Good Old Karachi

By Dr. Sohail Ansari

3rd February 1839 was a game changer for Karachi. The Fort of Manora came under fire, when East India Company stormed and captured Manora, leading to fall of Karachi under the Raj. Four years later, the rest of Sindh was also captured. Karachi was required as part of British strategy in Anglo Afghan War, due to it’s location. The port was what attracted the invasion, besides accessibility to Punjab and beyond. The history of Modern Day Karachi began with that capture. What was then a sleepy small fishing village quickly transformed into a major seaport. It soon became a big metropolis. The following century saw the growth of Karachi never witnessed before. This drawing was made on 2nd February 1839 as HMS Wellesley prepared to invade Manora under the command of Rear-Admiral Maitland.

Sir Alexander Burns had long recommended that ‘Kurrachee’ should be the first point to be occupied. In January 1839, Colonel Pottinger also advised that a force must go to Kurrachee, in order to take possession of that place.

H.M.S. Wellesley set sail with Rear Admiral Frederick Maitland, Commander in Chief on board to conduct the operations. The land forces were under the command of Brigadier Valliant.

On one hand negotiations were ongoing between the British and Talpur rulers who had already been squeezed hard. On the other, as a surprise, the Wellesley arrived unexpectedly all of sudden.

She attacked on the pretext that a gun was fired from the Manora Fort on their ship. It is controversial whether the gun was actually fired or not. If it was, there was debate on whether it was an actual act of belligerency, or a mistake, since the Manora Fort was grossly ill equipped for combat at the time.

The Fort of Manora was basically a mud made structure which was not really fit for defence. The Fort commander or ‘Killadar’ of Manora was a brave Baluchi soldier, Wasul Ben Butcha. There hardly were enough men in the Fort to think of them taking advance of firing the World’s super power navy. There were not even enough guns to hand. So, it is very unlikely that the Fort would have fired the ship. On that context, though, the British flagship 74-gun HMS Wellesley bombarded the Fort. It was completely smashed to smithereens by the bombardment. It engulfed the sky with smoke.

Despite all his pride the Baluchi Killadar was made to surrender and he hoisted the white flag. The army of British ground force immediately stormed Manora and Karachi. Consequently, the British took over Karachi on Sunday the 3rd February 1839 . It happened quickly within a matter of hours. Following surrender agreement, Karachi was formally occupied by the British on Thursday the 7th February 1839.

Seth Naomal Hotchand had corroborated with the foreign forces to help them plan the invasion and take siege of Karachi.

Manora turned out to be the gateway to the capture of Karachi (and subsequently of Sindh). The fortunes of the city changed and it witnessed an unprecedented growth in the following century.

By Dr. Sohail Ansari

Nahid Iskander Mirza 6 February 1919 – 23 January 2019In 1951, Mohammad-Ebrahim Mirza Amirteymour Kalali was posted as Iran’s Military Attaché to Karachi. His daughter, Nahid Afghamy came with him. She was married to Colonel Mehdi Afghamy and had a daughter. It was then that she met Iskander Mirza, Secretary of Defence of Pakistan, at a reception in the Russian Embassy. He was married too, and had six children. Still he fell in love with her. The love blossomed, she divorced and married Iskander Mirza in September 1953.

POSTED BY MR. NASSAR SHEIKH:

