of Ratodero taluka, had “suddenly” died while encamped in Banguldero. About an hour and a half later, another urgent telegram followed. It specified that Jeramdas had been “killed.”

As Collector, Mayhew was the highest authority in Shikarpur district. This was an administrative unit that spanned a vast area (10,242 square miles) including what are now districts Qambar-Shahdadkot, Larkana, Shikarpur, Ghotki and Sukkur. Additionally, he had magisterial powers over the entire region.

Mayhew wasted no time in bringing the matter to the attention of Sir Henry Evan James, the Commissioner in Sindh. Mr Spence, the District Superintendent of Police wrote to Mayhew on November 9, 1896. His handwriting betrayed haste:

“From what has been found out as far as the enquiry has gone up to date, there can be no doubt that a great deal of money has been, is being and will be spent to try and prevent the real offenders and their instigators being brought to justice and without the offer of a large reward on the side of the Government, there is little or no hope of anything being brought to light.”

Spence proposed a sum of Rs 1,000 as a reward for information leading to the arrest of those complicit in the murder, which was “of a most brutal nature.” Mayhew seconded the proposal and the reward was sanctioned by the commissioner. The deceased’s father, Rao Dharamdas, a wealthy landowner and merchant based in Thatta, put up an additional sum of Rs 500 as a reward.

Based on evidence collected in the investigation, Wadero Ghulam Murtaza Bhutto was accused of instigating the murder of the mukhtiarkar – the highest authority in the taluka.

In his letters to the commissioner, Colonel Mayhew’s signature in red ink has the conclusiveness of a seal. He wrote on November 9, 1896:

“The accused Ghulam Murtaza Khudabux Bhutto is a wealthy and powerful man possessing enormous areas of land in this [Shikarpur] and the Upper Sind Frontier District…

The deceased R.S. [Rao Sahib] Jeramdas Dharamdas… has lost his life in the earnest, conscientious and determined performance of his duty in the public interests and in making efforts to bring the man Ghulam Murtaza Khudabux Bhutto to his senses and to make him mend his wicked and infamous and dissolute ways and to give up his evil practices which are dishonest and criminal – so has brought down upon him beyond question the wrath or revenge of this powerful rascal.”

On what grounds was the young wadero charged with perpetrating the murder?

An order issued by the Shikarpur Sessions Court Judge, Dayaram Gidumal, on November 20, 1896, provides a detailed account of the facts of the case. It includes sworn testimony from Pandhi Arzi and Hussain (members of Jeramdas’ staff), Salamatrai, a zamindar from Banguldero, Ali Sher, a small landholder who assisted the mukhtiarkar in his remission work, Abdul Fatah, the Chief Constable of Qambar and Wahid Bux, a commuter.

On the day prior to Jeramdas’ murder, Ghulam Murtaza had gone to see him in Naudero. The revenue officer was said to be preparing an official report against the wadero, whom he considered a “bad character.” Murtaza was made to wait outside in the sun for an hour. And when finally summoned, was only allowed a brief audience.

In nineteenth century Sindh, such treatment was an outright affront to the honour and prestige of a man of position. Vowing revenge, Murtaza repeatedly proclaimed, “This Diwan [government official] gives me no proper respect. I shall ‘see’ him [maa hin khe disee rahandus].”

In the late afternoon, as temperatures cooled, Jeramdas left Naudero for the village of Banguldero. The shortest route, even today, is through Garhi Khuda Bux. During the journey his entourage passed the red-bricked autaaq of Ghulam Murtaza Bhutto. Seated in the courtyard, the wadero pointed the mukhtiarkar out to a man sitting next to him.

The caravan arrived in Banguldero at 9:15pm and set up camp in the tapedar’s (field surveyor’s) dero. That night, for whatever reasons, the mukhtiarkar’s attendant, Pandhi, refused to accommodate Ali Sher, a member of the retinue. Searching for a place to stay in the late hours, Sher landed up at the autaaq of Zeno Drakhan, a resident of the village. Inside, he sat by a fire, adding straw to the burning cinders. As the flames grew, he saw in the room a face of a stranger. In the investigation three days later, Sher would identify this man, who was none other than Nuro, a hari of Khuda Bux Bhutto, Ghulam Murtaza’s father.

Turned away by Zeno too, Sher was forced to spend the night in a village a mile from Banguldero.

Jeramdas, meanwhile, fell asleep at midnight, while having his legs pressed by his peons. Salamatrai and the local munshi, who were with him until then, bid their leave. In the past, whenever the mukhtiarkar had put up in the village, he employed two roadside maalis (gardners) to keep watch on the camp at night. But on this occasion, interestingly, when the maalis turned up, Pandhi told them they weren’t needed.

Other than the cook and an attendant, the entire retinue slept outside the compound, the gate of which was chained from the outside.

The following morning, Jeramdas was scheduled to inspect Salamatrai’s crops. His attendant’s repeated attempts to wake him up by making a racket outside his room hadn’t worked. By 8:30am, Salamatrai ventured inside and lifted the blanket. He saw a face and beard drenched in blood.

In tears, members of the mukhtiarkar’s staff immediately proclaimed that Wadero Ghulam Murtaza was “the author of the murder as he had been dishonoured on the previous day.”

Earlier that morning, Wahid Bux, a commuter on the Garhi Khuda Bux-to-Banguldero road crossed paths with three men whom he knew, near the village of Kot Bhutto. They appeared to be coming from Banguldero. He would later identify them as Nuro – the man in Zeno’s autaaq, Chuto Khashkeli – Ghulam Murtaza’s retainer and Chuto Jagirani. He noticed Khashkeli was carrying a sword.

At 7:35am, Khashkeli and Wadero Ghulam Murtaza caught a train to Larkana. The two arrived at their final destination, Qambar, at 10am via Nabu’s horse and carriage. Here, Murtaza called on Abdul Fatah, the Chief Constable of Qambar.

He reported to Abdul Fatah that one of his mares had gone missing and the constable noted down a detailed description of the animal. Jeramdas happened to come up in the conversation. The constable inquired whether the mukhtiarkar of Ratodero had sent Colonel Mayhew the report he was preparing against Murtaza. Bhutto replied that the mukhtiarkar was dead.

In court later that month, the public prosecutor argued that Murtaza had made this journey so that he would have an alibi if accused.

On November 3, an interesting piece of evidence was unearthed in the investigation. A purse belonging to the mukhtiarkar, stolen on the night of his murder, was found in Khashkeli’s quarters in Ghulam Murtaza’s autaaq. After Murtaza’s arrest, two applications for bail made by his counsel, Mr Grey, were rejected – first by the sub-divisional magistrate of Larkana and then by the Shikarpur sessions judge. The latter, however, noted in his judgement that the evidence collected thus far was circumstantial and that cross-examination may render it worthless. The accused was eventually acquitted.

In her autobiography, Daughter of the East, Benazir Bhutto recalls the mythologised tale of her great-grandfather as told by her father. It suggested that Mayhew had a grudge against Murtaza, the basis of which was an affair the latter had with a British woman.

In Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan, Stanley Wolpert, who consulted Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto’s unpublished memoirs, dismisses this as an “amended” version of the story told by Sir Shahnawaz (who was 11 years old when his father, Ghulam Murtaza, died). According to his version, the young wadero had stolen Mayhew’s Sindhi mistress.

Neither of these versions mentions that the wadero was accused of abetting the murder of Rao Jeramdas. Wolpert fleetingly cites “the Hindu… who was murdered,” as a mere afterthought – selectively quoting from Sir Shahnawaz’s memoirs. David Cheesman, who does refer to the details of the episode in his work, Landlord Power and Rural Indebtedness in Colonial Sindh, argues that Wolpert’s version is more plausible than Benazir’s.

A.W. Hughes, a civil service officer and cotton inspector in Sindh, writes in the 1876 Gazetteer of Sindh, that one of the most common crimes in Larkana division was “adultery – or rather, the enticing away of married women with a criminal intent.”

Yet from the details of the trial it emerges that Mayhew may not have been driven by a personal vendetta at all.

In a memorandum to the Governor of Bombay dated November 17, 1896, the commissioner in Sindh notes that “…the suspected person is well known to have instigated other murderous attacks if not murders.” This would partly explain the mukhtiarkar’s attitude towards Murtaza when he paid him a visit, as well as the report he was preparing against the wadero. The memorandum also notes that Jeramdas’ murder “has terrorised all the officials around…” Additionally, it was Mr Spence, the Superintendent of Police, who pressed for the hefty reward.

A closer look at the career of Alfred Mayhew reveals a penchant for fighting injustice. Investigative journalist Mick Hamer, in his book A Most Deliberate Swindle, quotes Mayhew:

“I served 27 years in India, which I found to be a pretty bad place… But when I returned to London I found it to be a sink of inequity – and I determined to do all I could to expose… the rascals who rob the widow and the orphan.”

According to the India Office List 1893, Mayhew, during his 40-year-stint in India, served as the deputy commissioner of the Upper Sindh Frontier district, political agent in Khairpur State, acting political superintendent in Thar and Parkar and as a soldier in the Madras Army, prior to becoming collector of Shikarpur district. Among locals he had a reputation for being a fair official who interacted closely with serfs, labourers and sheperds to inquire about their problems, according to Pir Ali Muhammad Rashidi’s biographical encyclopedia, Uhay Deehan Uhay Sheehan. Rashidi credits Mayhew with playing an important role in the development of Sukkur as the economic centre of Upper Sindh.

The likelihood of a Sindhi – or any – mistress being at the centre of the episode also comes into question. As Collector, Mayhew was stationed in Sukkur. If he had a mistress, she would have most likely lived in the same city. Ghulam Murtaza, meanwhile, lived in a different taluka – a significant distance away even by train.

In Sir Shahnawaz’s version of events, Murtaza got into a physical altercation with Mayhew during which the colonel went and hid under a table. This would have been highly uncharacteristic of a trained soldier who had served in the Madras army and who at the time of the alleged confrontation would have been in his early-to-mid fifties (Mayhew died in 1913, aged 70).

David Cheesman points out that there were “sound political reasons for Mayhew’s alarm over Ghulam Murtaza’s acquittal.” Even if the possibility of a vendetta over a woman is ruled out, Mayhew had enough cause for concern. The acquittal had set a dangerous precedent. The administration appeared weak and ineffectual in the face of the immense influence wielded by the wadero.

There is nothing in the official record about what happened next. All we have is Wolpert’s version, based on Sir Shahnawaz’s memoir, according to which, at some point – possibly after being granted bail – Ghulam Murtaza went into exile, while the colonel had his home annihilated. His father, Khuda Bux, died after being “ambushed,” and when Murtaza returned to Garhi Khuda Bux in 1899 after being acquitted, he died of poisoning.

