Karachi has a unique distinction of an altogether new city rapidly growing out of almost nothing in 1860’s by flocking of British, Anglo-Indians, Gujrati, Parsee, and Goanese traders and service men, mostly from the then Bombay and Calcutta, to setup new businesses in an otherwise small fishing town, in a matter of few years. (The fact that this was coincidentally triggered by the US Civil War is another discussion). In a virgin ground, this new community brought the tolerant, liberal and essentially a competitive trading culture in whole scale from Bombay and implanted in this clone city. This all embracing entrepreneurial and, as Mazhur has aptly put it, the gharib parwar environment, providing a land of opportunity for all and sundry thrived for about 100 years and its few remnants could well be seen till late 1960’s. Mazhur sahib may perhaps recall those good old days in Karachi when most of the streets of its Saddar area in the evenings used to ring with the sounds of dance and songs played unhindered by Goanese Christian boys and girls on their guitars and organs. In the mornings the door steps of Hindu & Parsee homes were splashed with coloured chalk patterns of rangulis. I recall witnessing these diverse multicultural sights in Karcahi in early 1970’s.
The Tsunami of human migration in the wake of the founding of Pakistan in 1947 bringing in hordes of mostly Urdu & Gujrati speaking population from India set the stage for a sea change to come in Karachi. Yet the cultural life of Karachi that was established for about one hundred years still survived this first onslaught. Then a constant stream of internal migration from Punjab and Pukhtoon lands started that was augmented by those coming from rural Sindh from 1970’s has led the city population to swell to present estimates of a behemoth of about 17 million souls, ranking it as the second largest city in the world, if the estimates are correct. Finally, the already fragile but tolerant ‘social contract’, the ‘’consensus’ among key stakeholders of the city has been completely shattered, giving way to a deepening political and social conflict, giving rise to criminal ‘gang wars’, mayhem, and endless strife. The city is fast consuming itself in this cauldron of conflict.