History of Karachi

Karachi: What’s in a picture?




A 19th-century sketch of Greek commander, Nearchus, leading his fleet across River Indus in the present-day Sindh province of Pakistan.

Nearchus was a commander in ancient Greek king, Alexander’s army which had invaded India. In 325 BC, Nearchus exited India with his section of the army by sailing over the Indus and exiting from Balochistan.

He entered Balochistan by first reaching the mouth of Indus which emptied the river’s waters in the Arabian Sea. Historians believe this was where the coastal Manora area is in Karachi today.

A great storm from raging and Nearchus found a fishing village here led by a matriarch. He named the place Morontobara (Greek for Woman’s Harbour).

Source: The Voyage of Nearchus from the Indus to the Euphrates: William Vincent(Nabu Press, 2011).
Karachi in the Mirror of History: M Usman Damohi (Al-Abbas Publications, 2011).





An 1839 sketch of Karachi drawn by a British traveller on the eve of Britain’s conquest of the city.

At the time, Karachi was just an insignificant dot on world maps. It was a small fishing town ruled by the Sindhi-Baloch dynasty (the Talpurs). It had a fort made of dry mud and an underdeveloped harbour. The town had no paved roads and no sanitation or garbage-collecting system.

It had a population of about 20,000 people who were mostly involved in the fish trade. Crime was high, and disease was rampant. The bulk of the population was made up of Sindhi, Balochi and Gujarati-speaking Hindus and Muslims.

Source:
Gazetteer of the Province of Sind. B Volume 1 Karachi District 1919.




An 1860 photograph of British ships entering Karachi waters (Arabian Sea). By now the city had been made Sindh’s capital and absorbed into British India.




A woman suffering from the fatal bubonic plague awaits treatment in 1890, Karachi.

The city’s worsening sanitation conditions fed the infected rats which arrived on ships from elsewhere in India. Hundreds of people perished from the plague. The British began work on providing the city with an effective sanitation and sewerage system.

Source:
Gazetteer of the Province of Sindh. B Volume 1 Karachi District 1919.




A 1919 photograph of Karachi’s Saddar area.

By the mid-1900s, Karachi had grown into an impressive trading post. The British developed Karachi’s harbour and it became one of the busiest in India. The British also built a robust infrastructure (roads, bridges, hospitals, parks, railways, etc.); and introduced modern policing and city governing systems.

The crime rate saw a sharp decline; and the city’s economy boomed. Fifty-one per cent of the city’s population was Hindu; 40 per cent was Muslim; and there were also large Christian and Zoroastrian communities.

There was a Jew community too, apart from thousands of British officers, doctors, engineers and administrators and their families residing here. It was during this period that Karachi became known as ‘the Paris of Asia’.

Source:
Gazetteer of the Province of Sind. B Volume 1 Karachi District 1919.





Statue of the British Queen being unveiled at Karachi’s Frere Hall/Park during a ceremony.

The statue was shipped all the way from London. The ceremony was attended by British and local officials of the city government, British military personnel, Karachi’s wealthy Hindu, Muslim and Zoroastrian dignitaries and the general public.

A few years later, a statue of King Edward, too, was placed here. Both the statues remained in place when Karachi became a part of Pakistan in 1947. However, the statues were removed in 1956 when Pakistan’s first constitution declared the country a republic.





Karachi, 1948: An open area dotted by hundreds of temporary camps, housing government officials who ran matters of the country and the city from inside these dusty tents.

Karachi became the capital of Pakistan in August 1947. It witnessed a huge influx of Muslim refugees arriving from various Indian cities and towns. Karachi did not have the resources to accommodate such an influx. Many of its buildings were packed to capacity. Many civil servants, police personnel and ministers of the new country shifted to these tents from where (for almost a year and a half) they navigated the fate of Pakistan and its capital city.

Source:
Pakistan’s Capital (A feature in LIFE Magazine’s June, 1948 issue).

A 1951 photograph of a busy commercial area of Karachi.

The city began to recover from the early demographic tremors caused by the dramatic influx of refugees when Karachi became the capital of Pakistan.