Colonial Blue Books maintained by British officials in Sindh contained confidential notes on members of the landed gentry in every district. The Blue Book of the Shikarpur Collectorate, which would have covered the years 1843 to 1900, is missing from the Sindh Archives. The Blue Book of Larkana district, which starts from 1901 – the year the district was carved out – is available, but many early entries, between 1901 and 1926 seem to have been omitted. A copy of the same book at the Sindhology Institute in Jamshoro contains entries that are missing in the Karachi copy.

Other than the record of the Judicial Department and correspondence between British officials, all of which revolves around Jeramdas’ murder, there is little or no information on Ghulam Murtaza. A glimpse into his family background, however, can prove instructive.

Doda Khan Bhutto, Murtaza’s grandfather and the family patriarch, died in 1893, according to the date on his gravestone. This was three years prior to the Jeramdas episode. Doda Khan’s home was in Village Pir Bux Bhutto, where he is buried. He lived there with his sons, Ameer Bux, Khuda Bux (Murtaza’s father) and Illahi Bux. All of them are buried in the old family tomb – except for Khuda Bux.

At some point, for reasons unknown, Khuda Bux moved out of Village Pir Bux Bhutto and settled in Garhi Khuda Bux. In nineteenth century Sindhi society it was not common for a zamindar to shift out of the ancestral haveli – unless he had a very good reason.

Stories passed down through generations within the family hint at domestic disputes, but there is no evidence to back this claim. What is certain, however, is that the breakaway was a permanent one, since neither Khuda Bux, nor his offspring were buried with the rest of the family.

The records of the Revenue Department provide interesting clues. A notice dated August 27, 1887 from C.B. Pritchard, the Acting Commissioner in Sindh, reveals that Khuda Bux’s share of landholdings was significantly smaller in size than other members of his family, including his brothers. While Doda Khan and his son Ameer Bux each had land spread across 25 dehs, Khuda Bux only had land in 15 dehs. Age had little to do with it, since the youngest brother, Illahi Bux, inherited the largest share under the last will and testament of Doda Khan. In other words, the sibling that moved away received the smallest share of the property.

This is particularly consequential in a society where a zamindar’s prestige and place in the social hierarchy is largely determined by his wealth. Ghulam Murtaza, therefore, was a member of a cadet branch of Doda Khan’s family. One that was comparatively less affluent. Was his fragile ego in part a result of this? Did Murtaza feel the need to go the extra mile to restore his honour?

It isn’t difficult to picture the crowd that would have gathered as the wadero waited in the sun outside Jeramdas’ office for an hour. Even today in rural Sindh, locals congregate in large numbers to catch a glimpse of notables in public spaces. And evidence suggests that there were witnesses. All eyes would have been on the scion – staring, judging, watching his every move. As Cheesman puts it, “Izzat was vital for the survival of any wadero.”

After Ghulam Murtaza’s death, Mr Mules, the new Collector, became Shahnawaz’s guardian, according to Wolpert. One of his primary aims would have been to cultivate in the eleven-year-old a cooperative attitude towards the administration. “I can’t see any other reason for putting him under the guardianship of a British Collector,” says David Cheesman. “It would be very similar to the way the British often cultivated the sons of nobles in the Princely States.” Cheesman recalls the correspondence of the Education Department in regards to some of the young Talpurs, “preparing them to rule with a British view of the world.”

This may help explain a lot about the later development of Sir Shahnawaz. In 1930, the deputy collector of Larkana described him as “loyal, very level-head” and having “no swollen head.” According to Cheesman, given the British relationship with Ghulam Murtaza, a collector’s first instinct would have been to avoid getting involved with a troublesome family. However, “there must have been something that made him feel Shahnawaz was worth investing in,” he adds. “Mules must have seen some spark in the young man which caught his attention and made him think he had potential.”

[ali-bhutto-blog]

Chinatown

Cover story published in Newsline.

From the outside, the home of Wang Zheng Ru is like any other bungalow in DHA, Karachi. A high-columned, white structure that borrows eclectically from a variety of styles as well as making up its own. It would be best described as a house that was built in the eighties, when this part of Defence was associated with a newness that has long since moved several miles down the road to Phase VIII. As such, it now has a worn feel. But my appreciation of the house is disrupted by a contingent of Rangers who suddenly emerge from its gate and mount two Daihatsu pick-ups, the same colour as their uniform. Still seated in my car, I avert my gaze and pretend to stare into my phone, trying not to look suspicious.

After the two vehicles are a safe distance away from the house, and after I ask the designated doorman (who happens to be a policeman) if I should come back another day, he reassures me that that was just the census team.

Moments later, I am received by Zhai Yizhong, or ‘Joey’ as he is known to his friends. Having read my brief introductory note explaining the reasons for my visit, Joey has apparently approved my entry into Zheng Ru’s house, which I learn is also used as a guesthouse for Chinese citizens posted in Pakistan, of which Joey is one. This explains the utilitarian untidiness of the interior, which, despite its cosiness, abides by a set of patterns and laws that set it apart from most urban living spaces in Pakistan. If one did not know that foreigners occupied the home, one could perhaps think it to be a semi-public space, or a house used by an organisation, but even then, its undeniably alien quality would lead the more discerning to recognise a foreign connection.

Thirty-three-year-old Joey hails from Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province, and speaks fluent English. As we wait for Zheng Ru to return from work, Joey throws a few nuggets of Chinese wisdom my way: “The first step towards strengthening an economy is building roads.” He is not, however, affiliated with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), having been posted to Pakistan in 2015 on behalf of a textile chemical provider, a partner of Protégé Chemicals. Recalling his first impression of Lahore, he reflects, “it reminded me of the China that my parents describe as having existed 30 years ago.” Joey predicts that in about three decades, Karachi will be Pakistan’s Shanghai.

Zheng Ru, the patriarch and owner of the house, has lived in Pakistan since 1987 and is a relic of the pre-CPEC generation of Chinese professionals who paved the way for the younger lot that now occupies their homes. He is a man of a few words, which he doesn’t mince. “In 1987, Karachi was better than Bangkok, Beijing and Dubai, as far as living standards, transportation and communication were concerned,” recalls Ru. “But in the last 30 years it hasn’t made much progress, those three metropolises having overtaken it.” He recalls that while Karachi had cars in 1987, Beijing had mostly bicycles. “Perhaps it was terrorism that stunted infrastructure development in Pakistan, or perhaps it was political corruption. This country needs a very powerful leader — democracy has always been weak here. That is why I think army rule is better for Pakistan.”

Seated in the front yard, our conversation is punctuated by the passage of residents, including young mothers in their 30s, stylishly dressed in jeans and T-shirts, and a friendly five-year-old who chats to me with such conviction that I don’t have the heart to tell her I don’t speak Mandarin. In the corner of the front yard there is a rockery – a staple of the 1980s homes of Karachi, although I increasingly feel like I’m in China. Mrs Wang Zheng Ru, a woman of substance, who can be heard before she has even arrived, and who arrives wearing an exceptionally large sun hat, has the charm and the iron fist needed to run such a house.

According to Ru, there are many similarities between Chinese culture and that of the subcontinent. “In China too, people live with their parents, in large families.” A qualified civil engineer, Mr Ru was the China Beijing Corporation’s representative in Pakistan until last year, when he retired. He is currently working for the Shaanxi Foreign Economic Trade and Industrial Group (SFETIC), a stated-owned enterprise under the provincial government of Shaanxi, as an executive manager for the Fazaia Housing Scheme project, in Karachi. Fazaia, a project of the Pakistan Air Force, signed a project development and construction contract with the SFETIC, in July 2016.

“Living in Pakistan, you realise that it’s not as bad as the media portrays it to be. The people are very friendly,” says Ru, who has also lived in Rahim Yar Khan and Islamabad. He tells me that some of Joey’s friends visited Karachi in the late 1980s and stayed in this very guesthouse, and that it was based on their positive reviews that Joey decided to come here. Nevertheless, Ru always carries one security guard with him when he steps out. Joey too, has a personal security guard – a former army man who is also his driver, but with whom Joey has the relationship of a “friend”.

Yet the sinister realities of life in Pakistan inevitably muscle their way in. For not too far away, in another guest house, dwell younger Chinese nationals who have a slightly different tale to tell. The house, being newer, has a more homely feel and stacked on either side of its front door are cartons of mineral water, juice, soft drinks, Chinese printers and other electronic kitchen items manufactured in China. On top of these, an entitled pet rooster stands tall with the grace of an eagle. In the garden, a hen and baby chicks run around gleefully. Part of the garden is a junkyard, to which furniture, plumbing-parts and unused commodes are relegated. At its other end is a large marble table, surrounded by marble stools, where important discussions must take place. A pillow lying on the edge of the table lends a laid-back effect to the environment.

Immediately inside the front door is a home-based grocery store that sells household items from Chinese cigarettes and gum, to Chinese detergents. Dyrus Luo is visiting Karachi from Lahore, where he works at the branch office of Sany Heavy Industry, China’s largest manufacturer of construction equipment. Luo, who hails from South China’s mountainous province of Hunan, associates Lahore with “culture” and “humility” and Karachi with “energy” and “openness.” Contrary to popular opinion that people from China stick to each other, Luo is sociable and fluent in English. But he is unable to leave the house much. “We have been advised by the Pakistani government not to venture out of our homes as it is too dangerous,” he explains. “As a result, our gate is always closed and we don���t have much communication with locals. If I was married, I wouldn’t bring my family here due to the security issues.” His housemate Tony Jiang, however, does get around. “I like the beach and the cheap sea food,” says Jiang, who may look like a college student, but has in fact worked for RNS Logistics in Lahore for three years and is currently posted in Karachi.

Luo, having been in Pakistan barely three months, has noticed that, “the government seems to care more about the military and protecting the country, rather than the problems of the people living in it.” Sounding like a local, he says that outside the bubble of Clifton and Defence, there is extreme poverty, about which the government is not doing enough. Luo is used to unfamiliar environments, having been posted to different parts of the globe over the past six years.

Similar security concerns are shared by Ma Long Zhou Tin, or as he is known by his Muslim name, ‘Omar,’ an engineering supervisor at a CPEC-affiliated construction company operating in Port Qasim (which he requests not to be named). The guesthouse in Clifton, Karachi, in which he lives is not a single unit run by a family, but a series of independent units that share a compound, and which can be occupied by up to 20 Chinese nationals at any given time. Although Omar likes dining at Do Darya, he and others in the compound are not allowed to go out everyday and when they do, it is always under the cover of security. Yet this does not stop them from frequenting the neighbourhood park down the road, security guards in tow, where they can be spotted lazing around, or meditating, or reading books on botany while closely examining flora. And Omar can still use WeChat, an instant messaging and calling app developed by Tencent, China’s leading Internet service provider. “It’s better than Whatsapp,” he says. “Many Pakistanis are now using WeChat,” the total international users of which currently amount to 846 million. Omar and his housemates also have access to channels broadcast by China’s state television.

