[Reader-list] second posting

[Farhana Ibrahim]

I am back in Kachchh, after a year and a half, a 
long time to be away in the present context, when 
"post earthquake reconstruction" means that 
nothing of the built landscape remains the same 
for long. This time, my research takes me to the 
far western edge of Kachchh – to the old port 
town of Jakhau. Today, Kachchh is known for 
Kandla port, developed after Partition as a 
replacement for Karachi. More recently, the 
privatization of another port – Mundra – is also 
changing the southern coastline of Kachchh. But 
there are many other ports in Kachchh, that were 
once gateways to this region, ferrying people and 
goods back and forth across the Arabian sea. 
Jakhau is one such port, that speaks of a former 
grandeur, as seen in elaborate old houses, with 
richly sculpted and decorated facades. These 
houses are still owned by wealthy merchants – 
primarily from the Bhatia and Vania (Jain) 
communities who now live overseas or further down 
the coast in Mumbai. Today old rusty padlocks sit 
on the front doors and weeds grow 
indiscriminately around. These houses stand apart 
from the other genre of elaborate house 
architecture – newer, showy structures in other 
parts of Kachchh that are commissioned by foreign 
exchange remittances from the Persian Gulf or 
Europe or North America. These old abandoned 
houses were left at the height of their 
prosperity and in the absence of local interest 
in them, are slowly rotting away.

With the integration of the princely state of 
Kachchh into the Indian Union in 1948, its ports 
were overshadowed by newer larger and more 
mechanized ports with better harbors. Perhaps 
more significantly though, following the 
partition of the subcontinent in 1947, Kachchh 
became a border territory subject to intense 
surveillance and control. Many of its ports were 
now too close to a tense international boundary. 
Partition put an end to any through traffic in 
this region. As their activities are 
significantly reduced today, some of these old 
ports retain an aura of a bygone prosperity but 
little else as their population and commercial 
activity has dwindled over time.

Jakhau is one such port, whose decline began at 
the time of Partition. Situated on the extreme 
western edge of the Kachchhi coastline, it is 35 
nautical miles from Karachi. Bombay and Karachi 
were the maritime hubs of Western India. Kachchhi 
traders owned spice plantations in Africa, and 
carried on a major trade in spices (especially 
cloves) and cotton. Prior to 1948, Kachchh was a 
princely state, and its ports were tax free. 
Today, apart from the old crumbling mansions, 
Jakhau is a small village. 2300 people were 
counted it its last census. All that remains of 
the once thriving port is a stretch of coastline 
where fishing and salt making are the only 
occupations left. I met Hirachand Shah, who 
recalls as a child, the bustling market place and 
bullock carts laden with dry fruit and cloth, as 
they were loaded from the port and went out into 
Kachchh. I would like to meet some of the former 
residents of these splendid houses, but they are 
all away. They live in Bombay or the United 
States and Canada now, I am told. My next stop 
will have to be Bombay, as I try to recover the 
stories behind these houses, and the people who lived in them.