The Lost Liveliness of Karachi and the Criminal Neglect of the Government
I just came back from Karachi the day before yesterday. There everywhere was filth and dirt. Every person was complaining that the present and the previous governments have not focused on cleanliness. And dirt and filth have piled up. But I could not digest these things. One of the reasons is that cleanliness is everyone’s personal affair. And just as one cleans one’s own house, similarly it is the responsibility of the people to keep the streets and markets clean too. Many people told me that in Europe people roam around with dogs. Whenever and where ever the dog takes a bowel movement, they let him to it with ease. They have a shopping bag with them. They lift the bowel with it and put it in a dustbin. And they clean the spot with a tissue paper. If the dog is mine, then I am responsible for keeping it clean. The dog is mine, but the job of cleaning the place should be of the government, what a strange thing that is! This is our mistake. And we shall have to accept our mistakes, where everyone likes to say that the job of cleaning the place is that of the government. This should never happen! You cleaned the house and threw the dirt of the house in front of the door. I think that this is extremely abase. This is my country! I have to clean my country myself. There is my street, my house, my roads, my bazars and I have to keep them clean. Till the time we do not develop a sense of complete self-responsibility, we cannot become 100% healthy and responsible citizens. The true reflection of the prophetic era is in front of us. How much the prophet (ﷺ) of Allah and your companions used to like cleanliness? According to the temperament of Prophet hood, the first and foremost thing is faith. A lot of emphasis has been paid on faith. What would be a bigger importance of faith that cleanliness has been considered half of the faith. And cleanliness definitely is half of the faith. The society of Hazrat Muhammad (ﷺ) was a healthy society. Where the diets were simple, there was an arrangement of cleanliness. Hazrat Muhammad (ﷺ) laid a lot of emphasis and importance on cleanliness. Have we named dirt and filth as simplicity? In simplicity you can have a weak house, small street and stitched clothes, but they should be clean. The houses are clean, streets are clean, the bodies are clean. If we want our bodies to be clean, our streets to be clean. Then the way we focus on the cleanliness of our bodies, similarly we should focus on the cleanliness of our streets. A person said, “I went to Saudi Arabia to earn. I could not find a job. I stood by a road. A Saudi came. He took his head out of the car and asked, “Would you like to work?”, I said, “yes I would like to work.” He asked, “What would you like to do?” I said, “I shall do whatever you shall ask me to do.” He said, “Sit inside the car.” He had his whole house cleaned by me. And in the end he said, “My gutters are blocked. I lifted my cuffs and without a shopper I put my arm inside the pipe of the gutter. From inside, I found a few clothes and a few pampers and a few other things. He was looking at me with awe. And I filled the litter bin with that debris. I cleaned his house. He saw my service and said to me, would you like to work with me permanently? I nodded with approval. He asked, “What will you take?” I said, “Whatever you shall give.” And then I started working with him with honesty. After some time he made me responsible for the income of the taxi. I made progress and after a while I became the director of all of his business (which was worth millions of Ryals). He became old. His children grew older. He did not make me subservient to his offspring. Rather he made me the elder of his offspring. And he made everyone subservient to me. He asked me to groom them. That was cleanliness and mannerism that took me from poverty to affluence. Come! We should be careful of our responsibilities. Since when we have forgotten our responsibilities, we have developed mischief in our thoughts and complaints in our words.
Does this mean that Karachi’s lost liveliness is the criminal neglect of the government? We learn that this is not correct. Rather it is the criminal neglect of every person. I consider myself as the biggest criminal.
