Chapter-1 Birth
I was born on a spring day in 1947, just a few months before my country was born. As I grew up, I never had to remember my age as everybody knew the age of my country exactly, and that was my age too. But there the similarity ends. As a person, I am now in my mid-seventies, an old man often called a senior citizen by people who want to be kind and charitable. My country, on the other hand, is still youthful and bumbling around in the world like an angry young man.
That April of 1947 was a very fateful time in the history of the subcontinent of India. Cataclysmic events were about to take place in the country very soon but nobody could foresee them at that time. With the benefit of hindsight, these events appear to have followed a logical pattern based on the actions taken by the leaders of that time, but even they had little idea of what their decisions would eventually lead to. The country and its people was hurtling towards its inescapable fate.
(1)
Quaid e Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah had started his political career in Bombay as a staunch believer in Hindu-Muslim Unity. He joined Indian National Congress in 1906, which coincidentally was the same year as the birth of All India Muslim League in Dacca. Though initially opposed to the basic demand of Muslim League of separate electorates for Muslims, Jinnah joined Muslim League in 1913 supporting its demand. He achieved a major success in 1916 when he piloted the Lucknow Pact between Congress and Muslim League which granted major legislative safeguards to Muslim in the central and provincial governments, and Congress for the first time agreed to separate electorates for Muslims. The Pact was proof of Jinnah’s outstanding leadership qualities and a famous Congress leader Mrs. Sarojini Naidu called him the ‘ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity’.
However, Jinnah was eventually disenchanted with the Congress’s duplicity. The fateful year was 1928 and, in the words of Stanley Wolpert, “by year’s end the castle of Hindu-Muslim unity, built of shifting sand of communal mistrust, suspicion, and doubt would be washed away by tide of frustration and discontent”. He resigned from Congress at the end of this year. The catalyst for this ‘parting of ways’ as he put it was the Nehru Report, drafted by a committee chaired by Motilal Nehru, father of the Congress leader and the first Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, which had been given the task by the political parties in India to draft a constitution which the Indian people could use to govern their country. The Report rejected separate electorates for Muslims (and other minorities) without offering any compensatory benefits for the Muslim community except that minorities would be given reserved seats in parliament. This concept was the cornerstone of Lucknow Pact, so carefully and adroitly drafted by Jinnah and this hurt him deeply.
Jinnah still did not lose heart. He tried to save the Nehru report and make it acceptable to Muslims by proposing four points as a compromise which for the first time did away with the cherished Muslim separate electorates but suggested some alternate proposals to compensate for this loss. Congress rejected these proposals too. This was to have a major impact on the history of the sub-continent of India. Jinnah described this moment as ‘the parting of the ways’ and it was an important step towards the eventual partition of India. Jinnah would never try to reconcile Congress with the Muslim League again. Instead, it was time to make clear what was acceptable from Muslim point of view. In January 1929, Jinnah then presented his famous Fourteen Points which were to be the basis of Muslim demands from this time to the creation of Pakistan.
The rejection of his compromise formula for the Nehru report had convinced him that, behind the façade of nationalism, communal unity and religious tolerance, Congress’s sole aim was to achieve Hindu rule after independence. Sumit Sarkar, an Indian historian says, “Hindu communalism had significantly weakened the national anti-imperialist cause at a critical moment.” How correct and foresighted he was? Less than fifty years after independence, India came out in its true colors with the rule of Janata Party and now BJP making life difficult for Indian Muslims in every way possible.
From this time onwards, Jinnah gradually moved towards the idea of a separate and independent state for Muslims. This was going to be a long and arduous struggle, taking many turns and detours on the way, but eventually successful due to the relentless efforts and incredibly sharp political acumen of Jinnah. In this, he was no doubt helped by the transparently clear religious bias of the Congress leaders and a series of political blunders made by them in the next ten years. We shall encounter each of these blunders as we go along.
_______
It is arguable exactly when the campaign for a separate and independent homeland for Muslims really began. Each event in history is of course the stepping stone for the next one and, in a sense, it was the War of Independence of 1857 which laid the first foundation for the true freedom for Muslims. The way the British rulers singled out Muslims for retribution started to make them conscious of their separate identity. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (1817-98) then propounded the idea of Muslims as a separate nation working tirelessly to make them conscious of the need to get modern education. Partition of Bengal by the Viceroy Lord Curzon in 1905 for administrative reasons but indirectly favoring Muslims, and its quick reversal six years later in 1911 when the British government buckled under the fierce agitation launched by Congress and other Hindus, convinced Muslims that they could survive only by having their voices heard through a robust political organization, the Muslim League.
The unfortunate end of Khilafat Movement (to protest moves by Britain and France to break up the Turkish empire after WW1) subsequent to the abolishment of caliphate by Turkey’s President Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in October 1924 saw Hindu-Muslim riots breaking out all over India bringing to an end the brief period of ideal communal harmony generated during this movement. And finally, the uneventful conclusion of the three round-table conferences in London in the early thirties with Congress showing its true teeth and being demonstrably intransigent left Muslims with no choice but to start looking for a leader to lead them to the promised land as visualized by the poet/philosopher Iqbal. And this was none other than Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
Allama Iqbal, in his presidential address at the Allahabad session of Muslim League in 1930, called for the Muslims of the sub-continent to work towards achieving an independent homeland. M.J. Akbar, the famous Indian journalist and writer says, “the geography of Pakistan today is exactly as envisaged in Iqbal’s ‘ Muslim India’, except that it is a separate nation.” Chaudhary Rahmat Ali wrote a four page pamphlet in 1933 called ‘Now or Never” proposing the name Pakistan.
And this brings us forward to 1937 which can be said to be the year when the march towards the country which was to be called Pakistan started in earnest. Ironically, the movement for Pakistan started off with the worst possible defeat for Muslim League in the all India elections held in early 1937, mandated by the Government of India Act of 1935. In the eyes of its arch enemy the Congress Party, Muslim League for all practical purposes was now a dead entity. It won the elections only in UP, capturing 29 out of 35 Muslim seats which it competed. Elsewhere though it’s tally was dismal: in Punjab 2 out of 7, in Assam 9 out of 34, in Bengal 39 out of 117, and none in Sind and NWFP. Overall, it won only 109 reserved Muslim seats out a total of 482. Congress, on the other hand, did remarkably well, winning throughout India in open constituencies and formed government in eight out of eleven provinces.
Jinnah had to live with the fact that Hindu majority provinces would now be ruled by Hindus, but Muslim league would not rule the largest provinces with Muslim majorities, Bengal and Punjab, as regional parties kept the League out of power in these provinces too. A lesser man would have been cowed down by this disaster, but not Jinnah. In fact, this proved to be the turning point in history for himself, the Muslim League, and the Muslims in India, as the events in the next ten years would testify.
The Congress party victory went to its leader Jawaharlal Nehru’s head, and he declared that “there are only two forces in the country, the Congress and [British] government”. Continuing in the same vain he said that “who are the Muslims? Apparently only those who follow Mr. Jinnah and the Muslim League ……… [which] represents a group of Muslims ………… for functioning in the higher regions of the upper middle classes and having no contacts with the Muslim masses and few even with the Muslim lower middle classes. May I suggest to Mr. Jinnah that I come into greater touch with the Muslim masses than most the members of the Muslim League.”
Still hopeful of possible cooperation between Congress and Muslim League, Jinnah made overtures to Congress for possible coalition governments in UP and Bombay. He appealed to Gandhi, and even suggested a nationwide Congress-League agreement. Gandhi however backed out replying, “I wish I could do something but I am utterly helpless”, and the opportunity was lost.
This was the first blunder made by the Congress party. As Wolpert mentions, “it would not be the last of Nehru’s political errors of judgment in his dealings with Jinnah, but it was one of most fatal mistakes he ever made in a moment of hubris. More than Iqbal, it was Nehru who charted a new mass strategy for the League, prodding and challenging Jinnah to leave the drawing rooms of politics to reach down to the hundred million Muslims who spent most of each day laboring in rural fields.”
