By Zubeida Mustafa
IN March 1862, five nuns from the Daughters of the Cross — a Belgium-based congregation — travelled to India and set up a school in Karachi with 10 students on its rolls.
This is how the St Joseph’s Convent School (SJC), one of the finest educational institutions in the city, was founded. Today, 150 years on, the number of its students has grown to over 2,000. Hundreds of thousands have passed through its portals over the years. Continue reading School with a heart
By Zubeida Mustafa
WHEN someone claims to have been denied a fair hearing before the courts due to systemic flaws, I think of the golden “chain of justice” that has earned the Mughal emperor Jahangir a place in history. Outside his castle in Agra a bell had been installed for those who wanted a personal hearing from the emperor. They just had to pull the chain.
There are many prisoners locked up in our prisons today who need such golden chains. In other words, their point of view needs to be heard. One of them is Dr Zulfiqar Ali, an inmate of Kot Lakhpat Jail, Lahore. I came to know of Zulfiqar’s case way back in 2009, when Justice Project Pakistan , in conjunction with the London-based Reprieve, two legal aid organisations, had filed a mercy petition to the president on his behalf. I had written about him pleading for his life in view of the good work he was doing to educate fellow-prisoners (May 20, 2009).
Continue reading A teacher on death row
By Zubeida Mustafa
I FIRST learnt of Sohail Fida from his fascinating book Soul Unshackled. The book is an autobiographical account of a young man from Swat who lands in prison on false charges of murder and makes a confession extracted through torture when he was not even 18.
While behind bars he finds solace in books — reading them and then going on to write one. Books become the means of his redemption. They facilitate his studies, shape his mind, help him overcome depression brought on by his wrongful confinement and in the span of 12 years — five of them in the death cell — he passes five examinations: Intermediate, BA and three MAs. The son of a petrol station owner, Sohail Fida could build on the schooling he had already received.
What makes this story special is not so much Sohail’s success in his exams as his extraordinary response to his adverse circumstances from April 2000 onwards. Continue reading Letter from Haripur jail
By Zubeida Mustafa
ON the weekend of Feb 11-12, the Karachi Literature Festival unveiled a treasure of intellectual delights for the third consecutive year to those who attended.
Graced by eminent writers from Pakistan and abroad with whom one doesn’t always get the opportunity to interact, the event allowed one the luxury of disconnecting oneself — though momentarily — from the brutal realities of life in Karachi.
At the time when Vikram Seth, the author of A Suitable Boy, was engaged in a one-on-one conversation with Prof Shaista Sirajuddin, a few kilometres away, the Defence of Pakistan Council was indulging in India-bashing at its rally near the Quaid-i-Azam’s mausoleum. An umbrella organisation of 40 reactionary parties, including some banned ones, its message was quite the opposite of the themes the KLF was expounding.
Continue reading Nadia attends the KLF
By Zubeida Mustafa
THE Annual Status of Education Report 2011 (ASER) — the second in a row — that was launched last week should be an eye-opener for those who do not know much about how the children of the ‘other’ learn.
In a country where even the decennial census cannot be held on time for fear of the truth being exposed, credit should be given to the group of courageous educationists who undertook this massive exercise to assess the knowledge of our schoolchildren. Surveying 146,874 children (three- to 16-year-olds) in 84 rural and three urban districts, Continue reading Teachers who cannot teach