A visionary who became an institution
By Shahid Shah
Karachi
The death of Mohammad Hussain Panhwar has robbed the country of an institution.
In Pakistan, one will have to look hard to find an academy which has produced
around two hundred original books on as diverse subjects as water, agriculture,
horticulture, anthropology, archaeology and history. And yet, M.H. Panhwar is
credited with achieving this, and his list of work does not end there. Panhwar
died on Saturday 21 April 2007 in Hyderabad.
Born on 25 December 1925, Panhwar graduated in engineering in 1949 and did his
Masters in Agricultural Engineering from Wisconsin, USA in 1953.
He is survived by four sons: Rafi Hussain, Tariq Hussain, Sani Hussain and
Muhammad Ali, all of whom are settled in the United States. Unfortunately, one
of his sons died in Panhwar’s lifetime. After death of his first wife, Panhwar
married again and his second wife Farzana, a biochemist, helped him in the
preparation of research reports. She is also an author of several books.
Panhwar was often mentioned ‘one-man’ Sindhologist’ for his relentless work in
the province.
At a time when plagiarism is somewhat routine among some academics, Panhwar
produced around 200 original books research papers. Many books remain
unpublished. He authored as many as ten books solely on the issue of ground
water in Sindh and Balochistan. “No academy has worked equivalent to him,”
commented a Sindhi writer.
Better known for keeping his emotions out of his work, Panhwar based his
research completely on scientific study of the events. Questioning heroines of
Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai’s poetry and national heroes like Dodo Soomro is
considered a ‘taboo’ among the nationalist and literary circles in Sindh but
Panhwar challenged the myths with his scientific arguments.
Panhwar said the “Dodo-Soomro” story had no place in the history and it was
rather folklore. He also questioned national heroine Marvi. He called it a
man-made story too. In the support of his arguments, Panhwar had to quote
several examples from the history of the sub-continent, where such stories also
prevailed among the other nations and languages.
At one stage, he had to face aggression and abusive criticism of the other
contemporary historians and writers for his ‘challenge’ to history’. But, “their
approach was based on emotions,” said notable Sindhi journalist Ishaq Mangrio.
M.H. Panhwar collected various kind of materials connected with Sindh,
especially books, ancient and recent maps and photographs, pertaining to ancient
monuments and history of the province. His collection at the time of his death
had 11,000 books and bulletins on Sindh, 3000 ancient maps and large number of
photographs.
Among his major achievements he introduced the tubewell to Sindh for first time
in 1956 and supervised the installation of 3,000 tube wells between 1956-1969.
In 1964, he established a horticulture farm, specializing in fruit crops. This
was converted into a research farm for introducing new fruit crops suiting the
climate of Sindh. By 1985 he is credited to have developed more than two-dozen
varieties of fruit crops. Seventeen varieties of mango and 6 of lychee are an
addition to it since then.
From 1970 till his death, Panhwar headed a consulting company specializing in
issues of irrigation, water logging, drainage, agriculture, scientific equipment
and horticulture. In June 2003, he established a trust to undertake social work
in Sindh. He transferred his home, office, agriculture land comprising a
farm/orchard and other property in the name of the trust.
Among several other awards, he received Sitara-e-Imtiaz by the president of
Pakistan in 1992 for outstanding work in engineering and agriculture. He worked
both for the government of Sindh and then government of West Pakistan from 1953
till 1969.
Despite of his outstanding work, Panhwar’s services were not properly utilized
with exception to his early period of the public service. Panhwar could have
helped settle the controversy on water projects in the country through his
unbiased work and scientific studies but stakeholders of water including Sindhi
nationalists let his proposals unheard.
M.H. Panhwar will be remembered not only by the present generation but those
that will come later as his work in various fields will benefit people for years
to come.