Everything about Akhtar Hameed Khan totally explained
Akhtar Hameed Khan (
15 July 1914 –
9 October 1999) was a activist and
social scientist credited for pioneering
microcredit and
microfinance initiatives, farmers'
cooperatives, and
rural training programmes in the
developing world. He promoted participatory
rural development in
Pakistan,
Bangladesh and other developing countries, and widely advocated community participation in development. His particular contribution was the establishment of a comprehensive project for rural development, the
Comilla Model (1959). It earned him the
Magsaysay Award from the
Philippines and an honorary
Doctorate of Law from
Michigan State University. In the 1980s he started a
bottom up community development initiative of
Orangi Pilot Project, based in the outskirts of
Karachi, which became a model of participatory development initiatives. He also directed many programmes, from microcredit to self-finance and from housing provision to
family planning, for rural communities and urban slums. It earned him international recognition and
high honours in Pakistan. Khan was fluent in at least seven languages and dialects. Apart from many scholarly books and articles, he also published a collection of poems and
travelogues in
Urdu.
Early life
Khan was born on
15 July 1914 in
Agra. He was among the four sons and three daughters of Anis Ahmed Khan and Mehmoodah Begum. His father, a
police inspector, was inspired by the reformist thinking of
Syed Ahmed Khan. In his early age, Khan's mother introduced him to the poetry of
Maulana Hali and
Muhammad Iqbal, the
sermons of
Abul Kalam Azad, and the
Sufist philosophy of
Rumi. This upbringing influenced his interest in historical as well as contemporary social, economic, and political affairs.
Khan attended Government High School at Jalam (
Uttar Pradesh), and completed his education in 1930 at Agra College where he studied English literature and history. He read English literature, history, and philosophy for a
Bachelor of Arts degree at Meerut College in 1932. At that point, his mother was diagnosed with
tuberculosis. She died in the same year at the age of 36. Khan continued his studies and was awarded a
Master of Arts in English Literature from
Agra University in 1934. He worked as a lecturer at Meerut College before joining the
Indian Civil Service (ICS) in 1936. As part of the ICS training, he was sent to read literature and history at
Magdalene College, Cambridge, England. During the stay, he developed close friendship with
Choudhary Rahmat Ali.
Khan married Hameedah Begum (the eldest daughter of
Allama Mashriqi) in 1940. Together, they'd three daughters (Mariam, Amina, and Rasheeda) and a son (Akbar). After Hameedah Begum's death in 1966, he married Shafiq Khan and had one daughter, Ayesha. During his ICS career, Khan worked as
collector of
revenue, a position that brought him into regular contact with living conditions in rural areas of
East Bengal. The
Bengal famine of 1943 and subsequent inadequate handling of the situation by the colonial rulers led him to resign from the Indian Civil Service in 1945. He wrote, "I realised that if I didn't escape while I was young and vigorous, I'll forever remain in the trap, and terminate as a bureaucratic big wig." During this period, he was influenced by the philosophy of
Nietzche and
Mashriqi, and joined the
Khaksar Movement. This attachment was brief. He quit the movement and turned to
Sufism. According to Khan, "I had a profound personal concern; I wanted to live a life free from fear and anxiety, a calm and serene life, without turmoil and conflict. [...] when I followed the advice of old Sufis and sages, and tried to curb my greed, my pride and aggression, fears, anxieties and conflict diminished."
For the next two years, Khan worked in Mamoola village near
Aligarh as a labourer and
locksmith, an experience that provided him with firsthand knowledge of the problems and issues of rural communities. In 1947, he took up a teaching position at the
Jamia Millia, Delhi, where he worked for three years. In 1950, Khan migrated from
India to
West Pakistan to teach at
Islamia College, Karachi. In the same year, he was invited by the
Government of Pakistan to take charge as
Principal of
Comilla Victoria College in
East Pakistan, a position he held until 1958. During this time (1950–58) he also served as President of the East Pakistan Non-Government Teachers' Association.
Rural development initiatives
During his tenure as principal of Comilla Victoria College, Khan developed a special interest in
grassroots actions. Between 1954 and 1955, he took a break to work as director of the Village Agricultural and Industrial (V-AID) Programme. However, he wasn't satisfied with the development approach adopted in the programme that was limited to the training of villagers. In 1958, he went to
Michigan State University to acquire education and training in rural development. Returning in 1959, he established the Pakistan Academy for Rural Development (PARD) at Comilla on
27 May 1959 and was appointed as its founding director. He also laid foundations for the Comilla Cooperative Pilot Project in 1959. In 1963, he received a
Ramon Magsaysay Award from the Government of the Philippines for his services in rural development. Khan became Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of PARD in 1964, and in the same year, was awarded an honorary
Doctorate of Law by Michigan State University. In 1969, he delivered a series of lectures at
Woodrow Wilson School,
Princeton University, based on his experience with rural cooperatives. During the visit, he established collaborative links with
Arthur Lewis.
