Karachi: Queen of the East

Karachi: Queen of the East

ONCE THE DUST of Miani and Dabo had settled down, Prime Minister Peel and Leader of the Opposition Lord John Russell joined hands to accord Napier a unanimous Vote of Thanks in the British Parliament. Napier was also pleased to get a cash prize of 70,000 pound sterling. He now settled down for five years to implement Ellenborough's wish that ``in Scinde we must do all for futurity, we have to create an Egypt''. Said Napier: ``if any civilized man were asked, if you were a ruler of Scinde, what would you do, his answer would be, I would abolish the tolls on the river, make Karachi a free port, make Sukkur a mart on the Indus. I would make a truckway along its banks. I would get steam-boats.'' And that is precisely what he started out to do, beginning with the abolition of the river tolls.

He promptly called the Baluchi jagirdars, returned them their swords, and confirmed their jagirs. As a special favour, some of them were allowed to salute the picture of Queen Victoria, which was otherwise kept covered with a curtain from the gaze of commoners and retainers. He told them: ``Obey me! Do what you like --- rob, murder, anything I have not forbidden --- all things unless I have said `No'.'' And this is what they did --- obeying the British and, for the rest, being quite a law unto themselves.

The common Sindhi also promptly fell in line. For him the ``Laat Saheb'' (the Lord) and the ``Lendy Saheba ` (the Lady) soon became the ultimate in authority. When summoned to the presence, they would leave their shoes outside. The first question that an Englishman would generally ask of his visitor, was: ``Are you a badmash (bad character)?'' And the visitor would sheepishly admit both, his rascality and his obedience, by saying: ``We are sarkari badmashes.'' The ``Wadera'' --- the biggish zamindar --- the Bania, the Pir, and the ``Saheb'', white or brown, between them constituted the quadrangle of authority in Sindh.

Napier had promised mock-heroically to call engineers from all the three Presidencies to let the Indus waters flow into the Hindu area of Kutch via the Eastern Nara. But he soon realized that the fate of Kutch had been decided by an earthquake followed by the westward flow of the Indus --- and not by the Kalhoras' ``Allah Bund''. He, therefore, promptly set up a Canals Department to improve old canals and to dig new ones.

In another bid to impress the Hindus, the main gate of Jama Masjid in Ghazni was brought to India as ``the looted gate of Somnath''. However, the Hindu experts soon pronounced it as not genuine.

Napier had written off all the pre-1843 dues of the peasantry. He set up Sindh Police, which became a model for all other provinces.

Napier was particularly good in the administration of justice. His instructions were: ``Take what the people call justice, not what the laws call justice.'' He once heard the case of the Manchhar lake fishermen for three days and then decided that they shall give only three per cent of the catch as tax. He once recalled: ``Kardars and policemen, I smash by dozens. Against all evidence, I decide in favour of the poor.''

The only two discontented sections in the new set-up were the former Talpur rulers and their Hindu Amil (Kayasth) employees. The Talpurs had lost their power and the Amils, their top administrative jobs to the British. However, the Talpurs soon reconciled themselves to their jagirs and their pensions. And with the expansion of the administration and the economy, the Amils soon more than came into their own. (After Partition, Sir Patrick Cadell, a former Commissioner of Sindh, wrote to Pir Ali Mohammed Rashdi, the Pakistan, Minister of Information and Broadcasting that he considered the Amils of Sindh the best of administrators, who shone in all fields. No wonder, of the fourteen Sindhis --- all Hindus --- who entered the ICS, twelve were Amils.)

All this impressed --- and was meant to impress --- the Punjab, which was now going to piece under ``Sikha-shahi'' --- and getting ripe to fall into the British lap.

However, Napier was much more than the first British ruler of Sindh. He was an empire-builder with a great vision. ``What the Kohinoor is among diamonds, India is among nations Were I emperor of India for twelve years, she should be traversed by railroads and have her rivers bridged; her seat of government at Delhi or Meerut or Simla or Allahabad. No Indian Prince should exist. The Nizam should be no more heard of. Nepaul should be ours and an ague fit should become the courtly imperial (Turkish) sickness at Constantinople, while the emperor of Russia and he of China should never get their pulses below 100 !

``Would that I were King of India, I should make Muscowa and Pekin shake. Were I King of England, T would, from the Palace of Delhi, thrust forth a clenched fist in the teeth of Russia and France. England's fleet should be all in the West and the Indian Army all in the East.''