(2)
This phenomenon of ‘phoenix rising from the ashes’, of people overcoming catastrophe to becoming extremely successful in their next venture as the Muslim League did in 1937, is something which I have observed many times in my life. I have always been a keen observer of life and it fascinates me to see people, many of them my colleagues, brushing off a situation of extreme misfortune or humiliation, and turning this into a new successful career.
One of my friends, a colleague in ICI, was a successful corporate employee. Suave, outgoing and having a pleasant personality, he worked as production manager and then transferred to sales. His performance for some reason did not come up to the company’s expectations and he was asked to leave. This was a low point for him; he was in his late thirties and a job was everything for him. But he kept his cool and did not break fences with the company. He decided to start a business by manufacturing one of the packing materials for ICI and as his prices and product quality were satisfactory, he became a regular supplier. As it turned out, he was making many times the amount of money in this business than he would have earned as a company employee.
About the same happened with another colleague of mine, except that leaving the company was his own decision but forced by circumstances that he could not control. He became a partner in an engineering company which won many contracts and became one of the biggest manufacturing concerns in the area.
Corporate life, a job with a local or multinational company, is like a tranquilizer. It lulls its people into a sense of comfort which, after a few years, becomes impossible to get out of. A secure income credited to your bank account every month, paid medical expenses, subsidized transport, fringe benefits depending upon seniority. One becomes a slave to a routine. Though a business usually offers much more lucrative returns, it becomes impossible to detach oneself from this cocoon of comfort and security and move into the ‘real’ world. Except that is, when a disaster strikes. One is thrown into depths of despair. There is acute loss of self-esteem and a feeling of guilt takes over. One reaches a point of no return.
And then this disaster turns out to be a blessing in disguise.
(3)
From 1937 onwards Jinnah threw himself into the job. Turning an elitist, feudalistic party into a mass movement became his passion. In the next three years, the Muslim League’s membership multiplied from a few thousand to over half a million. The party’s constitution was amended and modernized to make it possible for a man in the street to become not only a member but possibly an active worker. Nehru had thrown a challenge to Jinnah and he was never a person to run away from a challenge.
Congress then a made its second blunder, again the result of hubris, but this one much more damaging than Nehru’s fateful words. It boldly imposed its doctrine and policies in the eight provinces where it had formed governments, many of which were anathema for Muslims. Wardha Scheme, a brain child of Gandhi as a basic education program, was introduced into all Congress education ministries. Teaching was mainly to be in Hindi and spinning cotton cloth by hand on wheel was made part of the school curriculum. All students were expected to bow before a picture of Gandhi hung in their schools. Furthermore, Band-e-Matram, a nationalist Hindu song was required by law to be sung in the morning assemblies of all schools and at the start of the official business every day in provincial assemblies. Cases of violence against Muslims multiplied with police authorities sometimes remaining silent spectators. A special committee under Raja Syed Mohammad Mehdi of Pirpur tasked to investigate Muslim community’s complaints, listed scores of specific instances in its report issued in November 1938 of harm to Muslim properties and lives in Congress run provinces. Muslim League membership drive received a big boost by such Congress governments’ follies and alienated many Muslims who previously considered themselves nationalist and pro-Congress.
Many Indian writers contest this version of history and it is possible that Congress was sincere in its efforts to maintain a balance between the two communities. Hindus had been given power in India after a very long time, ruled first by the Muslims and then the British, starting from the Mameluke dynasty rule in year 1211. Their yearning to infuse some kind of Hindu symbolism in governance and education should not be grudged but in some cases the power was misused or hurt sensitivities. The hard fact of life is that in politics, people’s perceptions are more important than reality; and Congress lost the battle of perceptions, and thus the important Muslim votes during this period.
The Congress rule finally came to an end after Britain went to war with Germany in 1939 and announced that India, being a part of its empire, was also at war. Congress objected to the fact that it had not been consulted before this decision and all its provincial governments resigned. The Muslim League, happy to see the end of these governments, celebrated the end of Congress rule as the Day of Deliverance.
This was the background in which the Lahore Resolution was passed on 23 March 1940 demanding an independent sovereign state consisting of “areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority, as in the North-Western and Eastern zones of India”, though the name Pakistan was not mentioned in the document. As Wolpert said. “it lowered the final curtain on any prospects for a single united independent India …… There was no turning back. The ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity had totally transformed himself into Pakistan’s great leader.”
As the War progressed, so did the Congress’s opposition to it. The Allied Forces had reached a low point in the war by the loss of Far East to Japanese and the war in western Europe was also going badly for them. Congress seriously miscalculated this weakness and thought that the British army was about to abandon India, like they had abandoned Burma. The party passed “Quit India” resolution on 8 August 1942 starting a country-wide agitation. Gandhi announced to his followers, ”every one of you should from this moment onwards, consider yourself as free man or woman …… We shall either free India or die in the attempt.”. These were strong words coming from Gandhi and the British took them as open rebellion, which indeed it was. Gandhi and the entire Congress working committee were arrested next day before dawn. Soon almost the whole country was engulfed in violence, regular army troops were called and the agitators silenced with full force.
Muslim League, in a masterly move, immediately announced it opposition to the movement and declared that in its view the Quit India movement was an attempt to “force the Mussalmans to submit and surrender to Congress terms and dictation.”
In retrospect, Quit India movement was the third blunder made by Congress. It achieved practically nothing in their drive towards freedom, cost significant loss of lives and property, and at the same time created a belligerency in the British rulers’ minds towards them which was not there previously and did not help their cause. On the other hand, as an unintended consequence, it greatly enhanced Jinnah’s standing with the British and gave the demand for Pakistan a renewed impetus. The uprising had in fact remained confined to only some parts of India: parts of Bengal, Bihar, the UP, other Hindu-majority provinces and the NWFP.
My father had observed this fact also. He was travelling by train from Jaunpur to Lahore looking at terrible scenes of carnage, arson and destruction on the way. However, all this ceased suddenly as soon as the train entered Punjab where there was total calm and quiet all around. He also described the scenes in UP villages when the British forces arrived to quell the violence. Muslim households were told to place a hookah in front of their homes to identify them as such. Police or troops would then target the rest of the homes for their action, which in some cases could be extremely harsh and violent.
Gandhi’s reaction to this war when he saw “no difference between the Fascist or Nazi powers and the Allies [as] all are exploiters, all resort to ruthlessness to the extent required to compass their end” and opposed the war efforts, was curiously in marked contrast to his reaction during the First World War when he had fully supported the British war efforts. He was honored with the Kaiser-i-Hind medal on 3 June 1915 and later volunteered as a personal recruiting agent for soldiers travelling through his native Gujarat on foot. This was done in the belief that, in return for such cooperation, the grateful British would grant India dominion status once the war ended. He faced some criticism for this excessive show of support and was in for a rude shock when these gestures were rewarded by the British after the war by promulgation of Rowlatt Act in 1918, a punitive law giving wide powers to government to arrest Indians without the right of appeal. Gandhi was sorely disappointed and never forgot this ‘betrayal’.
It is possible then that Gandhi’s feelings during the 2nd World War were the result of a “rebound’ of his experience during the previous war. Men’s actions are always an extension of their past experiences, good or bad, and skewed towards correcting the past ‘mistakes’. This may explain his final call to his people before arrest: “Satyagrahis [agitators] must go out to die and not to live. They must seek and face death. It is only when individuals go out to die that the nation will survive”, a strange call coming from a person who had preached non-violence all his life.
(4)
My paternal grandfather, Syed Zaki Hasan, belonged to a class of land owners, called zamindars, with not very large holdings but not small either. Their way of living was typical of the Muslim land owning classes of India. There were thousands of people living on their lands, mostly Hindus, who were treated benevolently and paternalistically but sometimes harshly. The lands were administered by my grandfather and then, after his death, by father’s elder brother, Syed Ali Jafar. My father remembered poor villagers being giving punishments for minor offenses, which was usually being beaten with a shoe standing in the hot sun. Jootey lagao salay ko, would be an order issued by an elder and obeyed instantly. The culprit would be tied to a tree trunk and given the punishment, severity of which depended upon the order giver’s mood. Nobody ever raised an objection because that was considered the normal way and my father accepted it though never quite comfortable with such practices.
