D. I. Khan: How cities change
By Prof. Dr. Mansoor Akbar Kundi • Jun 28th, 2009 • Category: Misc, Worth A Second Look • 11 CommentsI opened my eyes in Dera Ismail Khan in August 1955, the town a Baloch Chieftain Soorab Khan raised in 1429, until graduation in 1976. Since then, no matter in which of the world, I have been regular visitor to the town to see my old dad in the old Haveli my grandfather built; sit in the foots of my mother’s grave flanked by the other two of my maternal grandmother and uncle; and revive the memories of my child and adulthood. It was a beautiful town where peace ruled the day and love the heart with violence almost unknown. The major incident of violence if any was eventual stabbing of someone to injury or death. I lived in the street from where I would ride early the morning to the Cantt Public School in man driven cycle riksa through the Cantt area which British raised in 1894 after it was raised to a district with Mr. H. W. Gee as its first Deputy Commissioner. The school is now Federal Board school was the one where COAS studied for three years. His dad was posted in then MODC as Naib Subedar. He is said to have visited the school in 2007 and tried to revive his school days under an old alpine.
I recall with sorrows the Sunday morning when on my way to the river Indus bank I heard the bell tolling for Church service with each one welcome on the premises and inside the church. I was allured by the distribution of sweets on Sunday and visiting the big marble grave in its compound of Major General, Sir Henry Marion Durand, the son of Mortimer Durand who drew the Durand Line in 1893. Marion was the lieutenant governor of Punjab who on his visit to Tank fell down from howdah and got his head crushed on January 1, 1871. Inscribed on the epitaph were contribution to his life and work which I still remember : Sacred to the memory of Henry Marion Durand, Major General Royal Engineers, C.B.K.C.S.I, Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab, born Nov 15th 1812 Died Jan 1st 1871. He entered the army in 1828 and after serving his coutnry for forty years in the field and in the cabinet was killed in the discharge of his duty by a fall from an elephant at Tonk, N.W. Frontier. The church service is restricted without bells, broken into pieces by those whom called the Christians infidel. I try to visit the church but it is heavily guarded with boundary wall raised over the years. Entering the cantonment area itself is hard nut to crack with huge barriers and gunmen alert on each of its entrance. For an outsider it takes pretty hard to convince the CMP sentries that he loves to go inside to meet someone as his kith and kin. One like me telling them that having spent good years of my life in the place longs for revival probably will not be allowed. The army officers bungalows are further bifurcated by barriers. Many sub-boulevards linking the cantonment are permanently blocked. Visiting the river through cantonment was a big boon for city people which is permanently denied. They follow a longer by-pass route to visit the scenic river bank, but not as freely as before. Uniformed police and MP sentries and plain clothes intelligence can stop anyone with slight suspicion. The two parks where I spend good day of my life playing cricket are turned into sub-camps of Frontier Corps deployed to defend the cantonment. One could frequently hear nightingales. They are no more. I asked an old man gardening off the road about. “My sons, trees are here but we don’t listen to nightingales again. We listen bombs and Kalashnikovs”.
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D. I. Khan was considerably multi-ethnic and lingual with sizeable chunk of Shia population since 1947, but it does not pose any threat to its heterogenic melting pot character. But the internal migration of Mehsood and Wazir tribesmen to area, after the Gulf boom where tribesmen with earned foreign exchange bought lands and properties, changed its culture. The huge influx of Afghan refugees to NWFP after 1979 tripled the town and its vicinities’ population with day to day hardship and dearness for the local residents. In the following years D. I. Khan became a trade center with Afghan refugees and migrated tribesmen with a hold on transport, markets and restaurant business not only in the town, but in Tank, Jandola, and North and South Waziristan. During the eight years of Afghan holy war (1980-88) against the Soviet Union with massive America led western and Saudi Arabian funds witnessed thousands of foreign elements getting settled in Waziristan. They established business and entered relationship with local tribesmen. They were closely associated with run the seven Mujahideen camps run by the Zia-ul Haq regime with logistics and advanced trainings for the trainees such as missile firing, mining, anti-tank combat etc by the Pakistan army.
