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Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan
I.C.S., Recepient of Civil Awards: Nishan-i-Imtiaz, Sitara-i-Pakistan, Hilal-i-Imtiaz, Magsaysay Award
Article by Mr. Nasim Yousaf entitled "Dr. Akhter Hameed Khan - The Pioneer of Microcredit"
Article by Mr. Nasim Yousaf entitled "7th death anniversary: A tribute to Dr. Akhter Hameed Khan"
COSS Announces Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan Award |
"Jinnah Award" for Dr. Akhter Hameed Khan |
Book on Allama Mashriqi and Dr. Khan
He was the founder and Chairman of the Comilla Rural Academy of Pakistan (in East Pakistan now Bangladesh) and the Orangi Pilot Project in Karachi (Pakistan). These projects became a model of rural development in different countries of the world. The purpose of these projects was to improve sanitation, education, and healthcare in poor, rural areas. He worked tirelessly for these projects and devoted his life to the cause. Millions of people benefited from these projects.
Contributions for his projects came from the government of Pakistan, the Ford Foundation, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Michigan State University provided advisors and training and also advised on curriculum. Other international organizations also supported Dr. Akhtar's project. Japan's contribution came through the Colombo Plan. Volunteers were assigned by the the U.S. Peace Corps. In its Second Five-Year Plan (July 1960-June 1965.), the Provincial Government of Pakistan also included the Comilla project.
The Orangi Project in Karachi (Pakistan) comprises of about one million inhabitants.
"It was a great delight and pleasure for me to visit your Academy, see the excellence of the work you are doing and its effect in the form of revival of hope, self-confidence and cooperative spirit amongst the people that you have been serving. It is the first time that I found the ideas that were only vaguely present in my mind put into practical shape in a realistic and pragmatic manner to help people stand on their own feet and better their lot. I was deeply moved by all that and congratulate you on your magnificent effort.
I hope your experiences are put into practice through the country; in that lies our real salvation, and you can rest assured that I, on my part, will do all that is possible to support this noble cause."
Late President of Pakistan, Mohammad Ayub Khan, offered Dr. Khan the post of Special Advisor on Rural Development. Dr. Khan was also offered the position of Vice Chancellor of the University of Dacca in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).
ISLAMABAD, March 4: The chief executive, Gen Pervez Musharraf, on Saturday vowed to carry forward the work started by the late Akhtar Hameed Khan.
He was inaugurating a two-day symposium on the life and times of the great social scientist organized by the National Rural Support Programme (NRSP) here. The CE renamed the NRSP as 'Akhtar Hameed Khan Centre for Rural Development'.
Dr Khan was one of the country's most well-known social scientists who proved his class by developing rural areas and low-income urban settlements through Comila project in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) and the Orangi pilot project in Karachi. He achieved it through involvement and motivation of the common man.
Dr Khan's faith in the common man was firm like a rock. He was beacon for all those who considered their development as a pinnacle to the human progress, the CE told the gathering.
Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz, Labour and Local Government Minister Umar Asghar Khan and Education Minister Zubaida Jalal attended the inaugural session.
Gen Musharraf disclosed that he had recommended to President Rafiq Tarar to award Nishan-i-Imtiaz to Dr Khan, adding that this may have been approved by now.
The CE said that his government's commitment to poverty alleviation, devolution of power and organization of the poor was in line with the principles of Dr Khan.
Akhtar Hameed's principles, he said, were sublime but mundane. He demonstrated through his practical work how villagers had the potential to do wonders to change their conditions. They can build water channels and roads, and boost crop production by mounting their collective effort, he added.
Dr Khan proved that the concepts of self-help and self-reliance were not merely an academic idea but ground realities. He was always ready to accept new challenges. He had been always testing and changing his ideas to suit the conditions, the CE said, adding that his last development endeavour was the pilot project of Lodhran.
The CE said that during his posting in Comila in 60's he heard about Dr Khan's rural development work. During his stay in Karachi as DG Military Operations, he said, he was told that Dr Khan had created an island of peace in Orangi as Karachi used to be very turbulent in those days.
Dr Khan, he pointed out, had laid a 7,000-lane sewerage system in Orangi. He urged the people to come forward and work for the development of people.
Meanwhile, a delegation from Bangladesh headed by the chairman of the public administrative reforms of Bangladesh, A.T.N Shamsul Haq, was specially here to pay tributes to Dr Khan.
Mr Haq, who had an opportunity to work with Dr Khan, said the man was remembered as "a real hero in Bangladesh and specially in Comila".
