Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan and the Magic
of Orangi
DR AKHTAR
Hameed Khan, father of the Comilla Cooperatives and the Orangi Pilot
Project (OPP), both internationally renowned development models, died in
the United States on October 09,
To carry on his
life's work and to further develop it, he has left behind three remarkable
institutions in Orangi. These are the OPP-Research and Training Institute
(RTI), Karachi Health and Social Development Association (KHASDA) and the
Orangi Charitable Trust (OCT). These institutions have, under his
guidance, developed sanitation, health, education and income generating
models for low-income settlements. These models support local initiatives,
use local resources and build on the capacity and capability of poor
communities to look after themselves and to strike a more equitable
relationship with government development agencies and with society as a
whole. And development, after all, is all about striking equitable
relationships. These models do not require large funds, foreign or local,
or expensive imported expertise and are totally indigenous. They are being
replicated in numerous settlements in Pakistan, both in Karachi and other
urban centres, and their principles are being applied to development programmes in South Africa, Central Asia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and India. The
OPP-RTI receives training groups not only from these countries, but also
from the Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam, Japan and the First World.
Academic institutions dealing in development, planning and economics, the
world over, study these models and international agencies and NGOs try to
adapt them to their needs. More recently there is considerable pressure
from communities and professionals, supported by concerned bureaucrats, to
bring about policy changes that would adopt the principles and models of
the OPP.
A lot has been written on Akhtar Hameed Khan's work and
the "research and extension" method that he followed. This method, along
with the principle of bringing professionals, community activists and
government officials to a common level of understanding, is followed today
by numerous development agencies and NGOs. Yet, in terms of scale and
impact there is something special about Dr. Khan's work and one is forced
to ask what that is. The answer to this question lies to a great extent in
his personality, upbringing and his life-long search for truth.
Akhtar Hameed
Khan's reputation as a community development expert has completely
overshadowed the fact
that he was an ardent student of history and a keen
observer and commentator on current social, economic and political affairs. In his analysis and observations he was aided by the fact that he
was a scholar of Persian, Arabic, and Pali, and had studied Islamic and Bhuddist classics in their original languages and in great depth. Thus, he
had direct access to the sources of Indo-Muslim culture and history,
without intermediaries. This was reflected in the way he wrote, even in
English, and in his sense of humour. Given this background, it is not
surprising that Akhtar Hameed Khan was an Urdu poet of considerable
standing in the post 1857 tradition of Hali and Azad. In addition, he had
a fine understanding of the contemporary world, an understanding which was
heightened by his knowledge of European history, literature and philosophy
and by his passion for the national and international print media. "I am a
news junkie - I get withdrawal symptoms when there is a newspaper
holiday", he would say. He had also been able to observe the West at close
quarters, first as a student at Cambridge in the mid-30s and then as a
student (1958-59) and a professor (1973-79) at Michigan State University;
and as a teacher at various universities in Europe and the USA. This
immense knowledge of history and current affairs fed into Akhtar Hameed
Khan's development work, which was seen by him as an integral part of a
larger process of change and evolution, at both the national and the
global level. This is one of the major reasons why Ahktar Hameed Khan's
projects differ from other projects that have similar aims and objectives.
It is also one of the major reasons why he resigned from the ICS in 1945.
In conversations with the author of this piece, he said many times that he
resigned from the ICS because after the First World War British rule in
India and its institutions had started to decline. He did not wish to
belong to a dying system that had lost its vitality and viability. Another
factor that occupied his mind was that as an ICS officer he could not
solve the problems of the people at large, as those problems were of a
social and economic nature and could not be solved through administrative
measures. He increasingly wanted to know the causes of the problems and to
understand the lives of the people who constantly petitioned him as an ICS
officer regarding various issues. After his resignation he worked as a
labourer and locksmith in Aligarh so as to know first hand the problems
and the way of life of the working classes.
