Story of Karachi

Karachi (˜ÑÇ�í) is a city in Pakistan on the east coast of the Arabian Sea and to the north-west of the Indus river. It is the capital of the province of Sindh and the largest settlement in Pakistan with a population over 13 million people. It is considered to be the 16th biggest city of the world.

History

The area that now consists of Karachi was originally a group of small villages including Kalachi-jo-Kun and the fort of Manora.Any history of Karachi prior to the 19th century is essentially non existant, although some legends state that it was the city called Krokola from which one of Alexander the Great’s admirals sailed at the end of his conquests.

Some historians claim that Karachi was the ancestrol village of the port Debal and hence it sould be called the gateway of Islam (the door that brought Islam to South Asia). But this theory couldn’t be proven. Also there are some people who claim that the city called Krokola from which one of Alexander the Great’s admirals sailed at the end of his conquests, was the same is Karachi. These theories couldn’t be proven so we state the history of Karachi from the 18th century when it was just a small village of fishermen. It was called Kolachi jo goth which means thevillage of Kolachi.

To some people Kolachi means fisherman but many historians agree that it was the name of an elderly woman who came here with her family and settled here. This family later grew into a tribe and formed the village of Kolachi. Today there is a road in the city named after the mother of this city Mai Kolachi.

After some time Khan of Kallat took over the city. Karachi the village was now a trade port to Bahrain and Muscat. In the following years a fort was built and cannons brought in from Muscat were mounted on it. The fort had two doorways, one facing the sea called the Khara Darwaza or Brackish Gate and one facing the River Lyari called the Meetha Darwaza or Sweet Gate. The fort was destroyed and so were the original gates but still the old city area has two neighborhoods, Kharadar and Meethadar. There are two gates used as entrance to these areas. These gates were build over the remainings of ancient gates.

In 1790 Mir of Talpur seized this village from Khan of Kallat. The village thentransformed into a bustling trade hub. The population had reached to more than 10,000. There was nothing much at Karachi until the Mirs of Talpur seized it from the Khan of Kalat in 1795 and constructed a mud fort at Manora. Under its protection, a small town grew up, whose population had reached 13,000 by 1818. Not much happened thereafter until 1st February 1839, when a British ship - the Wellesley - anchored off Manora. Two days later the little fort surrendered without a shot being fired on either side. The fickle finger of fate had suddenly shoved the sleepy back-water towards becoming a megalopolis, a world city.

The settlement was remote and swampy, isolated by hundreds of miles of bleak desert in every direction but the sea. Nonetheless, within four years, the capital of Sind was transferred there and building began in earnest. By 1847 the Napier Barracks (now governinent offices) were completed. A census next year showed that the population had already reached 50,000. The filth and squalor proliferated, everything became plastered with smelly black mud from the mangrove swamps, so a Municipal Committee was formed to levy funds and provide public utilities. In 1848 the municipality’s income was Rs.6,000; in 1849 it was Rs.18,000 and in 1850, Rs.27,000 - an increase reflecting the mind-boggling population explosion.

The committee laid out a whole network of roads, named after itselt; in what is now Central Karachi. Preedy Street was named after the Revenue Commissioner; MeLeod Road after the Collector of Customs and so on. Even in those days Karachi had a traffic problem. There were so many carts and carriages that the
roads had to be paved with gravel chippings (an unheard of refinement, way ahead of London.) The streets were watered daily by municipal bullock carts, to damp down the dust. As revenues increased, public works were undertaken on a
grand scale. Frere Hall (a museum and library) was finished in 1865, Mereweather Clock Tower in 1867, Boulton Market in 1883, Empress Market in 1889... The town turned into a city.

As people poured in, the drinking water problem, always difficult, became acute. There is no natural source of water in Karachi; all water consumed there must be fetched from somewhere else. Last century, water drawn from the Indus was brought by camel train to the cantonment. The wealthier merchants sent mule
carts to the sweetwater springs in nearby Clifton. Less fortunate people bought drinking water from municipal watercarriers until household pipes could be laid. Though provision proceeded apace, demand has always been ahead of supply. Karachi’s poor, in places like Korangi, are still waiting for safe drinking water.

At the turn of the century a public tram service commenced from Saddar (the cantonment) to the new harbour at Kiamari. The horses wore straw hats to avoid sunstroke and water for them was provided by the philanthropic "Drinking Trough Society of Karachi." The troughs can still be seen here and there in the city.

Modernising the harbour commenced in 1860, proceeding by fits and starts. By 1882 the Mereweather Pier was completed and pilgrims for Mecca no longer had to embark at Manora. By 1900, Karachi was one of the the biggest and best outfitted ports in the world. Nonetheless, it continued to be troubled by the plague and the plague until the sanitation system was completed, just after the first World War. The war itself brought immense prosperity to Karachi’s merchants. Clifton’s promenade, pier and park were gifted to the city by Sir Jehangir H. Kothari OBE in 1919. The complex Cost Rs.300,000 to build, an absolute fortune in those days. Other public parks, including the Zoological Gardens on Garden Road were laid out at this time. Even more new roads and buildings were constructed in the interwar period. As the population approached the quarter million mark, those who could moved out to the suburbs, building houses in a style best described as "South Asian Hollywood." commuting arrived with a vengeance and one of the world’s first rapid transit systems was inaugurated.

A famous quote about Karachi attributed to Charles Napier is "One day it will be the Queen of the East" and another one, "Would that I could come again to see you in your grandeur!".

