Cradling hands no more!

The hands that cradled, nurtured and protected the helpless unwanted babies for nearly five decades are no more, though the jhoolas placed by the great humanitarian at the Edhi Homes across the country are still there. Bilquis Bano Edhi left for her heavenly abode on April 15, 2022 in Karachi at the age of 74, leaving behind a great legacy of helping and protecting those infants, who were either killed or abandoned even by their blood relations.

Bilquis Edhi, affectionately called ‘Mummy’ by the Edhi Foundation staff as well as her thousands of children, took over the jhoola project soon after her marriage in 1965. The marriage bestowed nothing of the customary upon her - she got not only a husband, an ordinary one or the monotonous - but a munificent mentor, his benevolence Edhi Sab – the great humanitarian, philanthropist and ascetic, who had founded the Edhi Foundation. The initiative was launched in Karachi initially to help those parents, who could not afford raising their babies, or did not want to keep them for any reasons.

However, when the incidents of discovery of new-borns’ bodies from roadside garbage dumps, dark alleys and other such points, increased in Karachi and other major urban centres in 1990s and afterwards, the ‘Mother of Pakistan’ also intensified her war against infanticide with her jhoola ‘weapon’. She got placed hundreds of jhoolas at Edhi Foundation centres across Pakistan. “The sight of bodies of such infants, eaten by dogs and rats, always caused intense pain to me,” BilquisEdhi once told the writer during a visit to Edhi Home in Gulberg area of Lahore.

According to Edhi Foundation estimates, over 42,000 unwanted babies have been provided with their right to live through the jhoola initiative, so far. The jhoolas [cradles] placed outside all Edhi Homes make a passionate appeal in writing to all such parent[s] who do not want to keep their new-borns: “Do not kill, leave the baby to live in the cradle”.

The campaign against infanticide by the mother of orphans BilquisEdhi did not go unnoticed by the world. She was awarded the Hilal-e-Imtiaz by Pakistan, the Lenin Peace Prize by Russia, the Mother Teresa Memorial International Award for Social Justice, as well as the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service.

Her services were recognised again by the world in 2021 when she was declared the ‘Person of two Decades’, along with UN rapporteur on human rights Prof Yanghee Lee, and the US ethicist Stephen Soldz, by an international organisation in the course of the 1st bidecadal round-up review of the 21sr century.

As per the domino effect verdict, announced by the Britain-based Impact Hallmarks [IH] in January 2021, BilquisEdhiwas declared the most impactful person of the first two decades of the 21st century. Another honour the bidecadal contest brought for the country was the investiture acclamation of another Pakistani, an erudite polymath, a research scientist and an arch-phenomenologist, Prof Aurangzeb Al Hafi among ‘Top of the Top Ten’ for his scientific discoveries. He was listed amongst the 10 most impactful persons of the world.

Prof Hafi is not only a co-recipient of the 1st of the 21st century’s Bidecadal Merit Award with BilquisEdhi but he also holds the singular privilege of being considered as her third son by the great humanitarian, alongside her two biological sons – Faisal Edhi and QutubEdhi.

Prof Hafi says one of the desires of Ms BilquisEdhi, which remained unfulfilled, was establishment of a higher secondary school specifically for the Edhi Home children. He says Ms BilquisEdhi had expressed this desire many a time in the family gatherings, regretting that her children had to face discrimination, and sometimes insults, at the hands of their classmates for being coming from the Edhi Home. The self-respect of her children was very dear to her and she wanted them to achieve all goals in their lives, Prof Hafi says, hoping that Faisal Edhi, the new chairman of the Edhi Foundation, would carry forward the legacy of his mother – the mother of the neglected and unwanted children, BilquisBanoEdhi – the definitive champion of the ‘war against infanticide’.

The writer is a physician by profession. She worked as an intern at the Capital Health (New Jersey) & the Mount Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital (New York). Rights and gender issues are the areas of special interest to her. She can be reached at: fatima23393@hotmail.com