A Few Hours with Dr Akhtar Hameed Khan
by Dr Badiul Alam Majumdar
EARLY last month, precisely on March 3, I visited the famous Orangi Pilot
Project (OPP) in Karachi. The OPP, a brain-child of the legendary Dr Akhtar
Hameed Khan, was launched in 1980 with the goal of facilitating the residents
of Orangi, a squatters colony, to construct their own sanitation and drainage
system. The scope of the project was later extended to work with the people
of Orangi and the surrounding areas in the provision of a number of additional
services including housing, health, credit for entrepreneurs, education and
rural development.
During the visit, I spent about three hours with the 84-year old Dr Akhtar
Hameed Khan, listening to many of his fascinating stories, experiences and reflections.
In addition, I met with his colleagues, Ms Parween Rhaman (a Bangladesh-born
Pakistani national) and Mr Anwar Rashid, and discussed with them various aspects
of the OPP. I also had the opportunity to see first-hand the self-managed, self-financed
and self-maintained sanitation work of the Orangi residents.
Dr Akhtar Hameed Khan is a remarkable man with a brilliant mind and strong
convictions. Born in 1904, he was educated at Cambridge University in the United
Kingdom and Michigan State University in the United States. He joined the highly
coveted Indian Civil Service (ICS) in 1936. In a few years he came to realize
that, despite his "superman-like" power and authority, he could not
solve the problems of the common people. Disillusioned, he resigned in 1945
to take "a different kind of apprenticeship." Following the resignation,
he worked as a labourer and locksmith in Aligarh to learn firsthand the way
of life of the working classes. He later taught at Jamia Millia at Delhi and
then became the Principal of the Comilla Victoria College.
In 1958, Mr Akhtar Hameed Khan was made the Director of the Comilla Rural
Development Academy (now BARD) and he continued in that position until the creation
of Bangladesh in 1971. The Comilla Academy made significant differences in the
lives of the people of 300 villages of Comilla thana and the work received widespread
international acclaim for its success. In fact, the success of the Comilla experiment
paved the way for the subsequent green revolution in Bangladesh.
After brief stints at the Peshawar Rural Development Academy and at Michigan
State University, in 1980, he became the Director of OPP. In that capacity he
has been working for the last 18 years to create an enabling environment for
the people of Orangi not only to set up their own system of sanitation, but
also to set in motion a process so that people themselves could achieve better
lives through their own efforts, own resources and own leadership. At 84, he
is still very vigorous and spends most of each day at OPP.
The remarkable aspect of Dr Akhtar Hameed Khan's work is that he applied the
same methodology of empowering and enabling people in two different settings
and achieved outstanding success in both cases. In Comilla, he worked with farmers
coming from the same linguistic, religious and ethnic background. It was a public
sector initiative using the vast resources and the authority of the government.
It also had Harvard advisers and the assistance of the Michigan State University
and the Ford Foundation. The OPP, on the other hand, is a project in an urban
setting, a Karachi slum, involving a working class population from all ethnic
groups of Pakistan - the Mohajirs or Beharis, Pathans, Sindhis, Punjabis and
Balochis - which he calls a "mini Pakistan." It lacked government
authority and sanctions and also major outside support. It was truly a self-help
project. Yet, in both cases, he and his colleagues demonstrated that their approach
works.
Dr Akhtar Hameed Khan calls their approach the "research and extension
method," which was the underlying philosophy behind the American land grant
colleges. In the past century, many colleges and universities were established
in rural areas of the United States to research and solve the problems of the
farmers, and then make the solutions available to the farming community through
extension services. Similarly, in both Comilla and Karachi, Dr Akhtar Hameed
Khan first observed and analyzed the problems of the local people and their
methods of solving them. Then he and his colleagues developed a better package
of advice and improvements and offered it to the people along with technical
support, producing remarkable successes. In either case, people were not given
a blueprint to follow but an instructive model which galvanized their initiative,
creativity and leadership.
Her is a brief account of some the specific issues he dealt with.
On the OPP:
In 1980, when the OPP was conceived, the people of Orangi faced serious water
logging and sanitation problems, causing many diseases. He spent six month in
Orangi just listening to the people and understanding their problems before
launching the project to address the problems. Now, 18 years later, about 90
per cent of the over one million residents of Orangi, living in 110 mohallas,
have built their own sanitation system with an investment of nearly Rs. 75 million
of their own money. The OPP did not do it, the people did it themselves with
technical assistance and mobilization support from the OPP at a cost of less
than Rs. 1,000 per family - one-tenth of what it would cost for the government
to do it. It was a self-managed, self-financed and self-maintained project under
the leadership of community activists. One consequence of the success is that
the infant mortality rate in Orangi went down from 130 in 1994 to 37 in 1991.
A process is now in place for people to improve their income, housing, education
and health through their own initiative and they are succeeding in doing so.
Most significantly, what has been done in Orangi is now being replicated elsewhere.
