Category Archives: Leaders

City visionaries

March 5, 2015Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Business & Economy, Community Involvement / Social Issues, Leadersmpositiveone@gmail.com

by Aliyeh Rizvi

The history of Bangalore is a colourful tapestry whose warp is interwoven with countless political and cultural narratives. But the equally significant weft consisted of traders and businessmen whose lives extended beyond commercial success to large acts of philanthropy. Despite these extensive contributions that benefitted the city and its people, their memories are now preserved primarily in the hearts of old Bangaloreans, personal family records and physical fragments across the city; a memorial, a building or a road. The Hajee Sir Ismail Sait Masjid was built over 100 years ago and gives Mosque Road it name. It was initially meant to accommodate about three hundred people but the largesse of its builder went far beyond its walls.

Haji Sir Ismail Sait was born on March 7th 1859 and following his father’s untimely demise, moved from Mysore to Bangalore around 1870. Being from the mercantile Cutchi Memon community, he followed suit after being educated in both Bangalore and Chennai. Arif Hussain, at the Hazrat Haider Shah Jeelani Dargah, tells me an anecdote (unverified) about his early years where he was advised by the saint, his spiritual mentor, to initially trade in goods that were white in colour (like eggs, garlic and milk) to ensure wealth and success. The young Ismail Sait evidently had a nose for business and saintly advice. His English Warehouse near St. Mark’s Road soon sold not just milk powder but every conceivable import from England. Branches were opened in Hyderabad and Chennai, where he was the first to bring in imported kerosene from America in the late 19th century through Spencer and Co.

The entrepreneurial streak also ran through trading in military provisions, timber and mining. He was a banker, mill owner and export-importer. Over time, he was also Chairman of Chamber of Commerce Mysore; Director in the Mysore Sandalwood Factory, Binny Mills and the Mysore Iron Works, Bhadravathi. It was a diverse portfolio but India was opening up to the world and opportunities were yours for the taking. Business was supported by memberships in several distinguished clubs including the Willingdon Sports Club, Bombay, Calcutta Club and the National Liberal Club of London. “He had great business sense and wonderful PR skills” says Zafar Sait, his great-grandson.

But public service was a priority. Healthcare and education were key concerns. The Gosha Hospital (1925) near Queens Road was built with personal funds for reclusive Mohammedan `purdah nashin’ ladies. It was formally opened with 20 beds. Philanthropic friends donated clocks, beds, `frigidaires’, aluminiumware and other supplies. He also built schools, mosques and rest houses in Bangalore, Whitefield and Mysore. Staggering sums of money were donated to the Mysore State University, Aligarh University and medical institutions including Victoria and Bowring Hospitals. His will made strict provisions for educating family members, `both male and female’ and providing alms to the poor.

In 1911, he was nominated to the Madras Legislative Council and received the title’ Fakhr-ut- Tujjar from the Mysore Maharaja in 1919. Family photographs show a dapper gentleman dressed in traditional Cutchi Memon robes, and then in European attire when he was knighted in 1923. When Hajee Sir Ismail Sait passed away in 1934, he left behind his wife Ayesha Bai, five sons, two daughters and a legacy of philanthropy that Shabbir Malik Sait, his great grandson says continues even to this day. He belonged to a time when we gave back what we received in equal measure.

The writer is a cultural documentarian and blogs at aturquoisecloud.wordpress.com

source: http://www.bangaloremirror.com / BangaloreMirror.com / Home> Bangalore> Others / by Aliyeh Rizvi, Bangalore Mirror Bureau / May 05th, 2014

MUDA chief appointment roils senior Congressmen

March 4, 2015Leadersmpositiveone@gmail.com

While Surayya Abrar assumed charge as President of Madikeri Urban Development Authority (MUDA) on Monday, several senior Congress leaders expressed their displeasure over the appointment.

Some members of city unit of Congress Party, decided to tender their resignation to the party positions, claiming that the post of MUDA President has not been given to native members of Congress. They claimed of the alleged involvement of a former MP behind the appointment of the new President. The former MP has taken the decision without the consent of the local leaders, they said.

Names of senior leaders T M Ayyappa, V P Suresh and Chummi Devaiah were apparently heard for the post of the MUDA President. But, the former MP has selected a candidate who had lost deposit in the CMC elections held last year, local Congress leaders said.