On his return to East Pakistan, Khan remained attached to the Comilla Project until the
Partition of Pakistan, when East Pakistan became Bangladesh. Eventually, Khan moved to West Pakistan. PARD was renamed as
Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development (BARD).
Advisory roles
Following his move to Pakistan, Khan was asked to implement the Comilla Model in rural settlements of
NWFP,
Punjab, and
Sindh. He declined the offer on the grounds that the proposals were predominantly motivated by political interests rather than the common well-being. However, he continued to advise the authorities on various aspects of rural development, such as participatory irrigation management. He worked as a research fellow at the
University of Agriculture, Faisalabad from 1971 to 1972, and as Director of Rural Economics Research Project at
Karachi University from 1972 to 1973. Khan went to Michigan State University as a
visiting professor in 1973 and remained there until 1979. During this time, he carried on advising the Rural Development Academy at
Bogra in northern Bangladesh, and the Pakistan Academy for Rural Development,
Peshawar, on the Daudzai Integrated Rural Development Programme. He also travelled extensively during this period in the capacities of speaker, advisor, or consultant on rural development programmes across the world. In 1974, he was appointed as a
World Bank consultant to survey rural development situations in
Java,
Indonesia. He also briefly worked as a visiting professor at
Lund University,
Harvard University, and
Oxford University.
In 1980, Khan moved to Karachi and started working on the improvement of sanitary conditions in Karachi suburbs. He laid the foundations of the
Orangi Pilot Project for the largest
squatter community of
Orangi in the city. He remained associated with this project until his death in 1999. Meanwhile, he maintained his support for rural communities around Karachi, and also helped to develop the
Aga Khan Rural Support programme.
Major development projects
Comilla Cooperative Pilot Project
The
Comilla Model (1959) was Khan's initiative in response to the failure of a Village Agricultural and Industrial Development (V-AID) programme that was launched in 1953 in East and West Pakistan with technical assistance from the US government. V-AID remained a government-level attempt to promote citizen participation in the sphere of
rural development. Khan launched the project in 1959 on his return from Michigan, and developed a methodology of implementation in the areas of agricultural and rural development on the principle of grassroots-level participation. Initially, the aim was to provide a development model of programmes and institutions that could be replicated across the country. Advisory support in this respect was provided by experts from Harvard and Michigan State Universities, the
Ford Foundation, and
USAID. Practical help was also sought from
Japan to improve the local farming techniques.
Comilla Model simultaneously addressed the problems that were caused by the inadequacy of both local infrastructure and institutions through a range of integrated programmes.
The initiatives included the establishment of: a training and development centre; a road-drainage embankment works programme; a decentralised, small scale irrigation programme; and, a two-tiered cooperative system with primary cooperatives operating in the villages, and federations operating at
sub-district level.
After Khan's departure from Comilla, the cooperative's model failed in independent Bangladesh because only a few occupational groups managed to achieve the desired success. By 1979, only 61 of the 400 cooperatives were functioning. The model actually fell prey to the ineffective internal and external controls, stagnation, and diversion of funds. This prompted the subsequent scholars and practitioners in microfinance, such as
Muhammad Yunus of
Grameen Bank and
Fazle Hasan Abed of
BRAC, to abandon the cooperative approach in favour of more centralised control and service delivery structures. The new strategy targeted the poorest villagers, while excluding the 'less poor'. However, Khan's leadership skills during the course of his association with the project remained a source of inspiration for these leaders.
Orangi Pilot Project
The Orangi poverty alleviation project (known as the
Orangi Pilot Project, or OPP) was initiated by Khan as an
NGO in 1980.
