Thus the very traits that have made the metropolis always seem at once alien and hostile to the folk in the hinterland are an essential part of the big city’s function: It has brought together, within relatively narrow compass, the diversity and variety of special cultures: at least in token quantities all races and cultures can be found here, along with their languages, their customs, their costumes, their typical cuisines: here the representatives of mankind first met face to face on neutral ground. The complexity and the cultural inclusiveness of the metropolis embody the complexity of the great capitals have been preparing mankind for the wider associations and unifications which the modern conquest of time and space has made probable, if not inevitable. (1)

Every city has two characteristics: its ancientness and its historicity. Ancientness of any city is determined on the basis of archeological evidence. When these evidence remain inconclusive, ancient history becomes a fertile ground of legends and myths. Historians, in absence of facts, construct a mythical history on the basis of speculation and imagination. On the other hand, the historicity of a city is determined on written documentary evidence. Analysis and examination of documents help historians to draw a comprehensive picture of a city. City becomes historical only when it contributes to politics, literature, economic, and culture and creates its own soul, which distinguishes it from others. It also assumes significance because of its geographical and strategical location.

Throughout history cities became prominent and famous either because of their political and commercial importance or their cultural and social contribution to society. Those cities, which remained capitals of an empire or administrative centres, assumed authoritative and hierarchical character, but those cities, which were centres of trade and commerce, developed a homogeneous culture without much political domination and supervision.

Residential areas of the cities of Indian subcontinent were divided on the basis of ethnicity, religion, caste, and linguistic affiliations. There were separate places of worship and centres for social gatherings to keep their religious and ethnic identities, but once they came out from their residential space to the public space such as markets, gardens, playgrounds, working places, and government offices, they came into contact with each other. Interaction, meeting, exchange of ideas in public space created a sense of belonging to the city which united and combined their interests. That was the sense of belonging that people defended their city with equal zeal and faced crises and vicissitude of politics with patience. In such a milieu, a city created its traditions, customs, rituals, and festivals, which culminated in creation of unique character of it.

Karachi is not an ancient town. And so it has no historical monuments and no archaeological remains. It was a small and an insignificant fishermen town that was developed in 1729 by a Hindu merchant Bhojomal as a port. The city passed through three historical stages. In the early period of history it remained a part of Baluchistan and Sindh; in the second stage it was occupied by the British in 1839; and finally in 1947 it became the first capital of newly independent country of Pakistan.In all these three stages the city assumed different and distinct characters. In the first stage, it remained an insignificant port of Sindh. During the colonial period it became one of the cleanest cities and developed a culture of tolerance, humanism, and enlightenment. After the partition whole landscape of the city changed and new emigrants from India brought a new culture to the city and made it a mini India.In the later period when the Pathans, the Punjabis, and the Baluchis arrived in search of jobs and economic opportunities, the city became mini Pakistan.The history of Karachi during all these stages on the one hand is fascinating, but on the other hand very sad. In this paper an attempt is made to capture the spirit of the city and highlight its main features and characteristics.

In 1839,T.G.Carless visited Karachi and submitted his observations to the Government. He writes:

 The town of Kurachee is built upon a slightly elevated piece of the ground, which projects a
 short distance into swamps and flats on the eastern side of the harbour. It occupies rather a large space, and is defended by a mud wall, which round towers at each angle, and along the sides. The fortifications, however, are of meanest description, and are in the most dilapidated state: most of towers are merely heaps of earth, …Like most native cities the space inside is completely filled up with houses, and the streets are so narrow that two horsemen can barely pass each other in the principal thoroughfares…. At present Kurachee has a population of 14,000 souls, half of which are Hindoos, and rest Beloochees, Jokeeaahe, Mowannas, and Jutts. Many of the Hindoo merchants possess great wealth, and as a body they are more independent, and possess great influence, as any other part of Sind. This arises from the desire of their rulers to increase the trade of the port, and encourage those who, in the course of their mercantile pursuits, contribute so largely to the revenue of the country.   (2)

