A story behind every name October 21, 2009
Posted by Halai in brits, history, karachi, landmarks.1 comment so far
The following is an article printed in The News on Oct 21st, 2009 reproduced here without permission from Fasahat Mohiuddin.
While the face of Karachi may have changed rapidly during the last few years, the bedrock of Karachi’s existence and growth lies in areas developed for migrants arriving from India in 1947. Millions arrived in Karachi after Partition, and the government of the time was faced with the task of rehabilitating them.
Historian and former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) official M. A. Tatari told The News that successive governments purchased land for the purposes of rehabilitating the migrants. “Nazimabad, a population of Mohajirs, was established in the name of late prime minister and governor-general, Khawaja Nazimuddin, in 1952 to rehabilitate the public and government servants who migrated from India. This work was carried out by the Pakistan public works department,” he said.
“The migrants had to be given some land to make their houses. The land rate at the time was Rs3.50 per yard while a bag of cement cost Rs3 only. But many were apprehensive of coming to this area because of the wilderness. This place only had bushes and wild trees. No one was prepared to purchase land in Nazimabad,” he narrated.
Another story is that of modern-day Liaquatabad, an area many continue to refer to as Lalukhet. According to Tatari, the area came to be known as Lalukhet because it was once the agricultural land of a man named Lalu. The government of Pakistan had purchased this land from Lalu, but this became an area where people started haphazard and arbitrary construction, he said.
North Nazimabad was originally established in 1958, Tatari said, with Karachi Improvement Trust (KIT) starting that housing scheme. “Land was purchased from Masti Brohi Khan, and the official name given to the area was Taimooria. The public name, North Nazimabad, emerged because quite simply, the scheme was being built to the north of Nazimabad,” Tatari said.
However, Ayub Khan became Field Marshal and KIT was declared defunct. A new body, the Karachi Development Authority (KDA) was then created, which started its own housing schemes. The first one, KDA Scheme No. 1, was built at Karsaz, but the second one, is what developed into modern-day North Nazimabad. “Both housing schemes were prepared by a Greek architect named Mr Polo,” he said.
“Just adjacent to Lasbella Bridge was the official house, or consulate, of Nawab Lasbella. The area was called Lasbella because of the Nawab from much before Partition. The bridge existed at that time as well, and was known as Lasbella Bridge,” he continued.
Talking about Federal Capital Area (F ‘C’ Area), Tatari narrated that former prime minister Mohammed Ali Bogra had initiated the housing scheme for low-paid government employees. At the time, Karachi was capital of the country, but there was a shortage of houses for government servants. Houses were then made of ‘G’ and ‘F’ types in 1958, and some government employees retired and settled there.
Tatari said that Federal ‘B’ Area was also initiated by Bogra, and a 120-square-yard housing scheme was launched. The official name of the scheme was Mansoora, KDA scheme No 16, and citizens could acquire a plot for Rs5,000.
According to the retired bureaucrat, Federal ‘A’ Area included the modern-day areas of Jacob Lane, Jet Lane and Bazerta Lane. All these areas were barracks of small army officers which had been constructed in 1888, but the Army later handed this area to civilians.
When asked who proposed the site of the mausoleum of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Tatari said that former Karachi chief commissioner Syed Hashim Raza had proposed the location as it was on a higher plane. The land was then occupied by Kutcha hutments, and these people were allotted alternate space in Korangi and Landhi.
When asked why the government of Pakistan had to purchase land from Lalu and Brohi agriculturists, Tatari said that when Pakistan was created, these two were in possession of large tracts of land that were identified for the rehabilitation of the migrants.
Tatari said that Drigh Colony was established by late prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan, and after cordial relations were developed with late Saudi king, Shah Faisal, Drigh Colony was renamed as Shah Faisal Colony.
He said that Lawrence Road, now Nishtar Road, was where the houses of different Nawabs were situated. Nawab of Bhawalpur, Nawab of Khairpur and other Nawabs all had their homes and offices on the road.
Talking about Pir Elahi Bux Colony, Tatari said that that land for the colony was donated to Mohajirs by a major agriculturist. A private contractor, Mr Hasan, was then awarded the task to make houses. “In those days, and I’m talking about 1948-49, Hasan made 150-square-yard houses at a cost of Rs1800. These houses had bedroom and wash rooms, but no roofs,” he said.