“Due to congestion and overpopulation, apartments in China aren’t very spacious,” explains Omar, who is from Lanzhou, the capital of the northwestern Chinese province of Gansu. “In Pakistan, on the other hand, the homes we live in are much larger,” he says. Prior to being posted to Pakistan in 2015, Omar was in Yangquan, Shanxi (not the same province as Shaanxi). When Omar was first offered a posting in Pakistan, he says he was a little bit scared because all he knew about the country was what he had seen of it on TV: bombings and terror. But the move provided a good career opportunity. And besides, he says, “most Chinese people I know like Pakistan, otherwise they would not be here. If we cannot bear the life here, there is nothing stopping us from leaving.”

According to Peng Simin, Editor-in-Chief of Huashang Weekly, a Chinese and English newspaper based out of Islamabad, there are currently at least 50,000 Chinese nationals living in Pakistan. And given the myriad ventures they are involved in, chances are this number will rise over the next few years.

Who’s Afraid of the Dragon?

While the Pakistani media remains highly sceptical of CPEC, locals at the grassroot level are enthusiastic about the surge in Chinese residents in Pakistan, whom they view as harbingers of development and stability in the face of local alternatives that have repeatedly failed. “In the last two years, I have noticed a marked increase in Chinese people in Karachi,” says Muhammad Ashraf, who has sold bed linen and curtains out of his shop in Khadda Market for 17 years. “It can only bode well for our country. The CPEC will bring about prosperity. And whether we like it or not, the Chinese, on the whole, seem to be much more humane than our own people.” Ashraf explains that the 25 Chinese clients that frequent his shop are all very kind and respectful. According to Ashraf, while many livelihoods currently suffer at the hands of loadshedding, the Chinese energy projects aim to end the power shortage and this will only result in increased profitability across the board. Some of Ashraf’s acquaintances have bought property in Gwadar for Rs. 3 to 4 million, which is cheaper than property in DHA, Karachi. Taxi driver Huzoor Bux too has a soft spot for his roster of regular Chinese clientele who are concentrated in a residential pocket of DHA Phase IV.

Local professionals, however, are less optimistic. Kashif Iqbal, a local coordinator for New Technologies, a Chinese company that has been operational in Pakistan for eight years and currently provides security equipment to CPEC projects, tells Newsline that the CPEC is, inevitably, designed to cater to the needs and interests of China. “There is need of a policy or rule that enables local vendors to benefit from CPEC projects as well,” suggests Iqbal. “Currently, the main benefactors are Chinese companies, who are the preferred choice of the Pakistan government as they provide lower cost services in CPEC projects compared to local organisations.” He is quick to add, however, that there is no denying that these Chinese companies are, technologically, far more advanced than local competitors.

Abdur Rehman Shah, a research associate at Islamabad’s Centre for Research and Security Studies, who is currently doing a PhD in International Relations at Jilin University, in China, also raises some concerns. While talking to Newsline, he warned that if the Pakistan government did not properly manage the increased influx of Chinese nationals and investors in Pakistan, it could lead to a rise in cases where Chinese nationals/workers/businessmen start neglecting or violating laws. “Above all, there can be economic costs,” explains Shah. “Local industries and, to some extent, labourers will have to bear the brunt of the increasing footprint of Chinese nationals in Pakistan.”

According to Shah, current indicators regarding Pakistan’s rising debt obligations towards China are grim. “The government is more focused upon launching projects rather than justifying them on the basis of economic feasibility,” he laments. “The very lack of transparency in CPEC deals compounds the problem. Unlike the US, World Bank and IMF, the Chinese fundings are not bound by the conditions of economic reforms.” Shah points out that China’s official narratives on the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) iniatives, as well as the CPEC, “are steeped in overly promising rhetoric.” Environmental considerations have also taken a backseat in CPEC projects. This, Shah reflects, is emblematic of China’s development model.

Commenting on the Pakistani media’s overly hawkish stance on CPEC, Dr Asad Zaman, Vice Chancellor of the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics and a PhD in Economics from Stanford University, told Newsline that “the media can play a positive role by focusing on how we can best exploit the tremendous opportunities created by the CPEC, which may pass us by if we keep bickering, and fail to recognise them. Repeating baseless apprehensions creates an impression of a scare-mongering propaganda campaign launched by Indians, sworn enemies of the CPEC project.” According to Zaman, fears regarding the debt burden are grossly exaggerated. He argues that since the debt is being used to finance infrastructure projects, it is of a constructive nature and will bring about immediate benefits to the domestic economy, as well as having a short payback period.

Zaman further states that Joint Working Groups and Joint Vehicles are being encouraged between Chinese and Pakistani enterprises to safeguard and develop local industries. He points out that while a total of 2,065 Chinese workers are employed in CPEC projects in Pakistan, they are far outnumbered by the 8,523 Pakistani workers employed in the same projects. He adds that more than 50 per cent of the Chinese nationals that have entered Pakistan are categorised as temporary labour migrants who will return to China upon completion of the projects.

Zaman rebukes comparisons drawn by the local media, between the CPEC and the British East India Company. “Instead of looking back several centuries at the worst cases of imperialism, we should look at how foreign direct investment (FDI) has been strongly correlated with growth performance in recent history,” he argues. “Consider how the development of USA was accelerated by European investors, while the US investment in Europe under the Marshall Plan led to rapid reconstruction of Europe.” He cites that the performance of the Chinese economy over the last two decades was helped by a large influx of FDI into China. “The declared exploitative intentions of the imperialists stand in dramatic contrast to the visionary OBOR initiative of China which is based on replacing conflicts with stability, recession with cooperation and barriers with connectivity.”

[ali-bhutto-blog]

Short story: The obituary of Talbot Asylum

He was a good man – like all dead men. And women. But Talbot was good before he died. A part-time editor-at-large and full-time social media user, his friends nicknamed him ‘Tweeto’ as a token of their adulation.

Talbot earned a living and a place in the social bureaucracy through the part-time stint, which was at an English language daily called Bad News. But it was what he ‘twote’, not what he wrote, that kept him afloat. His soul and attention often wandered beyond the walls of his office, through wireless airwaves and the streets of the old quarter. Asylum, like all good men of his city, believed that the glue that bound all life was connections (and connectivity). And like most good men, he learnt otherwise. Life was a lesson.

Asylum revelled in the simple material pleasures his decaying city offered. Sitting on his balcony. Green Tea. Roadside snacks. Walking the old part of town. And in letting his followers know about these. He almost turned this into an art that could be termed ‘Asylum-esque.’ It entailed the presentation of local disorderliness as quaint, in the same veneer whereby light little articles in international dailies viewed the filth of the East as part and parcel of its cultural charm. ‘Flavour,’ proclaimed the good men of the West – academics – soft on encroachments in burgeoning Asian cities. ‘Hippies,’ retorted a local entrepreneur dismissively, for he was well-versed in the ways of the world and the value of gentrification.

When Talbot did up one of his bachelor pads located in a rustic neighbourhood, he invited the ire of his colleagues (under the guise of a smile, no less). They too wanted to do up their places, especially after feasting their eyes on some nice pieces of furniture at a local dealership. But for reasons best not mentioned here, they were unable to do so.

Asylum’s traits and background enabled him to easily fit in with the good people of his city. And like them, he prized reputation over honour. The smile and nod were his friends. They could mean many things and at the same time, nothing. More importantly, they kept him anchored in a sea of mediocrity. Never rock the boat was the mantra.

Talbot began his career at a publication called Gerald, where according to former colleagues, he quickly displayed a knack for politics. “He seemed to prioritise social connections over plain hard work,” recalled one colleague. “He sold us down the river,” complained another, referring to a dispute that arose within the organisation, in which Asylum had a manipulative hand in provoking the editor’s resignation. Early tell tale signs of a good man.

But good men often fail. Later, in the twilight of his career, Talbot’s tactics would come back and bite him in his meagre behind. As editor-at-large of Bad News, he is largely credited with the publication’s demise, from a once-bearable paper to a rag. “If only he had spent less time tweeting and more time editing,” said one misguided piece of work. Others accused the paper of inventing its own language.

Ever-resourceful, Asylum assembled a job description that would maximise his ability to dodge bullets and responsibility alike. ‘Editor-at-large.’ Every time a reader would report a fatal blunder, Talbot would quickly absolve himself of any blame by saying he had nothing to do with that section of the paper.

In this manner, many an item went unvetted, including the carving on his gravestone, which contained so many editorial errors that his relatives were unable to find his grave (or so they say).

To say that Asylum’s tomb became a shrine would be to romanticise. For the reality, as always, was far more interesting. His friends had placed on and around the burial spot, trinkets, as odes to his eccentricities. These included the kind of gadgetry that holds little practical value. Neatly designed tea flasks and jars of a smooth stainless sheen that Talbot had picked up at a Chinese-branded shop during one of his forays into the old quarter. Attempts had been made to move his newly upholstered sofas – testaments to his taste for minimalist décor – to the graveyard. But it is alleged that the existentialist gravediggers expressed disapproval at this: “It’s not like he’ll be using them.”

Other congregants at the gravesite included sleeping dogs, misunderstood crows and the weight of certain truths.

Connections, however, were nowhere in site.

To be continued.

[ali-bhutto-blog]

Graveyard of honour-killing victims

Feature published in Newsline.

At night, they would come in stealth, to bury the bodies of their women. The next morning, local shepherds would stumble upon freshly dug graves. The Mounds of the Jagiranis, or Graves of the Jagiranis (Jagiranin jo Kabrustan), as they have come to be known, are located in Larkana district’s remote union council of Jummo Agham. Up until the year 2001, according to locals, the desolate spot was frequented by only three kinds of people: shepherds, bandits on the run and men who had killed their wives, daughters and sisters, in the name of honour.

Today, 14-year-old Shahid Hussain Lolai, a shepherd from the neighbouring village of Lashkari Lolai, roams the graveyard with a friend. His goats graze on wild shrubs growing around the graves. This picnic spot for cattle hides beneath its surface layers of dark histories, of women who are now history. It is no secret among residents of the surrounding villages, who are hesitant to talk about a subject inextricably linked to the honour and izzat of their community. Even the children are well-versed in the ways of honour. “Women who committed zina were buried here,” Shahid tells me. Under Sharia law, the term implies illicit sexual relations – including adultery and intercourse between unmarried couples.