Another reason for the recovery was the sudden boom that the city’s economy enjoyed when Pakistan became a leading exporter of jute, cotton and other agricultural goods to the US troops stationed in Korea during the Korean War. The bulk of the goods were exported through cargo ships leaving from the city’s harbour.





Men and women workers laying bricks during the construction of a building in 1952.

The brief economic boom that the city enjoyed (see previous picture and text), facilitated the government to erect some much needed buildings to house the growing number of government officials and refugees (Urdu-speaking Mohajirs).

In the early 1950s, a bulk of the city’s labour force was made up of the working-class sections of the refugees. By the late 1950s, much of the force comprised Pakhtun migrants arriving from the NWFP province (present-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa).





Pakistan’s first Republic Day parade. In 1956, Pakistan became a republic. The occasion was marked by a parade held on March 23, 1956 in Pakistan’s then-capital, Karachi.





Pakistan’s constituent assembly in Karachi passing the country’s first constitution in 1956.

The constitution declared the country a republic and promised Pakistan’s first election based on adult franchise. Assembly members were all indirectly elected, and consisted of legislators from the centre-right Muslim League, the centrist Republican Party and the left-leaning Awami League.

The assembly also consisted a few members from the left-wing Azad Pakistan Party. An alliance of centre-left outfits called the United Front had the second largest number of members in the assembly after Muslim League. The assembly did not have any member to form a religious party, even though the small Nizam-e-Islam Party (based in East Pakistan) was part of the United Front.




1957: Mohajir street actors re-enact scenes of violence during the partition of India and which forced many of them to migrate to Karachi.

Most such plays were staged on the streets of the refugee camps which were still existing till the late 1950s. Crime, exploitation and a sense of alienation were ripe in the camps. They were emphatically depicted by famous Urdu novelist Shaukat Siddique in his 1956 novel, Khuda Ki Basti (God’s Abode).





1958: American tourists enjoying a sunny day at one of the many beaches of Karachi. ‘Huts’ had begun to come up at these beaches to accommodate the increasing number of visitors to these beaches.

According to a 1957 newspaper article in America’s Washington Post, Karachi’s beaches were some of the ‘cleanest beaches in Asia’. Tiny working-class settlements (gohts) near these beaches began to expand.

The settlements were largely populated by Sindhi and Baloch fishermen and their families. They slowly began to venture into other areas of business as well, such as selling beer, soft-drinks and snacks to passing visitors, become caretakers of the huts, and invest in buying horses and camels to provide joy rides to bathers.







Military police personnel in Karachi checking licenses of car-owners in 1958.

Pakistan military chief, Field Marshal Ayub Khan, had come to power through a military coup. He ordered a crackdown against corruption and crime in Karachi which had grown ever since the city’s economy had begun to struggle from the mid-1950s onward.

Pakistan’s first leading female industrialist, Razia Ghulam Ali, giving instructions to an employee at her factory in Karachi. The Ayub regime had made Karachi the focus of its rapid industrialisation project.




Karachi’s Burns Road area in 1961. The area, first developed as a ‘posh’ locality by the British, had become a middle-class neighbourhood in the 1960s, largely populated by Mohajirs.

Restaurants and eateries offering spicy North Indian dishes had begun to come up here and by the 1970s, the area would become a famous ‘food street’ — but highly populated and congested. By the 1980s, though it remained famous for its eateries, it was mostly populated by lower-middle-class segments of Karachi.





Karachi’s McLeod Road in 1962. After the economic boom and rapid industrialisation witnessed during the first half of the Ayub regime, McLeod Road became to be known as the ‘Wall Street of Pakistan’.

New buildings housing the Karachi Stock Exchange, banks, insurance companies, newspaper offices, other financial institutions and advertising agencies sprang up.

Between 1959 and 1965, streets of this area were regularly washed with water. Later, the area was renamed I.I. Chundrigar Road and has become extremely congested and polluted.




A Pakhtun rickshaw driver in Karachi’s Clifton area in 1963. The economic and building boom witnessed during the first phase of the Ayub regime saw the influx of labour arriving in Karachi from Pakistan’s NWFP province.