The gap between Shia and Sunni grew during the period. Previously it was well tolerable. Sunni would join Shia processions and distribute Niaz. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 and Afghan Jihad with agencies playing an effective role were instrumental in widening the gap between the two. The two communities living side by side for centuries actually started experiencing communal tension in 1960s after objection was raised by Sunni religious community through where the 10th Muharram mourning processions passed. It is a 400 yard bazaar area in the city which until 1947 was predominantly Hindu area. The Shia mourning processions actually followed the track the revival of which is now a demand by Sunni extremists. In 1939 the route was changed as the result of collective Shia-Sunni efforts to muster Muslimhood against Hindus occupying the bazaar. Hindus, majority of them merchants, initially resisted the change but later on allowed them as it was shorter in distance. Dera Ismail Khan witnessed one of the worst communal riots during partition. A large number of innocent Hindus were killed and their properties burnt in the name of Islam. My mother would tell me the story of a Hindu family whose daughter was her friend. “Following the riots they all were put to death by the immediate Muslim neighbors. I was crying for the miseries”. The area Hindus vacated was given to immigrants/Muhajirs in claims. They pose worst resistance to Shia during Muharram.
The war against terrorism after the 9/11 had a negative impact on the peace of the area. It worsened after the military action began in Waziristan in September 2003. The action in Waziristan was a strategic mistake our rulers committed to please American bosses. It left NWFP volatile and vulnerable. A large number of IDPs were been forced to migrate to D. I. Khan. It include those who ranked amongst Taliban and needed asylum.
Gone are the days of when people led a peaceful and tranquil life in D. I. Khan. The peaceful town where I heard the church service bells and nightingale with violence unknown is now a killing field. One can see day to day target killing, suicidal attacks, and bomb blasts at the cost of innocent lives. Where lies the fault and fault lines? It is the lost of system and values due to bad governance and opportunism with nice and quiet alleys turning into bloody streets. I hope and despair. No matter what seizes me more with a reminding verse from Shakespeare. The fault is not in our stars but in our but in ourselves. Caesar would never have been wolf, had we not been sheep.
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Prof. Dr. Mansoor Akbar Kundi is Dean, Faculty of Management Sciences, University of Balochistan Quetta.
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Well I am quite late to comment on this post, but it’s never too late. Respected Prof. shared his own experience regarding life in D I Khan, although it was much precise analysis of the situation that has cumulated into mass sectarian killings. Provincial govt. (of ANP) has shown no interest to clamp down the tension, may be due to the lack of linguistic resemblance to ANP agenda of Phutoon Kha (D I Khan is the leading dissenter to this ANP move). Moreover, role of Moulana Fazl ur Rahman shouldn’t be neglected, he expresses his views on world issues and have ambitions to play the role of mediator, but unable to play any constructive role in his own native city and constituency. As far the immigrants are concerned, they all belong to Rajput family, and now they have established businesses and has played constructive role in the city’s auspiciousness, recently they have been dragged into this sectarian rift. On the other hand, law enforcement agencies have virtually allowed such activities since no stringent move has taken against such tyranny. Hence, this sectarian issue has many facets.
Sir Mortimer Durand was the son of General Marion and it was not the other way around. Please suggest what you would do to put things right. Simple criticism is the refuge of a scoundrel, a response is neccessary to show some sincerity
I am indeed happy to read this post by Prof. sahib. My hat off to you sir. You made the precise analyis. I would like to add that we the local people were quite spectator during the 1947 violence, where our pious muslims killed their neighbors for nothing just lust for goods. We are sorry that we did not protect our fellow derawal. The curse of the partition still hangs on Dera. The immigrants from india did become part of the shia sunni conflict. They say innocent blood can never go wasted, I firmly believe in it. The humans we killed during partition at Dera still haunts us even after 50 years.
My mother also used to tell me stories of how the mehsood and wazir tribes came and the local muslims fully supported them to burn the hindu houses. The local derawals laughed at that time because someone else was burning. Now it is the time, the local derawal will burn as history always repeats.
There is one solution which is to repent over the violence and let us collectively repent on our partition deeds and increase harmony among shia and sunni and even with hindus. We all are derawals and love dera.