The position of MUDA President was lying vacant for two years, ever since Congress government came into power in the state. Local leaders in Madikeri unit of Congress had requested the senior partymen to appoint a senior Congress leader in Madikeri, to the post. A twelve-member committee was also constituted towards the selection of the posts of Presidents of other authorities, including Madikeri Urban Development Authority. The district Congress had recommended the names of T M Ayyappa, V P Suresh and Chummi Devaiah. But the list of the names was subject to changes in the last moment, due to the intervention of the former MP, they said.

Congress leaders said CMC President’s post has already been given to a lady belonging to a particular community and now, the MUDA President’s post has also gone to a lady belonging to the same community. The members belonging to other communities have been neglected, they added.

A Senior leader opined that the Congress has been giving priority to candidates from a particular community, to prevent erosion in its vote bank, as during last CMC elections, SDPI had earned much votes than Congress.

A discomfited aspirant said the current development will affect the results of the upcoming Gram Panchayat elections.

Delegation to KPCC

The Congress leaders in the city have been reportedly planning to take a delegation to KPCC, Bengaluru, to urge to withhold the new appointment and to give an opportunity to a senior leader from the party.

‘Discomfort is natural’

Speaking to reports, newly appointed MUDA President Surayya Abrar said it was obvious for Congress leaders to be disappointed and that things will be sorted out eventually.
She meanwhile thanked former M P H Vishwanath, district Congress unit President B T Pradip, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and KPCC President G Parameshwar, who made possible her appointment for the MUDA President’s post.

Ibrahim bats for permanent planning board with independence like judiciary

March 3, 2015Community Involvement / Social Issues, Leadersmpositiveone@gmail.com

C.M. Ibrahim, Deputy Chairperson of the Karnataka State Planning Board. File Photo: K. Bhagya Prakash./ The Hindu

C.M. Ibrahim, Deputy Chairperson of the Karnataka State Planning Board, has recommended to the State Government the setting up a permanent planning board with independence akin to the judiciary to review and hold the executive to account.

Speaking after inaugurating a seminar on the state budget by the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy of the National Law School of India University here on Tuesday, he said that the board should have the responsibility to review works in all 36 government departments. He said that the body should have eight members with responsibility of departments divided among them.

The board should meet once every three months to review allocation of money in departments and how it is spent, said Mr. Ibrahim, adding that members should have powers to pull up officials who fail to effectively execute plans. The board should also visit districts and hold consultations, he said.

Mr. Ibrahim said that the Planning Board is meeting in mid-April to review budget allocation and work out a mechanism for implementation.

Focus on spending

Making a presentation at the seminar on gender and budget, K. Gayithri from the Institute of Social and Economic Change (ISEC), said that a thorough analysis of the budget will have to focus not on allocation of money but on how much of it is released and how it is spent.

Bunching together of expenditure in the last quarter was a particular area of concern, she added. More than half the expenditure in many departments happen after December, said Prof. Gayithri.

Manohar Yadav, also from ISEC, in his paper on budget proposals for Scheduled Castes, said that though allocation for the welfare of Dalits has seen a consistent rise in various budgets, allocations in some sectors, such as tourism, have had no direct or palpable benefits to the intended target group.

“It is difficult, for example, to understand how SCs would benefit from such allocation particularly when we find that they are not involved in tourism development,” he said.

source: http: //www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National> Karnataka / by Bageshree S. / Bengaluru – March 03rd, 2015

21 doors & a fiery spirit

March 3, 2015Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Business & Economy, Community Involvement / Social Issues, Leaders, World Opinionmpositiveone@gmail.com

By:Aliyeh Rizvi

I was standing outside the swank automobile showrooms in India Garage the other day, watching excited owners roll out onto St Marks Road in their ribbon wrapped cars. Ironically, the petrol bunk area inside this graceful building was where around 1920, Hajee Osman Sait, an eminent Cutchi Memon businessman, struck a match and deliberately set fire to all the imported goods sold in the Cash Bazaar as it was called back then.

This brazen act of arson must have seemed incomprehensible to gentile customers in the Cantonment. The Cash Bazaar opposite Bowring Institute (1868) was where they bought everything from pins and provisions to ‘English vegetables’, fruits and flowers. Setting fire to goods was something a flourishing trader just did not do. The popular shopping arcade was also a family legacy. It had been built by his grandfather Yousuf Pir Mohammed who had moved to Bangalore from Kutch. Each of his seven sons received ‘three doors’ from where they managed their business. The building, therefore, had 21 doors that opened onto a wide verandah with cast iron grills.