 In its early and first phase Karachi remained not only an insignificant town but also lack of sanitation made it dirty. There was no concept of town planning, so the town grew haphazardly. Richard Burton who visited the town somewhere in 1844 leaves very interesting account of it:

 Karachi town, when I first became acquainted with it, was much like the Alexandria of a century and a half ago: a few tenements of stone and lime emerging from a mass of low hovels, mat and mud, and of tall mud houses with windowless mud walls, flat mud roofs, and many Bad-girs or mud ventilators, surrounded by tumble platform of mud covered rock…On approaching it, three organs were affected, far more powerfully, however, than pleasantly, viz., the Ear, the Nose, and the Eye.The former was struck by tomtoming and squeaking of native music; by roaring,bawling,criard voices of the people; by barking and braying of stranger-hating curs, and by screams of hungry gulls fighting over scraps of tainted fish.The drainage, if you could so called it, was managed by evaporation: every one threw before his dwelling what was not wanted inside, while dogs,kites, and crows were the only scavengers; and this odour of carrion was varied, as we approached the bazars, by a close, faint, dead smell of drugs and spices, such as might be supposed to proceed from newly made “Osiris”.  (3)

 The town did not develop because of lack of interest of the Talpur rulers who neither had resources nor vision. The wealthy merchants of the city also had no concept of town planning and no desire to improve it. This shows cultural backwardness and absence of social awareness of the rich and resourceful inhabitants of the town.

 After the conquest of Sindh  (1843), in 1847 it became a part of the Bombay Presidency. The British administration gave particular attention to the development of Karachi and gradually it transformed from an unknown and sleepy town to a prominent city of the Indian subcontinent. It became a modern and well planned city. By the time the British conquered Sindh, they had already experienced of town planning. In the nineteenth century Europe, as a result of Industrailisation and commercial activities, the bourgeoisie or burgher class developed their cities taking care to provide more space for public utilities and entertainment. That is why, besides administrative buildings such as courts,  post-offices, railway stations, town halls, government offices, there were gardens, theatres, galleries, museums,  elegant shopping arcades, clubs, cafes to provide space to the citizen to enjoy and relax, For  public utilities there were hospitals, educational institutions, libraries, banks, workhouses for poor and churches. There were wide roads, avenues, and thoroughfares that facilitated the transport. A system of sanitation and disposal of waste kept cities clean. Municipality took the administration under mayor to keep city in order. Another important feature of the new city structure was its secular character. In the medieval cities of Europe, cathedral used to be in the centre of city; in the new structure commercial buildings became the centre symbolising secularism over religion.

Based on this experience, the British developed Calcutta, Madras and Bombay. They applied this experience in the developing of Karachi as modern Port City. After the conquest, the pattern of Karachi’s population had also changed. Once it developed as a port city; it attracted the business communities from all over India. They came in search of new opportunities to earn more wealth. So, here came the Memons, Bohris, Kacchis, Parsis, Khojas,Marwaris, Malabaris, and Goans from the island of Goa, Europeans and even some Jews. Arrival of these communities made the city multi-ethnic, multi cultural, and multi-religious. These communities on the one hand maintained their separate identity, but on the other, they influenced each other culturally and socially which resulted in a homogenised culture based on secularism and tolerance.

These communities, after adopting the city of Karachi as their permanent settlement, developed a great sense of belonging that created strong desire and urge to make it special and unique. The Parsi community played very active role in the development especially during the period of Jamshid Nasarvanji Mehta who served as the President of the Municipality from 1921 to 1933.During this period sanitation was improved, supply of water was regulated, roads were repaired, gardens were laid down, maternity homes were built, new housing schemes were started to solve the problem of housing, and a majestic building of Municipality was constructed. As a result of his efforts the city got a new look. It became model of cleanliness.

Karachi emerged as a trading and commercial and not as an industrial town. This saved it from pollution and also from slums. The population did not increase rapidly and remained under control. Before the British conquest the population was only 14 thousand. According to the census o 1881, it was 73,560,in 1891; it was 10,5199, and before the Partition it was 3,86,655.Small size of the population helped the city administration to keep it peaceful and clean.