The hard-working Pakhtuns immediately populated the city’s labour force and also began to operate businesses involved in providing public transport. However, tensions began to mount between the city’s Mohajir majority and the new Pakhtun arrivals. The city eventually witnessed its first Mohajir-Pashtun riot in 1965.




Pro-Ayub graffiti on a wall in Karachi during the 1965 Presidential election.

Ayub Khan (Muslim League-Convention) defeated Fatima Jinnah (of Combined Opposition Parties — an alliance of anti-Ayub left and right outfits) and was re-elected as President. However, Karachi was the only city which voted against Ayub.




1967: An air-hostess of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) pours Champagne for a business-class passenger at Karachi Airport.

In the 1960s, PIA rapidly emerged as one of the top airlines in the world and the Karachi Airport became ‘the gateway to Asia’.





The Intercontinental Hotel, 1966.

It was a popular high-end hotel in a city enjoying an economic boom and a rising number of foreign dignitaries, business personnel and tourists arriving for work and play to Karachi.

The hotel was re-named Pearl Continental in the 1990s. It is now mostly surrounded by tall barricades and security guards due to rise of terrorism and militancy in the city from 2004 onward.





A rare 1965 photograph of the last remnants of Karachi’s Jew community.

The community had grown in size in the early 1900s, but began to shrink from the 1950s onward. By the 1960s, only a handful of Jews remained in Karachi. They completely vanished after late 1960s (moving abroad).

Members of Karachi’s Jew community spoke fluent Hebrew, English, Urdu and even some Arabic.

Source:
Pakistan’s Lost Jews: Rumana Hussain (Newsline, December 2013).

A widespread slum in Karachi in 1968.

The Ayub regime’s industrialisation project and pro-business policies had triggered an economic boom. But this boom had a flip side to it as well.

It also created serve economic disparities and gaps between classes and the expansion of slums like this one. The slums did not have any running water, sewerage system or electricity and were riddled with poverty, rising crime and alcoholism.

These tensions were expressed by an intense anti-Ayub movement in 1968-69, largely orchestrated by left-wing student outfits, labour unions and populist political parties. The movement forced Ayub to resign in early 1969.

The populist ZA Bhutto regime, which took power in December 1971, would go on to ‘regularise’ most of Karachi’s slums by providing them with some amenities, and ownership of land to those residing here. The Bhutto regime would also go on to build walls around such slums to stem their physical growth.





A 1970 Pakistani passport.

Though the Pakistani passport was always green (ever since the country’s creation in 1947), the full name of the country inscribed on it kept changing.

From 1947 till 1955, ‘Pakistan Passport’ was inscribed (in Urdu, Bengali and English) on the cover. This was changed to ‘Republic of Pakistan’ in 1956, and then to ‘Islamic Republic of Pakistan’ in 1958.

In 1960, the Ayub regime reverted it to ‘Republic of Pakistan. In 1969, the inscription was changed back to the simple ‘Pakistan Passport’. This was changed in 1973 to ‘Islamic Republic of Pakistan’ by the Bhutto regime (now written only in Urdu and English, because the Bengali-dominated East Pakistan had broken away in 1971).

This has remained, even though the Musharraf regime (1999-2008) did try to revert the inscription back to ‘Republic of Pakistan’, but his move was opposed by conservative opposition parties.





A 1973 photograph of a pop band playing at a nightclub in Karachi.

A majority of such bands, which played regularly at hotels and nightclubs of the city, consisted of members of Karachi’s vibrant Christian community. The community was largely Catholic and its ancestors had begun to arrive in Karachi in the early 1900s. Most had come from Goa where they had been converted to Christianity by Portuguese colonialists.

Karachi’s Christian community largely resided in the Saddar areas and was involved in education. The late 1960s and 1970s were the heydays of Christian pop bands, and most Christian youth made their living through this.

However, after nightclubs were closed down in April 1977 and a reactionary dictatorship came to power in July 1977, such bands struggled to find work. Many from these bands slipped into depression and alcoholism and died young, or migrated abroad. By the 1990s and 2000s, a majority of Karachi’s Christians had migrated.

—Picture courtesy: LMKonline.





McLeod Road in 1975.

Though it was still being called the ‘Wall Street of Pakistan’, the economy of the country which had boomed in the early and mid-1960s had already begun to falter.

