Abdul Sattar Edhi has spent his entire life in the service of mankind, without personal benefit or gain. Although he has buried over two hundred thousand unclaimed bodies in an era where altruism and selflessness are almost extinct, he looks back at his life with the humility that has become his trademark.
He began work as a street hawker, selling pencils and matchboxes in Karachi. In 1951,he set up a small dispensary in Mithadar. Since then he has not only spread a network of social services across the length and breadth of Pakistan but has extended them beyond the boundaries of his country. The system he has established is a model for a welfare state that he hopes will one day be adopted by the Third World. Below, in his own words, is an excerpt from the seminal work on Abdul Sattar Edhi, called Edhi - an Autobiography, A Mirror to the Blind written by Tehmina Durrani.
Ms. Durrani spent two years accompanying Edhi on his rounds and in his daily life:
Islam instructed a way of life that emphasised the essential qualities of self-help and compassion, it instructed all the crucial attitudes that I had discovered as solutions and all were missing in application. Islam was a complete programme for human uplift, but its instructions were either unheeded or distorted, meanings and interpretations were usurped, self-help and labour considered shameful, its people strayed like lost sheep.
I had accepted at the outset that charity was distorted and completely unrelated to its original concept. Reverting to the ideal was like diverting an ocean of wild waters. Another major obstacle in the promotion of welfare was exposed...the disgust of man towards mankind. There was only one expression, one reaction from everyone...cringing.
From the grimacing faces of my colleagues I understood that I was the only one not disgusted. They washed their hands vigorously, smelt their clothes repeatedly and complained incessantly of the stench having seeped under their skins. Then they rushed home to bathe, scrubbed their clothes and disinfected them, sometimes gave them away saying, ‘the very weave was stricken’. There was nowhere to go with this attitude. We could not reduce suffering unless we rose above our own senses...cringing was the first and the greatest hindrance that blocked our way, the most brutal, but also the most understandable.
I began at Mithadar and brought back bloated, drowned bodies from the sea. Black bodies that crumbled with one touch. I picked them up from rivers, from inside wells, from roadsides, accident sites and hospitals. I picked them up from manholes and gutters, from under bridges, from railway bogies, from tracks, water sheds and drains. When families forsook them and authorities threw them away, I picked them up and brought them home, to my work force, spreading the stench in the air forever.
Many years had passed raising questions and searching for answers. When the anxiety at the vastness of the areas I must cover overwhelmed me, I took courage from the Prophet Muhammad’s (Pbuh) example. He was confronted with enormous opposition and more hypocrites than friends. Contemplating this, I reached back to Islam and began to examine the shambles it lay in and at last I found the core, the predominant factor crucial to social development.
Islam instructed a way of life that emphasised the essential qualities of self-help and compassion, it instructed all the crucial attitudes that I had discovered as solutions and all were missing in application. Islam was a complete programme for human uplift, but its instructions were either unheeded or distorted, meanings and interpretations were usurped, self-help and labour considered shameful, its people strayed like lost sheep.
Diagnosing the beginning accurately, inevitably led to the correct solution. The distance between preaching and practising removed, the two were one. I would have to interpret the message with the way I lived my life, that for this purpose I did not need to be a scholar was a revelation. Islamic simplicity enveloped all its jurisdictions under one rubric, humanitarianism, and all religions did the same.
Looking back after a lifetime of dedicated social work: I sat on the footpath outside my Mithadar office. At the same spot where forty years ago, after my mother’s death, I had put down my bundle of belongings and observed the 14-foot wide unpaved alley, that crossed over at both ends of the street...
But 65 years had whitened the hair on my head and beard and in the building behind me everything had been transformed. The eight foot square dispensary I had bought in 1951 had extended to cover the second and third floors. From it I had stretched out to reach those who could not reach me, spreading a network that crept like a web at the grass roots level, covering the length and breadth of Pakistan.
A Mirror to the Blind
Abdul Sattar Edhi- An Autobiography
As narrated to Tehmina Durrani
National Bureau of Publications
Islamabad, Pakistan
Top
By a Correspondent
The Muslim voters of Uttar Pradesh once again exhibited the trend of “tactical” voting in the recently-concluded Lok Sabha election for the 85 parliamentary seats in the state but could not guard against a division in their votes which became one of the contributory factor in the Bharatiya Janata Party being able to win 57 seats. Thus, if strategic voting helped the secular parties like the Samajwadi party and the Bahujan Samaj Party to defeat the BJP, the division in their votes helped the saffron party. In fact, it was the division in their votes which proved costly to the secular parties, mainly the Samajwadi Party.