The types of buildings that were built in the modern city show their commercial, educational, administrative, and recreational values. The commercial interests kept religious and ethnic differences far behind. The trading communities, after earning wealth, instead of hoarding and spending it on their personal comfort and luxury, denote a considerable portion of it for the welfare and charitable work.

One of its examples is the Parsis community. It earned a respect in the society by its contribution to public and charitable work. Tradition of social work brought wealthy people in contact to those who were wretched to the earth .It provided them opportunities to understand their deprivation and problems. This led to the alleviation of their grievances. Humanism and tolerance was the result of social work. That is why the theosophical movement led by Annie Besent also influenced some of the leading figures of the city. This created such an atmosphere that not only human beings but animals were also tendered and cared.Pir Ali Rashidi, a politician and writer of Sindhi language, in his memoirs reminiscing the Karachi before the partition writes about the humanitarian culture that how people of Karachi cared for the rights of animals. If anybody was caught beating animals, he was charged and fined. Cart drivers were not allowed to accommodate more passengers than fixed by the law. There were societies for animal protection whose office holders were honourary magistrates; it was their task to keep an eye on owners of cart and carriage drivers not to treat animals harshly. If somebody was found treating them badly he was either reprimanded or fined. There were hospitals of the old and sick animals. There were a number of troughs in the city where cold water was available for the animals. The Paris in memories of their ancestors built most of these troughs. The Hindus also maintained Gaoshala for old animals. He relates his personal experience when he visited Karachi:

 It was around 1930 that I was passing Bandar road. Suddenly I saw Jamshed Mehta taking a wounded donkey to hospital. His car and driver were coming behind him slowly. I also followed him and, after reaching to the hospital, waited to see the proceeding. The doctor cleaned the wounds and bandaged the donkey in presence of Jemshed.He was very much concerned and requesting the doctor to clean the wounds carefully as not to give any pain to the animal. After it, he asked the doctor to keep the donkey in hospital on his expenses. He also gave advance money for fodder of the animal. He then turned to the owner and asked him not to take it from the hospital as long as it recovered fully. To compensate the man he gave him some money.  (4)

 However, the development of Karachi was in contrast to the rural Sindh where strong domination of feudals kept the society backward and stagnant. The contrast showed the attitudes of feudals and trading communities; Karachi became a cultural, educated, and commercial town while rural Sindh remained socially and culturally far behind.

To the people of rural Sindh to visit Karachi was to visit some foreign city. The environment of the city created awe and fear among the arrivals of the rural areas.Rashidi beautifully depicts this:

 When people saw shops of Elphinston Street they felt a sense of inferiority. Except few shops of Memons all others belonged to English, Parsis, and Hindu Amils…When they decided to enter the shop first they cleaned their shoes, buttoned their coats, and put in order their moustache and beard by running their hand over it. All this done fearing that they might not have any encounter with the Englishmen in the shop.  (5)

Similarly, they also avoided to encounter the English women (memsahibs or madams) Rashidi relates an event when he saw a feudal from Jacobabad hiding himself along with his servants in a shop. On his inquiry he told him:

Shah sahib we do not know to which officers these women belong. We heard that in this area there are bungalows of commissioner, collector and other high officials. If any madam does not like our group wandering in this area, she would send us to jail. We come here to enjoy and not to face tigers and wolves. It is better to remain away from these people.  (6)

Rashidi’s description of the city is charming. He writes about tram that commuted passengers from Saddar to Kemari. It costed only one taka. Travelling was comfortable. There was no crowd, no rush; everybody could get seat. Besides tram there were horse drawn carriages. Wealthy people used to have Victoria carriages for their personal use. He writes about the first car owner:

 Seth Abdur Rahim Saleh Muhammad imported the first motor car. That was Humber without any roof. When it came out on the road people stood on the side with respect. The British generally liked horse riding; they used to go to Clifton  to have fresh air. The road was yet not built properly. Many times I have seen the commissioner Sir Lawrence going to Clifton along his wife without any guard or escort. (7 )

 That was the colonial Karachi.