Tatari said that Firdous Colony was made by a former MLA from Bihar, who made a cooperative society with the help of friends. He purchased land from the government in 1948, and the land was sold at a rate of Rs3.50 per square yard.
Usmanai Colony was established by those who migrated from Muradabad (India). One of the official Hakims of the Pakistan government, Hakim Syed Zakir, is credited with conceiving Usmania Colony, while 99 per cent of the residents of Muradabad were provided land and houses in this colony. Tatari said that those who built the society were affluent people, as they were adept at making utensils.
Rizvia Colony was made by a school teacher of Sindh Madressah, Maulana Aneesul Hasnain, along with Advocate Qazalbash in 1948. Their concept, maintained Tatari, was to provide plots exclusively to Shias, and not to people of other sects.
Tatari said that Gurumandir was known because of a Hindu temple situated near Islamia College, a structure that still exists. He said that many Hindus came to worship here, and thus, the place became famous as Guru ka Mandir. The road adjacent to Islamia College was named as Pandit Lal Nehru Road back then, but this was changed to Jigar Muradabadi Road when the municipality came into existence.
The retired bureaucrat revealed that there was a substantial population of Hindus, Parsis and Ismiailis who lived in the area now known as Patel Para. “Whenever any Hindu died and had unclaimed property, the Patels would automatically become the custodians of that property. At that time, Patels in that area were in a majority, and thus this area became Patel Para,” he said.
To another question about Soldier Bazaar, he said that it was an area inhabited by small Army officers during the British era. These soldiers would shop in the area, and thus, the vicinity became famous as Soldier Bazaar.
a time to remember August 14, 2009
Posted by Halai in arts & culture, brits, history, people, places, politics, religion.3 comments
Cover of TIME magazine dated April 22, 1946
as the years go by, more and more people seem to forget why the country exists as it is today. more and more people know that they are pakistani and will proudly say the same when the national cricket team takes on india or australia, or when they get confused for an indian while being an expat, but not many remember what all happened to make us where we are right now. this is august 14th. a time to remember. hopefully we can sort that out now.
let’s start at the beginning. 1947. jinnah has now fought long and hard and convinced muslims, hindus, indians, parsi’s, christians and all the other indigenous peoples of the sub-continent that aside from the brits leaving india, the muslims of the region need to have a separate state of their own. whether he chose to convince people of this for reasons to better his career (he was a terrible lawyer apparently) is still debated today. why he chose to do this when indians (muslims, hindus and other peoples) had lived harmoniously in the region for centuries is not known either. so on aug 14th, 1947 he manages to succeed and a state for muslims is formed.
it’s called pakistan. for some idiotic reason nobody really notices it’s in two parts divided by another country the size of a mini-continent and nobody really cares (will play into importance in a couple of decades). the name apparently has a double meaning. 1) the land of the pure. 2) p is for punjabi’s, a for afghan’s, k for kashmiri’s, s for sindhi’s and tan for balochis(tan). the mohajir’s are evidently left out. [ed.note: about 14.5 million people crossed the borders between india and pakistan in one of the bloodiest immigrations of peoples ever]. karachi is made the capital of the country. by the way, at this point it’s not an islamic republic yet. nor is it a republic at all. it’s only the ‘dominion of pakistan’ for muslims and anyone else who feels like living here.
the national anthem is now written by a guy called hafeez jalandhry. the reason most of you don’t understand it is because it’s written in farsi (persian). apparently, there was another one that was used when jinnah was alive until 1948, but not many people care about that either. the flag is cheesily designed with an islamic crescent and star and giving the easiest excuse of dimensions by saying the white is representative for minorities and green for muslim majorities. the flag does not at this point, nor has it ever had any state governed dimensions. anyway, now jinnah is the first governor-general of pakistan. [pakistan never had an elected prime minister until zulfikar ali bhutto]. india gave that honour to it’s last viceroy, lord louis mountbatten.
fast forward to 1956 and four prime ministers and governor-generals have gone by. the dominion is now dissolved on march 23rd (that’s why you celebrate pakistan day) and pakistan officially becomes an islamic republic and we now have a constitution. it didn’t last long and was dissolved in a military coup two years later by iskander mirza and ayub khan was made president. this began a long history of pakistan’s military coups and martial law’s.