They were settled in the city of Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh (UP) located 228 km southeast of the state capital Lucknow. The city was founded in the year 1359 by the Indian ruler Feroz Shah Tughlaq, who named it Jaunpur in memory of his cousin Muhammad bin Tughlaq, fondly known as Jauna Khan. The city is famous for its rich cultural and historical heritage. The family had in fact moved to Oudh (now UP) from Punjab some time ago. Its patriarch was Syed Jalaluddin Bukhari (1199-1291), a descendant of Imam Ali Naqi AS, who had migrated from the city of Bukhara (now in Uzbekistan) settling in southern Punjab. His grandson later moved to the city of Gujrat. My great-great grandfather was also settled in Punjab and his wife has her grave in the Miani Sahib graveyard in Lahore
The merger of these two families, one from Punjab and the other from Oudh, brought about an interesting mix of complexions. My great grandfather’s family side was probably very fair in complexion while the great grandmother’s side could have been slightly darker. This resulted in very mixed results in the coming generations. My uncle was dark while his wife, also belonging to the same family, was born very fair and their elder children were also extremely fair in complexion.
My grandmother was also a majestic woman, lording over the household. She was not overly burdened with the care of her children who were the responsibility of their ayas. My father remembered his ayah known as Pathani very fondly (calling her boo’a, which is a fond name for mother) because it was she who took care of him day and night, and he saw his mother only occasionally. Among her other chores, she used to rub oil on father’s hair every night. Once she mistook one of his cousins who was the same age as father and rubbed oil on his hair instead. When my father walked in, she realized her mistake but in her fury, instead of getting some more oil, she called the cousin back and started to vigorously ‘transfer’ the oil from the cousin’s hair to my father by the use of her fingers. It was only when the cousin’s loud protests were heard outside that she stopped in her efforts.
My grandmother used to hold court reclining on her bed or charpoy, either placed inside a room or outside in the courtyard. She had developed an obsession about cleanliness and her charpoy would be thoroughly washed with water every day to keep it ‘paak’ (clean in a religious sense). Nobody would be allowed to touch it, let alone dare to sit on it. This led sometimes to funny situations. One of our uncles who was older than her would come sometimes to visit her. Etiquette forbid her to keep reclining on the bed in his presence nor would she allow him to sit on her bed. A compromise was developed over time; both of them kept standing throughout their meeting!
Muslim landed gentry though immensely proud of their ancestry and valor, apparently did not put much store in education and few of them got beyond the school level. My father, by no means a brilliant student in his school and college days, was still the first graduate in Jaunpur in his extended family. Once while sitting in his class in Grade 6, he noticed one of his uncles arriving at the door who then barged inside the class without preamble and started talking with his teacher, apparently an acquaintance. While my father was trying to recover from this shock, the uncle spotted my father sitting there. Uncle’s chest puffed up with pride and he thundered at the teacher, “ye mera poot haey, is ko kuch hua tu teri khair naheen” (this is my boy, if anything happens to him, you will not be spared). My father became red with embarrassment but could do little about it.
———-
My grandfather died in the year 1918. The circumstances of his death are shrouded in mystery. Jaunpur in those days was basking in the heat of Indian summer. It was evening time in mohalla Balwaghat and, as usual, all family members including my grandparents were relaxing in the courtyard built in the center of the house, some half reclining on charpoys and others sprawled on chairs. Water had been sprinkled on the baked earth spreading a cool, nice earth aroma all around. Like most houses in those days, there was a well dug up in a corner of the courtyard which catered to all the water needs of the household.
Suddenly somebody saw a little she-mouse (choohiya) lurking around the corners. It was chased away and in desperation, perhaps finding nowhere else to go, jumped in the well. My grandfather stooped down to peep into the well, to see how it could be fished out of the water. Something happened, he probably stooped too low, and then all of a sudden, he himself fell down into the well.
Everybody jumped. There were quite a few people around. They all rushed to the well and started to shout into the well calling his name. Ropes were dangled inside the well and a young man climbed down to the bottom. But strangely, though only a few minutes had passed, my grandfather was nowhere to be found. Evening slowly turned into night. Some more people climbed down and starting groping in the muddy earth around the well beneath the water level.
Grandfather was found many hours later, his body caught up in the mud somewhere deep inside the well. It’s a mystery how, being a grown up man and living all his life around wells, he could have fallen down. And even then, why did it take so many hours before his body could be found.
There was, of course, an explanation available, and believed by all present, that it was ……….. a ‘jinn’ who had done it! It was known within his close circle that he was trying to bring one particular jinn, who was living inside the well, under his control by means of a certain wazifaa (verses taken from the Quran). This was something which was not uncommon in those days and, in fact, believed by some people even today. Something had gone wrong with the wazifaa and the jinn was successful in pulling him down inside the well.
This fascination with the phenomenon known as the jinn was in fact deeply rooted in our family. Stories about various encounters with them over our many generations were as common as anecdotes about real people, narrated again and again by family elders to an eager audience of men, women and children sitting around a fire during the long nights of winter. One of these related to my great grandfather, Syed Faqeer Hussain.
This happened to be the month of Muharram. My great grandfather was employed a little distance away from home and on that day coming back to be with his family for the Ashura. He was riding his horse while his servant was walking alongside him. The night fell but they continued the journey through the vast countryside in pitch darkness. Some distance away, they could see some lights and, as they came nearer, they could see many people moving around. It turned out to be a well-attended gathering, in fact a majlis, brightly illuminated all around, and some people reciting soz-o-salaam on the stage. My great grandfather also sat down quietly in a corner, marveling their good luck on finding such a grand majlis in the middle of nowhere.
A few minutes later, somebody in the organizers spotted them and called for my great grandfather to please come up on the stage. When he got there, he was requested to recite some soz-o-salaam. He tried to excuse himself saying that he did not have his bayaaz (a personal diary containing selected verses) with him at this time. His host however, declared that this was not a problem and immediately presented his bayaaz to him. He did not have time to wonder how his personal bayaaz left at home managed to appear at this place and time so conveniently. Anyhow, he recited some verses of his, received due acclaim and asked permission to leave, at which point he was presented with some sweets as the traditional nazraana.
He and his servant started to move again on their way, but at that very moment a strange thing happened. Suddenly, all the lights disappeared as did the people. One moment they were standing in bright lights surrounded by dozens of people, next moment there was nothing. They found themselves standing alone in total darkness and not a soul around. Though terrified, they somehow found the courage to continue their journey and reached home early in the morning. But now he felt the effects of terror for the first time and developed a high fever. When he recovered his senses a few days later, he narrated his experience to others who found it difficult to believe what had happened. But still there was something which gave credence to this mysterious tale; the sweets he had received at the majlis were still there and, as everybody noticed, were out of this world in aroma and taste.
Whether true or not, this story has been told countless of times in our family, generation after generation, and it is up to us whether to believe it or not. According to the Muslim tradition, jinns are a reality as they have been mentioned specifically in the Quran (Surah Al-Jinn). They are however, a species apart and strictly forbidden to mingle with human beings. Despite this, humans cannot refrain from meddling in their affairs. But, as my father used to say in jest, for some reason all the jinns seem to have been left behind in India!
Nevertheless, fascination with jinns continues in our family, even in this generation. One of my distant cousins, called Nausha Bhai, was working as an assistant in my father’s office in Lahore. He was a very healthy, sturdy young man but one day suddenly became seriously ill, to the extent of spitting blood occasionally and became thin as a stick. It was said that he too was trying to get a jinn under his control but the process went horribly wrong (amal ulta parr gaya). Fortunately, he managed to recover after sometime and is now a happy grandfather living in Karachi.
What about myself? Though having a scientific mind and finding it difficult to believe this strange and unexplainable phenomenon, I can identify at least two occasions in my life when I seem to have encountered either jinns, or something very close, in circumstances which are difficult to explain otherwise. Both of these ‘experiences’ happened in Lahore; one, when I was about seventeen years old and the second, about fifteen years later. But more of this later, when we get to this stage of my life.