Major industries and capital, which were concentrated in private hands, began to take flight and were stashed abroad after the Bhutto regime implemented its ‘socialist’ policies.

Most banks and insurance companies situated on this road were nationalised and fell into disarray. The economy also struggled to come to terms with the dramatic rise in global oil prices.





A 1975 poster of a Karachi-based pop band.

The 1970s were a surreal and flamboyant era in the city. Exaggerated and extroverted displays of one’s personality was common among the youth.





Bhutto inaugurates Pakistan’s first nuclear-power plant in Karachi in 1972. Bhutto accelerated Pakistan’s nuclear program in 1974 after India tested its first nuclear device. By the 1980s, Pakistan had developed its own nuclear device which it tested a decade later in 1998.

The plant which Bhutto inaugurated in Karachi is still operational.





Karachi’s famous Nishat Cinema in 1974.

It thrived in the 1970s and even survived the impact of the VCR invasion in the 1980s. However, in the 2000s, it was completely destroyed and set on fire by militant mobs incited by religious outfits. It has not been reconstructed.





Karachi’s busy Saddar area in 1974.

It had been an upscale shopping area during British Raj. From the mid-1960s, it began evolving as the epicentre of Karachi’s nightlife.

Its streets were lined with trendy restaurants, shops, bars and nightclubs, mostly catering to Karachi’s middle-classes. By the 1980s, it began to fall into disarray and suffer severe congestion. Today, it is a pale and an ill reflection of what it used to be.

Fishermen catch hammerhead sharks in Karachi’s coastal area in 1976.

Karachi always had a prominent fishing industry (fisheries), and it still does. However, ironically, it is perhaps the only major coastal city in the world where seafood is not all that popular.

Though small seafood eateries thrive near the port, and in the city’s historical coastal areas, such as Kemari, exclusive seafood restaurants are rare in Karachi.

This is mostly due to the fact that after the creation of Pakistan in 1947, the majority group of the city was made up of refugees arriving from various cities and towns of India. Many of these cities and towns were landlocked and never fully developed a taste for seafood.





Children enjoy a ride at a slum in Karachi in 1977.

The Bhutto regime ‘regularised’ many such slums by providing their residents land ownership and some amenities. Bhutto also got walls built around the slums to stem their growth, but the increasing rate of population in Karachi, inflation, and unemployment, could not stem swelling of poverty and economic desperation.

Criminal gangs dealing in drugs (mostly hashish), prostitution, pick-pocketing, gambling and black marketing grew two-fold in such slums, one of which was situated in the Lyari area. Paradoxically, Lyari had become a bastion of Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) from 1970 onward.





PIA airhostesses receiving lessons in English and French in Karachi in 1975.

PIA continued to grow into a world-class airline, and was making handsome profits since the mid-1960s. Karachi Airport, too, remained one of the busiest in the region, accommodating flights belonging to all the leading airlines of the world. But from the late 1980s onwards, PIA began to face a gradual decline. Its quality of service deteriorated and by the 2000s, it was on the verge of bankruptcy. It still is.

The airport in Karachi, too, lost out its ‘gateway to Asia’ status to Dubai. And due to rising incidents of terrorism in Pakistan, traffic at the airport was drastically reduced, despite the fact that the airport was shifted to a brand new building in 1992.





The incomplete building of what was supposed to be one of the largest 5-star hotels in Asia.

With rising violence in Beirut in the mid-1970s, the Bhutto regime planned to divert the wealthy European and Arab tourists from the crumbling casinos of Beirut to Karachi. For this purpose, the Bhutto government began building a large 5-star hotel in the heart of Karachi (Hayat Hotel), and an equally large casino situated on the shoes of the city’s Clifton Beach area.

By 1977 both the buildings were almost complete when Bhutto was overthrown in a reactionary military coup. Work on the hotel and the casino was halted. The empty casino building was finally torn down in the 2000s, whereas the incomplete structure of the hotel still stands, rather aimlessly.

The ‘recreational’ wealth Bhutto was trying to attract to Karachi eventually moved to Dubai.




The 5-star Taj Mahal Hotel on Karachi’s Shara-e-Faisal in 1981.