Mansoor is my school fellow and friend.His post reflects association and love with home town and certainly each derawal feels like it.But come up with workable solution and stop old practices whish failed badly to achieve the goals.
To my astonishment, it was so interesting for me to read a blog from one of the educational elites who made better from DIKhan soil. His past memories are certainly factual. The manner he expressed the past scenic beauty of DIK cantonment is conforming with my memories but I have never been able to explain as he did. After the fall of East Pakistan, we should have learnt a lesson as to how our hostile neighbor inflicted us and globally what was being planned and woven a web around our motherland but political leaders never heed to the causes of disintegration of the country rather they paved their way in inflicting the society by inducing a new culture that was given the name of peoples’ government. It was not bound for any one leader rather all the leaders made their own way of infusion to wreck the society values for their own benefits. Indeed, history is repeating itself and those who were getting cheerful on burning the non-Muslims property are now besieged by the same infernos. All the political leaders including, Maolana FUR or his father, who is now being categorized as the most pious leader of his times didn’t do anything for escalating the social set up or upgrading the look of the city and was only active to have approved a legislation that would ban the use of liquor in the country but what about he who is addict finds his way to get that by whatever means possible even now. But only poor man suffered. And he (Maolana MM) allowed the Health department to demolish and obliterate the years-old garden named COMPANY BAGH, which the British government raised in almost all the major cities across India to honor the East India Company. The Company Bagh was rocked down and substandard residences erected in its place. Same goes to Liaquat Park (currently in front of the State Life Building). When I was a kid, I used to make way to this park for playing and when I was enquired by my mother as to why I was away and where. I made lame excuses which did not work as my tongue, lips and fingers all spoke about the real truth as these were mostly crimson colored due to plucking and eating of mulberry (Shahtoot). This park was full of the mulberry trees and grass. We climbed up in the Spring season to pluck and eat the mulberry. We called this park as Tootan Wala Bagh corresponding to its synonymous in Saraeki as toot.
Gomal University, being an exceptional institution that was raised by a political leader who was not a resident of this area but a national leader ZAB, nothing has either been developed or raised by the local leadership until now. All the developmental works or facilities have had been made by the Army whereas we claim that there was Martial Law in the country. I refer to the road linking DIK with Chashma Barrage and onwards to country’s capital, construction of DIK-Darya Khan Bridge, setting up Radio Pakistan, which is playing its role only as a relay station since its founding in 1982 and not little bit jacked up after its creation as a station in this area. Nonetheless, construction of Indus Highway was not for the sole purpose of linking DIK with the rest of Pakistan but it was the fall out of linking Peshawar with Karachi through this area. Hence, I do not give any credit to any political leadership of that time rather it was only eventual development. Even now, you cannot compare this city in terms of development with any other city of either NWFP what to talk of the Punjab. Bannu is eye-opening example whose CM did all that what none could do in decades for that area.
Sectarianism and target killing is indeed very worrying portray of this city. But total ban on the use of motor bikes is in no way the alternate resolve and acceptable measure, either. WTC was hit by terrorists by hijacking the aircraft. Did the US government ban the flights in any part of the country? Rather their intelligence system was fortified to the extent that not a single event could take place after that unfortunate event. Security system got stronger and people who were already aware of cooperating with the security staff got more supporting and loyal so that none could say that this nation was unable to stop the deplorable events. This and other examples prove that we the derawals are being deprived of basic human rights even and nobody is worried at government and political level. None is going to raise voice at any level since they think this is their fortune to stay in 1700 AD gradually crawling towards Stone Age. Let’s see when we are there.
And by the way General Ved Prakash Malik (V.P. Malik) who was the Chief of Army Staff (2000) was also born in Dera Ismail Khan on 1 November, 1939 at D. I. Khan in Mohallah Diwan Sahib and his family migrated to India at the time of independence. For details you can visit this website. http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/LAND-FORCES/Personnel/Chiefs/160-VP-Malik.html. Thanks for reading such harsh words and getting me relieved of the burden that were dwelling and not finding way out of my mind.