(5)
My father, Syed Ali Haider, was only two years old at the time of grandfather’s death and brought up by my taya who was many years his senior and held in great awe by everybody. We were privileged to see a glimpse of the grandeur of our family rule when my taya was compelled by circumstances to move to Pakistan with his family in the late fifties after the zamindari system was abolished by the Congress Party government in India in 1951 and the Muslim landlords became landless overnight. This was a clever move by the Hindu dominated Congress to break the stronghold of Muslims on the land based economy of UP and other north Indian states, and was engineered by Vallabhbhai Patel, the first Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister of India.
Taya was in his mid-sixties at that time but his imperial and awe inspiring personality was about the same as it probably would have been thirty years ago when he was lording over his lands in Jaunpur. He had a commanding voice and issued orders in a way which demanded obedience. He obviously mellowed over the years, compelled in part by circumstances which forced him to lead a life of seclusion. But he maintained his dignity and composure to the very end.
My father had received his schooling in Jaunpur and graduated from the Allahabad University. He was a keen sportsman, playing hockey and football regularly during his school and college days. While at school, he once had his two front teeth smashed by an opponent’s swinging hockey, one of which ended up in his stomach. He was bleeding but silently returned home, crept into his bed and ensconced himself in quilt. He was found out only after his boo’a saw drops of blood and raised an alarm. He carried a gold tooth fitted in his mouth for the rest of his life. After graduation, for some reason which is not clear, he found himself fascinated by leather and its products. He used to show us some delicately tooled leather products, such as, bags, purses and pouches personally crafted by him in early days. This predictably proved to be an anathema to his family who were rather incensed by this curious choice of profession. Undaunted, he then moved to raw leather and remained associated with it in its various forms throughout his life. There were three major centers of raw leather in the undivided India: Madras (now Chennai), Cawnpore in UP and Lahore. He spent time at the first two briefly and then arrived in Lahore in 1937 which was to become his permanent home.
His expertise lay in accurate evaluation and categorization of raw leather hides and skins for use in tanneries and finished leather products. This was critically important as each hide or skin varied widely in quality and price, and the valuations had a significant bearing on the bottom line. During the war days he worked for a firm called Cooper & Allen who had been assigned the sole purchasing franchise for raw leather by the British government. He then moved to the Bata Shoe factory at their Lahore plant situated at Jallo (which is now close to the Indian border) as their raw leather purchaser. In those days it was a multinational firm owned by the Bata family of Czechoslovakia and the managing director was always from that country. This job would serve to be a stepping stone not only for his own raw leather business started in early fifties, but also for building long lasting relationships with many major business magnates in the leather industry, with some of whom he worked closely in later years.
One of these was a business started by three young friends, Nazar Mohammad, Muhammad Hussain and Mohammad Saeed. These three finished their college together and decided to try their luck in footwear manufacture. Money was pooled by all three and the venture started. They used to come to Bata for some of their needs and thus developed an acquaintance with my father. Unfortunately, the business flopped leaving the friends destitute. They didn’t lose hope though and restarted the business with capital now provided by Mohammad Saeed’s father. This was then the start of a huge business empire called Service Industries. The three partners’ friendship was legendary and lasted not only their lifetime but their progenies as well. In early seventies, my father’s firm Millat Hides entered into a partnership with Service Industries, becoming its sole raw leather supplier. This arrangement continued for about twenty years till his retirement.
Many years later I had occasion to meet them in their Gulberg office when my father was visiting them and took me along. We went to the office of Nazar Mohammad sahib where Muhammad Hussain sahib was also present. I then witnessed a strange scene. Muhammad Hussain sahib was peeling an apple and cutting it into small pieces which he would then put in a plate placed before Nazar Muhammad sahib, who would take the slices slowly one by one. This went on for quite some time. Ch. Muhammad Hussain was at that time the CEO of Service Industries while Ch. Nazar Muhammad was the chairman. I would not have believed the scene had I not witnessed it myself.
My father has always been my role model, in a very general way. Whenever I am faced with a vexing problem or a moral issue I try to imagine, not exactly what my father would have done but rather how he would have reacted in such circumstances. It is difficult to explain specifically what this means; but he would usually remain calm and cool, he would not raise his voice even when angry though still sounding very clear and emphatic, he would not compromise over principles and he would always be modest and unassuming. Wearing neat, finely pressed but somewhat well-worn clothes, his years old wrist watch had only the hour hand which he said was good enough for him. During most of my life, I have moved in sophisticated government and corporate circles, observed people expensively dressed and oozing superiority in their talk; my mind immediately wandering off to my father thinking how different he was compared to such people. Though having an extrovert personality and with a keen sense of humor, when sitting in the company of his friends he would hardly ever try to dominate the conversation, his contribution mainly being to politely agree with whatever the other person was saying and to continue to say something supportive. No wonder he was a popular company among his friends!
Thanks to his business income we, though never extremely rich, were always comparatively well off. In the fifties we had a motor car, a refrigerator, a dining table and a home telephone when most homes were not used to such ‘luxuries’. Despite this, our style of living remained very modest with none of the fancy furniture, high level dining or travel that families of similar means indulged in. Though it was kept very discreet, my parents used to subsidize many families in need of assistance and took the initiative in making sure that their needs were taken care of.
(6)
Unlike my father’s family, my mother, Saeeda Begum, born 1925, belonged to a well-educated family settled for a long time in Lucknow. My maternal great grandfather Shaikh Akbar Ali’s brother Shaikh Muhammad Jan (1805-1898) was a notable poet with the takhallus (poetic name) Shaad. His collection of poems, called divan, was preserved in the family and finally published by my maternal uncle (and father in law) Hamid Hasan.
My grandfather Mahmood Hasan was born in 1873 and, after getting Maulvi Fazil degree from Punjab University, did his graduation from Allahabad University in 1901. Muslim graduates were a rarity in those days and a mini celebrity. Unlike his elder brother Ali Hasan or younger brother Hadi Hasan, who were in the employment of Maharaja Sahib of Mahmudabad as local administrators and comfortably well off, he shunned what he called the durbar lifestyle and opted instead for the much more modest field of education. As Assistant Headmaster of Colvin Taluqdars’ College, Lucknow, he was a tutor to the children belonging to princely states of India. [ Note: headmaster always used to be British while Taluqdars means landlords]
Like my father who lost his father early, my maternal grandfather too passed away in 1931 when my mother was only six years old. He died suffering from tuberculosis and though he spent some time in a sanatorium at the hill resort of Nainital, could not recover. On his deathbed, he was somehow aware of the exact time of his passing away. On the last day, he asked my grandmother what time it was, murmured to himself something like, “it is still (so many) hours left”, and then waited patiently in his bed for that time to arrive.
Raja Sahib of Mahmudabad was a household name in our family as both brothers of my maternal grandfather were in employment at his estates as local administrators. Raja Sahib Amir Ahmed Khan (1914-73), who ascended the throne after the death of his father called the Maharaja in 1931, was one of Quaid e Azam’s trusted lieutenants. As the largest Muslim landlord of Lucknow, Raja sahib at that time had an income of around two million rupees annually and served as the treasurer of the Muslim League’s central board. Despite his income and status, he was one of the most simple and modest persons one could ever meet. Sometime after partition and merger of Indian states, Raja sahib decided to move to England and lived a simple life in a flat in London for the rest of his life. He visited Lahore once during the sixties and due to close family ties stayed at the home of one of my uncles. He made a memorable comment to my father when they were passing through Gulberg. He said, “yehan to logon ko daulat ki bad hazmi lagti hai.” A more apt comment on the mentality of Pakistani elite is hardly possible.
———-
Maternal Grandfather’s educational background was a matter of great pride for our family and later on dutifully followed by my mother who chose to go to a regular school herself and get herself a decent education at a time when most girls were not allowed to venture out of their homes or get educated. The reason given for this ugly custom was simple, if educated they would start writing letters to their paramours! The controls didn’t stop at that as even educated girls were permitted only a restricted access to literature. My mother, for example, was discouraged from reading the famous Urdu novel Umrao Jaan Ada written by Mirza Hadi Ruswa, the story of a courtesan and poet, which was a popular reading in those days. She managed to read it many years later after her marriage.