Its appearance symbolised a brief respite from economic turmoil which the city had fallen into in the late 1970s. The Ziaul Haq dictatorship was replenished with US and Saudi aid (at the start of the Afghan Civil War), and it also began to dismantle Bhutto’s rather ill-formed ‘socialist’ economic policies.

A new class of nouveau-riche began to emerge, which was comfortable with combining the accumulation of wealth and material exuberance with exhibitions of public piety encouraged by the Zia dictatorship.

Many members of this new class could be found holding business lunches and dinners at the Taj Mahal. The hotel still exists but in a more depleted state. It is now called the Regent Plaza and has become a 2-star resort.





Karachi’s Seaview Area begins to emerge in 1982.

Much of this area, located along the Clifton Beach, had just been about the sea, sand and shrubs. But in the early 1980s, town-houses and small bungalows began to come up, mostly catering to the growing middle-class sections of Karachi.

Today, it has become a widespread residential area with shopping malls, exotic restaurants and tall office buildings. However, the sea water here has become extremely polluted.





Prince Karim Agha Khan being given a tour of the Agha Khan Hospital in 1983.

Funded by the prince, the hospital has remained Karachi’s largest and most sophisticated surgical and treatment facility. It also has an excellent medical university attached to it.





Two photos of the same street in one of Karachi’s largest impoverished areas, Orangi. The pictures were taken by famous architect and sociologist Arif Hassan to demonstrate the success of the Orangi Pilot Project (OPP).

The first picture is from 1983 and second from 1984. OPP was an initiative of Akhtar Hameed Khan, a social scientist. He began a ‘bottom up community development program’ in Orangi which, at the time, was a large slum.

He registered the OPP as an NGO and then generated funds and plans for the upliftment of Orangi. He mobilised the area’s people and involved them in various self-help schemes aimed at building an effective sewerage and sanitation system, paved streets, low-income housing, schools and medical facilities.

Introduction

Karachi (Urdu: ڪراچي) is the capital of the province of Sindh, and the most populated city in Pakistan, sometimes known as the "City of Baba Quaid-e-Azam", after Muhammad Ali Jinnah the founder of Pakistan. It is located on the coast of the Arabian Sea in southeastern Pakistan, northwest of the Indus Delta. The city is the financial and commercial centre as well as the largest port of Pakistan.

The site of an ancient community of fishing villages, the modern port-city of Karachi was developed by authorities of the British Raj in the 19th century. Upon the creation of Pakistan in 1947, the city was selected to become the national capital, and was exposed to a massive influx of immigrants from India, which radically expanded the city's population and transformed the demographics and economy. Karachi has faced major infrastructural and socio-economic challenges, but modern industries and businesses have developed in the city, and the population expanded even after the capital was moved to Islamabad in August 1960. With a population of thirteen million it is considered as the 16th largest city of the world.

Location

Karachi is located at latitude 24° 48´ N and longitude 66° 59´ E. The urban sprawl starts from the westernmost mouth of the River Indus and goes up to the mountains and hills that form the southernmost edges of the Kirthar Mountain Range. The Arabian Sea is the southern boundary of the city. The city is located on the Arabian Sea north west of the mouths of the Indus River.

Geography

Karachi is mostly made up of flat or rolling plains with hills on the western and northern boundaries of the urban sprawl. Two rivers pass through the city the Malir River (north east to center) and the Liari River (north to south). Many other smaller rivers pass through the city as well with general drainage being from the western and northern areas towards the south. The Karachi harbour is a protected bay to the south west of the city. The southern limit of the city is the Indian Ocean and forms a chain of beautiful sandy beaches.

History

The area that now consists of Karachi was originally a group of small villages including Kalachi-jo-Kun and the fort of Manora. Any history of Karachi prior to the 19th century is sketchy. It is said that the city called Krokola from which one of Alexander the Great's admirals sailed at the end of his conquests was the same is Karachi. When Muhammad bin Qasim came to India in the year 712 he captured the city of Debul. It has been said that Debal was the ancestral village of present day Karachi. Although this has neither been proven or disproven.

