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Who is
Ali Hasan Mangi
For Ali Hasan Mangi,
poverty and deprivation were deeply personal. He was born in Rato Dero, a small town near the city of Larkana, in Pakistan's southern province of Sindh, and raised in the nearby village of Khairo Dero. Orphaned at the age of five and
left with three siblings to care for, he struggled to get an
education, walking for miles to get to school each day. He
matriculated from Bombay University and was determined to
pass civil service exams and get work at a government
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As a young teacher, he was
known for giving away his meager salary to students who
couldn't afford books or clothes. He was soon promoted to
become inspector of schools and as he traveled throughout
the region for the first time, he became acutely aware of
how widespread the starvation and despair was. |
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The government
then posted him to the city of Sukkur. In his early
thirties, he came into contact with a prominent politician
and soon realized that no matter how hard he worked at jobs,
he wouldn't make enough to help all the people he saw mired
in poverty around him. He set his sights high.
He started by
opening a small Public Complaint Office where ordinary
citizens could bring their problems. He became well
acquainted with people, their needs and their aspirations.
During the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, he
set up a refugee camp in Sukkur's famous Lucas Park,
providing immigrating people food, shelter and clothing.
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Eventually, he
opened factories making wool, silk, hardware, fans and
carpets. He started business involved in ship breaking and
the export of commodities. That way he was able to give
thousands of people jobs in Larkana, Rohri, Sukkur and
Karachi.
Even that
wasn't enough to satisfy him. Ali Hasan Mangi opened a home
for destitute women in Karachi where they were taught
vocations to help them earn a living. He gave scores of
students scholarships, sent hundreds on holy pilgrimages
every year, had the sick treated wherever he could find them
and ran the monthly household budgets for an uncountable
number of families.
When he moved to Karachi in
the sixties, he allocated eight rooms in an outhouse at his
home. There he would house travelers who came seeking his
help. He always ensured they were fed, had a warm place to
sleep and fare to travel back home after he had sorted out
their problems.
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He went on to enter
politics. And those very people elected him to Parliament
time and again for over forty years. That way he was
able to influence policy and get rural and urban dwellers
electricity, cooking gas and roads.
Ali Hasan Mangi
passed away in 1994; as penniless as the day he was
orphaned. He touched thousands upon thousands of lives, so
many of whom remember him even today. Yet, he left, feeling
there was so much more to be done.
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He was a quiet,
reflective man with the most uncommon capacity to give, the
greatest reservoirs of patience and fortitude, and the most
compelling urge to uplift his people. He wore the simplest
of clothes and enjoyed the most frugal meals. His daily
staple was plain boiled rice and lentils.
Despite
Pakistan's development and record economic growth, people in
rural areas, who account for more than two-thirds of the
nation's population of 165 million, are still trapped in
poverty. Men and women labor on farmland for less than a
dollar a day, with which they must feed families of 10 or
more. They eat rough bread to survive and don't have access
to the most basic form of healthcare. Most of their children
have never seen the inside of a classroom.
We, the
children and grandchildren of Ali Hasan Mangi, aspire to
take his mission forward and work toward rural development
in some of Pakistan's most impoverished villages. This is
our hope and our tribute to his most loving memory.
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