For her schooling, she got more than full support from her mother, who had become a widow at an early age. Ladies of that era could not normally travel in horse carts or addha (bullock cart), the popular carriages of that time. Instead, a doli (small palki or palanquin) used to pick her up from her home, following an elaborate procedure to ensure that ladies’ modesty was not breeched.
The doli would arrive at her house, the doli bearers would make a loud call, aawain? meaning can we enter, and when granted permission would come inside to an external room of the house (called diorrhi), place the doli there and then walk out. Ladies would enter the diorrhi and sit in the doli, carefully drawing curtains all around. Doli bearers would reenter, lift the doli and walk out. Same procedure was followed at the school, which in her case was the Hussainabad School in Kashmiri Mohalla, a well-known school for girls in Lucknow.
My mother was a diligent student and read everything she could lay her hands on. She became a regular reader of English daily newspapers while she was still in school (The Pioneer in those days) and maintained this habit throughout her life. While still in her teens, she started maintaining a diary in which she recorded the important world events of the day and their follow ups. These were the days when the World War II was at its peak and the diary, later passed on to me, records these events faithfully as reported in the newspapers of those days.
She had a remarkable memory and could recite not just single poetic verses as most people do, but whole ghazels of famous poets from Matla to Maqta (first and last verse in a ghazal) casually sitting at home. Likewise famous poems, such as, Iqbal’s Shikwa and Jawab-e-Shikwa and Faiz’s ‘mujh se pehli si ….’, or tanhaii. I, on the other hand, could hardly recite even a singly verse correctly and was the cause of lingering disappointment for her. My father too, like many people in those days, knew scores of poetic verses by heart, and our home was frequently ringing with verses being quoted to and fro between my mother and father, with me and my sisters and brother being mostly amused silent spectators. My father’s speciality was in fact remembering and reciting poetic verses for bait baazi, a kind of literary game in which one person recites a verse and the other person has to recite a verse which starts with the last letter of the first verse. To add spice to the competition, special ghazals had been developed for this purpose where the second line of every verse ended in a letter which was not very common and thus difficult to start the second verse with. For example, he knew a ghazal in which the last line of every verse ended with the word ‘kaaghaz’ (paper)! One can only remember those days with nostalgia when such pastimes like bait baazi were common in every household, with both boys and girls participating with much passion and fervor and frequent disputes erupted whether any verse was genuine or just ‘invented’ by the player. In fact, not just bait baazi but that entire era, that culture and civilization, has now disappeared forever or rather ‘gone with the wind’’, as termed by the American author Margaret Mitchell in another context.
My mother had a quiet and remarkably unpretentious personality. She was socially very active in organizing ladies majalis in her local community and its prominent member. Still, when she would go to a very crowded majlis she would often sit on the floor outside with the beggar women and share the food served to them after the majlis without bothering to go inside and meet the hosts. Her technique for dealing with people passing sarcastic or mocking remarks at her was very simple; she would play dumb and agree with them, which would make the remarks fall flat.
She always seemed eager to share whatever she knew about a topic with others. Whenever asked a question, she had the habit of giving a very detailed and reasoned reply as if she was trying to pour out everything she knew for your benefit. God forbid, if you asked her a quick question in the middle of a TV play, her elaborate explanation would end only after somebody begged her to stop!
Maybe because I was the first born, I always felt close to my mother. Or maybe it was because she was unlike most women of her times, never much interested in domestic chores but always willing to discuss literature, politics or world affairs. When I was in college and my cousins and friends came over, she would join us in our conversations and talk freely about everything under the sun. She was a voracious reader and regularly subscribed to literary magazines such as Adab-e-Lateef, Naqoosh and Naqsh. Surprisingly, she was excellent in Mathematics also. For our matriculation exam, we had been given dozens of Geometry theorems and problems to solve and memorize as part of our syllabus and I remember taking help from her frequently to do this. Years later when working at my office, somebody asked me about the formula for calculating compound interest. I said to him, “hang on, let me telephone and ask my mother.” I can never forget the expression of stunned disbelief on his face. She didn’t disappoint us.
(7)
My father had moved to Allahabad after completing his school education. He did his intermediate there followed by bachelors from Allahabad University which had earned a name for itself in the quality of its education, especially in English and Urdu literature. He was also interested in learning music, attending classes at the University Music Association. He had a close circle of friends, one of which happened to be the son of city police chief who came in handy for availing minor perks including free admission to the city theaters and cinemas. Another friend of his there from Jaunpur days was Maulvi Jarrar who also happened to be a family friend.
Maulvi Jarrar had a kind and affectionate nature, a friend of friends. He also happened to be somewhat superstitious and followed certain rules in this respect. One of these was never to travel on a Wednesday, considered a bad omen for quasi-religious reasons. No matter how important the travel might be, this rule was sacrosanct, never to be broken. However, an emergency came up once , Maulvi Jarrar had to be in Jaunpur on a certain Wednesday, my father advised him to make an exception this time, and he agreed.
Everything went according to schedule and he boarded the train. As the departure time came nearer however, Maulvi Jarrar began to develop some doubts in his mind. He started to have visions of some unthinkable calamity if he continued with the travel. The train’s whistle sounded and he became even more uncertain. The train started moving and Maulvi Jarrar now decided he was not going to go after all. He picked up his small bag, went to the door and jumped. By this time, the train had picked up speed and had left the platform. He landed on the ground and broke his leg.
My father went to see him next day in the hospital. As soon as Maulvi Jarrar saw my father, he flew into a rage. “I had told you I didn’t want to travel,” he said, “you forced me into it and now look what has happened to me. Are you happy now?” My father’s explanations failed to make any impression on him. He needed no further proof of his beliefs and became even more firmly attached to his rule of never travelling on a Wednesday.
Maulvi Jarrar’s circle of friends included my maternal uncle, Hamid Hasan, who had settled in Allahabad with his family because of his job there. This friendship led in one way or another to the arrangement of marriage of my parents.
They were married on 31 August 1944 which happened to be the eleventh of Ramazan. It was a subdued affair, on both sides. My father had lost his first wife a few years ago during child birth after less than two years of marriage. He must have felt this deeply because he never talked about it. There was only an oblique mention of her when he told us that he had a full set of musical instruments like sitar and sarangi at his home once and used to practice classical ragas regularly, but then stopped it all on his wife’s request and discarded the musical instruments.
On my mother’s side too there was less than cheerful enthusiasm. And this was because of a tragic incident in the family less than four months before, the death of my mother’s elder sister, Hameeda Begum. She had her home in Bhadmara, which was a village about fifty miles from Lucknow, living with her husband and three children, the eldest a nine years old girl. It was a lovely summer evening in May, her brother’s family was visiting and she was in a festive mood. Then disaster struck. She was carrying a charpoy in the courtyard of her house with her sister in law at the other end when out of nowhere an insect, probably a snake, bit her in the foot. She screamed, fell down and became unconscious. The husband was called and efforts began to revive her. Soon she took on a bluish hue and it was decided to take her to Lucknow where she could be treated in a hospital. The only transport available at that time was the bullock cart called ‘addha’ enclosed with sheets hung on all four sides, but it moved at its own slow pace. Somewhere along the way, she breathed her last.
The party reached their Lucknow home in Patanala early in the morning. A knock was made on the door, my grandmother got up and opened the door, wondering who could be there so early in the morning. She needed all the power of her strong nerves to sustain her for what she saw there.
———
The subdued mood of the bride and groom’s families did not stop my khala and her cousins however to play all kind of pranks on their brother in law on his first visit to the bride’s house, which was the norm at Lucknow weddings. Some of these were quite simple, like putting salt in his tea cup or chillies in the paan. Others were more elaborate, like the one which involved preparing shami kebabs made from khali ( Kh pronounced as in khilona). Khali is a fibrous material mainly used for washing hair. This was finely grounded, made into a paste and then fried as shami kebabs. It was really horrible stuff, almost impossible to swallow.