The graves are scattered across approximately 100 acres of saline terrain that has the outward appearance of a wasteland, large parts of which are now being prepared for cultivation by local Lolai, Brohi and Rajpar tribesmen. Soon, all the graves will vanish, as if they never existed, and all that will remain are skeletons of the past. “Many karis are buried in this graveyard, which is roughly 50 years old,” says Habib Rahman Abro, a retired district superintendent of police and a resident of the neighbouring village of Jummo Agham. “A Brohi settlement lies to the west of the graveyard, a Lolai village to its south-west and a Lohar village to its north,” he says.

Most victims of honour-killings buried at the site belong to various Baloch tribes settled within a 10-kilometre radius, according to former journalist Ubed Buledi, whose village, Morio Khan Lolai, is located three kilometres from the graveyard. Ubed wrote about the graves in 2001 for The Mirror – an English language daily circulated in rural Sindh – and a publication called The Orbit.

Due to UC Jummo Agham’s relative proximity to the Sindh-Balochistan border, men have travelled from Balochistan’s Dera Murad Jamali, Usta Muhammad, Gandhaka and Kachi Pul, to bury their women in this spot, according to Habib Buledi, another journalist who wrote about the graveyard in a Sindhi language daily called Tehreek-e-Sindh. Whenever he, or other reporters wrote about the site, they “had to censor certain information, such as the names of the tribes to which the women belonged, owing to local sensitivities,” he tells me.

But why was this specific area chosen for the burials? Convenience, suggests Habib. “The idea was to leave no trace of the murdered women,” he says. “Therefore, they would not be buried in their own localities.” The further away the better, for it reduced the chances of evidence being dug up. “Parts of this area are being brought under cultivation today, but up until 2006, we saw with our own eyes that it was a densely wooded expanse of land that had graves,” he adds. For many, it was the nearest spot that provided the cover to commit a murder and carry out a burial, all in pitch darkness. Another reason why this became the designated burial spot for karis, according to Ubed, is because they were considered “na-paak” (impure) and therefore deemed unworthy of being buried in a regular cemetery.

“Those who came from Balochistan had local contacts – relatives or fellow tribesmen in the surrounding villages from whom they learnt of this graveyard,” says Ubed. “They would come in advance and survey the location,” he continues. “The practice itself always happened at night; they would come in cars.”

The graves are unnamed and kaccha (earthen), bearing all the hallmarks of a clear case of ‘bury and run.’ There was, however, one brick grave, according to Habib. “Hurmat Jagirani had a grave built out of brick for her daughter, who had been killed in a case of karo-kari (honour killing),” he says. “But she too was killed and buried in the same graveyard.” The Graves of the Jagiranis happened to get their name from a Jagirani village that existed in the area up until 1973, after which the residents moved away. The burials of the karis, according to Ubed, started thereafter and continued up until 2001. He adds that some of the land currently under cultivation belonged to one influential local zamindar of the Rajpar tribe and was sold by family members after his death.

According to locals, the graves include those of Brohi women. Pir Bux Brohi is one of the villages nearest to the site and visible from the graveyard. A single-lane metalled road – the only one in the immediate vicinity – runs past the hamlet, which is a cluster of a few houses surrounded by a thick cover of tamarisk, babur and neem trees. The village is dead silent and gives the impression of a ghost town. Only three children and a donkey cart can be seen outside one walled compound, before a woman carrying a baby emerges and makes her way down the road.

Among the locally settled Baloch tribes, if an unmarried girl is suspected of having sexual liaisons, her father and brothers take matters into their own hands, says Ubed. “They tell the mother and relatives that they are taking the girl to a distant village to get her married,” he adds. Instead, she is murdered and buried. In the case of adulterous married women, he says “if their husbands do not kill them, the girls’ fathers and brothers will.” They are all usually on the same page when it comes to this decision, he says, adding, “if an FIR is lodged against the husband, the girl’s father and brothers say he is innocent as they already have a prior arrangement.

“In local tribal society, even if there is the slightest suspicion of a married woman being unfaithful, it leads to immense social pressure on not only the husband, but the woman’s own family as well,” says Ubed. “Word spreads in the marketplace and autaaqs and people say things like, ‘look at your woman, she’s been accused, yet you have done nothing,’” he adds, referring to the psychology behind the concept of ghairat, or honour. In traditional Sindhi culture, for a female to be seen interacting with a male who is not a member of her household, is enough to cast a shadow of doubt over her character.

When ascertaining the guilt of the woman in question, the sardars of the Baloch tribes of Upper Sindh, such as Buledi, Jagirani and Brohi, take the man’s word as the final say in the matter and there is no further investigation. In other words, if the husband, father or brother says the woman is guilty, then she must be, even if there is no evidence to back up the claim.

In such faislas, usually one of two punishments is imposed on an unfaithful woman: vadhee – which literally translates into ‘axed’ or ‘cut’ and means to kill – or kadhee, which means to expel from the home, according to Ubed. The boy involved in the illicit liaison, on the other hand, is fined. “The boy’s family have to give cash, or a piece of land, as compensation” says Ubed. “And if they are unable to do so, then a girl from their house [usually the boy’s sister] must be married off to the man whose wife the boy had had an affair with.” The girl’s life would be miserable in the home of her new husband, as she would be mistreated. “She would be married off, even if underage,” he adds.

With the land in and around the graveyard now under cultivation, chances are that the area will no longer serve as the location of choice for secret burials. Yet it is unlikely that this will, in any way, curb the custom of honour killings.

[ali-bhutto-blog]

Everyman’s last breath

Feature published in Newsline.

Everyman Book House is a reflection of Karachi’s dying soul. Born on a footpath of the city in the 1950s, it is the baby of Safdar Mehdi, who arrived in Karachi from Allahabad, India, in 1951. His was one of many nameless stalls – what Mehdi’s son, Atif Safdar, refers to as “cabins” – that dotted Regal Chowk in those days.

Today, the shop is located in an office block in Saddar and run by Safdar, who inherited his father’s only fortune. But the prized collection of antique and rare books is not what it used to be. Safdar feels a sense of duty and emotional attachment towards the collection, but he is not as passionate about it as his father. Karachiites on the whole seem to be less interested in books, according to him. “In my father’s time, we had about 150 regular customers,” he says. “Today, I have only 15.”

In the last eight years alone, the shop has witnessed a considerable decline. When I visited it in 2010, Everyman was housed in the adjacent Fareed Chambers and exuded an understated, old school charm. In the dark, paan spit-lined concrete corridors of Saddar, it was an oasis of books, one of Karachi’s forgotten gems. In the quaint, dusty rooms, some volumes were organised vertically due to a lack of space. Antique and rare books graced the shelves. Safdar, too, was more enthusiastic back then. He came across as a man custom-made for the role of a bookseller – not unlike those eccentric salespersons in offbeat comicbook shops in the West that also sell collectibles. It was a book-lovers’ paradise and the kind of place where, if you spent enough time probing the piles, you would discover some unexpected secrets. It was a tiny space caught in a storm of books.

Today, the shop looks like it has been hit by a tropical storm. There is no longer any method to the madness. Half the shelves are empty and mounds of books litter the floor as if they were thrown there in a fit of rage. In fact, they lie in the exact spot in which they had been dumped when Safdar shifted to the new location, six months ago. Since he is the only one looking after the shop, he hasn’t had the time to organise the volumes on shelves. The books that did make it to the shelves, however, remain in the shadows, reluctant to reveal themselves. Located in one of the back chambers of an office block, the space is devoid of sunlight. A sense of gloom hangs in the air.

Safdar has placed his prize possessions – rare first and second editions – in a small, windowless room, which serves as an office of sorts. He pulls out a second edition of French archaeologist Jean-Jacques Barthelemy’s novel, Voyage Du Jeune Anacharsis En Grece (Travels of Anarcharsis the Younger in Greece), published in 1789, by De Bure. It is in surprisingly good condition, but only one volume of a larger set. He also shows me an 1888 translation (first edition) of Iranian poet Sheikh Sa’adi of Shiraz, by Sir Richard Burton. It is titled Tales from the Gulistan or Rose Garden and includes illustrations by John Kettelwell. There is in his possession a second edition of the Muraqqa-i-Chughtai, Paintings of M.A. Rahman Chughtai with about Fifty Plates, published in 1928 by the Jahangir Book Club, in Chabuk Swaran, Lahore. It includes a full text of Diwan-i-Ghalib (the poetry of Mirza Ghalib).  When I ask him if he has chemically treated these volumes to preserve them, he replies in a manner that displays a distrust of the process: “No…no.” Instead, he says he “fumigates” the shop and the books with DDT. Rodent droppings line the mounds like ants.

After Safdar’s father, Safdar Mehdi, migrated to Karachi in 1951, he first started working in the Greenwhich Bookshop on Elphinstone Street (now Zebunnisa Street). His passion for books drove him to converse with customers at length on subjects that were close to his heart, such as history. As a result, they befriended him and his persona morphed into something bigger than the shop itself. “When the Nawab of Bahawalpur [Sir Saddiq Muhammad Khan Abbasi V] would visit the bookshop in those days,” says Safdar, “he would call out after my father: ‘Safdar!’ Where is Safdar?’” Sherbaz Mazari too was a regular back then.

A couple of years later, Mehdi set up a stall on the footpath of Regal Chowk. “Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto visited the stall regularly,” says Safdar, “and donated journals and magazines.” It was around this time that Mehdi began supplying books to public libraries and universities, while continuing to sell antique and rare volumes to individual customers, which was his area of focus. “He had a book-import license, and would order books from the UK,” says Safdar, adding, “back then, an import license was a must.”

After running the stall for about three years, Mehdi opened Everyman Book House on Burnes Road. In 1968, the shop shifted to Fareed Chambers on Victoria Road, where it remained until 10 months ago. In 1972, Mehdi launched Indus Publications, with the aim of reprinting out-of-print titles that were in demand – works on the history of the subcontinent in particular – and books that were needed for research. “The first title we reprinted was Major-General Malcolm Robert Haig’s Indus Delta Country: A Memoir, originally published in 1894,” says Safdar.

Safdar spent a lot of time in the shop in Fareed Chambers while growing up. “On my way home from school, I would stop by at the shop to see my father,” he says. “I would complain to him – ‘What is this boring work you do Abba?’”

“Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was a regular customer before he became prime minister,” says Safdar. “He was a collector and would get my father to order books for him.” Later, Bhutto invited Mehdi to come and see his library at 70 Clifton, according to Safdar. “As my father climbed up the winding stairwell inside the library, he knocked over one of the decoration pieces by mistake,” says Safdar. “It missed Mr Bhutto’s head by several inches and fell on his shoulder. He shouted at my father. By then, he was prime minister.”