Naheed: The Mysterious First Lady of Pakistan

By Waseem Altaf

She was the wife of Iranian military attaché to Pakistan namely Lieutenant Colonel Afghamy in 1951. It is conjectured that since the Colonel had close dealings with the Ministry of Defense, Naheed met Pakistan’s Secretary Defense Sikander Mirza in some social gathering at Karachi. Perhaps they got involved much earlier, however, It was much later that the family of Sikander Mirza came to know of the close relationship.The Secretary Defense’ elder son Hamayun Mirza was studying in London and every summer Sikander Mirza and his wife Rifat Mirza would visit their son in UK. In early 1952 Hamayun Mirza, received a letter and some money telling him that the wife of Iranian defense attaché would be visiting London and he was to take care of her during her visit. Later that year, Sikander Mirza asked his son Hamayun to look for a suitable school for the younger daughter of Mrs. Afghamy. In the spring of 1953, Mrs. Afghamy herself took her daughter to a school in England for enrollment.On June 4, 1953, the younger son of Sikander Mirza got killed in a plane crash. Sikander Mirza came to Selsdon Park Hotel in Croydon, Surrey for a private grieving. It was here that Hamayun witnessed Naheed coming to the hotel and comforting Sikander Mirza in a very intimate way. The son got infuriated by Naheed’s behavior but some guests cooled him down. A few days later Sikander Mirza sent his son Hamayun to Karachi to join his mother and four sisters while Sikander and Naheed stayed behind. A month later Sikander returned to his family in Karachi.In April, 1954 Sikander Mirza was appointed governor of East Pakistan as the ruling Muslim League lost elections in the province and governor rule was imposed. Sikander Mirza left for Dhaka but chose not to take his family along.It is not known when Naheed got divorce from Colonel Afghamy but she admitted that she and Sikander Mirza got married by proxy on July 7, 1953.However, the actual marriage ceremony took place on September 5, 1953. But there is no public record of her account.In November 1954,Hamayun was getting married with the daughter of US ambassador in Pakistan Horace. A. Hildreth yet none of his family was present at the occasion. His mother Rifat was in China with a women delegation while Sikander Mirza was in Karachi with his four daughters. It was then that Naheed informed him that she could no longer be his secret wife and the relationship must be disclosed to the public. Sikander disappeared for one week and on his return informed his four daughters that he had married the ex-wife of Colonel Afghamy. The son Hamayun came to know of his father’s secret marriage on his wedding day while the first wife Rifat became aware of her husband’s second marriage after she returned from China. Sikander Mirza left his family for good and from then onward Naheed was to play a pivotal role in his life.On October 6, 1955 Sikander Mirza took the oath of Governor- General and a week later all four provinces of West Pakistan were merged into a single West Pakistan Province to create parity with East Pakistan. On March 6 Sikander Mirza was elected as President and the constitution was promulgated on March 23, 1956. Three days later, on March 26, 1956 with Nahid on his side Sikander Mirza took the oath as President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Thus, in a passage of two years, mostly through palace intrigues and backroom dealings, an ex-soldier and a career bureaucrat rose from the level of a department head to the position of the Head of the State. And the Iranian born Nahid Afghamy, the wife of a Military Attaché lifted by a government Secretary of the host country, became the First Lady of Pakistan. For the next two and a half years Nahid Mirza as wife of the President was to play a significant role in the national and international affairs of Pakistan. (Pervez Munir Alvi,2013)Mirjaveh, which is the main crossing point between Iran and Pakistan, was ceded to Iran under the presidency of Iskander Mirza. Nahid Mirza played an instrumental role in the deal, Ahmed Yar Khan writes in Inside Balochistan.Exiled by General Ayub Khan in 1959, who took over power in a military coup, Mirza lived remainder of his life in exile in London, England where he financially struggled running a small Pakistan cuisine hotel until his death. He died of a heart attack on 13 November 1969, his 70th birthday. President Yahya Khan denied him a burial in Pakistan. The Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi sent his personal plane to London to bring President Mirza’s body to Tehran, where he was given a state funeral. Hundreds of Iranians, including Prime Minister Abbas Hoveyda, and Pakistani expatriates in Iran bade farewell and offered their prayers.The funeral ceremony was marred by the absence of Sikander Mirza’s relatives living in Pakistan. The military government barred them from leaving Pakistan in time despite the best efforts by Ardeshir Zahedi, Iran’s foreign minister, and President Sikander Mirza’s friends in Pakistan and Iran. There are unfounded rumors that after the Islamic Revolution in Iran (1979), his grave was desecrated.Naheed spent rest of her life in London in anonymity. Shepassed away in London on 25th January 2019.