Faced with such kind of delicacies, my father’s modus operandi was simple; he would pretend as if everything was normal and he was thoroughly enjoying everything he was being served. While all this was going on and my father would be sitting for dinner in the strictly male company of grave looking elderly gentlemen from the family, there would be a slight movement in the curtains at the door, faint sound of suppressed giggles and excited voices whispering something inside the house. And my father would continue to maintain a poker face. The jury is undecided on exactly who was the winner in this battle of wits. My father, who could claim to have denied my khala the satisfaction of seeing him feel acute discomfort and/or showing annoyance; or my khala and her companions who did succeed after all in feeding him horribly distasteful stuff.
In the evening, my father would change and go out for an evening walk. On the first day when he came back and was asked where he had gone to, he replied that he had gone down to the Chowk. This was a bustling market area and a prime shopping and food hub which was situated at a walking distance from the home. The reply was however received with faint smiles. Same thing happened the next day, but the reply this time was received with laughter. This made him curious and he made some enquiries the next day. It turned out that the word Chowk was also a slang in those days for the place where courtesans and singers used to live. The highly refined and cultured society of Lucknow must be looking like a minefield to a simple folk visiting from Jaunpur.
After marriage, my mother made her home in Lahore, which must have seemed a far cry from her home in Lucknow. She could not a speak or understand a word of Punjabi while most people around her did not speak Urdu. She was used to living as part of a large family at her home in Lucknow with a bustling house full of cousins, aunts and uncles and events happening almost daily. Here, they did not have a single family member living in the same city. Life must have been tough for her but, strangely, I never heard a word of complaint about that life from her ever.
(8)
I was born on 26 April 1947 and named after my mother Saeeda Begum; the name had in fact been decided much before my birth. My parents were then living in a small house situated on a narrow street branching out from the famous Grand Trunk Road, popularly known at GT Road, running parallel to the back boundary wall of Lahore Railway Station. The street started almost exactly opposite the huge pedestrian bridge linking GT Road with the front of railway station. A couple of years later, my mother suddenly found myself missing in the home and immediately called my father who had his office nearby in a raw leather godown. Some people told him that they had seen a young kid crawling up the stairs on the pedestrian bridge. My father rushed up the stairs and found a strange scene. I was walking, dragging my feet slowly on the bridge crying hopelessly, while a small crowd of young boys was trailing me trying to find out where I wanted to go. Seeing my father, I jumped into his lap and the drama thus ended happily. But the pedestrian bridge remained my favorite haunt for many years and to this day I am always fascinated by trains moving up and down the track looking down from a bridge.
Years later, when I was heading a British company J.P.Coats (Pakistan) Ltd, our regional director Joe Remedios, an Anglo-Indian, was visiting Karachi. During discussions he revealed that he was borne in a flat facing GT Road in Calcutta. I told him that I too was born in a house facing GT Road in Lahore and we marveled at this strange coincidence. We both owed our thanks to the great king Sher Shah Suri who ruled this part of the land 1537 to 1545 and during his short reign built the magnificent GT Road linking Calcutta with Peshawar, a road slightly over 2000 km long, which is still travelled by thousands of people every day in both Pakistan and India.
This day is noteworthy for another reason. It was on 26 April 1947 that Jinnah had written to the viceroy Mountbatten supporting H.S. Suhrawardi’s proposal for the establishment of an independent sovereign state of Bengal. Jinnah had said, “I shall be delighted ………they had much better remain united and independent. I am sure they would be on friendly terms with us.”. Congress had, of course, later vetoed this proposal.
Punjab was in turmoil in those days. Communal strife had been going off and on since late 1946 but intense violence suddenly erupted in February 1947 in all major cities including Lahore and Amritsar after which governor rule was imposed and Governor Jenkins took direct control of the Punjab Province. But this failed to quell the killings, arson and lootings. Previously confined to major cities, the savagery now spread to villages engulfing prosperous lush green countryside “like cancerous cells of fanatical hatred cut loose and growing at such alarming a rate that there seemed to be no control possible, no inhibiting force available to stop them.”
Hundreds of thousands of refugees now for the first time started to move from ravaged villages to the cities. In anticipation of partition of Punjab along communal lines, mass migration began of Hindus and Sikhs from western Punjab to eastern Punjab and Delhi, and of Muslims in the reverse direction, by train and by road. Miles-long lines of horse carts and bullock carts loaded with people and essential belongings began to move in all directions in the countryside presenting a pathetic scene of helplessness and misery.
Lahore during this time had become the center of looting and arson. One particular incident stands out though among all this mayhem which was personally witnessed by my father and left a deep impression on him. This was the burning of the Shah Alami Bazaar on the night of 20th and 21st June 1947.
Shah Alami Bazaar situated inside Shah Alami Gate was one of the richest hubs of the walled city and most of it was owned by the Hindus and Sikhs who were the business elite while the Muslims of the area were small traders, shop owners or workers. There were grand havelis and houses inside the gate depicting the richness of the residents. Lahore was loved by the Punjabi Hindus and Sikhs who could not bear to see it becoming part of Pakistan, and to this end they began to fortify the Shah Alami Gate with arms and ammunition and vowed to stay here and defend it for as long as they could. As the killings and arson spread across Lahore, many Hindus and Sikhs who had fled the strife torn areas also began to settle there and the Shah Alami Gate thus became one of the last holdouts for these communities.
The mob wanted to get at them for this very reason but were hampered due to heavy fortification. Finally, a plan was hatched by a group of people led by First Class Magistrate M.G. Cheema , popularly known as Cheema Magistrate to ‘conquer’ Shah Alami Gate. The only way to infiltrate the bazaar was if some volunteers could secretly crawl through a sewage drain then running from the Sheranwala Gate to Shah Alami Gate so that they could get inside the heart of the targeted area without being spotted. Popular legend has it that Cheema Magistrate was also there with them. The group managed to somehow get near the dump of explosives and set fire to the munitions.
There was instantly a huge fire as the dump exploded. The big cache of arms and ammunition assembled to protect the residents turned into its demon. The whole city reverberated with loud bangs. The fire went on for four or five days and the entire Shah Alami mohalla, the havelis, the grand houses and the majestic bazaar, were reduced to a rubble. About 80% of the shops burnt into ashes. The fire completely demoralized the Hindu and Sikh community and broke their will to hold on to Lahore. Tens of thousands began to move out and within a few months of partition, there was hardly any non-Muslim left living in Lahore.
And what became of Cheema Magistrate. Again according to popular legend, the nature took its course. He got inflicted with leprosy and in his final days was seen lying helplessly in the same sewage drains he had used to bring death and misery to mostly innocent people years ago.
(9)
Finally, 14th August arrived, the day my parents along with millions of their compatriots had waited for all their lives, not knowing in fact whether they will be fortunate enough to ever see this day in their lifetime. Mountbatten had flown to Karachi from New Delhi a day earlier and presided over a ceremony held at the semicircular chamber of Sindh’s parliament to appoint Quaid e Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah as the first Governor General. Pakistan was born, a feat considered impossible only a few months ago. The journey started by Jinnah less than ten years ago in 1937 when the Muslim League had been roundly defeated in elections and then humiliated by Congress in words and deeds, had reached its end.
Overshadowing all the euphoria of independence was the specter of unprecedented communal rioting all over northern India. As the day of partition came nearer, more and more people started to board trains or any other means of transport they could find and loaded with all their worldly belongings began to migrate to a safer place. Radcliffe’s boundary award was announced a day after the Independence Day, and in the words of Wolpert,” all celebrations ended; then the slaughter began. In and around Amritsar, bands of armed Sikhs killed every Muslim they could find, while in and around Lahore, Muslim gangs …… sharpened their knives and emptied their guns at Hindus and Sikhs.” As feared by Jinnah, the partition of Punjab was to unleash a wave of terror across the whole of province. The mayhem ultimately resulted in the death of at least one million people while around nine million people were uprooted and fled across the border on both sides.
My father had a ring side seat to observe all this at very close quarters. As noted earlier, the house my parents were living in at that time was at a stone’s throw from the Lahore railway station. He used to visit the station daily, on some days many times a day, to receive the refugees and provide whatever help he and the other volunteers could offer them. The scenes he saw and later described to us would be impossible to believe had they not been seen firsthand. Very few trains coming in from India managed to reach Lahore unscathed. Most trains arrived with a large number of brutally slaughtered or injured people, regardless of whether they were men, women or children. There were some trains where the volunteers could not find even a single person left alive with the bogeys drenched in blood. There were scores of such train-loads of dead bodies arriving at the station where the only chore left for the volunteers was to arrange their burial.