However, with all his qualities, Napier was more a warrior than an administrator or a builder. After he left in 1850, Sindh was attached to the Bombay Presidency, with Sir Bartle Frere as its first Commissioner. Frere was shocked to find ``not a mile of bridged or metalled road, not a masonry bridge of any kind not five miles of any cleared road, not a single Dak Bungalow, Serai, Dharamsala or district Kutchery, not a courthouse, lock- up, police station or office of any kind, no district boundaries not even a list of villages, no survey, no settlement''.

Though only 35 at the time, Frere turned out to be the best administrator of Sindh during the British century. In nine brief years, 1850--1859, he quite changed the face of Sindh. In 1853 he gave Sindh its first English school. In 1858 he saw the Sindd Railway Co. start work on the Karachi-Hyderabad railway track He got Lt. Fife, an engineer, to submit a plan that eventually found consummation in the great Sukkur Barrage, turning Sindh into a surplus province. The Barrage hurt the old inundation canals. But the general prosperity even reduced the crime rate in the province.

Frere organized a trade fair in Karachi that attracted not only all India but also Central Asia. Frere also persuaded the Viceroy to get ships coming from England to halt at Karachi, before they reached Bombay --- something the British East India Company bad refused. With this, Karachi, described by Napier as ``the Queen of the East'', blossomed into a really great metropolis of the world. Today one of the Sindhi grouses against refugees in Sindh is that they do not even know how to pronounce the name of the great city. They call it ``Kaaraachi'' or ``Kirainchi'' --- anything but good old ``Karachi''.

General Jacob disciplined and developed the northern-most Sindh so well that the area was named after him as the Jacobabad district. Likewise, Parker did so well in south-east Sindh that the district of Thar was renamed Thar Parker.

Frere also decided on a script for Sindhi --- and then recognized it as the language of administration at the lower levels. Why, he even gave Sindh the honour of the first postage stamp in all India, the ``Scinde District Dawk'', 1852.

When the 1857 Great Revolt erupted, Sher Mohammed Khan of Mirpur Khas did give the British a good fight --- and he was blown from cannon-mouth at Rambagh in Karachi. Next Darya Khan Jakhrani, whom Napier had tried to win over with a jagir, was expelled to Aden for his role in the Great Revolt. But, for the rest, Sindh was so peaceful that Frere had sent all the British troops to help in the north.

Frere later rose to be governor of Bombay and, later still, member of the Viceroy's Executive Council. In that capacity he contributed to the formulation of high policy. Lord Lawrence's Punjab School wished to consolidate India into a homogeneous unitary state. Their slogan was: ``Back to the Indus''. Sir Frere's Sindh School of thought appreciated the diversity of India. They favoured a loosely knit system that could be advantageously extended to Central Asia, at any rate until India obtained a sound strategic frontier. While the Punjab School was for caution, the Sindh School favoured a Forward Policy. In 1876, Frere ordered the occupation of Quetta and posted Agents in Herat and Kandhar in Afghanistan.

Not all Commissioners were as good as Frere. One of them, G.A. Thomas, was so stiff-necked that the Sind Observer dubbed him as ``God Almighty'' Thomas. However, the British rule was institutional and not personal. And there was no doubt about its general direction. In the hundred-odd years the British ruled Sindh, they gave it roads and railways, canals and bridges, schools and hospitals, ideas and ideals that changed the face of the province from medieval to modern.

Napier had said: ``Karachi, you will yet be the glory of the East! Would that I could come alive again to see you. Karachi, in your grandeur!'' Napier would indeed have been delighted to see the glory of Karachi in just another fifty years. The first college in Sindh was set up in Karachi, though most of the students came from Hyderabad because, as Rishi Dayaram put it: ``Karachi is more important than Sindh.''

Sadhbela Island Temple

Rabindranath Tagore described Hyderabad as ``the most fashionable city in India''. Shikarpur became the banker of Central Asia --- and when revolution overtook Russia, it became the banker of southern India. The sight of the Sindhu at Sukkur --- with the island of Zindah Pir above, the island of Bakhar supporting the Lansdowne Bridge, in the middle, the Sadhbela island-temple, and the Sukkur Barrage with its seven canals below --- is one of the great sights of natural and man-made beauty in the world. Pax Britannica, with all its faults, helped the businessmen of Hyderabad and Shikarpur to bring 2.5 crore rupees annually to Sindh --- at a time when the province's annual budget was only five crores. In the words of Pir Ali Mohammed Rashdi, ``But for Naoomal's treachery, the Sindhi Muslims would still be riding horses and camels, and the Sindhi Hindus, donkeys and mules.''

