Little London: From being a garrison town developed by the British Empire in the 1800s, Quetta has changed beyond recognition

Since the arrival of the British in Balochistan in 1839, Quetta, the provincial capital, used to be known as ‘Little London’ due to its scenic beauty and its London-like buildings. Among other things, it was clean and there were wide roads.

The British had designed it for the population of 35,000 people who were living there after the devastating 1935 earthquake. The natural disaster completely destroyed the whole city.

Since then, most importantly, the infrastructure including wide roads and streets were maintained and clean. Besides the British, there were foreigners visiting the bowl-shaped Quetta valley as well as there used to be bars. One of the famous bars was a French bar, run by Frenchwomen.

After the refusal of Maharaja Ranjit Singh of the Sikh Empire to give a passage to Afghanistan, the British thought of using Balochistan to gain access to Afghanistan. Reportedly, before the arrival of the British, Quetta used to be a small village. When they came to the valley, they developed it as a garrison town due to its vicinity to Afghanistan.

Historical perspective

Historically speaking, the British obtained the lease of Quetta from the Khan of Kalat in 1841, while the other leased areas were amalgamated together in British Balochistan. These areas included northern Pashtun areas comprising Loralai to Qilla Abdullah and Baloch areas like Barkhan, Kohlu, Dera Bugti, Sibi, Naseerabad in the east and Noshki and Chaghi in the south-west.

Sikh, Hindu and Parsi communities used to live in the heart of the city with Kasi or Kansi Pashtuns, while Shahwani Baloch lived in the outskirts, particularly in the southern part of Quetta. In the north, there was the Bazai Pashtun community.

There were Punjabis and Urdu-speaking people known as Hindustanis that came to Quetta with the British who also lived in the city areas. However, what is unfortunate is that during the Partition of the subcontinent in 1947, most members of the Sikh and Hindu community migrated to India, leaving their hearths and homes behind. They reportedly never came back to their place of birth.

As for the Hazara community, they first migrated to Quetta in the 1880s from Hazarajat in central Afghanistan to escape persecution by Afghan king Amir Abdul Rehman. First, they started settling in the eastern side of Marriabad, a small village with a population of Baloch Marri tribesmen. In the late 1990s, they started settling in the western side of the city after buying lands from Syeds of Kirani.

Today, they form one of Balochistan’s most literate and educated communities. Many of Balochistan’s Hazaras have also served as top military officials, civilian bureaucrats and politicians.

Epicentre of politics

Most people remember Quetta of the 1970s. It reportedly used to be the epicentre of political activities. The landscape of the city was secular. Baloch nationalist leaders Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, Nawab Khair Baksh Marri, Sardar Attaullah Mengal, Mir Ghous Baksh Bizenjo, and Pashtun nationalist leaders Khan Abdus Samad Achakzai and Khan Abdul Wali Kakar used to sit with people discussing politics in Quetta.

One of their favourite places was Karim Studio, Standard store and Quetta Medical Store — better known as a place for get-togethers of the said leaders. It was, at the time, a weapon-free and guard-free environment; that is why there was the rising culture of cafes, study circles and book reading.

Mohammad Razzaq, a senior citizen, remembers sitting at the cafés discussing all sorts of topics, including literature. Most of the cafes, according to him, were situated at the corner of the streets on today’s Jinnah Road.

There were Café Baldia, Café Dawn, Café Regal, Café Farah, and Café Firdausi etc and most of these were owned by Iranians, he revealed. “There was complete harmony among local ethnic, sectarian and religious groups which is why we used to have constructive discussions. On the other hand, we used to walk on footpaths from Regal to Manan Chowk. There was no traffic.”

Darker times

Although Quetta’s culture was reportedly secular till the late 1970s, all hell broke loose following the internal and external developments near the end of the decade. In 1977, General Ziaul Haq came to power through a military coup d’état. In 1979, political developments also took place in Pakistan’s neighbouring countries of Afghanistan and Iran — the former Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan, which brought ‘jihadi’ forces from all over the world into Afghanistan to further the United States of America (USA)’s interests. Since then, it has been eroding the secular landscape of Quetta valley, which has now been witnessing sectarian conflict as well as religious violence.

Following this development, Afghan refugees started pouring into Quetta abundantly. Along with refugees, Afghan ‘black money’ too poured into Quetta.

Before the 1970s, in the city’s Kandahari Bazaar there used to be a section of dried fruit that was imported from Kandahar, Afghanistan, which is how it got its name. Later on, Afghans from Kandahar too started living here, said Pervez Durrani, a resident of Stewart Road in Quetta. “But over the decades, Quetta has transformed so tremendously that one can now hardly recognise [it].”

One of the reasons for this transformation is that in 2001, the US invaded Afghanistan, which led to another wave of Afghan refugees in Quetta. They have kept coming since the invasion. Their arrival too had given birth to weaponry, drugs and other cultures that had not existed in Quetta before that.

At the same time Quetta, which was initially rebuilt for a population of 35,000, had a population of 2.7 million as per the 2017 census. As a result, Quetta is now home to societal conflict and extremism; there is a dearth of medical, education and other services. Since Afghanistan does not have basic health infrastructure among other things, the Afghan refugees tend to get treated in the hospitals of Quetta whose economy thrives on Afghan refugees. As a result, health facilities have become scarce for the locals.

Similarly, the property prices are reportedly skyrocketing in Quetta. There is inflation, crowds and traffic in Quetta. For instance, Jinnah Road used to be a walking street but there is now so much traffic that one can hardly walk along it at times. Quetta city has unfortunately changed for all the wrong reasons.