Safdar joined his father in the book trade in 1990. “Unlike him, I am interested less in history and more in current affairs,” he says. Mehdi retired in 2006 and passed away on August 18, 2018. He lies buried in the Wadia Hussain graveyard, near the M-9 Motorway. The shop, meanwhile, is dying a slower death. It continues to cater to individual customers and orders titles from publishing houses in the US, UK and India, including Cambridge University Press, John Wiley & Sons and Thames & Hudson. “Indus Publications is one of many suppliers to government institutions,” says Safdar. He has ordered reprints and new books for the Sindh Archives. But he does not want to be the main supplier for government institutions. “They ask for a high commission – usually 25 per cent to 35 per cent,” he says. “And selling rare books to them is a lengthy process that goes through various stages of ‘approval.’ And since, for whatever reasons, they do not have much of a budget, they try to negotiate prices.”

The future does not look bright for the book trade in Pakistan. “People are investing less in books as their prices have gone up,” says Safdar, “particularly the price of imported books.” If he had it his way, he would prefer to shift to a space on the ground floor, overlooking the main road, where his shop would be visible to the public. Nevertheless, a mischevious grin remains plastered on his face, even when he talks on serious subjects. He recalls the time when an order of books being delivered from the airport was snatched at gunpoint in 1998. “If they had known that the boxes were full of books, I doubt they would have taken them,” he says.

[ali-bhutto-blog]

The Caste-aways

Feature published in Newsline.

Behind the bazaar and billboards of Ratodero lie dark, winding alleys. Larkana district’s second-largest town of over 67,000 residents is a dense maze of unfulfilled promises. At its heart – in the Harijan Colony, home to approximately 800 Dalits, or ‘Untouchables’ – Ratodero hides those whom it refuses to acknowledge.

Daulat Balbir is almost invisible. He lives in a 24-square-foot quarter on ‘Central Lane’ (Vicheen Ghitti) – a two-foot wide alley. An open gutter occupies half its width. It is his aisle to the outside world. Society keeps him at a distance – a truth that has left its mark on his face. He sweeps the streets of the city and is considered unclean and an embarrassment to be seen with. For this reason, he faces social exclusion and isolation, like all members of the Harijan community. Nobody will eat anything from their hands and few invite them to wedding functions, let alone attend any of theirs.

The educated youth of Daulat’s neighbourhood cannot find employment because they belong to the ‘bhangi’ or sweeper class and are therefore deemed repulsive. Even the police hesitate to come near members of their community, or imprison them, lest the other inmates feel uncomfortable being in the same cell as a Harijan.

The Harijans have lived in the old city quarter ever since it was built – in 1938. The colony of 100 houses, organised in 16 blocks, or quarters, has seen little municipal construction or improvement since. The Harijans are among the oldest inhabitants of the city. “We have always lived here,” says Gian Chand, a resident of the colony and a sanitation officer in the Ratodero municipal administration. “Even Pakistan came later.” Gian is one of 40 members of his community who are currently employed by the municipality, and the only one who has risen above the ranks of a sweeper.

“Up until a decade ago, 200 members of the Harijan community were employed by the municipality as sweepers and around 70 of them were women,” says Mukhi Ashok Kumar, President of the Hindu Panchayat of Ratodero. “Over the last 10 years they have been reduced to 40, of which only six are females.” According to Ashok, the administration now resorts to favouritism and hires sweepers on sifarish. It currently has 472 cleaners in its employ, but most of them do not even turn up to work and are receiving a salary sitting at home, he says.

The result is a decline in the town’s sanitation. Ashok cites as an example, the conditions that prevail on the premises of Ratodero’s water supply, the tree-lined grounds of which have long served as a public park of sorts. “People defecate in the park and no one cleans up,” he says. “The park is in a bad way.” He adds that in the past around six Harijan sweepers had been employed for the upkeep of the park and that it used to be clean in those days. He finds it strange that it is the Dalits who are viewed with downcast eyes, while the supposedly respectable citizens of the city defecate in the park, despite the fact that a new toilet has been installed there, and then don’t even bother to wash up properly afterwards, using stones to clean themselves. “People in our society need to change their habits,” he says.

Sidelined, the Harijans have few avenues for employment other than  to work as cleaners. They cannot run roadside food stalls since no one is willing to eat anything they have touched. “The discrimination isn’t on religious grounds, but purely class-based and a lot of it comes from within the Hindu community as well,” says Ashok. There are some who have turned to small-time entrepreneurial ventures such as fixing mobile phones and motorcycles on an ad-hoc basis.

Ratan Lal and his wife live in one of the tiny, windowless quarters of the colony. Dressed in a white safari shirt and trousers and with his hair slicked back, he looks like a retired denizen of Florida. Ratan is a relic of a different era. He received a diploma in hotel management from an institution in Clifton, Karachi and briefly worked at the Taj Mahal Hotel (now the Regent Plaza) until a car accident sealed his fate. He now lives in his humble abode in a state of fear and suffocation. “Our daughters and sons are educated, but the only jobs they can find are as sweepers,” he says. With great difficulty, his daughter has managed to find work as a kindergarten teacher and his son as an art teacher.

Like every other resident of the colony, Ratan pays a monthly rent of Rs 1,200 for a dilapidated room built in 1938. Some rooms house up to eight people. Driven by desperation and a lack of alternatives, many families have expanded their quarters onto the lanes, making the colony’s public thoroughfares unusually narrow and difficult for residents to walk through.

“Local councillors and political representatives promised to give us plots and jobs, but we never heard from them again,” says Ratan. The only semblance of help came in the form of an attempt by the administration to rebuild the local mandir of the Hindu goddess Devi Mata, but even that has not been completed, he laments. “Rs 10 million were allocated by the government for the construction of the new mandir, but only approximately Rs 1.2 million were spent,” he says. “The upstairs section has not been built and the shrine lacks electrical wiring.”

Of the Hindu community of Ratodero, it is only the Harijans who prefer to bury their dead instead of cremating them, while some request that their bodies be deposited in the River Indus.

Owing to their status as outcasts, inter-marriages are common within the community, between cousins living in Larkana, Sukkur and Karachi. As far as Ashok can recall, there have been no cases in Ratodero of forced marriages, kidnappings or forced conversions of Harijan girls – mainly because of the stigma that surrounds them as the sweeper class that cleans up other people’s filth. “There is the rare occasion in which a Muslim male sees a girl sweeper on the street or working in his home and ends up marrying her,” he says, “but these are consensual affairs and not forced.” He points out that it is not solely due to their profession as cleaners that Harijans are viewed with repulsion. “There are Christian sweepers too,” he says. “But, there is not as much class discrimination against them, possibly because they are better educated and make more of an effort with personal hygiene,” he says.

Similarly, the Harijans are not the only ones who are treated like they do not exist. The colony overlooks an empty plot where leaders like Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif have staged public meetings in an attempt to rally support. In one corner of the space is a collection of makeshift shanties and tents. They are home to a squatter settlement of Bheels, Bhattis and the Brohis of Kalat.

Aalam Khatoun and her sister, Khadija – Brohis by caste – make the long journey from Kalat to Ratodero every winter with their husbands and army of children, to escape the cold. Skilled artisans, they make and sell axes, knives, sickles and shovels. As homeless wanderers, they are in a constant state of flux, setting up camp wherever convenient. A few days earlier, they were living in another plot and were made to vacate. Khadija carries her medical reports on her at all times and shows them to whomever she meets. She has a problem with her lungs, but cannot afford treatment.

The Brohis’ neighbours, for now, are Bhattis, who reside in a cluster of 25 tents. Haleema Bhatti and her husband Rasool Bux have lived in Ratodero for 50 years and have been homeless for most of the period. Haleema begs for a living while Rasool Bux collects and sells cardboards from garbage dumps. Their 10 grandchildren play amid piles of polythene and scavenge along the banks of open gutters, hands and mouths blackened with dirt. “I went to a government hospital for treatment, but the doctor told me not to come back again,” says Hazoor Bux, one of the elders of the family. “It is only a matter of time before the police remove us from here.”

In the midst of poverty and hopelessness, stands the solitary shelter of Mithi Bhatti, an elderly, childless widow who lives on her own and fends for herself. She survives by begging in the town at night. This mélange of squatters of different castes and creeds are united by a common cause: they are in desperate need of a plot of land, or space that they can call home.

[ali-bhutto-blog]

Road rage in Karachi

Feature published in Newsline.

Kamil will never forget the afternoon of December 21, when he was exposed to a vast anger lurking beneath the surface of Karachi’s streets. It came in the form of a Daihatsu Cuore. Recklessly switching lanes, the vehicle nearly collided with his. Startled, Kamil rolled down his window and asked, “What are you doing?”

That was all it took.

“The Cuore driver got out, took his belt off, folded it in half and proceeded to belt my car with the buckle-end,” recalls Kamil, a middle-aged businessman. By then, both cars were at a red light and traffic was at a standstill.

A minute earlier, it had seemed like a good day in a city that appeared to redeem itself in the winter months. But within seconds, Karachi had swung from one polar extreme to the other. “If the Cuore driver had broken my windscreen, the belt would have gone around my neck,” says Kamil. “Had the doors not been locked and the windows rolled up, he would have strangled me to death.”

Nobody helped. Inches away, in an adjacent car, two girls laughed through the entire incident, which lasted until the light turned green. Having noted down the number plate of the Cuore, Kamil learnt from the Clifton Police Station that it was a Careem vehicle.

“The atmosphere has become very strange in this city,” he laments. “The aggression on the streets of Clifton and DHA has multiplied tenfold; it is probably worse in other areas.”

This is hardly surprising in a city that currently has 4.4 million registered vehicles on its streets, with a thousand new vehicles added each day for the last five years, according to updated figures provided by the Excise, Taxation and Narcotics Control Department of Sindh. In 2018, the number of vehicles on Karachi’s streets is expected to increase to 6.5 million. It is a grim prospect for a metropolis in which commuters lack lane discipline – largely because there are no lanes.

An unexamined phenomenon in Pakistan, road rage lies under the radar of the law and media, occupying a grey area.

According to Dr Unaiza Niaz, psychotherapist and director of the Psychiatric Unit and Stress Research Centre, heavy traffic, congestion, time constraints and obstructions in large cities create a high-stress environment. “Everybody is uptight and on an edge,” she says. “Road rage makes people think unreasonably and illogically. They get angry at everyone – including the police.”

Such a chain of thought becomes habitual and, according to Dr Niaz, is infectious. It essentially boils down to a battle of the egos: to not react aggressively is to be weak. If you give way, or patiently wait for your turn, you are viewed as naive.

Although Kamil happened to be behind the wheel on the day of his unfortunate encounter, he normally doesn’t drive, having used a chauffeur for several years – a privilege not afforded to everyone. Chauffeur-driven, he is less involved with the traffic or any untoward incident that may occur. “If someone picks a fight with my driver, then at least I can be the mediating force, and prevent the situation from escalating,” he says.

Yet escalate it almost always does.

