Times of tolerance: Good old days of Lyari remembered

Karachi

Journalists and residents of Lyari gathered at the Karachi Press Club on Friday evening and recounted the good old days when Lyari was a haven of tolerance and peace and there were no inter-religious or sectarian feuds, no gang wars and no internecine rivalries.

The occasion was the launch of the book, “Lyari Ki Adhoori Kahani”, by journalist and writer Ramzan Baloch.

Prof Dr Tauseef, who compered the proceedings, spoke of Lyari’s secular character and the spirit of religious and ethnic tolerance that has always been an outstanding feature of the locality.

Noted trade union leader Usman Baloch said, “We are all proud of being from Lyari.”

Speaking of the tolerance that prevailed in the area, he said no male ever insulted or tormented a woman in the area, which spoke volumes for its tolerance. He said that in the days when the houses didn’t have individual water supply and taps, there were communal taps, and people of all religions and sects came and got their water supply from these. Never once was there any feuding or bickering. It was a picture of tolerance.

“Today”, he said, “Lyari is broken, its society fractured.”

Ahmed Iqbal, while recounting the tolerant character of the locality, said Lyari was the “mother of Pakistan and its provinces”. He said the character of tolerance of the locality was still there amid all the mayhem that was taking place in the rest of the city around it.

Noted journalist Nadir Shah Adil said Ramzan Baloch was “our link” with Lyari. He said that when the rest of the city was burning, Lyari was absolutely calm and peaceful.

He said poverty was the source of all crime and mayhem and

queried as to how it was that despite the poverty, the Lyariites did not take up arms and remained peaceful.

Author Ramzan Baloch, replying to all the tributes in a very modest tone, said, “There’s no professionalism in my book. It is popular because I have recalled the good old days of Lyari and compared things with the terribly stifling atmosphere today.” 

Lyari, he said, was not divorced from Karachi. Lyari’s image of peace, secularism and awakening, he said, was ruined as the mayhem in Karachi spread.

“Secularism is deemed to be a big fault of the Lyariites,” said noted journalist Siddiq Baloch. He reminded the gathering that once Lyari had community police, a system, he said, was broken up on the formation of the One-Unit in 1955. 

He said Lyari had been the focus of political activity even before partition and all political leaders of the subcontinent, be they Gandhi, Nehru or the Quaid-e-Azam, all addressed public meetings in the area.

Prof Tauseef, in his tribute to Ramzan Baloch, praised him for taking an absolutely neutral view of things and in this context mentioned Baloch’s endorsement of Ayub Khan’s Basic Democracies system and his family laws which, he said, protected the rights of women.