Muslims constitute the biggest chunk of the anti-BJP votes in Uttar Pradesh and exercise a domineering influence in as many as 25 of the 85 constituencies with their maximum concentration being in the Rohilkhand division and in eastern UP. Though a sizeable number of Muslims are found in western and central parts of the state nowhere are they more dominant as in Rohilkhand and eastern UP. Very few Muslim voters are in the constituencies located in the hill region (Uttarakhand), Bundelkhand and in the area south of the river Yamuna bordering the neighbouring state of Madhya Pradesh.
They have, however, developed a tendency of dividing their votes amongst the secular parties including the SP, the BSP, and to a very limited extent, the Congress. This tendency, admittedly a recent phenomenon, was a manifestation of the element of uncertainity and confusion prevailing among them. True, the Muslim voters have become more mature who knew the value of their votes and have generally voted for the candidate or party most likely to defeat the BJP, but they have not yet been able to get over the tendency of vote division. Of course, a minuscule section of the Muslims, particularly the Shias have supported the saffron party in places like Lucknow, Rampur and Jaunpur, but their support hardly has had any bearing on the overall performance of the BJP in the Muslim-dominated constituencies. Here the saffron party has capitalised on the spirit in the anti-BJP votes.
Pre-election surveys had indicated that the Samajwadi Party would get the maximum percentage of the Muslim votes and as it turned out the minority community voted overwhelmingly for the SP which enabled it to increase its overall vote percentage to 28.69 from 20.83 in the 1996 poll and its seats’ tally to 20 from 16 in 1996. However, despite this trend there were at least a dozen constituencies where the division in the anti-BJP votes helped the saffron party. Incidentally, the presence of more than one Muslim candidate in a constituency also helped in the division.
For instance, in Rampur all the four parties fielded Muslim candidates, Begum Noor Bano, the 1996 winner, of the Congress, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi of BJP, Sharaftyar Khan of SP and Abdul Salam of BSP. Naqvi wrested the seat from the Begum and his victory margin of less than 5000 votes showed that while he was assured of the support of BJP’s Upper Caste voters, it was a three-way division of the Muslim votes between the Congress, the SP and the BSP which ensured the BJP’s victory there. In Sitapur, the presence of Mukhtar Anis of SP, the 1996 winner, and Ammar Rizvi of the Congress ensured the victory of JP Misra of the BJP. In Amethi too, Captain Satish Sharma of the Congress lost to Sanjay Singh of the BJP primarily because the Muslims voted for the Captain as well as for Naim of BSP.
Shahabad was another constituency where the BJP exploited the division of votes to its benefit as neither Daud of BSP or Ashok Bajpai of SP were in a position to defeat Raghavendra Singh of BJP. Similar trend was witnessed in Sharanpur, Bareilly, Meerut, Kairana, Bulandshahr, Khalilabad and Unnao.
Significantly, in constituencies where the saffron party has benefited from the division of votes, its victory margin has been narrow, ranging between 4000 and 5000 votes. Another point which reinforces this contention is that in no less than 41 constituencies, the second-placed candidate secured over 2 lakh votes, yet he lost the poll.
Notwithstanding this disturbing feature in the Muslim voting trend, it goes to the credit of the SP and its leader, Mulayam Singh Yadav, for not allowing the BJP to get a cakewalk despite the disunity among the so-called secular parties. To a large measure, the SPs success is attributed to the support from the Muslims. Had it not been for them, the SP would not have been able to defeat the BJP in its traditional strongholds of Faizabad, Balrampur and Gonda. One reason why the Muslims preferred the SP in UP was the possibility of the BJP forming the next government at the centre. Needless to say, this worked as a fear-psychosis leading the Muslims to vote for the SP whom they considered the best bet to stop the BJPs march. Indeed, the SP did achieve some success in its objective but in the final analysis it proved to be insufficient.
Nonetheless, the Muslim voting trend in 1998, and earlier in the 1996 Lok Sabha poll from the state has revealed that they have gradually unshackled themselves from the vicous circle of promises by the political parties, the dictates of the Ulema and the hate campaign launched by the communal forces (in the events leading to and after the demolition of the Babri Masjid) and seem to have evolved a “consensus” of their own. What was needed to make this consensus lethal for the BJP is the unity of the secular parties.
Top
By Sayeedur Rahman
Karnataka is one among a few states where elections to the 12th Lok Sabha have largely gone in accordance with the predictions of most opinion and exit polls of the country. The election witnessed emergence of new equations on the political map of Karnataka. It saw the systematic decimation of the already fractured ruling JD and ascendance of the BJP/LS combine as a formidable force. The INC in the middle could largely improve upon its position with nearly double the tally of its seats in the preceding 11th Lok Sabha.