“Road rage is only an expression of the aggression that resides within people,” says journalist Ghazi Salahuddin, whose ‘Karachi Diary’ column in the late 1970s and ’80s covered various facets of the metropolis, including its traffic problems. Dr Niaz too attributes it to “the inability to control one’s anxieties and frustrations in other aspects of life.”

Kamil has instructed his driver to maintain a safe distance from SUVs in particular, especially after the December 3 tragedy near Farhan Shaheed Park in Do Darya, where road rage led to the murder of 18-year-old Zafir Zuberi. It is a testament to how far anger drives people on Karachi’s trigger-happy streets.

Fahim Zuberi received a call from South City Hospital one Sunday morning, informing him that his son Zafir had been brought in with a gunshot wound. “He was soaked in blood,” Zuberi told Newsline. “He had been brought to the hospital dead.” Months after the incident, Zuberi is still in a state of disbelief. He can’t put it into feelings. “I feel like he has gone out with his friends and is about to return.”

Zafir had stepped out for breakfast with three friends, when their car accidentally hit a motorcycle. The bike was part of a convoy of four SUVs – regulars on the Do Darya drag racing and motorcycle stunt scene. “From an SUV in front of our car, Khawar Burney opened fire on us,” recalls Zaid, who was the first to be shot – in the shoulder. Burney was not aiming for the tires; his first two shots hit the bonnet. “As we passed Burney’s car, Zafir was shot,” says Zaid. The seats were soaked in blood. While Burney fled, his friends broke the car windows with the butt of a rifle, gave their prey a thrashing and stole their wallets, mobile phones and car keys.

“It is the parents’ responsibility,” says Zuberi, who feels that the streets of Do Darya in particular are dangerous as they are used for car races.

While the murder of an innocent youth grabbed national attention, its root cause – road rage – remains unaddressed and roams the streets freely. Day-to-day traffic incidents of lesser severity are brushed under the tarmac as part and parcel of life in Karachi. “When you feel that you are constantly being shortchanged on the street, your patience eventually runs out,” says Atif, who commutes daily from DHA to Sharah-e-Faisal and back – a jaw-grinding journey.

Vigos may have become a symbol of bad ettiquette on the road, but any vehicle can behave like a Vigo.

The 2.4 million motorcycles on Karachi’s streets make up just over half the total number of vehicles in the city. Moving in swarms like locusts, they are the merchants of road rage. At the same time, motorcyclists were victims in 60 per cent of all fatal traffic accidents in 2017.

Individuals who break traffic laws can engender widespread rage. Statistics indicate the fallout of existing trends. According to the Traffic Analysis Report 2017, 508,156 traffic tickets were issued to motorcyclists in District South alone for not wearing helmets. It was the highest number of tickets issued in any district of Karachi.

“I was told by a taxi driver that some motorcycles are deliberately driven with the headlights turned off,” says Kamil. Some believe that they target cars and provoke minor accidents so that they can push for financial compensation. But there is no proof to back this theory. And according to DIG Traffic Imran Minhas, the law does not guarantee that motorcyclists will receive compensation in such a scenario, especially if they are driving without headlights, which in itself is a violation of Rule 151 of the Motor Vehicle Rules 1969. In addition, “under Rule 34 of the Pakistan Highway Code, all slow moving vehicles – including motorbikes – are required to remain in the left lane and only use the right lane while overtaking,” says Minhas. “But motorcyclists do not seem to be aware of this and instead occupy every lane.”

After receiving a bullet in the shoulder and seeing his best friend shot dead, Zaid had not seen the last of road rage. In February, barely two months after the first incident, a motoryclist was banging on his car window after having rammed into the vehicle from behind.

Salahuddin says that although road rage is a universal phenomenon, Karachi is unique in the swiftness with which people become violent. “It is a cultural thing,” he continues. “As a society, we lack civility. In other countries people wait patiently for as long as two hours in a traffic-jam – but not in Karachi.” It is partly to do with upbringing, he says. Underprivileged citizens do not receive an education and are not properly socialised into living in the city. As an example, Salahuddin refers to the Pashtun drivers who used to run the ‘yellow double’ mini-buses. “They would exercise their tribal sense of freedom on the roads, as they had not been conditioned into Karachi’s lifestyle,” he says, pointing out that while every city has its own way of doing things, in Karachi there is a free-for-all: “Different communities live according to their own ways in little ghettos across the city.” Minibuses, along with privately owned buses currently operating within the city, accounted for 56 per cent of the traffic accidents in 2017.

But the underprivileged aren’t solely responsible for the chaos on the streets. Naeem Sadiq, who has done extensive research on the registration of vehicles in Pakistan, says that approximately 10 million people in the country own cars. “What should the remaining 190 million people do?” he asks. “There is no room on the streets for pedestrians or cyclists.” Due to a lack of proper foothpaths, zebra crossings and pedestrian bridges, 24 per cent of all fatal accidents in 2017 involved pedestrians.

According to Sadiq, the state caters only to the rich, which is why it focuses not on public transport, but on making room for more cars on the street. “In Pakistan, the government spends all its money on underpasses, flyovers and signal-free corridors. Even in Lahore, more money has been spent on these than on public transport,” he continues. “Who’s convenience are these thoroughfares being built for?”

A former commissioner of Larkana district, who requests not to be named, recalls seeing the convoy of a former minister for petroleum, who has since been indicted for financial corruption. “He had three police mobiles with him and six personnel in each vehicle. One mobile was in front, the other at the back, and the third on the side (just in case anyone attempted something from the side of the car),” he says. “His vehicle had the Pakistan flag on it, even though he was not a federal minister at the time. My driver tried to overtake the convoy, which was taking up a lot of room on the road, but I told him to let it go.” Both happened to be going to the same destination – a postcolonial club in the city, where the former minister had a permanent room. “‘What’s all this?’ I asked him when we got there, referring to the convoy. ‘Protection,’ he replied.” According to Sadiq, the Sindh government alone has a total of 28,000 vehicles at its disposal.

Road rage in Karachi tends to be directed primarily at young to middle-aged males. Attitudes towards females are different. Women may receive catcalls, but during traffic incidents, including accidents, they are usually accomodated and treated with a degree of respect by the general public. Numerous women residents of Karachi recall encounters on the road in which they were moved by the helpful and considerate attitude of all those present.

On such occasions, Fawad, a private banker, wishes that he too was a woman. Rage may have become an uncontrollable hazard on Karachi’s streets today, but it has always existed. In 2004, when Fawad’s car gently hit a taxi at Do Talwar, his sense of entitlement drove him to punch the other driver, the ring on his finger drawing blood. “I began to panic because it quickly dawned on me that he was built like a rock,” recalls Fawad, who has seen his share of brawls. Fawad’s behaviour towards the taxi driver invited the ire of others in the vicinity, who saw it through the prism of class conflict. A policeman emerged from a check post. A group of Pashtun labourers working at a nearby construction site put down their tools and walked towards him.

“The policeman, probably out fear of what was going to happen to me, grabbed me and the taxi driver and put us both in my car,” recalls Fawad. The labourers surrounded the car and closed in on it while hurling profanities at him. Tensions heightened when one of them shouted “kafir” with a crazed look in his eye. Under the instructions of the officer, Fawad slowly reversed towards the check post and was hustled inside, out of danger’s way. In the end, despite not having a license on him, he got off scot free after his father came and fished him out. The taxi driver, still bleeding, was the loser in this situation.

But Fawad was not as lucky while driving past SZABIST in Old Clifton. After a heated exchange with a student who was driving down the wrong side of the street, Fawad had to quickly apologise when the kid pulled out a Glock pistol and pointed it at his head.

On lawless streets, “might is right prevails,” laments Dr Niaz. “Since the law does not provide citizens with protection, many resort to hiring private security guards, whom they see as the only deterrent to such behaviour,” says Atif.

So what are the solutions? One way to avoid road rage is to stop driving altogether. Another, to somehow ensure that fewer people drive.

Naeem Sadiq contends that road rage can be reduced vastly if the government places more emphasis on public transport. “Karachi is the only city of its size in the entire world that has no reliable mass transit system,” says Ghazi Salahuddin. Sadiq adds, “There is less road rage in countries that have a good quality, state-run system of public transport.” According to him, it makes sense to have fewer vehicles on the road, especially since Pakistan is forced to import fuel as it does not have enough of its own.

One solution, suggests Sadiq, is to have a bus circuit as the sole means of transport in traffic hubs, such as I.I. Chundrigar Road or Zamzama. Commuters could park their cars in designated spaces outside these areas and be transported to their respective destinations by a shuttle service, he says. According to Inspector Idris Bhatti, the Sindh Traffic Police plans on introducing a scheme whereby intercity bus terminals – for coaches such as the Blue Line and Karachi Coach – will be moved outside the city and be accessed via a shuttle service.

Sadiq says that whereas in developed countries traffic caters primarily to the rush hours, or weekend travel, in Pakistan there is a third category of traffic – what he refers to as “slavery traffic.” This involves commuting to accomplish tasks and chores that in other countries can be done over the phone, or via the Internet, such as paying motor vehicle tax, pensions collection and similar work that involves driving to government departments. “Collectively, all this adds up to many trips made by many people,” says Sadiq, describing this as “self-created madness.” If the system can enable citizens to carry out these tasks from home, 20 per cent of the traffic will be reduced straight away. “If lanes are clearly demarcated on roads and lane discipline enforced, an orderly environment can be created,” adds Sadiq.

Responding to the complaint that larger vehicles, particularly SUVs, tend to bully and generally step over smaller ones, DIG Traffic, Minhas argues, “I drive a small car, but I don’t get bullied, because I always drive defensively. It is those who drive small vehicles aggressively that get bullied.” Salahuddin meanwhile maintains, “Just the way not all citizens are equal in our society – so too on the road, not all vehicles are equal.”

[ali-bhutto-blog]

The Guns of Mansfield Street

Feature published in Newsline.

The arms dealers of Mansfield Street are of a lineage that predates Partition. Of the 32 gun shops that line the road in Saddar, Karachi, eight are owned by one family: the Bandukwalas. They have been in the business for 130 years – it has earned them their name. The Bandukwalas owned gun dealerships in New Delhi, before moving to Karachi in 1947, where they first set up shop in Bolton Market.

While the cloud of anti-gun sentiment has always hovered over Mansfield Street, the shops in the old plazas have their own tales to tell – some of which have unexpected twists.

“At the time of Partition, there were only three gun shops in Karachi,” says Abbas Bandukwala, who was until last year, vice-chairman of the now defunct Arms Association of Pakistan. “One belonged to the Dossal family, the other to Suleman Omar, and the third was ours.” From 1947 till 1970 there were only seven or eight arms dealers in Karachi, he says. “But during the Zia regime, a lot of licenses were issued. After that, numerous non-Karachi residents opened up shop in the city.”

