Daily Times

When people started donating properties — land, houses — to Abdul Sattar Edhi (the worth of these properties had reached rupees two billion), he decided to keep the property in his own name or that of his family members, as property ownership in Pakistan was sacrosanct. If it was kept in the name of his trust or foundation, it could be appropriated by politicians or the government of the day. He came up with this idea on the day that I met him. When I asked Edhi sahib what the hour usually was when he “experienced” most of his creative ideas, he said that almost all his new ideas came between 4.00 and 5.00 a.m.

Regarding the kind of people who donated money to Edhi sahib, he said that most donations came from Punjabis and Urdu speaking people, and to a lesser extent from Memons and Sindhis. The list of donors included quite a few army men. Many people gave money, but preferred to remain anonymous, mainly out of fear of harassment by government departments. For example, the founder owner of a company in Lahore who chose to remain anonymous donated $300,000.

One Pashtun family donated a new, fully furnished mansion in Clifton worth millions of rupees. This estate was so large that it had 14 gardeners. Edhi sahib promptly relieved all except one of them, and a security guard. The place, now known as the Bilquis Edhi centre, houses 500 girls, and is run by Bilquis Edhi and her daughter Kubra. The older girls do all the cooking, washing and cleaning, and take care of the younger girls, while a teacher comes to teach the girls. While walking through this palatial building I was reminded of the mansion of Dr Zhivago in the movie by the same name, occupied by poor people after the Russian revolution.

Edhi sahib had often been labelled as a communist or atheist, partly because he had always been an advocate of socialism, and an admirer of Karl Marx and Lenin. Edhi sahib was heavily influenced by Abu Zar Ghaffari — the venerated companion of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) — who advocated that Haqooq-ul-Ibad (rights of people) preceded Haqooq Allah (rights of God), and was himself labelled as the first “Islamic socialist.” Edhi sahib said, “Pakistanis are jirga-oriented (village council). They are divided into biraderis (clans), whereas Islam rises above all civilians; God is Rabul Alimeen, the God of all humanity.”

Edhi sahib prayed regularly, fasted during Ramazan, and went on Hajj (Islamic pilgrimage). However, his focus was on the present world rather than the future.

According to Edhi sahib, the foundation had an income of about Rs 500 million annually, about half in kind. About 40 percent of the cash income was through the services provided, e.g. ambulance services. The accounting system was quite simple, with minimum paperwork, and receipts were burned after a few weeks. Edhi sahib saw the foundation having a global outreach in the next 20 years, with a budget of Rs 300-400 billion.

So how did Edhi sahib sustain such a huge set-up? Edhi sahib had always been conscious of this fact, and said that most organisations go bankrupt because they increase salaries every year. There were no salaries for the 4,000 staff in the Edhi Foundation, only allowances (partly because he once faced a union problem), starting from Rs 2,500 per month, and stopping at Rs 3,000 per month.

Other elements in sustaining the foundation included the involvement of many of his family members in running the foundation, low overheads (e.g. only one female doctor for 300 female mental patients), involvement of inmates to run facilities. Edhi sahib divided Pakistan into 16 zones, and each zone is responsible for raising its own funds and meeting its own expenditures. Thus things function smoothly even when he spent months outside Pakistan for welfare work. That was made possible by combining a self-help approach with strong organisational systems, the hallmarks of a successful social enterprise.

I also talked to Omar Abbas, who helped set up the Edhi blood bank, about Edhi sahib’s management style. Omar said that Edhi sahib was extremely intelligent, focused on basics, had no patience for intellectualisation, was a strategic thinker, took quick decisions¸ and had a hands-off management style. He said that when the blood bank building was being constructed Edhi sahib never visited it, despite Abbas requesting him several times. However, the day the building was ready, Abbas was surprised to see Edhi sahib there early in the morning. When he asked him why he did not visit earlier, Edhi sahib replied: “If I had visited earlier, I would have made suggestions to change something or the other, and you would have obliged. I wanted to give you a free hand.” The Edhi management style: assign a task to a person you trust completely, and then get out of his way.

Despite Edhi sahib’s lack of formal schooling — he could read and write Gujarati, and read Urdu — 17 Oxford professors visited him. One of them spent six days with him, and also bought 10 copies of his remarkable autobiography Mirror to the Blind, written by Tehmina Durrani. When I asked him if Pakistani academics and students visited him, he said that a very few did. Regarding volunteers, he said that quite a few from the middle and upper classes came for volunteering, but some of them tried to get children in Edhi Homes to work in their homes, after which Edhi became very careful in this regard.

According to Edhi sahib, there are three fitnas (evils): mullahs (clergy), politicians, and social workers/NGOs. He pointed out how he and his staff faced continuous propaganda and physical attacks from religious, sectarian, ethnic and linguistic parties, groups and individuals, many of whom had their own charity set-ups. Many Edhi vehicles had been burnt, and many drivers killed. His income in Karachi reduced from three million rupees to 0.2 rupees million per day during Ramazan because of such attacks. Despite that Edhi sahib had a forgiving attitude towards his enemies. For example, when someone in my presence mentioned a newspaper article criticising his fund management and transparency with the expectation that Edhi should clarify the matter, he replied: “They want to divert me from my work. I will not let them do so. I will work even harder.”

Edhi sahib does not believe in hearsay, and speaks from first-hand knowledge. For example, when someone in my presence criticised the Shaukat Khanum Hospital in Lahore for not providing proper services to the poor, Edhi asked him whether he had visited the hospital. When the man replied in the negative, Edhi asked him to first visit the place personally before forming an opinion about it. Gossip and rumours did not go far with Edhi sahib.

Edhi sahib showed me two spaces on the outskirts of the Edhi village. They were the graves of Edhi sahib and his wife Bilqees sahiba. “When I die, I will be buried here. There will be a sign on my grave saying: ‘Those who do not give a donation to Edhi will have an accident on the Super Highway’! Since accidents on the Super Highway are common and people are superstitious, they will donate. In this way I will continue collecting funds for the foundation even after my death.” One could see the twinkle in his eyes when he enunciated his fund raising strategy.

(Concluded)

The writer is Director, Institute of Social Sciences, Lahore