Daily Times

On September 20, 2014, a non-governmental organisation arranged a program in Makli Gymkhana, Thatta, to review the status of education in the district. Quite a lot of people from across the region participated in this event in order to determine what could be done to improve the educational facilities in the area. Among them was Muhammad Ali Khattak, who was wearing a black ribbon to highlight his protest against the current state of education in Thatta, as well as to promote his struggle to bring about reforms to improve the current situation. He has been protesting in this manner for almost four years.

Khattak has been participating in every education related event in the district and its bordering areas for quite some time, in the hopes that he can drum up some support among the local population for his struggle. He aims to pressurise the government in agreeing to his demand for reforms, yet, even though many people have encouraged him in his efforts, none have so far declared their outright support for him. He can be easily recognised by his unique appearance, as he is always wearing a shalwar kameez with a Sindhi hat on his head, a notebook in hand, a pen in his breast pocket, and the customary black ribbon on his arm. This latter accessory is his most famous feature, with many calling him simply the ‘black ribbon man’ as well.

Everyday countless people come up to him and inquire about the black ribbon on his arm. They ask him the purpose behind it, and without fail, Khattak patiently replies to each and every one, detailing his vision for better education for the people of Sindh and Thatta in particular. I too approached him in a similar manner and his reply made me finally understand his vision.

“Since the last 45 months I have been mourning over the state of education and this struggle has some demands too. My first demand is that the government should strictly implement Article 25-A so that every student between the age of five and 16 can get free and standard education, which is their basic right. My second demand is that the government should make sincere efforts in reopening closed schools, due to which thousands of students have nowhere to study. My third and last demand is that the government pay attention to the educational institutes which are already functional but facing issues like damaged infrastructure and deficiency of teachers etc”.

Thatta was once the capital of Sindh and the centre for educational excellence, yet the situation is starkly different today. At one time, there were over 400 universities within the region, and now the standards have fallen so much, that in the recent entry test of the Mehran University of Engineering and Technology in Jamshoro, seventeen of the total reserved seats for students from Thatta remained unoccupied, as candidates could not even hope to pass the entry exams

This 37-year-old has got phenomenal courage and confidence. He utilises social media to promote his struggle quite effectively, by travelling to the far-flung villages of district Thatta and Sujawil in order to take pictures and videos of closed/ghost schools and interview the locals, after which he uploads all this material online. He is active on Facebook, and has a YouTube channel as well, called “Education Friends”. Professionally, he works as an office administrator in a non-governmental organisation in Thatta, and lives a relatively simple life. He does not ask for financial help to support his cause, and everything he does is for the betterment of the people that live in his region.

He once told me that “our education has been struggling for a long time because the children of well off people, which include landlords and politicians etc., don’t acquire education from government institutions, while the children of poor can’t afford to get education in private institutions. This leads to differences in the education standards of children of both classes”. He also highlighted the importance of the recent elections and the need to vote for people that would work for the people, instead for their own interests.

Inspired by the recent “Fix it!” campaign that became popular in Karachi, Khattak initiated his own campaigns for education, called Humen Dushman Kay Bachy Samjh K Parhao and “Where is education emergency in Sindh?” The former involved distributing pamphlets with cartoonish pictures of Sindh Chief Minister, Syed Murad Ali Shah, and the former was in retaliation to the Sindh government’s announcement that education in the province was facing an emergency.

Thatta was once the capital of Sindh and the centre for educational excellence, yet the situation is starkly different today. At one time, there were over 400 universities within the region, and now the standards have fallen so much, that in the recent entry test of the Mehran University of Engineering and Technology in Jamshoro, seventeen of the total reserved seats for students from Thatta remained unoccupied, as candidates could not even hope to pass the entry exams.

Khattak has been fighting for education for a very long time and he has been doing it all alone. He is tired by his efforts, because there is no point in wearing black ribbons on your arm, if the people you want to influence have tied a black ribbon over their eyes. It is unforgivable that the people in power continue to ignore people like Khattak, yet when I asked him how long he could continue his struggle for, he took a deep breath and said, “As long as I am alive”. Perhaps there is some hope after all.

The writer is a freelance columnist based in Badin, Sindh and he can be reached at abbaskhaskheli110@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, August 2^nd 2018.