Equally heart-rending was the fate of some of the survivors of such attacks. They usually arrived at the station having endured days on the train without food or water, and would jump off the train and head straight to the nearest water tap or pump suffering from unbearable thirst. My father and other volunteers would try to stop them from drinking water on an empty stomach before eating something solid, they would resist and fight with all their physical strength, take in large gulps of water and immediately faint or even drop down dead.
Lahore presented a haunted sight in those days. Hindus and Sikhs were leaving their homes in a hurry leaving most of their belongings behind. There were thousands of empty houses all around town. There was hardly any law and order and the meagre police resources were occupied in riot control and looking after the refugee population. Some locals used this opportunity to take over the properties left behind by the non-Muslims, many containing valuables like jewelry or gold coins. There were many such houses in the posh suburb of Model Town which was mostly populated by Hindus before partition. My maternal uncle, Sajid Hasan, who was an engineer associated with All-India Radio, now Radio Pakistan, was also posted in Lahore at that time. My father and uncle would take a round of the city on their bicycles in the evening seeing all this happening and make plans to take over such and such house the next day or the day after next. This day never arrived as, according to my father, they couldn’t find it in them to take over somebody else’s property finding it morally repulsive.
We did have an “illegally” acquired property though dating back to those fateful days. My father was walking on a street when a man passed him by in a hurry carrying an old looking pendulum clock, obviously nicked from some unoccupied home. He suddenly stopped, looked at my father and offered to sell it to him at a ridiculously low price. My father accepted finding it a good bargain. The clock stayed with us for a great many years hanging prominently on a wall in the main bedroom, with my father religiously winding it every week to keep it going. I can still hear its cranking sounding of time at the stroke of every hour in my ears.
(10)
The final act in the long and twisted saga of Indian Independence movement spread over nearly fifty years culminating in freedom of India, partition, or the birth of Pakistan; three different names for a single event expressing the point of view of whether you were Congress, British government, or Muslim League, had started two years ago. It was a saga played like a game of chess, with each party having to think not only the present move but four moves ahead. Stakes were critically high directly affecting lives of close to a billion people. On one side of the game was the Congress party, with the wily Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi as its nominal head, ably assisted by the intelligent but mercurial Jawaharlal Nehru and hard as nails Vallabhbhai Patel. In the middle was the full force of British government with all the civil and military resources at its command. On the third side was the lone figure of Muhammad Ali Jannah. He had some Muslim landlords and feudals on his side who could provide financial assistance but nothing in the way of developing strategy or leading mass movements. This he had to do on his own and, in the final analysis, he proved to be more than equal of the two other players in this game.
After the end of war in 1945, Labour Party had won the elections in Britain, formed the government and immediately announced plans to leave India as soon as possible. Elections were held in India in December that year. According to Wolpert, “The League won all thirty central assembly seats, a stunning victory that validated Jinnah’s prediction and appeared to prove the universal appeal of Pakistan among Muslims of the subcontinent.” Congress retained the majority but lost four seats. Provincial assemblies elections held two months later further cemented League’s dominance as it won more than 88% of the Muslim vote. Jinnah was now the undisputed ‘sole spokesman’ of Muslims all over India.
This was the background in which a three member commission of British cabinet ministers visited India in February 1946 to hammer out a final plan for freedom of India which would have the blessings of both Congress and the Muslim League. This was seemingly an impossible task in view of the hard lines taken by both parties in previous attempts for a compromise solution and the last chance to keep India undivided. Cabinet Mission Plan was announced on 16 May 1946 through a fifteen minutes speech made by one of the commission members over All-India Radio. It recommended a scheme with the central government of Union of India retaining only foreign affairs, defence and communications, and all residual powers delegated to the Provinces. The key part of the plan was three provincial groupings: Group A consisting of eight Hindu majority provinces, Group B included Muslim majority provinces of Punjab, NWFP and Sind, while Group C would include the Muslim majority provinces of Bengal and Assam. A constituent assembly elected by the provincial legislatures of the three group would draw up a constitution for independent India while an interim government was to be formed enjoying the support of the major parties.
After a hectic round of meetings between the British, Congress and the League during the next month with proposals and counter proposals flying in all directions, Muslim League accepted the Plan on 6 June with Jinnah declaring that, “acceptance of the Mission proposals was not the end of their struggle for Pakistan.” Congress accepted the Plan on 25 June (with the proviso that it would put its own interpretations of the Plan), but declined to participate in the interim government.
Congress now made the fourth blunder which was to prove fatal in its quest for securing a united India. At a press conference held at Bombay airport on 10 July 1946 Nehru, in his capacity as the party’s newly elected president, declared that Congress would enter the Constituent Assembly “completely unfettered by agreements and free to meet all situations as they arise”. The implication was that Congress was not bound by the terms of the Cabinet Mission Plan, which it had just accepted! According to Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, a senior Congress leader and its immediate past president, these remarks “wrecked the chances of Muslim League joining the interim government”.
The League declared this statement as breach of faith and on 30 July withdrew its acceptance of the Cabinet Mission Plan, calling for a ‘Direct Action Day’ on 16 August to press for the creation of Pakistan. According to M.J.Akbar, “in trying to protect India from a ‘virtual Pakistan’, Nehru had inadvertently provided the Muslim League with the opportunity to seek a real Pakistan.”
Lord Mountbatten was appointed as the nineteenth and the last British viceroy on 24 March 1947. He got to work immediately holding a series of meetings with Congress and League leaders. Pakistan was now almost a certainty, the only issue remaining to be decided being what size or shape it was to be. As late as mid-May, Jinnah was totally opposed to the partition of Punjab, Bengal or Assam regarding it as an anathema. He wrote to Mountbatten, “ The Muslim League cannot agree to the partition of Bengal and the Punjab. It cannot be justified historically, economically, geographically, politically or morally. These provinces have built up their respective lives for nearly a century ….. and the only ground which is put forward for the partition is that the areas where the Hindus and Sikhs are in a majority and should be separated from the rest of the provinces ….. the results will be disastrous for the life of these two provinces and all the communities concerned.” It would be difficult to state more clearly or strongly one’s total repulsiveness to the concept of partition of provinces.
In the meantime, the Chief Minister of Bengal, Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy (later prime minister of Pakistan) had started to advocate an independent state of united Bengal with Calcutta as its capital. Jinnah had welcomed this move as it would avoid partitioning Bengal while, having a Muslim majority population, Muslims would always have a predominant role in the government. Congress on the other hand rejected it fearing that a united Bengal led by a Muslim premier would form closer alliance to Pakistan than India.
However, things moved quickly between mid-May and 2 June when the viceroy, having returned back from London with his ‘Mountbatten Plan’ approved by the British Cabinet, presented it to Congress and Muslim League leaders as a kind of ‘take it or leave it’ offer. The Plan proposed partitioning of all three Muslim majority provinces, Punjab, Bengal and Assam, mainly on the basis of separating the Muslim majority areas from other areas. During the intense discussions between Mountbatten and the leaders of the three communities which had preceded the development of this Plan, Hindus, and more so the Sikhs, had flatly refused to accept living in undivided Punjab or Bengal dominated by a Muslim majority. There was now no option left for Jinnah and the Muslim League except to convey their agreement to the Plan, howsoever reluctantly. The alternative was to say good bye to Pakistan forever as so eloquently put by ex-prime minister Churchill in his communication to Jinnah, “this is a matter of life or death for Pakistan, if you do not accept this offer with both hands.”
The formal announcement of the plan for partition of India into two states, India and Pakistan, was made by Mountbatten on 3 June 1947 on All-India Radio at 7.00 p.m. followed by speeches by Nehru, Jinnah and Baldev Singh representing the Sikhs. Pakistan was now a reality. Two boundary commissions started work to draw up plans for partition, one each for Punjab and Bengal/Assam, comprising four high court judges each and headed by Sir Cyril Radcliffe, a British barrister who had never visited India before. Radcliffe reached New Delhi on 8 July and thus had just five weeks to decide the boundaries for India and Pakistan and draw arbitrary pencil lines on a map across which, “approximately 10 million refugees would run terrified in opposite directions.”
