Edhi, people and the state

Side-effect

The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad.

The tribute was befitting, from people and from the state. Edhi lived a life of an ascetic, a dervish, a man of integrity and principles and a selfless benefactor of humanity. One must, however, acknowledge at the outset that Edhi came from a tradition of social service and philanthropy which is common for the Gujrati and Kathiawari communities of the Subcontinent – be they Memons, Ismailis and Bohras among Muslims, or Parsis and Hindus.

Karachi, in particular, and Sindh in general owe a lot to the charity work and the viable health and educational institutions set up by these communities. Besides, their ability to organise charitable work in a sustainable way is incomparable to equally well-meaning initiatives taken by others. In addition to their presence in Sindh, the Gujrati community also began to serve other parts of Pakistan with an equal zeal. For instance, the Aga Khan Foundation and Aga Khan Development Network including their subsidiary health, education, rural support and entrepreneurship services are well known across the country. Likewise, institutions established by Parsis are found in many parts of the country as well.

Undoubtedly, there are social workers, volunteers, philanthropists and fundraisers across Pakistan who belong to different communities and backgrounds. They have done remarkable work in their fields and they belong to different parts of the country.

But there was something unique about Abdul Sattar Edhi – different from all others including his own community – which turned him into an icon of social service and humanitarian work in Pakistan, someone most Pakistanis trusted with their lives. He was the most successful service provider and an equally successful fundraiser. That uniqueness perhaps came from his lifestyle. People who do charity work from their own income or raise funds for such work are great people. Not everyone can match them. However, most of them live differently from those they are working for. Be it the managers of the Aga Khan Development Network or the caretakers of the Jamiat Punjabi Saudagran-e-Delhi or the financiers of The Citizens Foundation or the founders of the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital, they all live like affluent people, some of them maintaining lavish lifestyles as well.

Dr Syed Adeeb Rizvi and his team of medics from another outstanding institution, the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplant (SIUT), may well be leading simpler lives than others but they also have a middle-class existence, even if it is modest.

Edhi lived like those who were the beneficiaries of his work and in whose name he raised funds from other people. In fact, he did not even live like his beneficiaries. He virtually lived like a pauper, a fakir, a man with no worldly possessions and no monetary wealth. Women, men and children in the centres his foundation established over the years eat better food, wear better clothes and sleep in more comfortable beds than he ever did. His lifestyle was radically different from others running charitable institutions or raising funds for the causes they espouse.

Edhi was also an outstanding institution builder and project manager. His management principles were also simple, not sophisticated by the standards of many. Basic documentation of every transaction and every action was a must but the rest was all about trusting people and transferring his compassion and vision into his team of employees and volunteers.

He would carry out the most difficult tasks himself, from picking up rotten corpses and giving them a decent funeral to virtually begging for alms on the roadside to raise money for his humanitarian work. Edhi did not believe in any form of discrimination or categorisation on the basis of caste, creed, religion, sex, ethnicity, language or class. That was something that brought the whole nation together – without any distinction or political affiliation – when he died. It was truly a national mourning.

Abdul Sattar Edhi’s death is a tremendous loss for the people of Pakistan. The network of Edhi Foundation, the centres for destitute women and men, homeless and orphans, the wretched and the condemned, mentally challenged and physically disabled, and the most efficient ambulance service is something that no one institution has been able to do ever in our part of the world.

I hope and pray that the Edhi Foundation, under the able leadership of Bilquis Edhi and Faisal Edhi, continues to serve humanity without prejudice and people continue to trust in the institution that they have helped Abdul Sattar Edhi and Bilquis Edhi build over the decades. Here, one must recognise the services rendered and leadership provided by Bilquis Edhi to the work her husband began. She stood by him and the foundation during thick and thin.

We must not forget that when Edhi was in trouble due to political pressure or life threats and he had to leave the country as well or maintain a low key presence for some time, it was Bilquis who steered the ship. She has also taken some women-focused initiatives on her own.

Pakistanis have loads of faults and weaknesses. But something we can be proud of is our giving culture. People may not have enough trust in the post-colonial state of which they are citizens but they donate generously to charitable and social service institutions. One such institution that Pakistanis trust for its services in the field of health is SIUT where Edhi breathed his last. The institution primarily treats kidney patients. They come from all over Pakistan. There is no fee for any service. Virtually, there is no counter where money can be received.

Dr Adeeb Rizvi and Dr Anwar Naqvi, along with their dedicated team of professionals, have run this institution for long. They work day in and day out. Hundreds of thousands have benefitted from their outpatient and surgical services. These women and men, medics and paramedics of SIUT, are true heroes. So are other true heroes who run and work for charitable institutions actively serving people from Karachi to Peshawar, Chitral to Badin and Quetta to Lahore. Edhi was the inspiration for so many. He was the leader, the trail blazer and the visionary for humanitarian work in Pakistan.

But before finishing this piece, let me leave you with a few issues that have continued to bother me since Edhi’s passing away and people around me and on the media commenting that we have a moral crisis in Pakistan because we have no selflessness and no altruism. We need more Edhis and more Rizvis. Our civil society has to produce more such people. Undeniably, as has been stated above without an iota of doubt, Edhi was one of the greatest men ever born. He stood up to the grave situation in which he found humanity around him. But can we imagine an Edhi being born in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, UK, Japan or Germany? Or even in Turkey, Iran or Malaysia?

Edhi was a response to what our powerful elites including civil and military rulers, business and industry, affluent and educated professionals, political institutions, et al, have done to Pakistan. Edhi and his team picked up thousands of charred body parts and decomposed corpses of men and women tortured and killed or shot and killed. His ambulances transported the wounded and the dead from bomb blast sites. Who killed these people and why? What is our elite-captured state doing now so that such incidents of madness and violence do not take place in Pakistan in the future?

Edhi provided shelter to hundreds of thousands of homeless and orphans, women and children. What is wrong with our political economy and social policy and planning that continue to produce these people and increase the number of the poor and the dispossessed?

Also, SIUT is doing a great job. But why are so many hundreds of thousands of people develop kidney-related diseases? Why is clean drinking water only accessible to less than twenty percent of Pakistanis? Will we need more SIUTs if clean water is provided to our people? Society must produce good quality human beings but what do we need the state for – only for organising funerals?

 Email: harris.khalique@gmail.com