 A new Karachi emerged after the partition of 1947 when it became the capital of a new country. There came new arrivals from all parts of India and brought along with them their culture and their regional traditions and customs. They also brought the memories of their cities, towns, and villages and transformed Karachi into mini India. They named their new settlements and residential areas on their ancestral cities and provinces. There is Bihar colony, Benglore town, Rajputana colony, Ajmer Nagri, and Aligarh colony to name a few. Similarly, one can see the names of shops as Delhi hotel, Ambala sweetmeat, Pilibhit Oil Company, Jaipur hair cutting salon, and Agra shoe shop etc. Names of roads were also decolonised, for example Victoria road became Abdullah Haroon road, Napier road as Mir Karam Ali Talpur road, Nathal bhai Patel road as Nawab Ismail Khan , and Lawrence road as Nishtar road, Elphinston street as Zaibunisa street, Motilal Nahru road as Jigar Muradabadi road, and Cannaught road as Chaudhary Rahmat Ali road etc. Those individuals who were honoured in this way did not contribute to the development of Karachi.The selection shows that most of them were politicians and not social workers. It was an indication that, in the new set up, politics was more important than social work. It also shows that there was no place either for the British or the Hindus in the new set up of the city. All statues of the colonial period that graced the city were disappeared from the scene.

The new emigrants brought strong religious and political prejudices. They adopted the country as their new homeland on the basis of Islamic ideology; although most of them came either as government servants or in a hope to find new economic opportunities or as a result of communal riots in their areas, however, they showed their deep attachment to religion and new political ideology in which there was no space for others. As they came in large number, they pushed the old inhabitants of Karachi in background. A strong bureaucracy curtailed the power of municpality.The commissioner of Karachi ruled like uncrowned king.The evacuee property was allotted indiscriminately. It changed the whole landscape of the city. Soon well educated and wealthy Hindu left Karachi.The Parsis relegated their prominent position and retired. The followers of other faiths such as the Sikhs and the Jews disappeared. Karachi was given a new look: a number of mosques were built throughout the city that asserted the domination of religion on other aspects of society. Karachi no longer remained a multi-cultured or multi-religious city. Religious tolerance was taken over by religious fanaticism. Humanism was replaced by rigidity. With the increase of population, the old infrastructure collapsed. It was neither replaced by new nor it was improved.

However, the Mohajirs or refugees planted a new culture in the city. Urdu became the language of daily use. The tradition of Mush’ra was revived and popularised in the new cultural milieu. Religious festivals such as Muhrram procession and Milad (Birth of the holy Prophet) were celebrated with religious fervour. Urdu magazines, newspapers and books were started to publish. Some of the great literary figures such as Josh Malihabadi, Niaz Fathpuri, Shahid Ahmad Dehlavi and other rejuvenated literary activities. As there were no restriction on the Indian visitors to come to Pakistan, so famous and popular poets, religious scholars used to visit Karachi regularly. These contacts kept cultural link with India.Those literary people who published their memoirs recall their Indian past with sdness. There are intense feelings of loosing the past.

Arif Hassan, a city planner and writer recalls the early days of Karachi after the partition. He is of the opinion that the arrival of the Mohajirs created a fertile ground for intellectual activities in Karachi.In the early period they settled around the Saddar, a central area of the city. Among the new arrivals were bureaucrats, poets, painters, and musicians. Saddar became the centre of their activities. Up to 1965, in the Saddar area there were 37 eating places, 9 bars, 11 billiard rooms, 18 book shops, 7 auditoriums, 4 disco clubs. Seminars on literary and academic topics, variety shows, and debates that attracted a large number of interested people were organised regularly. India Coffee house became the centre of students and politicians where debates and discussions on politics and current affairs went on unending. He also remembers Capital and Paradise cinemas where film festivals were held. There were Karachi Goan club and Sohrab Katrak halls which were famous for their cultural and social activities. The Parsi Gymkhana and Goan Gymkhana organised sports competitions. He recalls that there was time when the area of Saddar was pleasant place to walk and to meet friends.  (8)