Mr Haq, who enjoys a minister's status, said Dr Khan's pictures adored many houses in Bangladesh even today and a road had been named after him.
The house in Bangladesh, where Dr Khan spent many years as a college principal, had been preserved as a museum.
"He was a legend in his life-time," and thousands of his students in Bangladesh remembered him with gratitude, said Mr Haq.
Dr Khan died as a sad man because he was pained over erosion of moral values, said Mr Haq. During his meeting a year back, he said, Dr Khan told him that the problem of the current age was the "problem of moral and moral uplift".
The chairman of the centre, Shoaib Sultan Khan, also spoke.
DOCUMENTARY: An 11-minute documentary was displayed in which the late Khan was shown telling the poor "where there is no discipline, poverty will increase". He told them that their paltry sum of money can acquire power of the capital when put together.-APP
Additional copies available from:
Printing and Publication Section of the Human Resource Development, National Rural Support Program (Islamabad, Pakistan)
The Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan
Dr. Ishrat Husain sent a letter to Mr. Nasim Yousaf appreciating Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan. Below is an extract from the letter:
"Throughout my professional career I have been guided by the teachings of Doctor Sahib [Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan] and made it a point to identify opportunities whereby the poor segments of the population could improve their lot.
The recent initiatives taken by us in establishing Khushali Bank and the Microfinance institutions in the private sector are a testimony to the robustness of the approach adopted by him and the leadership provided by Doctor Sahib in this field."
Vice President, South Asia Region, World Bank
Micko Nishimizu sent her statement to Mr. Nasim Yousaf on March 27, 2002. She paid her tributes to Dr. Khan:
Learning the Lesson of Poverty from a Legendary Teacher: A Tribute to Akhtar Hameed Khan
"I owe a great debt to Akhtar Hameed Khan, the modern day sufi who transformed how I view poverty and poor people. Khan Sahib taught me to regard poor people not as helpless in need of handouts, their poverty emanating from a lack of resources, but as individuals who have the capacity and the will to transform their own lives. This lesson of Khan Sahab has, in fact, reverberated throughout the world shattering popular beliefs and myths on how to deal with poverty and development. It has revolutionized our thinking in seeking solutions to world poverty by placing poor people center-stage and enabling them to decide what is best for them..."
Director of the Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development, Cornell University, USA
Dr. Norman Uphoff sent a five-page statement to Mr. Nasim Yousaf appreciating Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan. Below is an excerpt:
"I was unfortunate never to have known Akhter Hameed intimately--knowing him mostly through several close friends and then having several memorable occasions together--yet I nevertheless considered him one of my gurus for rural development... One of my closest friends from graduate school days at Princeton, Blake Hendee Smith...had the great good fortune of getting a first job at the Academy for Rural Development in Comilla after completing his MPA at the Woodrow Wilson School [Princeton University, USA]. Blake's letters to me were so full of admiring comments about the works and words of Akhter Hameed Khan that I came to feel as though I had an acquaintance with the man himself within just one year.
...I got to know well Edgar (Ted) Owens with the U.S. Agency for International Develpoment's Asia Bureau, and then its Office of Rural Development, who was an unabashed admirer of Akhter Hameed...Ted...was someone who had few heroes because of his very sharp eyes for detecting feet of clay. But he had only praise for Akhter Hameed, whom he considered his guru for rural development.
Sadly, such towering figures and lofty intellects as Akhter Hameed's are quite uncommon. Only a few emerge in any generation."
Professor Emeritus, Michigan State University, USA
Dr. George H. Axinn sent a six-page statement to Mr. Nasim Yousaf appreciating Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan. Below is an excerpt:
"In my mind and heart, the greatest professional and human contribution to rural development in the second half of the 20th Century was made by Akhter Hameed Khan. He was a man of great stature, and also a humble man."
Former Foreign Minister
Mr. Sartaj Aziz, in a telephone conversation with Mr. Nasim Yousaf, highly praised Dr. Khan for his services to the nation. He was delighted to hear that Mr. Yousaf is working on a book on Dr. Khan.
11 October 1999
Monday
01 Rajab 1420
By Sarfaraz Ahmed
KARACHI, Oct 10: Highly respected social scientist and founder of the Orangi Pilot Project and Comilla Rural Development Project Dr Akhtar Hameed Khan died in Indiana, US, on Saturday. He was 85. He leaves behind his wife, four daughters and a son.
According to his son, Akbar Khan, the body is expected to reach Karachi in a couple of days.
Dr Akhtar Hameed, who had gone to the US in May on a personal visit, died at a hospital where he had gone for a periodic check-up, his family said.