However, perhaps the greatest gifts of the British were modern education and equality for all, whether Hindu or Muslim. Under the Muslim rule, the Hindus had been forbidden to ride horses, to hold land, or to join the army. In 1843, the Hindus, who were 25 per cent of the population, did not hold even one acre of land; in 1947 they held 40 per cent of the land. Even the son of a milk-vender in Shikarpur, one Mathuradas, could become ``Mathrani, ICS''. When the first Sindhi --- H. K. Kripalani --- was selected for ICS, his primary school-teachers turned out to pull his carriage out of sheer joy.

However, it was not the British system by itself that produced these results. It was the excellent local response that made real what otherwise was only potential.

Among the Muslims, the Agha Khan and Mohammed Ali Jinnah, born in Sindh, made themselves famous in politics. Mirza Kalich Beg became a pillar of education, administration and literature. Hassan Ali Effendi started the madrassa in Karachi that produced what little the Sindhi Muslim middle class there was. G. M. Bhurgri became the first Sindhi barrister.

The Hindus of course produced a whole galaxy of great men, in the tradition of Gidumal, Awatrai and Naoomal. Those were the days when it took four months to sail from Karachi to Bombay. (This was hardly to be wondered at in the pre-steamship days; why, even Clive, on two of his three trips to India, had his ship drift away all the way to South America!) The first four matric students --- Chuharmal Punjabi, Navalrai Advani, Dayaram Jethmal and Kauromal Khilnani --- found it so trying that only the first one passed the examination. However, the British were understanding. They encouraged even the non-matriculates with employment. And what a name they made! Dayaram Jethmal became a leading lawyer. He helped finance D.J. Sind College --- which bears his name --- with many Hindus contributing a month's salary for the college. Navalrai founded the great school that today bears his and his brother Hiranand's name --- N.H. Academy. Kauromal (1844 --- 1916) discovered Sami's Shlokas that made the latter the third great poet of Sindh --- along with Shah and Sachal. Kauromal also presided over teachers' training and put new life in Sahiti in central Sindh.

Rishi Dayaram

Chuharmal became the first Sindhi graduate, and Tarachand, the first Sindhi doctor. Sadhu Hiranand edited the first Sindhi magazines, Sind Times and Sind Sudhar. And Kanwal Singh brought out the first Sindhi daily paper, Sindhvasi (1914). However, the greatest Sindhi of the British period --- if we leave out politics --- was Rishi Dayaram. Dayaram, son of Gidumal Shahani (not to be confused with Gidumal of Kalhora-Talpur days, who gave his name to Gidvanis) was varily the Yuga Purush of Sindh. He represented the brightest and the best of Sindh during the British period.

Dayaram (1857--1927) rose to he a great district and sessions judge But his real work lay outside the court. In addition to helping set up D.J. Sind College, he got his brother Metharam to donate one thousand guineas to construct the huge Metharam Hostel in Karachi. His Trust donated one lakh rupees to set up D.G. National College, Hyderabad.

Dayaram helped set up the Nari Shala, where widows could spend their time reading Guru Granth Saheb and doing social work. He campaigned against the ``Seven Sins against our Girls''. These were: piercing their arms and face with needles for tatoo marks; not letting them go to school or play games; burdening them with long rows of ivory bangles; childhood marriage; mothers-in-law's harassment; child-motherhood; death in delivery -- followed by quick re-marriage of the man. He waged a war on dowry system (Deti-Leti), got the panchayat to fix 500 rupees as the maximum. He himself set an example when, at his daughter Rukmani's wedding feast he served only papad and sherbet (The Radha Swamis of Agra persuaded the Sindhi women to replace armfuls of ivory bangles by just one or more gold bangles.) Dayaram took three months' leave to serve the plague victims. He saved 800 orphans from the clutches of missionaries. during the same period.

