C OVER STORY
Edhi, the public's
obstinately humble hero
H
e created a charitable empire out of nothing, masterminding Pakistan's largest welfare organisation. Today Abdul Sattar Edhi is revered by many
as a national hero. Content with just two sets of clothes,
he sleeps in a windowless room of white tiles adjoining the office of his charitable foundation. Sparsely
equipped: it has just one bed, a sink and a hotplate. "He
never established a home for his own children," says
his wife Bilquis, who manages the foundation's homes
for women and children. What he has established is
something of a safety net for Pakistan's poor and destitute, mobilising the nation to donate and help take action ─ filling a gap left by the lack of a welfare state.
"Mr Edhi sits here, waiting for your donations," sputters
the speaker of an Edhi ambulance parked in an affluent
neighbourhood of Karachi, the port megalopolis of glaring inequalities. Passers-by deposit alms or pay their respects to the frail old man, whose white beard and worn
karakul ─ a triangular cap ─ are known throughout the
country and beyond. Edhi has been nominated several
times for the Nobel Peace Prize, and appears on the list
again this year ─ put there by Malala Yousufzai, Pakistan's teenage Nobel laureate.
New nation, new hope
Edhi, born to a family of Muslim traders in Gujarat in British India, arrived in Pakistan after its bloody creation in
1947."He thought that this new Muslim nation would be a
social welfare state," says his son Faisal. But, when they
got to Pakistan, he found "it was the exact opposite".
The state's failure to help his struggling family care for
his mother ─ paralysed and suffering from mental health
issues ─ was his painful and decisive turning point towards philanthropy. In the sticky streets in the heart of
Karachi, Edhi, full of idealism and hope, opened his first
clinic in 1951. "Social welfare was my vocation, I had to
free it," he says in his autobiography, "A Mirror To The
Blind". Motivated by a spiritual quest for justice, over the
years Edhi and his team have created maternity wards,
morgues, orphanages, shelters, and homes for the elderly ─ all aimed at helping those in society who cannot
help themselves. The most prominent symbols of the
foundation ─ its 1,500 ambulances ─ are deployed with
unusual efficiency to the scene of terrorist attacks that
tear through the country with devastating regularity. But
its ethos of humanitarianism transcending religious and
ethnic lines while empowering the people, has made it
the target of many ferocious smear campaigns. Hardliners have branded him an infidel and his work un-Islamic.
Edhi's response has been hard work and an obstinate
asceticism, a bid to leave his enemies with no ammunition. His work so conquered the esteem of the public
that armed groups and bandits were known to spare his
ambulances. The annual budget of Rs1.5 billion, mainly
from donations by middle- and working-class Pakistanis,
continues to grow, according to Faisal, despite criticism
from fundamentalist groups eager to snatch such support for themselves.
Mother Bilquis
Abandoned children and the elderly, battered women,
the disabled, drug addicts; Edhi's foundation now houses some 5,700 people in 17 shelters across the country.
It employs around 3,000 people, many of whom were
former residents. The project Bilquis Edhi is most proud
of is the baby cradles adoption service. In the early days
of his work, as Edhi cruised the streets in his ambulance,
he was made desperate by the number of infant corpses
he came across, many believed abandoned. Now the
foundation has before each centre a large cradle bearing the inscription: "Do not kill innocent babies, leave
them in our cradle." Bilquis proudly displays photos of
now-grown women once abandoned but who are now
graduates of prestigious universities. Several thousand
children ─ the vast majority of them girls ─ left in the
cradles over the last four decades have been housed
by Edhi centres and adopted, she says. Without Edhi,
"I would have had no life," says Seher, 16, who grew
up in the foundation's decrepit headquarters. "Bilquis
and Edhi are there for us round the clock," smiles the
girl.She cares for younger children ─ including the small
daughter of a thief jailed for the burglary of the foundation in 2014, a crime which caused an uproar in Pakistan.
Now frail and weak, Edhi says he is unable to manage
his kingdom. He appointed his son Faisal as managing
trustee in early 2016. "I have done a lot of work. I am
satisfied with my life," he sighs. "He is my hero," s