Orangi is located on the northwest periphery of Karachi. At that time, it was the largest of the city's approximately 650 low-income
squatter settlements (known as
katchi abadi). The locality was first developed in
1963 as a government township of . The influx of migrants after the creation of Bangladesh, swelled the settlement to about one million people crowded over an area of more than . The
working class multi-ethnic population was predominantly composed of
day labourers,
skilled workers,
artisans, small shopkeepers,
peddlers and low-income
white collar workers. The project proved an impetus to the socio-economic development of the population of the area. As the project director, Khan proved to be a dynamic and innovative leader. The project initially focused on creating a system of underground sewers, using local materials and labour, and succeeded in laying hundreds of kilometres of drainage pipes along with auxiliary facilities. Within a decade of the initiative, local residents had established schools, health clinics, women’s work centres, cooperative stores and a credit organisation to finance enterprise projects. By 1993, OPP had managed to provide low-cost sewers to more than 72,000 houses. The project subsequently diversified into a number of programmes, including a people's financed and managed low-cost
sanitation programme;
Comparing the OPP with Comilla project, Akhtar Hameed Khan once commented:
The Orangi Pilot Project was very different from the Comilla Academy. OPP was a private body, dependent for its small fixed budget on another NGO. The vast resources and support of the government, Harvard advisors, MSU, and Ford Foundation was missing. OPP possessed no authority, no sanctions. It may observe and investigate but it could only advise, not enforce.
The successful OPP model became an inspiration for other
municipalities around the country. In 1999, Khan helped to create
Lodhran Pilot Project (LPP) to collaborate with Lodhran municipal committee. Learning from past experiences, the project extended its scope to the whole town instead of concentrating on low-income settlements only. The municipal partnership was itself a new initiative that ensured wider
civic cooperation.
Death and legacy
In 1999, Khan was visiting his family in the United States when he suffered from
kidney failure. He died of
Myocardial infarction on
9 October in
Indianapolis at the age of 85. His body was flown to Karachi on
15 October, where he was buried on the grounds of the OPP office compound.
Khan's ideology and leadership skills were a source of inspiration for his students and colleagues, and continue to serve as guiding principles even after his death. Edgar Owens, who became an admirer of Khan's ideology while working at
USAID's Asia Bureau, co-authored a book with Robert Shaw as a result of observations and discussions with Khan at Comilla Academy. A later study of various rural development experiences from South Asia, edited by Uphoff and Cambell (1983) was jointly dedicated to Khan and Owens.
Soon after Khan's death, on
10 April 2000, the Government of Pakistan renamed the National Centre for Rural Development the Akhtar Hameed Khan National Centre for Rural Development and Municipal Administration. Later in 2005, the Council of Social Sciences, Pakistan, in collaboration with the National Rural Support Programme and other institutions, announced the Akhtar Hameed Khan Memorial Award. The annual cash award is given on Khan's birthday to a
Pakistani author for a book on issues related to rural and urban development, peace,
poverty alleviation, or
gender discrimination. At the occasion of the award ceremony in 2006, a documentary film about the life and times of Akhtar Hameed Khan was premiered. The film includes archival footage and interviews with family members, colleagues, and contributors and beneficiaries of the Comilla and OPP projects.
Nishan-e-Imtiaz (Posthumous, 2001) for services to the community.
Ramon Magsaysay Award (31 August 1963, Manila, Philippines) for services to rural development.
Sitara-e-Pakistan (1961) for pioneering work in rural development.
Publications
Khan was fluent in Arabic, Bengali, English, Hindi, Pali, Persian, and Urdu. He wrote several reports and monographs, mostly relating to rural development in general or his various successful and model initiatives in particular. He also published collections of poems and travelogues in Urdu.
In English
1965, Rural Development in East Pakistan, Speeches By Akhter Hameed Khan. Asian Studies Center, Michigan State University.
1974, Institutions for rural development in Indonesia, Pakistan Academy for Rural Development. Karachi.
1985, Rural development in Pakistan. Vanguard Books. Lahore.
1994, What I learnt in Comilla and Orangi. Paper presented at the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) seminar. Islamabad.
1996, Orangi Pilot Project: Reminiscences and Reflections. The Oxford University Press: Karachi. (editions: 1996, 1999, 2005). ISBN 978-0195979862
1997 The sanitation gap: Development's deadly menace
. The Progress of Nations. UNICEF.
1998, Community-Based Schools and the Orangi Project. In Hoodbhoy, P (ed.), Education and the State: Fifty Years of Pakistan, Chapter 7, Karachi: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195778250
2000, Twenty Weeks in America: A Diary 3 September 1969–21 January 1970. Translated from Urdu by Aqila Ismail. City Press. ISBN 9698380329
In Urdu
1972, Safar-e-Amrika ki Diary (A Diary of Travels in America). The City Press: Karachi.
1988, Chiragh aur Kanwal (Collection of poems in Urdu). Saad Publishers. Karachi.Further Information
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