Pakistan was thus ‘created’ by the iron will of one person within a short span of ten years – 1937 to 1947. During this period Quaid e Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah faced fierce opposition, firstly, from the Indian National Congress; secondly, from other Hindu parties like Hindu Mahasabha; thirdly, from Muslim religious parties like Jamiat Ulema e Hind, Majlis e Ahrar and Jamat e Islami; fourthly, from Nationalist parties in Muslim majority provinces like Unionist Party in Punjab, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s Khudai Khidmatgar in NWFP and Krishak Praja Party in Bengal; and finally, from the British government which was totally opposed to the concept of partition of India till the very end. Mountbatten had written home as late as 1 May 1947, “the more I look at the problem in India the more I realise that all this partition business is sheer madness”, and yet he was forced to publicly announce the creation of Pakistan just one month later on 2 June. During this ten year period, while Congress made many mistakes, first in failing to understand the Muslim community’s genuine apprehensions regarding its built in hegemony in a Hindu majority state and then underestimating Jinnah’s ability and determination to unite Muslims from all parts of India behind the demand for Pakistan; Jinnah on the other hand during all this period scarcely put a foot wrong. By 1946, he had become their ‘sole spokesman’.
(11)
So we come to the end of this chapter chronicling my birth as well as the birth of my dear country Pakistan. An interesting question: how do we see the emergence of Pakistan and by implication the two-nation theory, in hindsight? Has the two-nation theory withstood the test of time? There are some opinions voiced now, many from well-meaning intellectuals or the younger generation (Generation X onwards) having doubts on the rationale for the creation of Pakistan. These views have lately gained force as Pakistan manifestly seems to be straying far from the course envisioned by its founding fathers. It seems continually to be mired in multiple economic, political and social woes. So let us reexamine the case for Pakistan now, 75 years after its birth.
At the time of partition, close to 95 million Muslims lived in the subcontinent, about one in four (25%) of the total population. The ratio now may be a few percentage points higher now due to demographics but not much more. This means that though Muslims would be the largest single minority in undivided India, they would still be a relatively small minority of the total population. They would have a bigger voice than the current 15% Muslim population in India but not much more. In this scenario, it can be said with a fair degree of certainty that the life, as we know it, would have been totally different for us living in an undivided India.
There would be constant competition with Hindus for parliamentary seats, jobs, seats in schools and colleges, or housing and public welfare projects. Hindus, much more advanced in education and mobility, would command a much greater share of government resources and jobs than dictated by their population. Television programs like dramas and music will be almost totally geared to showing Hindu culture while Muslims will appear only as token characters (for example, all pathans shown as simple honest characters wearing turban, girls shown wearing burqa and men wearing achkan). There will be no special programs on Muslim holy days such as Eid, Ramazan or Ashura. One just has to tune in to any Indian TV channel to see the content on normal days as well as on the Muslim or Hindu festival days to see how different these are from our channels in social content.
At the time of partition Muslims were 55% of the population in Punjab but controlled less than 25% wealth, as majority of agricultural land was owned by Sikhs and commerce by Hindus. Muslims were mainly small farmers or workers. In the prosperous Anarkali bazaar of Lahore, there was only one major shop owned by a Muslim, Inayatullah and Sons, while all others were owned by non-Muslims. In Bengal most Muslim farmers were heavily indebted to the Hindu money lenders and suddenly found themselves free of debt after partition. Partition thus proved a great boon for the Muslims living in Muslim-majority provinces.
Indira Gandhi, the Indian Prime Minister, had crowed after the fall of Dacca in 1971, “we have drowned the two-nation theory in the Bay of Bengal.” In fact, the opposite was true. The two-nation theory had surmised that Muslims and Hindus were not just two separate religions but two separate nations with their own history, civilization and social orders who could not ever live together; hence the case for Pakistan. If this theory did not hold water, then logic dictated that once the East Pakistan Muslims had thrown away their “shackles of slavery”, they should have lost no time in warmly embracing their West Bengal Hindu “brothers”, either to become part of India or to form a separate state of United Bengal where Muslims and Hindus could live happily ever after. But nothing of that sort happened; Bengali Muslims chose to live in Bangladesh, separate from the Hindu Bengalis in the west, as they cherished their Muslim nationhood more than Bengali nationhood. This was a resounding validation of the Quaid e Azam’s two-nation theory.
Few people in Pakistan know that Shia azadari processions as well as Sunni processions in Lucknow were totally banned by the Indian government in 1977 following riots. Majalis were allowed only on private property, such as, homes and imambargahs. The ban continued for twenty years and was finally lifted in 1997 after four Shia youth committed suicide by self-immolation. This drastic action was possible only because there was a non-Muslim government holding power which could place a unilateral ban on Muslim religious rites with impunity. It was successful in foaming sectarian tensions and then to exploit these for its own political motives. This situation would be unthinkable in Pakistan. A rare sectarian riot, such as the one near Islamabad in 2013, was swiftly controlled and harmony was soon restored by the religious leaders.
Indian Muslims have never enjoyed the same religious freedoms which are taken for granted in this country. Their living conditions started to deteriorate further after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) assumed power in India in 2014 and Narendra Modi was installed as prime minister. BJP, closely associated with RSS which is a right-wing Hindu nationalist paramilitary volunteer organization, openly preaches hatred against Muslims. Soon after coming to power, it started a Hindu religious conversion program. It banned slaughter of cows in most states including beef consumption, and passed a citizenship law in 2019 which granted Indian citizenship to persecuted minorities of all religions with the sole exception of Muslims. This law attracted global criticism and led to riots in Delhi in 2020 caused chiefly by Hindu mobs attacking Muslims, and out of 53 people killed, two-thirds were Muslim. Anyone daring to disagree with this narrative is told to ‘go to Pakistan’.
The same happened with Aamir Khan, the famous Bollywood actor. A day after he raised his voice against the ‘rising intolerance’ in India saying his wife wanted to move out of the country as she feared for the safety of her children in a climate of insecurity, he was told by the general secretary of Hindu Mahasabha to ‘go to Pakistan for the benefit of India’. Shahrukh Khan, being a Muslim in India, also faces Islamophobia. He has to constantly prove his patriotism for his country and in a TV show once said, “Sometimes I feel very sad, I even feel like crying, that I should be made to say that I belong to this country, I am a patriot. I am a patriot, rather we all are. We do not have to compete with others to say we are patriots.”
Supreme Court of India routinely delivers judgements infringing upon rights of Muslim community: it has consistently allowed total ban on cow slaughter; it allowed in 2019 building of a Hindu temple on the contested land in Ayodhya which was previously in use as a mosque for centuries, the famous Babri masjid; it declined to hear constitutional challenges to the Citizenship Amendment Act; and it summarily rejected a petition in 2022 against a schools authority directive banning the wearing of veil by Muslim female students. In the latter case, it referred to the petition as a ‘waste of its time’, the issue ‘a small matter’ and in a remarkably insensitive comment declared that ‘nobody would be committing a sin if one were to remove the headscarf for a few hours’.
Muslims of India have to bear this ignominy and humiliation because they no longer have any political leverage. They do not lack courage and continue to raise voices against state oriented oppression in the face of considerable risks to themselves. However, these voices are fragmented and do not carry sufficient force to effectively challenge Hindutva narrative. Perhaps Indian Muslims need a ‘sole spokesman’ like Mohammad Ali Jinnah to lead them to an environment where they can practice their religion with dignity and security. The ‘two-nation’ theory has finally been proved right by the actions of Muslims’ bitterest enemies, the RSS and BJP.
This brings us to the conclusion of the first chapter. My life and my country’s life was only just beginning. Who knew what lay in store for us in the days to come. We were trying to find our way in a world which provides a cocoon of comfort to the new born, at the same time exposing us to the travails of unknown. All said and done, there was no dearth of adventure in our lives, as the following pages will show.
Leave a Reply