But the Bandukwalas aren’t the only gun-sellers on Mansfield Street. Shahid Naseem opened his shop – Ali Brothers – in 2005. Prior to that, he worked at the Bandukwala-owned Hussain and Brothers Trading Company for 24 years, learning the ropes of the gun trade. “Our highest selling item is the MP5 sub-machine gun,” says Shahid’s son Moiz, who works in the shop. “It is the weapon of choice for security guards.” Also popular are bullets for 9mm pistols, sold at Rs 60 each.

Through a door at the back of his tiny shop, Moiz leads two customers down a dark corridor, to an inner sanctum of sorts, where shotguns and rifles are displayed in old wooden showcases. One of the customers, Mohammad Danish, has come, license in hand, to buy ammo for his 9mm. He would like to be better prepared the next time dacoits target his grocery store in Mehmoodabad.

“We only sell to customers who have a license,” says Moiz, adding that during every transaction, the buyer’s license number is recorded in a register. Bandukwala, too, is particular about the authenticity of licences and CNICs.

But this did not stop the police from raiding Moiz’s shop and confiscating Rs 80 lakh worth of ammunition in September 2011. “The police turned up drunk under the charge of one Munir Chandio, who was looking to carry out an investigation,” says Moiz. “They asked to see our weapons, which they then took without paying for.” Shahid, Moiz’s father, was arrested for selling guns without a dealer’s licence. “He was detained at the police station for four days before the FIR was lodged,” continues Moiz. Shahid went on to spend a month behind bars, until his hearing. “When he showed the District South judge his licence, he was ordered to be released immediately,” says Moiz. “But Chandio did not return our items, despite the court order.” Siddique, a policeman visiting the shop, confirms the authenticity of the story.

Hit hard financially, Moiz could no longer afford to continue his education. He and his father were forced to take up a side-job – supplying bottled water – to make ends meet.

Referring to the sale of illicit weapons, Bandukwala says, “It was during Zia’s regime that things turned bad. That was when the Kalashnikov culture began.” His shop does not sell the Kalashnikov – a prohibited bore that cannot be sold to citizens unless they are granted special permission by the Interior Ministry. Nor does Bandukwala stock any other automatic weapons. “Our highest selling items are semi-automatic pistols and rifles, purchased by businessmen, politicians and civil servants, for protection,” he says.

Older shops on the street can be identified by the way their names are spelt. Ebrahim Abdool Ali Arms and Ammunition Dealers – also Bandukwala-owned – only stock imported hunting rifles and shotguns. “Up until the seventies, 80 per cent of our customers were shikaris,” says Bandukwala. “They tended to be either big businessmen or respectable zamindars.” Today, he says, the majority of the customers are either Urdu-speaking or Pakhtun. “At times we get suspicious-looking people coming in,” he continues, “whom we politely turn away, even if they have a licence.”

Across the road from Bandukwala is the shop of his cousin, Mustansir. Here, according to the manager Tipu Sultan, the highest selling weapons, besides the 9mm, are those used for recreational purposes at shooting ranges in clubs. These include the double-barrel shotgun and the Beretta.

Bandukwala says he mostly agrees with what anti-gun rights activists preach. “But,” he is quick to add, “in Pakistan, where the government is unable to protect its people, they need to be able to protect themselves.” He says that in order for guns to be banned, illegal weapons must first be curbed. “If the law bans guns, I won’t mind; I will enter a different business,” he says. “But the government will only succeed in doing so if it purchases weapons from civilians at full price – which is highly unlikely.” He points out that the government is aware that illicit weapons are being sold in Sohrab Goth, but the police turn a blind eye. He suggests that in Karachi, the government should only issue dealer’s licences to those who can prove they have lived in the city for at least 10 years.

Bandukwala’s grandfather, Abdul Ali, started the family business. Abdul had four sons, and as his family expanded, so did the number of gun shops. Bandukwala now sits in a small office at the back of his modest, understated shop, where no guns are displayed. He refuses to relocate to Zamzama, which he dismisses as being part of a “high-fi culture.” He is not interested in being part of the rat race, where there is “no respect for rules.” Those bigger, flashier ammo shops in Zamzama, he says, are where influential people who do not have licences go. “My nature is such that I cannot partake in anything illicit – no hanky panky,” he says. “And anyway, it’s not like they are making more money out there; rents are higher and fancy shops require more maintenance.”

The Arms and Ammunition Association of Pakistan ceased to exist a year ago, after the government passed a law that set new, stricter requirements for the registration of associations. “We are in the process of re-registering and fulfilling all requirements,” says Bandukwala. “The fact that there aren’t that many of us doesn’t help. Our association cannot, for example, afford to have an office in every major town in the country.”

[ali-bhutto-blog]

The Spell of Thano Bula Khan

Feature published in Newsline.

Inside a chamber at the shrine of Guru Mangal Giri Ashram, sits a congregation of dervishes and gods. These lifelike statues, it seems, have formed their own committee, to solve the plight of taluka Thano Bula Khan.

This remote plateau of Jamshoro District, in the western highlands of Sindh Kohistan, has more shrines than hospitals or schools.

“The government has done nothing for us,” complains Rasheeda Maachi, a resident of the town of Thano Bula Khan. Her thirsty toddler drinks muddy water out of a cement-mixing bowl, while Rasheeda herself is forced to beg for a living. Their closet-sized shanty, squeezed into half the width of a pedestrian lane, is the only roof above their heads. Pointing at the three-foot-high boundary wall that divides her compound from the other half of the lane, she says that the Deewans – local traders and businessmen – donated cement to the Khashkeli tribe, but not to the Maachis, the tribe to which she belongs.

While Rasheeda’s home has no electricity, her neighbour’s lights provide some visibility at night. Here, in the locality of Maachi Colony, electricity is supplied for five days and is cut off for another five. “There is no clean drinking water,” adds Waheed, her husband. Groundwater, accessed through boreholes, is brackish.

Ironically, Darwaat Dam, a rainwater storage facility, lies only 15 miles east. Waheed, a fisherman, commutes daily on a bike he shares with his relatives, to catch jarko fish, which he sells in the local bazaar. On a good day, he earns up to Rs 800, while other days he comes home empty-handed.

Miles beyond the town of Thano Bula Khan, a thin layer of yellow desert grass covers the plateau like a velvet carpet. A group of children stand by the roadside, selling bags of bayr, a local berry. Every time a car passes, they raise the bags and smile. If a car stops, they rush towards it in excitement. One of them, differently-abled, finds it hard to keep up with the rest. None of them attend school.

“There are only six functional high schools in the taluka,” says Shaikh Abdullah Kohistani, a local scholar and chairman of the NGO, Abbas Development Foundation. “The schools that do function are privately funded,” adds Kambo Khan Barahmani, a district council member.

With a population of 145,450 people, the taluka has only one hospital which “does not provide blood tests, X-rays, dialysis, or surgery and lacks lady doctors,” says Shaikh. There isn’t a single maternity home. Several women in remote areas such as Karchaat have died from complications during childbirth, discloses Haseen Khashkeli of the Al-Mehran Rural Development Organisation.

So the question arises, why has the scion of one family continued to win elections in this 1,801-square-kilometre taluka in Jamshoro district, on a PPP ticket since 1988, despite failing to provide his constituents with even the most basic amenities?

Malik Asad Sikandar also enjoys the support of the Punjabi, Pathan and Mohajir communities in neighbouring Kotri taluka, where he receives 80 per cent of the MQM vote. His father, Malik Sikandar Khan, was Thano Bula Khan’s elected representative from 1971 till 1977. Yet, their long reign notwithstanding, there is little, or no evidence of any development in the constituency.

Malik Asad justifies the sorry state of affairs by contending that it owes to circumstances beyond his control. For example, he told Newsline, those who qualify to be appointed as doctors and teachers on merit live outside the taluka and are unwilling to commute or relocate here. Locals, on the other hand, are under-qualified. “The only solution is to either appoint locals or raise salaries, giving outsiders an incentive to work in this area,” he says, “but neither of these options are applied.” According to Jalal Mehmood Shah, chief of the Sindh United Party, meanwhile, “teachers receive a generous salary package but do not attend school. They are Malik Asad’s supporters and he protects them; in return, they vote for him.” This, he says, is part and parcel of the corrupt system that enables Asad’s constant re-election.

Ramesh Kumar Gupta, a lawyer from Thano Bula Khan, contends that the absence of a formidable opposition lies at the root of Malik Asad’s lack of motivation to deliver. Asad takes victory for granted, he says. With the constituency in the palm of his hand, he does not feel the need to do more.

“Thano Bula Khan taluka has the lowest crime rate in the entire province,” says Asad – a fact acknowledged even by his opponents. But few believe that it is because of his administrative abilities. “It is partly due to the nature of the locals,” says Shaikh, “and partly because the population consists solely of indigenous tribes – Burfats (the majority), Khashkelis, Deewans and Lohanas. There are no outsiders in the taluka.”

But there is the rare occasion when one crosses paths with a migrant.

Several miles west of Thano Ahmad Khan, on the edge of Mahal Kohistan Wildlife Sanctuary, lies a tableland referred to as Daoo Jabal. Here one can spot Abdul Ghani Barijo’s solitary dhaba, which in Sindhi is known as a pirri, but which he proudly refers to as a “cabin.” Barijo moved to this desolate portion of the taluka from Matiari. He sells betel nut, biscuits, candy and dried lentils for visitors who pass through here, en route to the shrine of Shiri Guru Baal Puri Sudh Sawai, several miles west.

Women dressed in bright clothes and wearing red lipstick can be seen roaming the bazaar in the town of Thano Bula Khan. “There is no concept of purdah in our culture,” discloses Ramesh Kumar. Hindus – who form approximately 40 per cent of the population in the taluka – and Muslims live in communal harmony.

WAPDA’s controversial Darwaat Dam (‘Dar-waat’ is a blend of two Sindhi words and translates into ‘doormouth’), built on the incline of a hill torrent known as Nai Baran, covers 25,000 acres. “It was I who suggested the idea of Darwaat Dam to then president Asif Ali Zardari,” says Asad. Yet many, including Shaikh puzzle over the creation of a dam that does not seem to be providing water to the taluka. “While the dam is built on the edge of Thano Bula Khan taluka,” says Shaikh, “it only provides irrigation water to Thatta taluka.” It is suspected that the facility may be a precursor to a future housing project.

It is questionable decisions like this and petty politics that Malik Asad occupies himself with – what is referred to in Sindh as ‘waderki siasat’ (feudal politics). Surrounded by the Khirthar Mountains on one side, and the Lakki Hills on the other, the taluka, which, according to Jalal Mehmood Shah is “the most mineral-rich region in Sindh,” is a Machiavellian wilderness of dynastic and political intrigue.