The BJP/LS combine has won 16 seats gaining 10 of them and securing 38.2% votes with a positive swing of 13.3% over 1996 LS election. It stood second in five constituencies and third in another seven. On the other hand the INC has won 9 seats gaining the four seats it had conceded to the JD and BJP in 1996. It stood second in as many as 17 constituencies and third in just two of them. Its vote share also increased to 35.8% with a positive swing of 5.5%. With a negative swing of 13.9% the JD’s vote share diminished to an unproductive 21% which could translate to just three seats. It stood second in just six constituencies and third in another 18 of them.
Analysis of the 1998 verdict in the context of the three broad geographical divisions of the state throws interesting insights on the voting patterns. The Bombay-Karnataka region in the north-western part of the state comprising the seven constituencies of Bijapur, Belgaum, Chikkodi, Bagalkot, Canara, Dharwad North & Dharwad South, which is considered to be the strong hold of Ramakrishna Hegde, has contributed to the fortunes of the BJP/LS more than any other region of the state. (see box) Here the duo secured the highest swing of 18.3% in its favour and gained four new seats as well besides retaining the earlier two seats. With a positive swing of 9.3%, the INC too did fairly well, but could manage to gain only Bijapur which it had conceded to the JD in 1996. JD is the worst sufferer in this region with a negative swing of 23.1% and losing all the three seats it held in 1996.
The Hyderabad-Karnataka region in the north-eastern part of Karnataka comprising the five constituencies of Bidar, Gulbarga, Raichur, Koppal and Bellary still continues to be the strong-hold of INC largely. The party registered a swing of 2% in its favour and regained the Koppal and Raichur seats from the JD besides retaining its traditional Bellary seat.
The Old-Mysore region comprising the remaining 16 constituencies of southern Karnataka too dealt a severe blow to the JD. With a negative swing of 10.8%, the JD could retain only three of the nine constituencies it held in this region which includes all the seven Vokkaliga-dominant constituencies as well.
The BJP/LS combine secured the maximum vote share of 41.4% and won six seats in the ten constituencies dominated by the Lingayats. The respective figures for INC & JD are 34% with four seats and 16.2% with no seats. Of the seven Vokkaligas dominated constituencies the figures for BJP/LS, INC & JD are 37.8% votes with five seats, 32.7% votes with no seat & 27.3% votes with two seats respectively. The four SC dominated seats of Kolar, Chamarajanagar, Chitradurga & Chikballapur (Officially reserved Bidar & Chikkodi constituencies have been omitted for the present study because SC population ratio here is just 17%) still favour INC with 41% votes and three seats to the party. With 25% votes and no seat, BJP/LS support here is the lowest of all the three regions and so also among all the three parties. The JD has secured one seat with 31.3% votes which is the highest for the party in any of four caste-dominated regions under study. BJP/LS combine has fared reasonably well in the five Muslim dominated constituencies as well winning three seats with 38.6% votes. INC too has secured 37.7% votes here with two seats, while JD could manage 20.4% votes and no seat.
Mrs. Sonia Gandhi’s campaigning in the state has not delivered the desired result for INC in the electoral arithmetics at least. The 10 constituencies where she addressed huge election rallies resulted in a swing of just +2.7% over 1996 against the state average of +5.5% to the party. The swing varied from +24.9% in Kanara and +9.8% in Bangalore North to -10.7% in Bangalore South and -9.4% in Mandya. Of these 10 constituencies the party received positive swing in six constituencies and negative swing in the remaining four. And of the three seats held, it could retain only Kolar, losing Dharwad South and Udipi to the BJP and regaining Bangalore North and Raichur from the JD.
The Coimbatore bomb blasts or the UP crisis have absolutely no bearing whatsoever over the prospects of BJP in Karnataka. The vote share and swing of the party in both the phases of polling followed uniform patterns. In the first phase of elections to the 18 seats which was held earlier to these happenings, BJP secured a vote share of 40.7% of the electorate with a swing of +14.8%, and a vote share of 33.6% with +10.4% swing in the second phase of polling to the remaining 10 seats which was held after those incidents. The first phase included 11 of the 16 constituencies of the Old Mysore region where the BJP gained +12.5% swing. In the remaining five constituencies as well which went to poll in the second phase it gained a similar +12.7% swing.
Of the 13 Lingayats the BJP/LS combine have fielded, eight have met with success. Another two of the same community have succeeded on the INC tickets as well. Five Vokkaliga candidates have made it to the Lok Sabha this time, two each on JD & BJP tickets and one on INC ticket. The four SC candidates to succeed from the four reserved seats belong one each to JD, INC, BJP & LS. The lone Muslim candidate to meet with success belong to INC. Both the successful Brahmins candidates belong to BJP. Of the five BC candidates to succeed, four belong to INC and one to BJP. The lone successful Jain candidate also belongs to BJP.
Top
Editorial