30Yasmeen Kazi, Ghulam Nabi Kazi and 28 others11 CommentsLikeComment

By Dr. Sohail Ansari

As published in the DAWN today:ON Dec 12, 1949, a DC-3C Dakota of Pak Air Services flying from Lahore to Karachi crashed at Karo Jabal near Jungshahi. All 26 on board perished. Among them was Maj-Gen Muhammad Iftikhar Khan, who was a strong contender for the appointment of the first Pakistani Commander-in-Chief, pegged to succeed Gen Douglas Gracey. Another on board the plane was Brig Sher Khan, Director of Military Operations.Their funeral prayers were held on the grounds of the Frere Hall in Karachi, and the burial was at the Armed Forces Cemetery. There were speculations at the time that the path was cleared for one of the other officers.Regardless of the merit of the speculations, what did happen was that Ayub Khan took over. Was the air crash an act of sabotage? Did that change the course of history? It certainly led to a ban on the airline, following a series of air accidents; four of them. The probable cause was said to be the pilot’s error in terms of navigation and not following the standard procedures

.Dr Sohail AnsariEssex, United Kingdom

12Saad Bashir, Shah Muhammad Vaquas and 10 others3 CommentsLikeComment

By Safdar Nensey

I recently acquired the attached undated, large sized & paper thin, photograph pertaining to Karachi. It is about always easier to judge the age / date of a vintage postcard if it is postally used. If not, even then in this day & age of internet, one can “find” the age through Google et al search. However, in the case of this photograph of Ladies Gymkhana (now Karachi Gymkhan), it was a wee bit challenging. I am dating this photograph to circa “turn of the 20th century” (early 1900s, perhaps even pre-1900 to 1905) based on the following premise: Firstly, such thin paper photographs (stuck on cardboard pages of an album) are indicative of an older vintage (pre-1900). After ~1910 or thereabouts, paper used for photography printing was much thicker. Secondly, on the left-ish corner of the photograph, one can see the tall Holy Trinity Church (build in ~ 1855) with its upper floors, built to serve as a lighthouse too for ships arriving at Karachi Harbor, still intact. They were partly removed, about 40 ft in total, in 1905, “owing to the foundations’ showing signs of weakness” (Reference: Karachi Handbook & Directory 1928-29). Based on this, it is inferred that the photograph is atleast taken in 1905, if not earlier.This note is a bit longish. However, I alway see if I can provide some context to the picture and hence add value, as I see it, instead of simply sharing them, which again is not bad at all. Hope this help a bit. After this post, I will share 2 additional vintage postcards of the Holy Trinity Church – one with the tall tower and the other with the shorter one – but both are classified as vintage.

66You, Tariq Aslam, Tahir Shamsi and 63 others19 CommentsLikeComment

Karachi’s first liquor tavern MOKHI AND MATARA – A folk tale

By Dr. Sohail Ansari

The story of a tavern in Karachi dates back to around 400 years.

Perhaps this is the oldest recorded tavern of the city. Natar, a maid of Moomal, came to a village called Konkar (modern day Gadap) and settled here. She established a brewery and tavern which became popular locally as well as in far flung areas attracting customers. Her beautiful daughter, Mokhi, served as a barmaid. The delicacy of wine and the charms of Mokhi rapidly gained fame which brought revellers from all over. Among the admirers were eight Matara (which in Sindhi mean strong) warriors: two each from the Samma, Soomra, Channa and Chauhan clans. Having enjoyed multiple drinks form pots of old wine and seduced by the attractive barmaid, these brave visitors left tranquil but decided to return. On one of their returning trips, Mokhi had run out of old wine. Perturbed, she discovered an old wine jar which was years old long abandoned in the depot. The wine appeared very colourful and had a fragrance. The Mataras were delighted with the wine and commented “Never did we taste such a wine”. Heavily intoxicated, they left the tavern dancing in tranquility. Once they had gone, Mokhi discovered a long dead snake in the pot of wine that she had served them. She thought the Mataras would have perished but to her surprise they returned some time later. She happily served them the best old wine from her stock. Consuming glass after glass, they demanded the wine that they were served on the last visit. Reluctantly, Mokhi had to tell them the truth that the wine they drank on last visit was poisoned with cobra venom. The very thought of venom and its effect shocked them and they all fell dead on the spot and were buried there. The graves are still there in the old graveyard on the hillock, to be found at the foothill of Narathar in Gadap tehsil of Karachi! Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, narrated this folk tale in Sur Yaman Kalyan.

(Photo courtesy: Friday Times, Umer Soomro, and Khurram Saeed Khan)