ABSTRACT
The figure of Abdul Sattar Edhi is an enigmatic one, since he lived like an ascetic in the modern era. He had forsaken modernity, although not completely. He attained the status of an icon in service to humanity without resorting to high politics, giving a wide berth to the high lifestyle by embracing the simplicity of a Dervish or a Sufi, who while sitting in his dargah cares for all, irrespective of religion, caste or creed. Parochialism and exclusionary tendencies were conspicuously missing from the social ideology which he practised and preached. While “human” as social category does not exist in Pakistan’s national discourse, the central focus of Edhi’s altruism was human and not Hindu, Muslim or Christian. Thus, he replicated the medieval South Asian ethos of a dargah in the modern era. The establishment of the Apna Ghar and Edhi Centre epitomizes the dargah that catered to humans’ essential needs. Another attribute of a Dervish is his indifference to personal material gain, and this was reflected in Edhi in an extraordinary measure. In the South Asian culture, only a Sufi/Dervish can wield the trust of the masses that he did—Edhi not only wielded that trust but also honoured it. In this study, the unique phenomenon that Edhi represented is the primary focus of study in the background of South Asian ethos and its interaction with modernity. The study finds the root of Edhi’s phenomenon in the cosmopolitan dargah tradition embedded in the medieval South Asian past punctuated with plurality and eclecticism.