It was in 1729 that Kolachi-jo-Goth was transformed from a fishing village to a trading post when it was selected as a port for trade with Muscat and Bahrain. In the following years a fort was built and cannons brought in from Muscat were mounted on it. The fort had two doorways, one facing the sea called the Khara Darwaza or Brackish Gate and one facing the River Lyari called the Meetha Darwaza or Sweet Gate. In 1795 the city passed from the Khan of Kalat to the Talpur rulers of Sindh. Karachi had gained in position as a major port and was hence becoming an important city. The importance of the Indus and Sindh led the British to capture the city on the 3rd of February 1839 starting an era of foreign rule and colonial subjugation that was to end in 1947.

In 1876 the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah was born in the city, and he would later be buried here in 1948. Karachi by now was a city with railroads, churches, paved streets, courts and many commercial centers and a magnificent harbour that was built by the British. Many of these buildings were built in classical British style, and contrast with the "Mughal Gothic" of Lahore. Many of these old buildings continue to stand, and are interesting destinations for visitors.

In 1947, Karachi was made the capital of the new nation of Pakistan. At that time Karachi was a city of only 400,000 people, and it's growth accelerated due to the new status. Being the capital Karachi became the centre of the new nation and this added to its status as a cultural centre in this part of the world. Although the capital later moved to Rawalpindi and then Islamabad in 1959. Karachi remains the economic center of Pakistan, accounting for a large portion of the GNP of the nation.

Education

Karachi district has the highest literacy rate in any of Pakistan's districts. The city is home to many universities and colleges. Here is a list of some of the more important ones.

» Karachi University (KU)
» Aga Khan University (AKU)
» Nadirshaw Edulji Dinshaw University of Engineering and Technology (NED)
» Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture (IVSAA)
» National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences Karachi (NUCES)
» Institute of Business Administration (IBA)
» Complete list of Colleges & Universities in Karachi

Economy

Karachi is the financial capital of Pakistan. It is also home to the largest stock exchange of Pakistan: the Karachi Stock Exchange. Most Pakistani banks have their headquarters in Karachi. Most of these are located on the I.I.Chundrigarh Road. The headquarters of nearly all the multinational corporation (MNC) based in Pakistan are in Karachi. Most Pakistani corporations are headquartered in Karachi as well. Karachi also has a huge industrial base. There are large industrial estates on most of the fringes of the main city. The main industries are textiles, pharmaceuticals, steel, and automobiles. Apart from this there are many cottage industries in the city as well. Currently, the Karachi Port is the only large port in Pakistan, and is central to all shipping in Pakistan. The airport of Karachi is also the largest airport in Pakistan and the hub of most local airlines. Karachi accounts for the lion's share of Pakistan's GDP. The city is said to contribute about 48% of the national revenues.

Culture

Karachi is a melting pot of peoples and cultures. Before 1947, the city was inhabited mainly by people from the areas near the city, the people basically being Sindhis, Baluchis, Mekranis and Gujaratis. In 1947 most of the city's Hindu population left, and a large number of immigrants Mohajirs came from India. Most of these are from the Urdu Speaking parts of India. But Memons from Gujarat and small quantities of communities from other areas also arrived. Giving Karachi a flavour of all the provinces and parts of British India. After independence a steady stream of immigrants has been coming to the city from different parts of Pakistan and made large Punjabi, Pathan, Bengali and Hazara communities to grow in Karachi. In 1971 there was a large influx of mainly Urdu Speaking people from the former East Pakistan. In the 1980s a large number of Afghan refugees streamed into the city.

Now Karachi has a sizeable community of people from all the different parts of Pakistan. Karachi also has large numbers of people from all the different cultural segments of South Asia and Afghanistan. Karachi also has small immigrant communities from as far off as Africa and Burma. This mixture of peoples and cultures gives Karachi a very cosmopolitan touch. Karachi can be called a melting pot of many different flavours. It is a very cosmopolitan city with different languages and cultures intermingling all the time. The city is a beautiful mixture of the old and the new. Burqa clad women will walk on the same roads that women drivers are seen on. Karachi's culture can only be described as Karachi's culture, it is different from the rest of the country but it is not defined, it is changeable with the people.

Karachi’s largest multiplex cinema, The Nueplex.

