President Zardari lays foundation for a museum

President Asif Ali Zardari

KARACHI: President Asif Ali Zardari stressed on Monday the need for preserving the cultural heritage of the country.

Laying the foundation stone of the Mohatta Palace Museum and Cultural Complex, the president expressed the hope that the initiative would enable future generations to derive cultural benefits from the museum enclave.

The complex will house five large museums aligned across a central garden quadrangle. Several adjacent properties will be acquired and amalgamated into the cultural complex containing archives and libraries, cultural centres and venues of performing arts.

Mr Zardari called for documenting and preserving the heritage.

He exhorted people to come together and stand up to various challenges as a nation. He said: “If something is going wrong and something is burning in your city, it is your collective responsibility to act against that.”

The president said Benazir Bhutto had the vision for the complex. “I will follow the vision of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto who gave her life for a better Pakistan for future generations. It is a challenge for us and the next generation.”

Tributes were paid to Ms Bhutto who had provided Rs90 million from the Saver Raffle Fund for acquisition and restoration of Mohatta Palace premises.

Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ebad, Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, Federal Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin, provincial ministers and elite of the city attended the ceremony.

According to the Managing Trustee of the Mohatta Palace Museum Trust, Mr Hameed Haroon, the project would include a federal museum for fine arts housing art works and objects of excellence relevant to the heritage of federating units, Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir.

Mr Haroon said that during a presentation in November last year the president had supported a request of the trustees for a grant from the federal ministry of finance and an equal grant-in-aid from the Sindh government for the purchase of premises adjacent to the museum.

He said Mr Zardari had also promised his support for acquiring and/or purchasing the properties for expansion of the museum and its transformation into a full-fledged complex of museums and cultural centers by the end of 2012.

He said the president had promised to unveil Pakistan’s first stone monument – a 75-ton sandstone obelisk ‘The Seven Doves of Democracy’ – before spring in the precincts of the Mohatta Palace grounds.

The monument will be erected in memory of Benazir Bhutto, who was the founder of the Mohatta Palace Museum Trust.

President Zardari has already issued a directive to Pakistan’s High Commission in London to arrange transfer to the Mohatta Palace Museum of antiquities illegally smuggled to the UK and subsequently released by the British government to be repatriated to Pakistan.

The complex will also include a museum of contemporary art which will house major instillations and works of young Pakistani artists, including those who made an appreciable impact at a recent exposition held at the Asia House in New York.

A museum of living heritage, incorporating multi-media technology and displaying crafts embodying excellence from the artisans of Pakistan, and a city museum for Karachi and its hinterland, including the former Khanate of Kalat, British Balochistan, and the Kalhora and Talpur confederacies in Sindh, will also be part of the project.

The city museum will house objects, rare documents, maps, anthropological, geological and zoological materials, marine-archaeological materials, and artifacts pertaining to prehistoric settlements in the Indus Delta which led to the growth of Karachi.

An archaeological museum will house diverse collections and rare books reflecting the heritage of Pakistan in general, and the provinces of Sindh and Balochistan in particular. Epochs of primary interest for the museum include the early piedmont culture of Balochistan (particularly Mehargarh – circa 8500 – 1700 BC); gray ware from the Quetta area; remains of Amri culture from Dadu and Lasbela districts; pre-Indus Valley or Kot-Diji cultural artifacts from the Indus and Hakra river-basins, and finally archaeological objects from various sites of the Indus Valley Civilisation. These remains will be transposed into interactive museum-learning programmes for students of all ages.