But while the Cantonment speculated, the Non-cooperation Movement (1920) led by Gandhiji escalated into public meetings and protests across the country. Amongst other things, it also advocated a boycott of British goods. This civil disobedience ran in parallel with the pan-Islamic Khilafat movement (1919-1924) whose leaders, including the brothers Maulana Mohammad and Shaukat Ali, were allied with the Indian National Congress at that time.

Hajee Osman Sait, President, Madras and Bangalore Khilafat Committee, was deeply inspired by India’s freedom struggle. He played host to Gandhiji, Pandit Nehru and the Ali brothers at his home on St Mark’s Road (around present day Hotel Nandhini). He sold his property, donated money and apparently even publicly auctioned off his eldest son to raise funds. Ebrahim was returned respectfully and the money, donated. He opened an Indian National School (1921) on his property, Stafford House (now Bishop Cottons Girls School) and sent his own children to local schools. The Cash Bazaar bonfire was yet another contribution to the movement.

Masood Ali, Yousuf Sait’s son, says his grandfather was an unbelievably wealthy businessman who owned over 20 acres in the area, including several large bungalows of which four were named after his sons — Yakhoob, Ebrahim, Khader and Yousuf Villas. Four white horses drew his famous buggy. They were housed on Residency Road before the Imperial Talkies was built and then moved to stables at the Cash Bazaar which also sold hackney carriages.
The stables were later occupied by Sir Mark Cubbon’s horses and used by the Bangalore Riders Club (1934). Later on, Addison & Co. sold bicycles, cars (Peugeots and Buicks among them) and motorcycles next door. India Garage’s history of hot wheels began here long before shiny automobiles arrived in India.

Haji Osman Sait’s dedication to the freedom movement cost him dearly. He passed away in 1928, in a rented home around the age of fifty-six. Masood Ali says his funeral procession was over 5 kms long and extended from the Jumma Masjid off Commercial Street to the Jayamahal Palace burial ground.

India Garage was subsequently sold in an auction in the 1930s and then became the first showroom of the pioneering VST Group founded by V S Thiruvengadaswamy Mudaliar in1911.The building retains the original structure and some trees he planted. But its doors now open out to a free, liberalised India.

The writer is a cultural documentarian and blogs at aturquoisecloud.wordpress.com

source: http://www.bangaloremirror.com / Bangalore Mirror / Home> Bangalore> Others / by Aliyeh Rizvi, Bangalore Mirror Bureau / May 12th, 2014

Those Mughal tales, those engaging books

February 28, 2015Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Community Involvement / Social Issues, Leaders, World Opinionmpositiveone@gmail.com

The Mughal era books need to be preserved for posterity

The library of Dara Shikoh, near Chakkipat on the Yamuna’s right bank in Agra, is now a municipal office and its vicinity boasts an akhara. The books housed in the library or most of them, were brought to Delhi when Shah Jahan moved his capital to it and wanted the heir apparent Dara to stay by his side lest any harm befell him if he was appointed governor of some province (subha), like his brothers Aurangzab, Shuja and Murad. The library existed in the Kashmere Gate area, later becoming a polytechnic institute, another library behind the Jama Masjid, became a girls’ school. But the question is what happened to most of the books? Quite a few of them were destroyed in 1857 by the British, bent on revenge. Some others fell into private hands and were sold as “raddi” during the upheaval of 1947 by those going away as refugees to Pakistan. It’s worth noting that the books in the library of Prof Ahmed Ali, author of “Twilight in Delhi”, in Kutcha Pandit were sold one by one by a servant who had stayed behind and was reduced to penury after the professor opted to migrate to Karachi.

Some books of the Mughal era may be found in the National Library, in the British Museum Library in London and in the U.S. Congress Library. Besides some others were taken away to Pakistan by migrants. A few of those books are with the old residents of Delhi, Lucknow, Hyderabad and Agra, like the now disintegrated library of Nawab Faiyaz Khan, but 75 per cent of them are lost forever. It was something like the loss of Greek, Arabian and Persian masterpieces when the libraries in Athens and Alexandria were burnt during wars and by Mongol and Han hordes and vandalism by fiercely bigoted Arab and Turkish soldiers fired by the zeal to destroy all vestiges of the “idolatrous ages” of the Middle East. Such destruction also took place during the medieval Crusades and earlier by Attila and Hannibal. The Emathian Conqueror (Alexander) may have spread the house of Pindars but little else.