The streets of Malik Asad’s ancestral village, Thano Ahmad Khan, are lined not with litter, but fallen leaves. Cleaner and better organised than most rural settlements in Sindh, it is devoid of congestion and overpopulation. This orderliness may be attributed to the Deewans, whom Asad carries in his pocket, and who manage his agricultural and business enterprises.

Members of the Malik family may be neighbours in Thano Ahmad Khan, but there is no love lost between them. For the little opposition that does exist in the taluka, is partly from Asad’s own cousins, Malik Changez and Malik Alauddin.

When Asad and Zardari developed differences a few months ago over Bahria Town’s purchase of land in taluka Thano Bula Khan, opponents hoped to cash in on the opportunity, by joining the PPP. “But the two patched up,” says Jalal Mehmood Shah, “after Malik Asad paid Zardari vast sums of money, which was half of the share in the sale of land.” During the fallout, Zardari had carried out a reshuffle in the police administration of the taluka as a way to pressure Asad. But now, explains Shah, he has reinstated the previous police officers – Asad’s men.

The hamlet of Thano Arab Khan lies within Mahal Kohistan Wildlife Sanctuary, and is home to Wadero Saleh Mohommad Barahmani, one of the area’s larger onion cultivators. Surrounded by a thick cover of neem and keekar trees, the settlement is an oasis in a vast ornamental desert of evenly-spaced kandi trees. The village gets its share of unexpected visitors. Barahmani recalls the time a prowling Indian wolf attacked his cattle one moonlit night a few months ago.

The wadero’s onion plantation, which surrounds his home, is watered by tubewells and earns him Rs. 500,000 per acre.

A long-time Asad supporter, Barahmani has of late grown disillusioned with the man. He laments that Asad has never addressed the needs of his raj. The taluka’s 100-kilometre-long metalled road runs out miles before reaching Thano Arab Khan, where “there is no electricity for 12 hours a day,” he complains. The only medical facility is one highly inadequate basic healthcare unit.

He adds, “Over 15 settlements were displaced and drowned during the creation of Darwaat Dam. The dislocated families did not get any compensation whatsoever.”

Barahmani, too, was keen on making inroads into the PPP when Asad briefly fell out of favour with the Zardaris. But there are murmurs among his courtiers that he is, at the same time, trying privately to patch up with Asad. Waderki siasat!

Perceived threats to Asad’s authority are dealt with ruthlessly. These are posed by individuals who have no intention of challenging him, but merely attempt to help the local community, and gain popularity by doing so.

One such example of that is Mohan Lal Kohistani, a former PPP MPA who did a lot of work for the poor in the taluka and provided them with jobs. According to Shaikh – who has personally suffered Asad’s wrath – the Maliks drove Mohan Lal into exile after levelling false charges against him. Malik Asad, however, denies any involvement in Mohan Lal’s moving to London. “Why would I level charges against a fellow party worker?” he retorts.

“There were three things my father advised me never to be afraid of,” recalls Shaikh. “The wadero, the djinn and the dog; because these three creatures feed off your fear.”

The Maliks were not always the kings of Kohistan. Up until the 1980s, Pir Ghulam Rasool Shah Jilani commanded great respect and influence in the region. After Malik Sikander’s death, Jilani benevolently proclaimed Malik Asad the sardar, so as to avoid a scuffle within their family for the title. But from that point onwards, Jilani’s luck dwindled while Asad went from strength to strength. In the 1988 general election, a defiant Asad contested against Jilani’s cousin, Pir Zaman Shah, and defeated him. And since then he has remained king of his realm.

[ali-bhutto-blog]

Highway to Hell

Feature published in Newsline.

Rab Nawaz Palari’s tea shop overlooks a section of the M-9 motorway several miles west of Nooriabad. It is a solitary unit, unlike most watering holes for truckers on this route, which share a compound with a gas station. Thus, the only sound heard at this breezy outpost is of the movement of high-speed vehicles, recurring like waves on a beach. Although it may look like little could go wrong in this uneventful desert sprawl, there is much that is brushed under the tarmac.

“When the motorway was being laid, temporary diversions were created alongside it to enable the movement of traffic,” explains Palari. “But these diversions were uneven, badly built and caused accidents,” he continues. “Sitting right here, I witnessed numerous such accidents, in some of which lives were lost.” More disturbing, Palari’s vantage point accounts for but half a kilometre of a 136-kilometre motorway-to-be.

The process of turning the four-lane Karachi-to-Hyderabad Super Highway into a six-lane motorway began on September 17, 2015. The National Highway Authority (NHA) outsourced the project on a build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis to an offshoot of the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO), namely Superhighway Construction Operation and Rehabilitation Engineering (Pvt) Limited. Already a sizeable amount, the cost of the project – Rs. 36 billion – does not take into account the price citizens have paid for it with their peace of mind, their time, even their lives.

The NHA’s General Manager for Sindh South, Tufail Shaikh, explains that while it helps to have alternate routes during the construction of any major artery, in the case of the M-9, there is no other road or highway nearby. Temporary diversions, created during the construction of the motorway are the only alternative. “No doubt, these diversions are not as well maintained by the FWO as they should be, despite the fact that the National Assembly has notified the FWO of this on many occasions,” he points out, adding, “But they have their own way of doing things.” According to Shaikh, since the diversions are temporary routes, they are not given much priority. However, a senior FWO official who is overseeing the Karachi-to-Hyderabad stretch of the M-9 project, provides reassurances that “the diversions were a problem in 2015 and 2016, when there were many of them, but now they are fewer in number.” He explained that each diversion was in use for a maximum of two weeks, after which that portion of the road would be completed and new diversions would be created wherever the construction was taking place. “We have carpeted all the diversions with water bound macadam,” he says, concluding that driving on them is now “comfortable.”

However, the problem with macadam surfaces, as is evident in the diversions, is that they are easily undone by heavy traffic. This is why they are now almost never used in the United States. In the case of the M-9, it is particularly hazardous if container trucks, tankers, coaches and smaller vehicles are moving alongside one another on such an uneven surface. Once the crushed stone mixture is loosened, dust rises and decreases visibility. Those who have travelled on the M-9 at night in the past year-and-a-half will recall the hellish off-road experience of driving alongside container trucks through a thick layer of dust illuminated by headlights. They may also recall various vehicles attempting to create their own ‘diversions’ in the darkness, desperate to figure out a way forward.

Work on five out of 11 bridges has been completed. On one bridge that overlooks an arroyo, one-and-a-half lanes out of three have been cordoned off entirely, creating a bottleneck. A welder of the FWO installs expansion joints in the bridge wearing a pair of sunglasses and a shemagh scarf. “Every time a car attempts to overtake another, a traffic jam is created,” he discloses, requesting not to be named. At other sections, where the median of the dual carriageway is being installed with a New Jersey barrier, more than a lane is cordoned off. In such instances, there is no diversion.

It is difficult to ignore the glaring irony of the massive inconvenience caused to the public by the construction of something that is essentially meant to make their lives easier. The site of solar-powered CCTV cameras installed on a route where vehicles rattle along at dangerously close proximity, sums up the nature of ‘development’ in Pakistan: while basic safety standards remain unmet, a façade of technological advancement is displayed. These cameras, explains the senior FWO official, “are being installed at one-kilometre intervals along the motorway and will provide live surveillance to a joint control room of the FWO and the National Highways and Motorway Police, in Nooriabad.” Emergency telephones are provided underneath the cameras.

The drive from Karachi to Hyderabad normally takes an hour-and-a-half. But in the last year-and-a-half, it has taken much longer. Families travelling in public lorries or in their own cars, have seen a once exciting journey to their ancestral village turn into a miserable experience. “On one occasion in 2016, it took me eight hours to drive from Karachi to Hyderabad,” recalls Naeem Mughal, Director General of the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA). “But imagine what those passengers who travel by coach from Peshawar to Karachi must be going through. The last leg of their 20-hour journey must be hell. Not to mention all the dust emissions inhaled by those travelling in buses and lorries with open windows.” Mughal, however, acknowledges that the diversions are now not as “crude” or as extensive as they were last year.

According to a senior SEPA official who requested not to be named, data obtained from the Jamshoro and Nooriabad police stations for the period September 17, 2015, to October 2016, shows that almost a hundred people died in accidents caused by the diversions, while many more were injured. “There was no contingency plan, nor any first aid provisions,” he laments. In the light of this revelation, the trauma centre established in Dumba Goth on October 20, 2016, seems almost like a guilty afterthought.

According to an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) study conducted by the Environmental Management Company Pakistan prior to the initiation of the project, the average annual daily traffic on the M-9 is 20,000 vehicles per day. The EIA report clearly states that one of the core principles on which the FWO devised its Traffic Management Plan, was to “give constant attention to roadside safety.”

“The fact that the Super Highway is a main artery, the diversions should have been proper roads,” argues the SEPA official. “At times there was no visibility beyond a few feet, due to dust emissions. But the FWO did not take any measures to improve conditions, despite being notified by SEPA repeatedly. FWO officials told us that the diversions were in this state due to overweight traffic coming from the harbour, from November 2015 to January 2016 – but this is no excuse. They said that after 75 kilometres of the motorway would be completed, the public’s misery would be reduced.” According to the senior official of the FWO, the diversions are now sprinkled on a weekly basis using a water bowser.

“They seemed to be working in a great hurry,” says the SEPA official. “At the core of it, are management and political issues.” According to the official, the federal government is attempting to squeeze as much political leverage as it can out of this project. Perhaps this is why Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif held an ‘opening ceremony’ on February 3, 2017, despite the fact that 61 kilometres of the motorway have yet to be completed. Perhaps this is also why the project is expected to be completed three months ahead of schedule, in December 2017, well before the general election.

Palari’s tea shop is but one of many rural settlements that lie on the M-9’s earmarked path – i.e., its right of way. On the north side of the motorway [Karachi-to-Hyderabad], the right of way is 75 metres, while on the south side it is 130 metres. According to the EIA report, “Ninety-five per cent of the affected structures on both sides of the road are unlawful.” This space is designated for the construction of two service lanes on either side of the motorway. The M-9 project has been in the pipeline since 2006, but was delayed largely due to resistance by those who had allegedly encroached on the right of way. “This is why the project was handed to a military organisation like the FWO,” explains the SEPA official. “It was felt that only they could move the people settled along the highway.”

In a charred kitchen at the back of the tea shop, Palari pours three cups of a fresh brew. “FWO officials stopped by and asked me to either cough up Rs. 4 million or to move out, as this is allegedly government property,” he says. But his family bought the property seven years ago. Although he hasn’t heard from the officials again, he thinks, “we will probably have to end up moving.”