Born in 1914 at Agra, Mr Khan won selection in the Indian Civil Service and later spent two years at Cambridge. In 1945, he quit the service and worked as a labourer or a lock-maker. Later, he joined Delhi's Jamia Millia Islamia as a teacher.
Mr Khan migrated to Pakistan in early 50s. He was the founding-director of Pakistan Academy for Rural Development, Comilla, before he was appointed principal of the Comilla Victoria College (Bangladesh).
He launched the Orangi Pilot Project (OPP) in 1980 and remained associated with it till his death. He was on the boards of a number of educational institutions in the country.
He was a visiting professor of Michigan State University, US, which later awarded him an honorary doctorate.
He was recipient of Magsaysay Award and was also awarded Sitara-i-Pakistan and Hilal-i-Imtiaz.
"Indeed, it's a very big loss," lamented Ghulam Kibria, who remained associated with Dr Khan for the past 60 years. He said Dr Khan believed in resolving problems of the common man on a self-help basis.
He said it was his (Dr Khan's) work and efforts that peasants in the then East Pakistan had accepted the idea of making savings through their meagre source of income to encourage the setting up of cooperatives.
In April 1980, he said, Dr Khan laid the foundation of the OPP where people built a sewerage system in over 6,000 lanes and by-lanes on a self-help basis at a cost which was one-fifth of the civic agencies' estimate.
On the same pattern, Mr Kibria said, the organization set up by Dr Khan helped improve the condition of around 700 schools in Orangi Township.
"This he achieved through setting up committees of area people to execute and monitor the development work by themselves," he said.
Till his last day in Pakistan, he said, Dr Khan had been going to the OPP office regularly.
"He was the greatest social scientist the country has ever produced," said Tasneem Siddiqui, adding that he did not believe in merely theories but was a practitioner of action research.
He said "Dr Khan was always experimenting. He was open to new ideas and was never shy of accepting his mistakes".
Mr Siddiqui said that Dr Khan was very vocal about his views on the role of world monetary agencies and had said on a number of occasions that the "World Bank and Asian Development Bank can take Pakistan to nowhere".
He said Dr Khan had great faith in the low-income group people that they had the capacity and willingness to pay for development provided they were involved in its entire process.
"He believed in low-profile research and he used to apply that research to test new ideas," Mr Siddiqui said, adding that Dr Khan was always of the view that the basic job of NGOs was to carry out research, which had always been the weakness of the government.
He said the models prepared by Dr Khan were not only adopted and replicated in the country, but outside the world as well.
"He was one of the most important social scientists of the world," said Arif Hasan, who was appointed OPP's technical adviser some 20 years ago.
He said Dr Khan was not only a social scientist or thinker but also a scholar of a high order.
Besides English and Urdu, he said, Dr Khan was adept in Persian, Arabic and Pali and was a good poet, and added that the second collection of his poetry would soon be coming into print.
He said the Comilla project became a model of rural development in various parts of the world; a number of books were written on it and it served as a basis of research in many an institution around the globe.
He said Dr Khan set up four model centres in the fields of education, primary healthcare, sanitation and income generation as these were the problems being confronted by a vast majority of the people of Pakistan and the Third World.
He said it was Dr Khan's desire that his institutions were designated by the government as institutions of official training and thus included in the policy-making process.
He further said that except for the Sindh Kachchi Abadis Authority no other government department or agency chose any of Dr Khan's institutes for official training.
Dr Khan encountered obstacles in the accomplishment of his mission. When he was in the then East Pakistan, he was branded a CIA agent. When he tried to rehabilitate the Pukhtoon population of Orangi and Qasba, who had been uprooted in the wake of the Aligarh Colony killings, he received pressure from a political party and others.
All those and other obstacles could not weaken the life-long spirit of Dr Khan as he always remained vibrant with his ideas to translate them into reality for the good of the common man, Arif Hasan said.
Tuesday
02 Rajab 1420
IN THE death of Dr Akhter Hameed Khan, Pakistan has lost its greatest social scientist
and humanitarian who became a legend in his lifetime. He was synonymous with the
Orangi Pilot Project where his ideas, initiatives and inspiring leadership helped transform
the lives of people in what was then called the biggest kachchi abadi of Asia. Though
Orangi epitomized Dr Akhter Hameed's concept of community development through
self-help, his humanitarian concern extended far beyond this settlement of 1.1 million on
the outskirts of Karachi. As a social thinker and scholar, his influence was tremendous and
was acclaimed internationally. He developed the research and the method of extension of
his work - which involved low-profile research in community development on the ground -
to evolve a strategy that was then applied in practice to transform the lives of people. His
intellect and services won him the prestigious Magsaysay Award, he being the first
Pakistani to have won it, and an honorary doctorate from the Michigan State University.