In a study on medieval libraries, written in 1970, father had this to say:

“The Sultans of Delhi and their nobles, who preceded the Mughals, had rich literary tastes and established a large number of public and private libraries. Jalaluddin Khilji founded the Imperial Library in Delhi and appointed Amir Khusrau its librarian. But it was Babar who really did augment the Delhi library.

“Humayun, inherited the legacy and added to the library seven halls, each named after a planet. He was so fond of books that he carried them to the battlefields. On one such occasion in fact he lost several rare ones. At Agra, he raised a set of magnificent buildings called Khanna-i-Tilism (house of magic), the first floor of which housed the library. Towards the end of his adventurous life he converted the pleasure house of Sher Shah in Delhi’s Purana Quila into a library.

“Akbar, although illiterate, turned out to be the greatest patron of art and translation of books, for each of which he maintained a separate cell. The biggest of his several libraries was the Imperial Library in Agra Fort. According to Abul Fazl, the library was divided into several parts. Some of the books were even kept inside the harem.

“Experienced people bring them daily and read them before His Majesty who hears (sic) every book from beginning to end,” he wrote.

Akbar had books brought from distant places and also encouraged scholars to write treatises, calligraphists to copy them and painters to illustrate them. He bought a richly illustrated version of the manuscript of Razm-Nama (the Mahabharata translated into Persian) for £40,000. “There were more than 24,000 books in the Imperial Library alone and they kept increasing. Fazl’s collection of 4,300 manuscripts was added to the library and the library of Itimad Khan was acquired after the conquest of Gujarat.”

Jahangir was a great lover of art, with an avid interest in old tomes. Shah Jahan had a godly collection of books. His son Dara, however, was more studious and collected books on poetry, Sufism and mythology, including Hindu scriptures. Aurangzeb’s books were mostly religious ones. The latter Mughals did not evince much interest in books. Bahadur Shah Zafar was however a lover of learning, being a poet himself. The disintegration of Mughal libraries took place during the First War of Independence and the upheavals of Gardi-ka-Waqt but after that English scholars made good use of them, like William Fraser.

It would be worthwhile if the Union Human Resource Ministry and Archaeology Survey of India acquire Mughal era literature from all known sources and establish a Central Mughal Library in the near-deserted Purana Quila, bigger than the partially revived one of Dara Shikoh.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / February 23rd, 2015

Ghulam Nabi Azad Back As LoP In Rajya Sabha

February 23, 2015Leadersmpositiveone@gmail.com

RSTV Bureau

Ghulam Nabi Azad was on Monday back as the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, days after his re-election to the house from Jammu and Kashmir.

Shri Azad took oath as a member of the Upper House along with three other members from the state — Mir Mohammad Fayaz and Nazir Ahmed Laway (both PDP) and Shamsher Singh Manhas (BJP).

Ghulam Nabi Azad, 65-year-old Congress leader from Jammu and Kashmir, has become member of the House for the fifth time.

His previous six-year term as Rajya Sabha member was to end this month and he was re-elected on February 8.

“I have recognised Ghulam Nabi Azad as the Leader of Opposition with effect from February 16, 2015, consequent upon his election to the Rajya Sabha from the state of Jammu and Kashmir,” Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari said.

He was first selected to Rajya Sabha in the year 1990.

While the two PDP members took oath in English, the BJP member from Jammu took oath in Dogri.

Soon after the oath-taking of new members, the copy of the President’s address to a joint sitting of both Houses today was laid on the table by the Secretary General.

Meanwhile, Congress members from Andhra Pradesh, including former Minister J D Seelam, were up on their feet demanding proper implementation of the AP Reorganisation Act after the bifurcation of the state.

Other Congress members from Andhra Pradesh T Subbarami Reddy and from Telangana Hanumanth Rao also got up to raise the issue of Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, but were not allowed to speak by the Chairman.

source: http://www.rajyasabhatv.com / Rajya Sabha TV / Home> News / by RSTV Bureau / February 23rd, 2015