Exhibition offers glimpse into Karachi’s transformation after Partition

The transformation of Karachi from a quaint little littoral town to a bustling metropolis after independence was the subject of an exhibition that opened on Wednesday evening.

Titled From Borders to Belongings: Karachi’s Journey through Migration, organised by The Dawood Foundation (TDF), the exhibition drew a number of people on its opening day at TDF Ghar.

The bulk of the information is provided through posters, documentaries, artefacts. An entire room has been curated, too, by the foundation’s team.

Moving around the venue, one gets the sense that despite not being an overly elaborate show, it does provide useful glimpses into the city’s past, mainly how it changed after independence.

The contributions of communities such as Parsis and Bohras are pointed out, and a significant number of facts and figures are given about the camps in which the migrants stayed after landing here.

As one enters the gallery on the first floor, the first thing that catches the eye is the introductory note on a standee which reads that the organisers’ effort “explores how migration has been a driving force in Karachi’s inspiring journey of transformation and resilience”.

Interestingly, the highlighted room has quotations from Urdu poetry and prose. For example, the famous line (read: muttering) that the protagonist Bishen Singh in Saadat Hasan Manto’s oft-discussed short story Toba Tek Singh utters upar di gurgur di annex di… can be read on a sheet on the left side, signifying the psychological horrors that the division of the subcontinent inflicted on many people.

In the same space, lines from Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Sahir Ludhyanvi’s poems can be read as well, imparting a literary feel to the whole exercise.

Talking to Dawn, TDF’s Hiba Zubairi said, “It is an exhibition on the Partition of the subcontinent. We have covered a bit of pre-Partition Karachi [since it’s mostly about the post-period], that is, how it was developed, which communities took part in that development, etc. Then we have collected stories of those who have experienced migration with their parents or grandparents. These stories are in documentary form. We have also captured their quotes.”

She said the purpose of the show is to connect Karachi with the youth, and to tell them how the city was in the past and how people got relocated to this town. “People lived in camps here. We have made a small room here in the shape of a camp,” she said.

The exhibition will run for three months, from Tuesday to Sunday. Mondays are off.

Originally published in Dawn, January 16th, 2025