D J Sind College

His father, Gidumal, spent seven years in Hardwar, studying Sanskrit. He came back and taught it to Brahmin boys in Sindh When the boys argued that, as Brahmins, they should be seated at a higher plane than himself, a mere Amil (Kayasth), he smiled and gave them higher seats. He even gave them stipends. Son Dayaram put up a nice building for this Sanskrit Pathshala in Hyderabad.

Dayaram got 1120 rupees a month, of which he spent only 150 rupees, giving the rest in charity. He would not so much as spend a few annas on a mirror; he tied his turban before his window glass-pane. He even set up an insurance company and a provident fund and studied and encouraged homeopathy.

As a judge, Dayaram was superb. When a businessman, Seth Mewaldas of Shikarpur, committed rape, he sentenced him to seven years in jail, even though the Seth was a very popular man. Another famous case he decided was that of Huzuri. This ``religious'' leader was accused of murder. His defence was that he murdered his victim on Allah s orders (Alhaam). Dayaram sentenced him for life, the accused's ``Alhaam'' notwithstanding.

However, the most important case he decided was that of Jama Masjid of Ahmedabad. The trustees of the mosque were selling bits of land belonging to the mosque and pocketing the money. The Imam went to court. The case had gone on for 12 years. When, however, Dayaram was appointed district judge, he heard the case continuously for twelve days, studied all the Persian documents and ordered all alienated lands restored to the mosque. He had his order written, not on paper, but on cloth, for long life. Said the Imam years later: ``The way Dayaram conducted the case, I felt as if the Prophet himself was sitting in the judge's chair.'' When Lord Curzon met Dayaram he greeted him thus: ``Learned Judge, we know your abilities.''

Dayaram's Life of Bahramji, Malabari, the well-known Parsi social reformer and philanthropist, carried a Foreword by no less a person than Florence Nightingale.

A deeply religious man, Dayaram spent his evenings with Bhai Kalachand and Bhai Moolchand Giani, two saintly personages. Another friend of his was Bawa Gurpat Saheb of the Gur Mandir in Hyderabad. Dayaram could read the Gita in Sanskrit the Koran in Arabic, and the Bible in Hebrew.

At this time --- 1878 --- a great controversy rocked Sindh. Tharoo, a Hindu young man with wife and children fell in love with a Muslim girl and embraced Islam to marry her. When ``Sheikh Tharoo'' lost his Muslim wife, he wished to return to his family and became a Hindu.

A Shuddhi ceremony was accordingly performed. But Showkiram Advani (father of Navalrai and Hiranand), who had succeeded Awatrai as Mukhi, refused. In vain did Awatrai, Gidumal, Bawa Gurpat Saheb argue with him. As a result the Hyderabad panchayat split. The two sides even gave themselves separate shmashans (burning ghats). The whole thing dismayed all thinking Hindus. Showkiram had four sons. Three of them died childless. The fourth, Hiranand, had three daughters, two of whom died in childhood, and the third, Lachhmi, died childless. People attributed the withering away of Showkiram's family to the displeasure of Bawa Gurpat Saheb over the ``Sheikh Tharoo'' case.

Nor did Dayaram confine his public work to Sindh. He got 100 acres of land in Dharampur near Simla and set up a T.B. sanatorium there. Lord Hardinge praised the effort. He established Seva Sadan at Bandra in Bombay. He also set up Shanti Ashram Library in Amritsar in 1925 and handed it over to the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, which, in its wisdom, renamed it as Guru Ramdas Library.

Dayaram toured the country and exchanged notes with Bankim Chandra Chatterji, Devendranath Tagore, Col. Olcott of the Theosophical Society, and Mahatma Hansraj and Dyal Singh Majithia in Lahore. He regularly sent financial aid to Tagore's Santiniketan and to Jagdis Chandra Bose for his research. He set up Metharam Dharmada Trust for all his properties, in the name of his elder brother. Towards the end he observed a year of maun, (absolute) silence. During this period Gandhiji went to see him, but he begged to be excused --- and to be helped to maintain his maun vrat. He wrote to his son Kewalram Shahani on 11 October, 1927 that his diary was an experiment with truth. Three years later, when Gandhiji wrote his autobiography at the instance of Jairamdas he also titled it My Experiments with Truth. Dayaram now came to be known as a Rishi.

It was men such as these who made a small province like Sindh great --- and prepared the ground for the cultural revival and the freedom movement in Sindh.