Striking deep roots in the communities with which he worked - be it the Comilla Rural
Academy or the Orangi Pilot Project - Akhter Hameed Khan developed his ideas at the
grassroots level. He was a genuine friend and benefactor of the people. He based his
strategy on the cultural values, beliefs and lifestyles of the people to promote change on a
self-help basis. It was not philanthropy which he wanted to hand down to them. The "basti
dwellers," to quote his own words, "want to survive and prosper. They are frugal, diligent,
enterprising and resourceful. They are workers and producers, not free-loaders and
spongers. They do not need doles and subsidies, sinecure jobs or free homes." He strongly
believed that the people of the kachchi abadis needed technical and social guidance to help
themselves. This he provided through the institutions he set up and his research on the
needs and problems of the people.
He always regarded himself as a student forever ready to learn, in spite of his phenomenal
knowledge of history, language and administration. Before launching the OPP he spent
several months roaming in the streets of the township to acquaint himself with the
customs, traditions, likes and dislikes of the people. His profound understanding of the
sociological, economic and political dimensions of life led him to two fundamental
conclusions which formed the pivot of his social philosophy. His first finding was that
people, who have been uprooted, will always seek to re-establish a sense of belonging,
community feeling and ways of mutual help and cooperative action. His second
observation was that the problems which people sought to solve foremost were those of
housing, health care, education and employment. That is why these were the OPP's
priorities wherein lay the key to its success.
A very modest and humane person, Dr Akhter Hameed Khan preferred not to claim any
credit for the success of his projects. But the fact is that without his insightful guidance
and the motivation and inspiration that he provided to the social activists and his dedicated
band of followers, he could never have transformed the lives of the people he worked
with. He had two basic qualities which marked his approach and ensured its success. First
was his immense love for his people. A member of the prestigious ICS, he left that service
a few years after joining it because he felt he could not solve the problems of the people
from that position. He went to work as a locksmith so that he could earn a living with it
and also interact with the people and learn about them. Second was his remarkable
confidence in the forces of change and the people's capacity to adapt to it in a meaningful
way. Even at a time when a mood of despair and failure was strong and pervasive, Dr
Akhter Hameed remained optimistic that conditions would get better. That is the message
he gave through his keen observations and commentaries on social, economic and political
affairs. So strong was his faith in his ideas that at times he made the seemingly impossible
come true. Thus, when Orangi was overtaken by ethnic violence of the worst kind more
than a decade ago, he remained unruffled and doused the flames before any permanent
damage could be done. Today the people of Orangi belonging to different ethnic
communities live together in peace and harmony as a lasting tribute to their friend,
philosopher and guide.
November 1999
By Ghulam Kibria
It was in Aligarh, way back in the ’30s, that I first got to know Akhtar Hameed Khan. Besides being neighbours, our fathers were close friends. Given his enigmatic personality, Akhtar Hameed was the ideal for me and most of my friends. I was at school when he left for England to join the Indian Civil Services (ICS). In those days, for educated Muslim families like ours, it was the norm to join the civil services. So when he went off to England, we started to look up to him even more.
In 1942, there was a famine in Bengal. Akhtar Hameed Khan came down to Aligarh and told us all about the toll it had taken on the people. Extremely perturbed by their suffering, he was nonetheless convinced that helping the victims through collecting funds and distributing food was not going to be of any use. Instead, he proposed a rehabilitation of the famine-stricken people a novel idea, given that everyone else including the government was only interested in providing emergency aid.
Aligarh was then a very professional-minded place, since only about one per cent of UP Muslims were absentee landlords. In Bulundsheher, for example, there were only about four families that owned feudal estates. The rest aspired to join government service, with the ICS being everyone’s top priority. Anyway, Akhtar Hameed Khan returned in 1937 and was posted in Bengal as a joint magistrate. Though I had stayed in touch with Khan saheb throughout the interim, my first real experience of his social philosophy occurred when I was a student at Aligarh University.
Dr. Khan in the News:
Allama Mashriqi was a Scholar and Founder of the KHAKSAR MOVEMENT in Indo-Pakistan.
He had a large number of followers who were devoted to his movement. He was a genius and
earned many different types of degrees and broke many records at the Punjab University in Pakistan and Cambridge University of England.
An Entrepreneur and Member of the Board of Directors which founded Pakistan Commercial Exporters of Towels Association.
He was also Ex-Vice Chairman(N.Z.) of the PCETA.
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