Multiplex cinemas mushroomed across the city from the mid-2000s onward. As conventional cinemas went out of fashion, multiplexes have been enjoying the return of middle-class audiences to watch films on the big screen.





Karachi’s Prince Cinema today. Built in 1977, it was the country’s largest cinema and the first one which had a 70mm screen, and Dolby sound system.

It was also the most expensive. However, decades later, it has been struggling to come to terms with the challenges posed by multiplexes. It survived the crisis of the 1980s when the VCR made sure to keep audiences seated in their homes, and it also survived when a rabid mob of extremists went on a rampage a few years ago and burned down a number of cinemas (Prince, Bambino, Nishat, Capri).

Nishat never reopened. Such cinemas now squarely cater to working-class audiences who can’t afford tickets at multiplexes.





Karachi (and Pakistan’s) tallest building under-construction.

Called the Icon Tower, it is situated in the New Clifton area of the city (near the famous shrine of Sufi saint, Abdullah Shah Ghazi).

It is going to be 60-stories-high and is expected to be completed by early 2017. So far, the tallest building in Pakistan is Karachi’s MCB Tower on II Chundrigarh Road. Built in the 2000s, it broke the record held by Habib Bank Plaza (also located on the same road). The Habib Bank Plaza (now HBL Plaza) was built in the early 1960s.







Karachi’s iconic skyline in 2016.

Karachi originally was a small fisherman village settled by the Baloch tribes from Balochistan and Makran. Their first settlement was near the delta of the Indus River which they named as 'Kolachi’ village. The people of the original community yet inhabit the area on small island of Abdullah Goth situated near Karachi Port. The well-known neighbourhood ‘Mai Kolachi’ of Karachi still reminds the original name of the city.


At the end of 1700 century, the settlers of Kolachi village started trading across the sea with Muscat and the Persian Gulf region. Later, the village started to grow as the commercial hub and a port for trade. For the protection of this developing area, a small fort was constructed. This fort was handed over to the rulers of Sindh by the Khan of Kalat in 1795.


The British recognized the importance of the city as the trade post. So they captured the city and Sindh province in February 1843 under the command of Sir Charles Napier and the city was annexed as a district of the British Indian Empire. In 1846, it was home to around 9000 citizens. The city experienced a cholera epidemic in the same year and a Conservancy Board was established in the city to protect the people from this disease. This Conservancy Board was converted into a Municipal Commission in 1852 and it was again upgraded as Municipal Committee in 1853. This natural harbour started to flourish as bustling port under the British rule. On September 10, 1857, the 21st Native Infantry stationed in Karachi revolted against the British in its First Indian War for Independence, but the plan was busted by the British who regained the control over the city very quickly.



In 1864, the first telegraphic message was sent by a direct telegraph connection between Karachi and London. In 1878, the city was connected by a railway line to the rest of India and consequently public building projects like Frere Hall (1865) and the Empress Market (1890) were started in the city. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan was born in the city in 1876 in a famous Ismaili Khoja family.


The Bombay District Municipal Act 1837 was extended to Sindh in 1878 and the urban area of Karachi was included in the city. The Municipality started to collect House Tax on Property owners, being first municipality to collect the tax in the sub-continent. By the end of 19th century, the city was home to around 105,000 people and it was a cosmopolitan city of Hindus and Muslims communities as well as Jews, Parsis, Iranians, Lebanese and Goan merchants. In 1900, due to the street congestion, India’s first tramway system was constructed in this bustling city. That time Karachi was famous for its railway-tram network, churches, mosques, court-houses, markets, paved streets and a magnificent harbour.


Karachi City Municipal Act was propagated in 1933 and the Municipality of Karachi was given the status of Municipal Corporation. At the same time, the status of President and Vice President were replaced by Mayor and Dy. Mayor respectively. It consisted by 57 Councilors residing in Karachi, and who were from different communities of Muslims, Hindus and Parsis. In 1933, Mr. Jamshed Naserwanji was elected as the first Mayor of the city who had earlier served as elected President for about 20 years. The city was declared as the capital of the newly formed Sindh province in 1936.



