Panhwar — man of letters and progressive farmer

By Shaikh Aziz

http://www.dawn.com/2007/04/23/fea.htm

Mohammad Hussain Panwahar was a genius of varied interests and qualities. Basically an engineer, he was also a progressive farmer and an eminent writer with valuable works on history, anthropology, geography, cartography, social sciences and farming. His services were acknowledged at home and abroad.

He was born in a farmer family of Ibrahim Panwahar village in Dadu district. He started writing on various subjects at an early age, but finally history, geography and anthropology became his main fields of interest. Being from a farming family, his interest in the field was natural. It made him study different aspects of agriculture, including modern methods to increase output and treatment of crop diseases.

After graduating from the NED Engineering College , Karachi , in 1949, he began his career as an earth-moving and farm engineer. In 1953, he did masters from Wisconsin University , USA , in farm engineering and joined the Sindh government. He also became the chief engineer of the agricultural engineering wing of Sindh and Balochistan. He undertook the arduous task of levelling virgin land falling in the command area of Kotri, Sukkur and Guddu barrages.

For 16 years, he worked as an agricultural engineer and also worked on ground water and hydrology along with soil conservation, which were least-attended areas in the country.

His interest in subjects like geography, history, archaeology and anthropology led him to save some time from his daily schedule for reading and writing. He traveled extensively in Sindh, from Gharo to Kashmore, studying the land, the people and their economy and lifestyle. He learned cartography and prepared maps from pre-historic times to date. He produced about 3,000 maps which were used by other authors and writers. For this contribution, he was accorded the fellowship of the Royal Geographic Society, London , in 1980. As a specialist, he served as an adviser at the Sindh University and a visiting teacher at the Mehran University of Engineering and Technology.

As an author, he has to his credit a number of books, including Chronological Dictionary of Sindh, Social History of Sindh, Source Material on Sindh, Ground Water in Sindh, Sindh-Kuchh Relations, water-related issues, natural resources and modern farming. He had a large library comprising 40,000 books, which were also used by other scholars and writers.

As a student of history, he believed that popular tales such as those of Dodo Chanesar and Sassi Punhoon were not based on facts. However, since it could have stirred a controversy, he did not insist on the hypothesis.

Mr Panwahar was a progressive farmer. He developed his land on scientific lines. He introduced a number of varieties of fruits which had not been grown earlier in Sindh. His orchard has at least 25 varieties brought from outside which were acclimatised to this part of the country. In one part of his orchard, he did not use chemical fertiliser. Instead, he developed manure from crop waste, which proved very effective. He believed that organic farming could solve many of the farming problems.

He also developed indigenous methods to fight crop diseases. In 1988, the banana crop in the country was attacked by a mysterious disease, causing huge losses to growers. He treated the disease with local applications. On this success, he was awarded Sitara-i-Imtiaz in 1991. He believed that if the government promoted agricultural research, most of the crop diseases could be treated without spending foreign exchange.

He did not have a Kamdar (estate manager) like traditional landlords. Most of his farm workers were graduates in agriculture, who undertook various assignments and engaged in experiments. His interest in farm engineering also took him to a number of countries with the objective of updating his knowledge.