Napier’s quote would prove prophetic, as it was during British rule that Karachi would grow as it’s harbor was developed. The buildings of Karachi attracted Goan cooks, Anglo-Indian bartenders, Sikh bricklayers, and Chinese washermen. Parsi, Hindu and Jain merchants came from Gujarat and Rajasthan. Until Partition, their camel caravans regularly crossed the Thar. The Parsis built a Tower of Death out at Korangi. A few of the merchants’ big mansions still remain downtown. The Lebanese community became sizeable. People of African descent can also be seem in and around Karachi. Tradition has it, they escaped from a shipwrecked Arab slaver at the mouth of the Hub River (hence their nickname ’hubshi").

In 1876, the founder of Pakistan, Muhammed Ali Jinnah was born in the city, and he would later be buried there. Karachi by now was a city with railroads, churches, paved streets, courts and many commercial centers and a magnificent harbour that was built by the British. Many of these buildings were built in classical British style, and contrast with the "Mughal Gothic" of Lahore. Many of these old buildings continue to stand, and are interesting destinations for visitors.


Jhonny’s Karachi in 1930.

Johnny Stores refers to a stall on Elphinstone Street (now Zaib-un-Nissa street) run by a man named Jankidas in the 1930s and 1940s. Commonly known as Janki, British soldiers changed this to "Johnny." Johnny Stores used to sell toffees, sweets, chewing gum, pencils, pens, battery cells, and other odds and ends. It also sold nicely printed black-and-white postcards of Karachi that may have been photographed by someone else.


Another attraction in Karachi was West Wharf where steam ships anchored specially for Hajis. According to Mr. Miskeen Mughal, Karachites volunteered to help and assist pilgrims from railway station to the pilgrim’s camp and then to the wharf. Same volunteers helped pilgrims on their way back home after the Haj. Pilgrims from all over india floaked to Karachi during the season and added more hustle bustle into Karachi’s already bustling lifestyle.


With the 20th century, Karachi began to grow even more diverse with workers from all over South Asia and the British empire arriving.

In 1947, Karachi would be made the capital of the new nation of Pakistan. At that time Karachi was only a city of 400,000, and it’s growth accelerated. At Partition, Hindus, Armenians and Jews left the city en masse. Muslim refugees from India, calling themselves Mohajir, migrated in by train, boat, air, truck, even on foot. It is not known how many millions arrived. Karachi, new capital of a new country, was so pushed for space that its government servants had to sleep in the public parks and gardens in tents!

The Mohajir further diversify the ethnic mix of the city. Many English stayed on, their ranks now depleted by age. Vintage couples can be spotted at their usual watering holes, the Metropole Hotel and the statelier clubs in the early evening.

Subsequent decades have seen the influx unabated. The Karachi Development Authority instituted the upgrading of amenities on a massive scale: new housing colonies, public buildings, roads, schools, colleges, markets, bazaars, business centres, to keep pace with development needs. Cycle rickshaws have now been replaced by thousands of scooter-rickshaws.

Although the capital was later move to Rawalpindi and then Islamabad, Karachi remained the economic center of Pakistan, accounting for a large portion of the GNP of the nation.

After Pakistan’s civil war in 1971, thousands of Biharis (Urdu-speaking Muslims from Bangladesh) arrived by boat. In the 1980s Afghan refugees joined migrant workers from the Frontier who have laboured as dockworkers and porters for decades. Meanwhile, "economic refugees" from Pakistan’s less developed areas, like Gilgit, Chitral and Hunza head for Karachi in search of jobs. The original Sindhi speaking population is now a minority in the city.

Gas supply lines from Sui in Baluchistan were laid, the Hub Dam Scheme extended the Greater Karachi Water Project and the Circular Railway was completed. In the 1960s, two huge industrial areas were built, at Sind Industrial Estate and Landhi and in the 1970s three more: the Export Processing Zone, Pakistan Steel Mills Complex and Muhammad Bin Qasim Container Port. In the following decade, work on KANUPP, Karachi’s nuclear power station, was inaugurated. Industrial growth has been spectacular.

Original home of Pakistan’s film and music industries, Karachi in the 1980s made more films and exported them to more countries than Hollywood. It houses the very latest in modern technology. The city works and sleeps in a haze of brick dust as buildings barely 30 years old are relentlessly torn down and replaced with something more up to date. The population of seven, maybe eight, million now extends over several hundred square kilometres along the coast and into the desert, residing in modern apartment blocks, prestigious cooperative housing societies called "Colonies", seaside mansions and sprawling shanty towns on the outskirts, areas of such appalling poverty that it is difficult to see how residents will ever be extricated from their plight. Working 16 hours a day, poor youths toil like slaves, earning a pittance to produce elegant costume for the city’s elite.


Piles of rubble surround new homes, hotels and condominiums. Limousines and rickshaws alike must pick their way through scaffolding jungles as artisans with age old skills produce ever more new buildings. Sometimes these are exquisite, and Karachi’s modern architecture is the showcase of Asia.

In the last 20 years, Karachi has continued to grow, passing the ten million mark. It is a city of diverse neighborhoods, ranging from the upscale Clifton and Defense areas to numerous slums that are home to the large numbers of migrants who have flocked to Karachi in search of opportunities.

Karachi is also plagued by crime, and is not immune from numerous ethnic conflicts that continue to rock Pakistan. Karachi was the epicenter of numerous ethnic conflicts during the 1980’s, and continues to see a lot of religious violence between Sunnis and Shias.


-----
collected from various websites

-----