FIVE REGIONAL CITIES should be upgraded with in the provinces in Pakistan. Regional cities of Dera Ismail Khan in NWFP, Gawadar/ Qalat in Balouchistan, Sukkar/ Larkana in Upper Sind, Jehlam/ Rawalpindi and Multan in Punjab province. These regional cities have been ignored by the federal and provincial governments although these cities have their own history, culture and languages.Dera Ismail Khan in south of Pakhtun khwa/MWFP is under seige, Multan/DG Khan in south of Punjab is next target of religious extremists,Sukkar/ Larkana is being rule by criminals, Gawadar/ Qalat is trouble some. The people of these regions have to travel to provincial capitals for every small issue and requirement of the daily life which should be provided in nearby cities. A good number of population travel to big cities for their survival to earn livelihood as the local feudal own majority land and keep the common man as their slaves. Creation of regional government and upgrading of the regional cities will save a lot of money and time of the poor people of these regions. Circuit benches of the High Courts are already working in these areas and only requirement is the additional staff of different departments involved in additional work at the provincial capitals. The concern authorities should immediately consider to upgrade the regional cities. And immediate attention should be given upgrade/build the airports,TV station, civic center, libraries,hospitals, educational institutes and investment opportunities for Pakistanis living abroad and foreign firms to create jobs in the area as majority population in rural Pakistan do not have enough resources to survive. It remind me the condition of pre Islamic revolution of Iran in Shah time when the rural Iran was ignored and the capital Tehran was developed in a way to call it Paris of Middle East with modern life style. Couple of other big cities like Isfahan and Caspian sea was taken care of because of foreign tourists but rural area was ruled by cruel police and intelligence. Then what happen rural population supported the Islamic revolution and moved to Tehran and other big cities later on. The new government after revolution developed, built and upgraded the rural areas of Iran accordingly. A fund to upgrade/build these regional cities in Pakistan should be introduced by public and private sector and Pakistani government, our foreign friends and Pakistanis living abroad may be asked to participate in this development mission in the country..KHWAJA AFTAB ALI,( former secretary, Iranian embassy, Saudi Arabia,1975-88) Advocate High Court & I.P. Attorney-first & the only Pakistani lawyer who earned Intellectual Property laws scholarship in USA,presently residing in Florida, USA. pip.law@hotmail.com
A very nice account by Dr Mansoor Kundi, I come to DI Khan on 20th
February 2010 and found the area a beautiful place. Local people are very nice and peace loving. Life here is simple and natural.
It was exhilarating to read about a town that for me exists only in my thoughts or on the maps in geography books. Reading about it with all its history was like watching a movie on DI Khan , or maybe actually visiting it.
I have known Dr. Kundi since he was my teacher at Quetta.. We have both come a long way and are still the best of friends. I have always had great appreciation for him and his work. Not to forget to mention his writing style, which is unique, with a careful selection of words. His specialty is his writings based on the political background, history and evolution.
Dr Kundi is presently appointed as Vice Chancellor of the Gomal university, where once he studied himself.
His induction as VC has brought good changes at Gomal University…
http://www.pakspectator.com/rising-hopes-at-dera/
I am so happy to read ths article by Dr Masoor Akbar Kindi, a well-known educationist and now the Vice Chancellor of Gomal University. Dera was once called “Dera Phulaan da Sehra” , THe beautiful words of Seraiki can not be translated in English. However dera symbolizes as flowers. As Dr Sahib said and many derawals commented , sctarian violence has shattered the peace of D.I .Khan. One of my late friend Dr Talib Hussain Ashraf, about whom i wrote a blog too, was a liberal Shia. But, actually he was more sunni than shia. We used to be with mourning procession just as spectators (viewers). There was no objection by Shia brothers. Women used to sit on roof tops along the procession route to see the mourners. In my childhood in Paharpur Town , I Used to prepare Rozas with my friends. But now one can not dare to be on roof or in the streets where mourners are to pass. What happened to my beautiful Dera. I am in Islamabadd , my whole family is in D I Khan. Muharram ul Haram month has started, I am calling daily to my brother n relatives to ask the latest situation in the city. Those who consider themselves only true muslim , and all other sects not the same way, are on the wrong path . May Allah Bless my Dera.
Every Artikel related to DIK makes feel the memories of my Parents Grand Parents , as they were from DIK before Partition. I would love to visit DIK one day!!!!!! DIK ZINDABAD