Daily Times

At Qauid’s Service is a biographical account written on the life of M Rafi Butt. It deals primarily with the life and times of the young entrepreneur. The 1930s and 1940s were dominated by the preparation, conflict and aftermath of the Second World War (WW II), therefore most of the focus of that era has been on WW II and very few texts provide a perspective on the culture of the very first Pakistanis, the generations that gave this country birth and struggled against insurmountable odds to survive. Even fewer texts provide an insight into the dealings and preparations for Pakistan to become a state, along with all stately machinations and responsibilities, and virtually no text exists of the Quaid-e-Azam’s laborious ‘behind the scene’ plans to physically realise the successful, progressive Muslim homeland he saw in his visions. The book tells Pakistan’s tale from a very different perspective then the usual rhetoric. It is a story of a young Punjabi entrepreneur, who demonstrated economic genius on numerous occasions and had garnered great success in a culture where the odds were stacked almost relentlessly against the Muslims.

Born in 1909 in Lahore, Rafi’s father died when he was just 16. Rafi had to take over his father’s surgical instruments’ business and soon displayed his knack for business and industry, expanding his humble business into an empire within a decade. Rafi went on to establish the Central Exchange Bank in Lahore in 1936 and expanded that venture into other cities of undivided India. Rafi travelled extensively to the US and Europe in order to discover the latest innovations in industry. Rafi also kept Jinnah informed of any economic and industrial revelations that could aid the future state of Pakistan.

The book provides a vivid and unique account of Lahore in the 1930s and 1940s, along with names, places and independent accounts of the happenings of the Muslim elite at the time of the Pakistan movement. The Quaid-e-Azam was a messiah to the masses but to the elite, he was still a politician. M Rafi Butt was a high flyer in Indian high society and thus had an insider’s view of the way the elites saw Quaid-e-Azam and Pakistan. It details a story of how Jinnah inspired the youth of all segments of Muslim society and promised them that if they follow him, they will inherit a homeland with freedom, security and opportunity that could not even be dreamed of before. That sounds like regular political rhetoric; however, the book shows how Jinnah planned on fulfilling these promises through captains of industry like Rafi Butt, who had the capability and the means to create an economy from the ground up. The book chronicles Rafi’s various trips though Europe and the US and displays the intensive efforts of the research teams to hunt down the long lost correspondences between Rafi and Jinnah regarding the progress made by the young entrepreneur in his quest to find allies and ideas for Pakistan’s economic base. Unfortunately, Rafi died in an airplane crash around Vehari two months after Jinnah’s death, at the relatively young age of 39, while his son Imtiaz Rafi was only two months old. Had he died during the Quaid’s lifetime, I am certain Jinnah would have recognised his contributions and Rafi’s legacy would not have been lost to time for the next five decades.

The Jinnah Rafi Foundation’s research has been recognised as a passionate and important contribution to Pakistan’s history and a tribute to its founding fathers and their intended idea of Pakistan.

The research team worked relentlessly on the archives in Islamabad and London, under the supervision of his son Imtiaz Rafi Butt, who started the research on his father, a remarkable job done by a son to put his father in history where he belonged, with an unrelenting passion and zest for the truth .The late Syed Razi Wasti did a marvellous a job compiling and writing the book with the limited resources recovered from such a chaotic time in history.

The reviewer is a historian and freelance writer