In the 1960s, Karachi was politically very active. The students’ community was against Ayub Khan and his Martial law. Demonstrations, strikes, and processions of students mobilised general public of the city against the government. Ayub Khan used all coercive methods to crush the opposition: Some students’ leaders were banished from the city; some of them were put in prison, but the opposition continued. His government, then, decided to shift the capital from Karachi to Islamabad, a safe place from any demonstration or protest. The shifting of capital purified Karachi from bureaucracy and presence of ruling classes. It now assumed a new identity and that was its commercial and industrial transformation 

 The process of industrialisation was started just after the partition. When new industries were set up, there was requirement of cheap labour. Unemployment and lack of development compelled people from the North West Frontier province and the Punjab to come to Karachi.The arrivals of new comers slowly changed population pattern of the city. Now, Karachi assumed a new identity. It became ‘mini Pakistan’ There emerged new settlements of the Pathans and Punjabis. They brought their own culture and way of life. The Pathans came along with their tribal values and Jirga system and the Punjabi with their aggressiveness and enterprise. The Mohajirs resented this intrusion. They felt threatened and resisted to share with any ethnic group.

In 1970, when one Unit was abolished and Karachi became the capital of Sindh province, it brought Sindhi administrative and politicians to Karachi. So far the Sindhi population of the city was in the background and not in a position to assert its existence. The Mohaajir community that so long enjoyed the monopoly in the city became unnerved to loose its power. These feelings ultimately caused the emergence of the Mohajir Quomi Movement. Moreover, the political development of Pakistan greatly affected the city. The Karachi Corporation became a bureaucratic institution. It no longer remained an elective body. Besides, people of other provinces and large number of Afghans, Bengalis, Burmese, and Iranis came illegally and settled there. As most of them are unskilled workers and have rural background, their attitude and behviour is no match to the culture of middle classes of Mohajirs. It was resulted in number of ethnic clashes. The result is that the culture of ‘mini India’ which was so enthusiastically planted and nurtured was uprooted and swept away by the new waves of immigration and with the emergence of ‘mini Pakistan’

In spite of all these changes Karachi is identified as Mohajir City. The rural Sindh poses hostility to the city as it divided the province culturally and ethnically. The communities belong to other provinces have their social links with their ancestral homes. The Mohajirs, after delinking their relation with India, are locked in the city without any hinterland support. Their separate Mohajir identity is not recognised by any ethnic group of Pakistan.As a result the city has suffered. There is no sense of belonging to the city. That is why unplanned new high rise buildings and plazas have disfigured the city. Old buildings and monuments are in a state of dilapidation. There is no interest to preserve them; as all new comers disown the past of the city.

Change is inevitable. Cities also change with passage of time. However, if change deteriorates city and makes life unbearable, past haunts people. In case of Karachi, tragedy is that the past of this city haunts only few people who lived before the partition in this city of peace, prosperity and homogenised culture ,but majority of them live without any memories of the past.  

 References

1.Mumford, Lewis: The City in History. Penguin Books 1976,p.639.

2.Carless, T. G.: Memoirs on the Bay, Harbour, and Trade, of Kurachee. In: Memoirs on     Sind by Hughes Thomas. Vol. i, Delhi 1993, p.196.

3.Burton, R.: Sindh Revisited. Vol. i-ii,  Karachi 1993, p.45-46.

4.Rashidi, Pir Ali:wo din wo log ( Those Days, those people ) In: Aaj, autumn 1995, pp. 101-102.

5.Ibid., p. 104.

6.Ibid., p. 106.

7.Ibid., p. 134.

8.Hasan,Arif: Karachi city. In: Aaj, autumn 1995, pp. 390-91.