While people are calling for awarding Edhi the Nobel Prize posthumously, declaring July 8 a national holiday and naming a street, building or airport after him, what may perhaps be a more appropriate tribute to the enduring legacy that he has built is to pursue his ideals and work towards building a welfare state that supports the vulnerable and weak
RABIA ALAVI | Caravan Daily
[dropcap]P[/dropcap]akistan is mourning the loss of its greatest humanitarian – the man who gently, but tenaciously took on the role more than 60 years ago, and has carried on, seemingly effortlessly, since then.
Abdus Sattar Edhi served as an advocate for the destitute, a savior of the abandoned, and a hero for the desperately needy. He gave selflessly and loved unconditionally.
What began as a small dispensary that he set up in a low-income neighborhood of Karachi more than 60 years ago, expanded into a formal social welfare organization called the Edhi Foundation 20 years later. It now includes the largest free network of ambulances, as per the Guinness Book of Records, along with several orphanages, old people homes, rehabilitation centers for drug addicts, blood banks, maternity homes, and even animal shelters – it is indeed a formidable and enduring legacy that Edhi must be proud of – not because it brought him fame, but because it fulfilled his passion to help the needy.
Edhi was immensely courageous. Undeterred by bullets and bombs, his team of volunteers and he risked their lives everyday to venture out on the volatile streets of Karachi. They picked up and transported the injured to hospitals, when no one else dared, or transferred dead bodies lying in man-holes and gutters, to Edhi-run morgues, where their last rites were performed – quite often by the man himself, before giving them a proper burial.
Edhi had the determination and drive to walk unabashedly around the country, and beg on behalf of those who needed this assistance. He worked with purpose, and became the change that was needed in a society that was very quickly losing what he saw as the true spirit of Islam – the idea that all of humanity should be helped on equal footing, and that every human deserved a chance to live.
In Pakistan, many philanthropists see him as a beacon of hope that guided them to follow in his footsteps and do their own little bit to serve the society, often discreetly. He has guided the formation of small welfare organizations, which are sometimes religion-based or politically motivated, but nonetheless work to help the needy and destitute. He will continue to inspire many others with his legacy of humility and selflessness, where he refused to use the wealth that he accumulated from charity to improve his personal circumstances or status.
However, what must be acknowledged is the desperate need in the society of humanitarian assistance that compelled Edhi to rise, and eventually form a welfare ‘empire’, which helps thousands everyday in some way or the other. It is also a fact that despite the existence of the Edhi Foundation, and several additional civic attempts at setting up welfare organizations, there remain thousands of other destitute and desperate people in the masses in dire need of food, clothes or shelter.
This is a statement of failure on the part of the very society that has decided to depend on Edhi for years and years to do the needful, avoiding any responsibility, at least social, if not financial, to provide assistance to those who deserve it. If there are thousands who are needy, then there are also thousands who are wealthy enough to help these desperate souls.
For the hundreds who are mentally or physically challenged, there are the hundreds who could ideally serve as their eyes, hands or feet – if only they spared some time, or made the effort. Yet people prefer to maintain a distance, or provide monetary assistance at best, which does not require their physical presence.
Also, while there is much stress laid by civil society as a whole on the need for justice or accountability, there is hardly anyone who speaks about the dire need for the implementation of a sound social welfare system in the country – one that is as unbiased as Edhi’s ambulance service is, unconcerned about the race or religion of a corpse before deciding to pick it up.
And with this realization of how the entire civic society has ended up relying on Edhi to provide humanitarian assistance of all sorts to the country’s down-trodden or needy, comes the recognition that the state has also consistently failed to rise up and meet the challenge to serve and provide for the society in the last 69 years of the country’s existence.
While one hopes that Edhi has raised or trained several volunteers to follow his philosophy and mission — to ‘serve all of humanity’ — it is also perhaps the right time to confront those who pledge and promise to serve the masses at the time of elections – namely successive governments that have so far failed to provide the masses with a reliable social welfare system as they should.
Pakistan is in dire need of a state-supported welfare system that is sincere in its objective to help people – and it must be one that does not postulate narrow-minded ideals. While people are calling for awarding Edhi the Nobel Prize posthumously, declaring July 8 a national holiday, or re-naming a street, building or airport, what might perhaps be a more appropriate honor to the legacy that he has built is to work towards forming a welfare state, and challenge the state to support and sponsor this objective. Edhi’s last words were, ‘Take good care of the poor of my country’. That is what we should be doing.