after ayub came yahya, and yahya (another fellow who had martial law going) was the fellow in charge in 1971. a blemish amongst the many in the country’s history, 1971 was the year bangladesh was formed and east pakistan finished. the bangladesh liberation war as it is officially termed occurred and resulted in the hundreds of thousands of deaths of bengali’s, east pakistani’s and indians (bengali authorities claim that upto 3 million people were killed, whereas the official word from pakistan is as low as 26,000). as per the guinness book of world records, the atrocities of the bangladesh liberation are amongst the top 5 genocides ever. hear that? we’re right up there with the nazi’s and rwanda and cambodia.
after the war, bhutto was handed over power. and thus began the wonderful bhutto legacy that is still the ruin of the country today. to his credit, zulfikar ali bhutto was a man who had the ability to move the masses and speak to them like no other (do watch the entire clip, the last 30 seconds are worth it). he was arrogant and well educated. within a month of moving into office, he began nationalizing pretty much every thing possible. his government promulgated the Nationalization and Economic Reforms Order nationalizing 31 key industrial units. he said “I had made a pledge to the people of Pakistan to implement industrial reforms. I am now beginning to redeem the pledge”. it was indeed only a beginning, and big business was to receive successive jolts during his six years rule and paving the future of rubbish beauracratic government offices. leading industrialists went bankrupt overnight and were either put under house arrest or imprisoned. you can read more on the impact of the nationalization on the pakistan economy here. rest assured, had it not been for nationalization, pakistan would have a very different economic landscape today. oh by the way, he was also the father of pakistan’s nuclear arms program, another terrific waste of resources. bhutto was also the loser behind the farcical amendment in the constitution under pressure from the psycho fundo’s of the time to falsely reflect that the ahmadiyya are non-muslims and anyone claiming to be such would be tried and imprisoned on blasphemy charges.
our next martial law dictator soon follows. zia-ul-haque took over from bhutto in another coup and then later killed the guy for pretty much no particularly reason other than the fact that they didn’t get along very much. this guy pretty much setup the roots of islamic fundo’s that run rampant today in the country. he helped the americans setup and coordinate with the taliban to get the commie’s out of afghanistan. he screwed with the ahmediyya even more than bhutto. he’d cut your arm for theft and other insane sharia laws (flogging or stoning to death for adultery etc). being a shia was almost a sin while this guy was around. he made a ton of money embezzling in the trade of heroin and weapons through the afghan war but not much was evidenced against the guy as he had the media on a gag order too and tv, radio and print was heavily censored due to the fact that zia might have anyone reporting against him killed. his islamization got so bad that women were not allowed out in the evenings after maghrib nor could they be with any males who were not mahram. anyway after a brutal martial law which seemed to last forever, he died in a plane crash in 1988. rumour is that the americans took care of him for us.
after this, between ’88 and ’99 civilian rule resumed exchanging hands between benazir and nawaz. neither did a very good job of it. not much changed and not much happened during these times. aside from karachi. karachi became a mess with the mqm using the city as it’s personal playground. between 1994 and 1995 karachi was a battleground in a civil war between the mqm (I would link to mqm.org but apparently google don’t think it’s a wise idea to head there) and everyone else. operation clean up by the military was initiated and over 2000 people were killed in the city in the months during this cleanup. after, random corruption charges exchanged hands between nawaz and benazir. by 1999 nawaz in an attempt to dismiss the then chief of army (for his escapades in kargil, siachin and other kashmiri areas) failed to do so and general pervez musharraf became the next military ruler of pakistan in another coup. he exiled nawaz sharif to saudi arabia.
during musharraf’s reign, the economy improved significantly. he brought the people of the country out of the rut that they had been in since zia. for the most part the country and the people within were happy. they didn’t care too much who was in power as long as their lifestyles were improving. and they were. they weren’t supressed by his militancy. he opened up the media and improved the arts and culture and education sectors. he improved upon existing infrastructure. he did a lot. too bad he screwed up as well with the lawyers and the lal masjid scenario. his ratings plumetted and then things went downhill from there.