Dr Akhtar Hameed Khan was most adamant that the success of Orangi was due
to the methodology used, not the genius of the personality involved. The people
of Orangi achieved success because they helped themselves rather than wait for
handouts or for outsiders to come and do it for them, becoming dependent in
the process.
On the Comilla Experiment:
People traditionally produced 20-30 maunds of rice per acre. Under the Comilla
experiment, they started to produce upward of 45 maunds per acre. Four Japanese
farmers were brought to the Comilla Academy and were each given 1.5 acres of
land to cultivate.
Their yield was 60 maunds per acre as compared to 80 maunds per acre per year
in their own country. However, with irrigation and three crops - which is possible
in Bangladesh - Bengali farmers could easily produce 200 maunds in each acre
every year and the country could export huge quantities of rice. The core programmes
of the Comilla experiment began to be replicated in 417 thanas in the early
1960s.
On Bangladesh:
The best thing that happened to Bangladesh was its liberation. The country has
a bright future. It has made significant strides in reducing birth rates and
it has also unleashed the creativity of its women. Bangladesh has one culture,
one language, no serious ethnic problems and a greater social cohesion. Bangladeshis
are also not wasting their energy and resources in attempts to recreate the
Khilafat and fight India. Bengali nationalism is Bangladesh's biggest strength.
However, the widespread corruption, Dr Akhtar Hameed Khan added, must be of
serious concern.
On the Bengalis:
The Bengalis are like the Chinese - they work very hard. They are wonderful
people and are intensive farmers. They have done very well even in Karachi.
They are very prominent in the fishing industry and vegetable production in
Karachi. During our conversation, Dr Akhtar Hameed Khan expressed genuine fondness
and utmost respect for the people of Bangladesh.
On the Future of Pakistan:
Pakistan has serious problems - ethnic tension, feudalism, corruption - to name
a few. The basis of the creation of Pakistan is religion, but the communality
of the religion could not keep Pakistan together. A sense of nationalism is
more important than commonality of religion for a nation, and, unfortunately,
there is no one Pakistani nationalism. More seriously, Pakistanis are unnecessarily
nostalgic about the glory days of the Muslim rule over much of the world and
are trying to recreate the Khilafat - although Kemal Ataturk shunned the idea
decades ago. For the sake of the future of Pakistan, the people of Pakistan
must give up its hostility toward India, which is the outgrowth of the two-nation
theory, and bring about real equality among provinces. The Sri Lankans, Dr Akhtar
Hameed Khan argued, are suffering because of such two nation theory.
On Foreign Aid:
Quoting Sheikh Saadi, he said, the pleasure of being in the heaven is equivalent
to the torture of hell if you go there with the help of your neighbour. Using
foreign aid you can create a colossus with the feet of clay. The Diwani must
not be for sale - Dr Akhtar Hameed Khan stated, with a poignant reference to
the relationship between the Nawabs of Bengal and the British East India Company.
He had very strong comments on the dependence on foreign aid and foreign experts,
and he admitted that the Comilla project suffered because of its use of foreign
support. In Orangi, he had scrupulously adhered to a principle of not using
foreign money and utilizing people coming primarily from the local community.
He avoided hiring staff from the elite class.
On his Regrets:
He regretted that although his work received widespread international recognition
and is being replicated in many places, people in high places of Pakistan did
not pay it much attention. No Pakistani leader or high government official ever
came to see his project except for the Chief Secretary of the Government of
Sindh a friend, who once came with an entourage of 250. (Incidentally, the Chief
Minister of Punjab, who is the brother of the Prime Minister of Pakistan, visited
the OPP the day after I was there.)
Spending a few hours with Dr Akhtar Hameed Khan, a very outstanding social
scientist and community mobilizer of our time, was an enlightening experience
for me. It was a rare privilege to listen to this man of courage, conviction
and wisdom. His stories were fascinating and his views were strong and thought-provoking.
I came back from Karachi greatly enriched, empowered and most importantly, feeling
vindicated. It became clear to me more than ever that self-help is the best
and the most lasting help.
The few hours with Dr Akhtar Hameed Khan convinced me that people - even the
poorest ones - are the masters of their own survival. They are always solving
their problems in their own ways, using the skills, accumulated experiences
and resources they have. The best thing I can do is not to take away that responsibility
of being the principal authors of their own destiny. The only thing I can do,
out of my sense of responsibility is to see the realities, as best as I can,
with their own eyes and help them come to a better solution of their problems
and create an enabling environment for their endeavours to succeed. I must treat
them with dignity by not viewing them as beneficiaries and I must not also kill
their initiative by giving them handouts. This is the work of my organization,
The Hunger Project, in Bangladesh, and in the course of our conversation, Dr
Akhtar Hameed Khan was most generous in encouraging me by saying that we are
doing what he has been doing in all these years. I am greatly honoured to be
a follower of such a trailblazer.
The writer is the Country Director for The Hunger Project.
Date/Time Last Modified: 6/2/2004 5:14:19 PM
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