Culture may be traded for commerce

Sukkur’s Mehran Cultural Centre becomes the centre of a dispute over whether it has been given on lease.

SUKKUR: Sukkur’s Mehran Cultural Centre has become the centre of a dispute over whether it has been given on lease to the Humayun Gymkhana.

A few days ago, some artists, poets and writers from the city held a protest against what they said was the district administration’s decision to lease the 50-year-old Mehran Cultural Centre to the gymkhana.

They alleged that these developments were part of a project to expand the gymkhana for which the wall between them had been broken down.

For their part, however, the gymkhana’s general secretary Aijaz Baloch said that when the gymkhana was contructed in 1920 by Hindu trader Nursoo Mal, it was spread over the cultural centre’s plot. The Mehran Cultural Centre was later built on land belonging to the gymkhana. He even said that in 1994 it was decided that the cultural centre’s plot belonged to the gymkhana. “But if anyone has objections we won’t go ahead with our plans,” he said.

The plans are to construct a Shaheed Benazeer Bhutto auditorium and a swimming pool at the gymkhana, for which the federal government has allocated Rs15 million on the request of Senator Islamuddin Shaikh, who is also the president of the gymkhana.

“I assure you that no commercial or residential complex will be constructed at the cultural centre’s plot,” added Baloch. The cultural centre, built in 1960 by the then commissioner of Khairpur division, Abu-Nasar, has long fallen on bad times. It used to host musical shows and mushairas, debates and meena bazaars but this petered out by the 1980s. The people who are alleging the takeover, say that the influential builder mafia is trying to usurp its valuable plot, which is at a prime location just opposite the Jinnah Municipal Stadium.

The authorities have, however, said that they are unaware of the case. “I know nothing about Mehran Cultural Centre being given on a lease to anyone,” said Riaz Rajput, the administrator of the Sukkur city taluka municipal administration. “I don’t know about the wall being broken either. If such an incident had occurred, my men would have informed me.”

Sukkur DCO Inamullah Dharejo also said that he had no knowledge about the matter, especially since plot leases did not fall in his jurisdiction.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 27^th, 2010.