for some reason or the other the country figure they’d be better off having this guy around. what will happen tomorrow, we shall never know. there’s a good timeline here in case anyone is interested. happy 14th august everyone. wishing you a hearty independence from abbas and abbas.
what’s in a name? – the british edition July 27, 2009
Posted by Halai in brits, history, landmarks, roads.5 comments
as far as naming conventions go, karachi roads and landmarks have a lot to improve upon. since our colonial brothers left us with a wonderful legacy of british architecture and engineering, we have done very little to better ourselves. abbas’ post and comments inspired me to write this up.
first of all, let’s get the simple ones out of the way.
bandar road: (today named m. a. jinnah road, and if i have to tell you what the initials stand for i’m gonna beat you up first and then tell you) let it be known publicly and widely there are no monkey’s on this road, there never have been, and hopefully the only monkey’s around that will remain are the ones perched on the shoulder of the guy who makes them re-enact the bangladesh war and aptly naming them aalloo master all to the beat of a hand drum and random shouts of attaaaaaanshun. the word bandar comes from farsi and literally means a port or haven, combining the words of band for enclosed and dar for doorway. bandar road stretches all the way from quaid’s mazaar till tower (more on tower later).
following suit from there, same deal with kharadar. khara meaning salty, is due to the sea port that karachi is and historically has been. and similarly meetha dar. (there’s one in lahore too). meetha dar generally is a river port. they also refer to the old walled gates of the city of karachi which stood between the two modern neighborhoods at the time. the khara dar used to open it’s doors towards the arabian sea, and the meetha dar would open towards the grand liyari river.
behind zainab market (no clue who she was), is an area known usually and generally as elfy. the name of the road here used to be elphinstone street and just got short changed and is now called elfy by the general populace. more than likely, named after lord elphinstone. (for the torontonian’s reading this, one of the little streets intersecting it is also called dundas street). today the same road starting at (or what used to be) star cinema and going all the way to avari towers is called prince aga khan iii road.
same deal with a lot of other colonial roads which today are named something else altogether. macleod road is i.i. chundrigar (by the way full name ibrahim ismail chundrigar and has been a prime minister of pakistan for a grand total of two whole months). drigh road is shahra-e-faisal. believe it or not, this one is named after king faisal from saudi. god knows why. burns road was named after a smart fellow dr james burnes. napier road for charles napier (also aptly nicknamed the butcher of sindh, go read your history to learn more about that. on capturing the province of sindh in 1843, sir charles napier reported his triumph back to london with the single latin word “Peccavi”, meaning “I have sinned”. by the way, if you didn’t get that, that was a rather tasteless pun). today napier road recognizes him as hosting the red light district of the city.
so where were we. oh yeah, tower. for those not in the know, this is the mereweather tower memorial. and known to all bus drivers across the city as simply just tower. it’s essentially one of the focal points of the city where you have the intersection of bandar road, macleod road, kharadar, maulvi tamizuddin khan road, keamari road and mauripur road, and pretty much the starting and end point of the entire trucking industry of the entire country, i.e., the karachi port. (port qasim and gwadar have started taking a bit of the limelight lately, but this is the shining star of the lot).
many of the other historic area’s of karachi which were colonized generally remain in the core of the city, near or around saddar, garden, and clifton. reasons are fairly obvious, the further north you went, the city didn’t exist and urban sprawl didn’t get to the gulistan’s and north’s until much, much later (after the 60′s). the brits didn’t wander too far i suppose. you can see some fun photographs here if you’re bored enough. by the way, saddar is actually saddar town on paper. and is bordered by lyari town, jamshed town, keamari town, clifton cantonment, and the sea.
some of the fun buildings that the brits left us, the old kpt building, karachi grammar school (the school houses in kgs are named after charles napier, bartle frere and another two guys named streeton and papworth, but i got no what their first names are) , empress market, st. andrew’s church, frere hall (which by the way is the equivalent of sadequain’s sistine chapel, if you hadn’t heard of him prior to reading this, shame on you, oh and the building is named after this guy), and the sindh club.
for some of the most fascinating and in-depth research that i have found about the colonial history of the city you should go here. complete with images and wonderful writeups, the author has tried wonderfully to put together pieces of a puzzle which i’m sure people will be doing for a long time coming.
Xill-e-Ilahi
Halai
cymarizwankhan
Mystic
