Daily Times

Here is another glimpse into the world of journalism in Pakistan by a veteran who was sensitive to the ideal of journalism rather than agitated by the global rivalries of his profession. In Khalid Hasan’s racy narrative translation the book has become readable. Inam Aziz (d.1993) whose father was a station master at Mandi Bahauddin got to reading newspapers possibly at the station bookstall. But he got the bug real and proper in Gujrat Zamindara College which he soon left to join the Anglo-Arabic College in Delhi where he ran into the epiphany that was to change his life.
That was running into the Quaid himself! Jinnah was in a clinch with Nehru over the interim Government which Jinnah thought was not the Central Government Nehru had in mind, and Viceroy Wavell agreed with Jinnah. Then Jinnah opposed Nehru’s nomination of a Muslim to the Interim Government in 1946 unless it allowed him to nominate a non-Muslim. Congress had to agree. Jinnah put forward four names for the cabinet: Liaquat Ali Khan (finance), II Chundrigar (commerce), Sardar Nishtar (post & telegraph) Raja Ghazanfar (health) and Joginder Nath Mandal (parliamentary affairs).
Inam says Muslims in Delhi actually thought Jinnah had let them down by not taking foreign affairs, which had gone to Nehru. This is typical. Even today when Pakistanis should be focusing on the country’s internal affairs, the tonga-wallas of Lahore are heard talking of foreign policy. Inam was witness to Muslims taking out a large procession against Jinnah. An orator was telling the crowd that a Hindu was given the more honourable ministry of foreign affairs while a Muslim was to look after the degrading business of presiding over commerce. Jinnah finally persuaded the 30,000 strong mob to calm down.
Inam got himself to attend a Muslim League session in Delhi in June 1947. He was just a boy but he was keen. The hotel where the session was to convene was guarded by Muslim League guard because of the Khaksar threat to Jinnah’s life. Rumour was that Jinnah would announce retirement after putting Nawab of Bhopal at the head of the League. Muslims by this time were calling Jinnah their Shahanshah. The UP representative of the League Hasrat Mohani who had opposed Jinnah in 1942 at Allahabad now rejected the proposal again and forced Jinnah to continue as leader.
Teenager Inam found himself standing alone in front of Jinnah as the latter came to see a football match at Feroze Shah Kotla in Delhi. The Quaid said. ‘Hello young man, how are you?’, and walked towards his seat with a hand placed on Inam’s shoulder. Inam could have fainted. He was seated right next to where Jinnah was sitting! Then Jinnah said to him, ‘If you are Muslim, why not join a Muslim institution’. Inam immediately promised to change his school. He then explained why he thought Muslim educational institutions were important as founts of knowledge of Muslim history, religion and culture.
Jinnah became governor-general of Pakistan and untouchable Mandal was his law minister, and when he made his famous August 11 speech about giving the non-Muslims the full right of practice of their religion, information officer Col Majid Malik phoned Dawn and told journalist FE Brown that the portion relating to citizens’ rights and religious beliefs should be omitted. The first ‘press advice’ had arrived. The instruction had come from Chaudhry Muhammad Ali, the secretary general. Editor Altaf Hussain put aside the advice and published the full speech (p.21).
Later, under President Yahya Khan, information minister General Sher Ali was so put off by this speech that he wanted it taken out of records and burnt. In 1981, a newspaper wanted to publish the full text of the speech but was not allowed by General Zia’s censorship (p.22). When Viceroy Mountbatten was handing over to Jinnah in 1947, he made reference to King Akbar in his speech. Jinnah countered it with a reference to Prophet Muhammad who had shown tolerance to the non-Muslims centuries earlier. Partition followed, but India would not transmit to Pakistan all its share of the divisible funds in Delhi. And the train carrying Pakistan’s physical survey records was looted on the way.
Inam went through the grind of tough Urdu journalism getting employed at daily Shahbaz in Peshawar for Rs 150 a month and seeing Ghaffar Khan’s Red Shirt movement falling apart as Khan Abdul Qayyum Khan, a Kashmiri often confused with the Pashtuns, left the party for better pickings in the Muslim League. The Red Shirt leader and Ghaffar Khan’s brother Dr Khan Sahib made the fatal mistake of absenting himself from the ceremony of hoisting the Pakistani flag at the Governor’s House. He was chief minister of the province at that time! Inam says Governor Cunningham asked him to stay away if he wanted to live.
Inam tells us about a concocted interview of Khan Abdul Qayyum Khan placed in his newspaper at night. The contents tell us why the Khan loved the interview although he had never given it. In it he was quoted as swearing to fight the war in Kashmir, set Afghanistan right and fly the green flag on the Red Fort in Delhi. After being a great Red Shirt leader he was all set to become the great leader of the Muslim League! In 1951, he rigged the provincial elections and set another great political tradition for the country; in 1953 he was in the federal cabinet!
In 1951, Inam joined Urdu daily Jang Karachi and was among people like Majid Lahori, Ibrahim Jalees, Shaukat Thanvi, Raees Amrohvi, Athar Ali, etc, who were to become famous as writers, journalists and broadcasters. In 1949, Pakistan closed down its first newspaper Civil & Military Gazette and shamefully it was triggered by the editors of rival papers. But the government obliged. CMG had reported that Kashmir would be divided between India and Pakistan instead of the referendum that was yet to be held. Information minister Khwaja Shahabuddin began the culture of press advice as a technique of pressure on the press.
Finance minister Ghulam Muhammad who finally got to be the governor general wanted a couple of ministers removed with the help of the secretary general Chaudhry Muhammad Ali who was playing a role in the quarrel that was developing between Jinnah and prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan. Ghulam Muhammad was behind the posters in Karachi saying Liaquat was the real ruler of Pakistan and not Jinnah. Then he took one of these posters to Ziarat in Balochistan where Jinnah was recovering and told him that Liaquat was becoming an autocratic ruler (p.72).
Liaquat was finally killed in Rawalpindi. It was a conspiracy whose real characters were never named but they were Ghulam Muhammad, Chaudhry Muhammad Ali, Iskander Mirza, and Nawab Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani. Khwaja Nazimuddin was then removed from governor-generalship and Ghulam Muhammad was accommodated, appointing the ousted Khwaja Nazimuddin as prime minister. It looked so great as a balancing move between the two wings of the country that people forgot the plot that had killed Liaquat (p.72). Both Jinnah and Liaquat were removed quickly enough after Partition to put Pakistan on the political skids it hasn’t left since then.
Ghulam Muhammad was a foul-mouthed invalid as governor general carted around by his nurse Miss Borel who alone could understand what was he was saying. Pakistan gave him the title of Muhafaz-e-Millat but when he arose to say a few words at the ceremony no one could understand what he was saying. And he had dribbled on to his sherwani! And when Ayub Khan was faced with opposition from Fatima Jinnah it was Maulana Bhashani who betrayed her and get her defeated in election for half a million rupees.
Roughed up by the ‘censor’ commissars of General Ayub, Inam survived in Jang to go to the BBC in 1966. He was followed by Mukhtar Zaman who had to leave soon after describing on air the Kashmiri hijackers of a plane into Pakistan as ‘freedom-fighters’. Inam was in the BBC for five years and interviewed a lot of people, including an ex-judge of Sindh High Court ZH Lari who said just five words, three times and twice no, and walked away with fifty pounds. ZA Bukhari was much better. He always spoke without script and was word-perfect. After the BBC, Inam started his own Millat and thereby hang more tales than can be told here. *