Whispers Beneath the Sand
Much like the waves of Karachi’s coastline – sometimes overwhelmed
by Monsoon seas and sometimes stretched out alongside winter’s gentle ripple,
the stories of this city appear and disappear with few traces.
Who were the community of people whose flint tools from 2
million years ago were found on Mulri Hills opposite the University of Karachi,
now buried under an apartment block? Why were stone megaliths erected in
circles on the outskirts of Karachi? And more importantly, how have they
survived for so long?
Why was such a harbor so perfectly sheltered from the
Arabian sea by the Manora peninsula not a thriving sea port in ancient times? Or
was it? Mentions of what is today Karachi go back to at least the 3rd
C BC Krokola, Monrontobara, Kharacchi,
Rasal Karazi, Kaurashi, Karachar, Kalaiti Bunder, Ramaia, Kolachi,
Kurrachee. But tantalizingly no more than names remains, except for the famous
story of the seven sons of Aubhayo six of whom were caught in a whirlpool off
Clifton called Kulachi jo kun and swallowed by a whale. The remaining son who
was disabled had a metal cage designed, lowering himself into the whirlpool
where he not only killed the whale but removed the bodies of his brothers from
its belly. The graves still exist at the busy crossing of Gulbai ( or kul
bhai), once surrounded by lofty date palms that were removed by an
aesthetically challenged city official.
The first written account of the establishment of Karachi is
found in the memoirs of Seth Naomal Hotchand, the great grandson of a Hindu
trader Seth Bhojomal, who moved a group of traders to Karachi in 1729, after the
port, Karak Bandar, on the far side of Hub River, silted up making it difficult
for trading boats to navigate to and from Muscat and Iran. Just twenty five km away lay the perfect port
of Karachi naturally protected by deep mangroves, and with access to the
Arabian Sea. However, the new town was
walled into a mud fort, mounted with guns suggesting there was need for
protection. – from whom?
Local tribes seem to have taken an interest in Karachi’s
fortunes only after the town was established in the mid-18th
century. However, the area has been at the edge of regional adventurism since
at least 500 BC coming into the sway of the Achaemenid Empire, Alexander’s
expeditions, Maurya, Indo Greek, Scythian, Parthian, Kushan, Sassanian, the
Khilfats of the Umayyad, and Abbassi, Dynasties of Tahiri, Saffarid, Ghaznavi,
Ghori, Safavid, Mughal , and in between the sweep of Mongol invasions. Little is
known of the impact on what is now Karachi. But one can exercise poetic license
and imagine emissaries, and tax collectors, and the rumble of discontent.
This fugitive history had little meaning for the East India
Company, who by the time they arrived in Sindh, had already annexed large parts
of India from Calcutta westwards. Having embarked on the disastrous attempt to
control Afghanistan, to prevent the expansion of Russia, they lost face,
emptied the coffers and were nervous of consequent rebellions inside India.
Enter Sir Charles Napier.
History remembers him as the conqueror of Sindh. We learn
more about Charles Napier, the man, from letters to his mother. A soldier’s
soldier, who had no desire for war, he was nevertheless an unflinching
strategist, a problem solver. If that required war, he would not shy away from
it. The veteran of Napoleonic and
American wars, he said “War is natural to me but I love it not. I hate to
destroy.”
Highly critical of the incompetence of his employers the
East India company who “had rushed with
such ostentation of power and boasting to an unjust war sunk under the
calamity, and the public partook of its weakness”, he was also aware “the sword
of invasion is not pleasant to draw”.
Asked at the age of 59 to fight a war better suited to a man
of 39, he succeeded in conquering Sindh at the Battle of Miani. His strategy:
“My wish is to be left quiet a little while each day, to obtain an insight of
Indian wars history and country ; for knowledge
and thought only can enable us to act wisely in such positions.” He had
more respect for his seasoned native soldiers than fellow British officers
“youngsters who make curry, drink champagne and avoid the sun”.
Although Admiral Maitland in command of HMS Wellesley
formally occupied Karachi on 7 February 1939, and Sir Charles Napier was only
expected to stop the rebellion, he took it upon himself to take charge of
Karachi, a town of “miserable mud villages with a population of robbers, all
filth and poverty and misery”. He wanted
to “show government how very important a place it may become and how to make it
so.” His dream was to turn Karachi into the Star of Asia.
He created a water supply system, developed roads and
sanitation, created a modern police force, and developed the port with docks
and a causeway to Keamari. He built Napier Barracks for the military and
installed a Lighthouse on Manora. The
Obelisk at the end of Karachi’s Port
Grand marks the spot from where he left Karachi in 1847, a mere four years
after he took charge, and a hundred years later, Karachi was declared the
capital of Pakistan.
In between, his successor Bartle Frere, and the many
illustrious mayors like Jamshed Nusserwanji Mehta and Harichandrai Vishandas,
fulfilled his vision, attracting entrepreneurs from Gujrat, Parsees, and Goans
as well as British businesses. India’s first airport was established in Karachi
along with India’s first Telegraph connection.
Where Napier could see the future of Karachi, he, like so
many who came after, was unaware of or had forgotten its past. It was clearly
more than miserable mud villages. The only remnants that survive are the temples and shrines. At the time of
the British conquest there were 34 temples, 21 Mosques, 13 shrines dotted all
over the area beyond the walled fort. Who were the people who visited a 1500
year old Hindu temple dedicated to Punjmukhi Hanuman? What brought learned
Muslims Sufis from across the Muslim world-
the 8th, 9th and 10th century shrines
of Syed Noor Ali Shah, Abdullah Ghazi and Yousuf Shah Ghazi, Pir Hasan Ghazi
Shah and Pir Sakhi Sultan Mangopir in the 13 C? Who were the devotees that
visited these temples and shrines? Some suggest the many mounds of Karachi may
hide dwellings of the past.
With each decade Karachi continues to forget – forget its
reputation as the cleanest city of the east, as the city of cinemas and
entertainment, as the city of peaceful entrepreneurship and generous
philanthropy.
As we emerge from the trauma of the last three decades,
Karachi is trying to remember once more and wrest away its history from those
who would tear down its buildings, its stories and its future.
Durriya Kazi
Nov 2025
Karachi
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