When Pakistan was declared as a separate country in 1947, Karachi was chosen as the Capital of Pakistan. During this period, the city offered shelter to a huge influx of migrants and refugees that came from the Indian province. In 1960, the capital of Pakistan was first moved to Rawalpindi and then to Islamabad. Still Karachi never lost its importance as the economic centre of Pakistan. The Municipal Corporation of Karachi was upgraded to Metropolitan Corporation in 1976. Again on 14th August 2001, City District Government of Karachi was reorganized in 18 Town Administrations and 178 Union Councils.

ghazi52 said:

Karachi originally was a small fisherman village settled by the Baloch tribes from Balochistan and Makran. Their first settlement was near the delta of the Indus River which they named as 'Kolachi’ village. The people of the original community yet inhabit the area on small island of Abdullah Goth situated near Karachi Port. The well-known neighbourhood ‘Mai Kolachi’ of Karachi still reminds the original name of the city.


At the end of 1700 century, the settlers of Kolachi village started trading across the sea with Muscat and the Persian Gulf region. Later, the village started to grow as the commercial hub and a port for trade. For the protection of this developing area, a small fort was constructed. This fort was handed over to the rulers of Sindh by the Khan of Kalat in 1795.


The British recognized the importance of the city as the trade post. So they captured the city and Sindh province in February 1843 under the command of Sir Charles Napier and the city was annexed as a district of the British Indian Empire. In 1846, it was home to around 9000 citizens. The city experienced a cholera epidemic in the same year and a Conservancy Board was established in the city to protect the people from this disease. This Conservancy Board was converted into a Municipal Commission in 1852 and it was again upgraded as Municipal Committee in 1853. This natural harbour started to flourish as bustling port under the British rule. On September 10, 1857, the 21st Native Infantry stationed in Karachi revolted against the British in its First Indian War for Independence, but the plan was busted by the British who regained the control over the city very quickly.

In 1864, the first telegraphic message was sent by a direct telegraph connection between Karachi and London. In 1878, the city was connected by a railway line to the rest of India and consequently public building projects like Frere Hall (1865) and the Empress Market (1890) were started in the city. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan was born in the city in 1876 in a famous Ismaili Khoja family.


The Bombay District Municipal Act 1837 was extended to Sindh in 1878 and the urban area of Karachi was included in the city. The Municipality started to collect House Tax on Property owners, being first municipality to collect the tax in the sub-continent. By the end of 19th century, the city was home to around 105,000 people and it was a cosmopolitan city of Hindus and Muslims communities as well as Jews, Parsis, Iranians, Lebanese and Goan merchants. In 1900, due to the street congestion, India’s first tramway system was constructed in this bustling city. That time Karachi was famous for its railway-tram network, churches, mosques, court-houses, markets, paved streets and a magnificent harbour.


Karachi City Municipal Act was propagated in 1933 and the Municipality of Karachi was given the status of Municipal Corporation. At the same time, the status of President and Vice President were replaced by Mayor and Dy. Mayor respectively. It consisted by 57 Councilors residing in Karachi, and who were from different communities of Muslims, Hindus and Parsis. In 1933, Mr. Jamshed Naserwanji was elected as the first Mayor of the city who had earlier served as elected President for about 20 years. The city was declared as the capital of the newly formed Sindh province in 1936.

When Pakistan was declared as a separate country in 1947, Karachi was chosen as the Capital of Pakistan. During this period, the city offered shelter to a huge influx of migrants and refugees that came from the Indian province. In 1960, the capital of Pakistan was first moved to Rawalpindi and then to Islamabad. Still Karachi never lost its importance as the economic centre of Pakistan. The Municipal Corporation of Karachi was upgraded to Metropolitan Corporation in 1976. Again on 14th August 2001, City District Government of Karachi was reorganized in 18 Town Administrations and 178 Union Councils.

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Was it not called Karachappa originally?

No.
It was 'Kolachi’ village.

Dash said:

Was it not called Karachappa originally?

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ghazi52 said:

No.
It was 'Kolachi’ village.

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Request you to go BC not AD

History is History whether AD or BC..........
Will try to get BC.
Is It possible for you to get. Thanks.

Dash said:

Request you to go BC not AD

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