Fatima Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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There is an article by Paracha today on Fatima Jinnah. Nothing new. But he rcriteminds some ugly moments from Pakistan’s history.

Fatima Jinnah in her autobiography says that Quaid had become disappointed with his closest Muslim League colleagues right after the creation of Pakistan. His illness accelerated probably due to this realization that the cause for which he spent his whole life may not turn out to be the way he wanted.

Fatima Jinnah recalls that Quaid had realized that his colleagues were waiting for his death so that they could change the country’s course to their liking. And that was the reason they sent an ambulance which broke down coming from airport, even though he was in very critical condition.

At one time Liaquat Ali along with some other people, went to see Quaid at Ziarat. Fatima Jinnah says that Jinnah asked her about them. She said they are here. Jinnah said something like “Do you know why they are here? They are not here to see me. They are here to see how long will I live”.
Fatima Jinnah recalls that Liaquat Ali and others were there in Ziarat laughing among each other while Quaid was at his death bed.

After Quaid’s death Pakistan government forgot about her. And she herself shied away from any kind of politics. Until the time she was urged to come out against Ayyub.

Looking at these events, it looks like there is truth that Quaid indeed said: “meri jaib mein khotay sikkay hein”. (I don’t know his exact words in English.)

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Re: Fatima Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan

Fatima Jinnah: A sister?s sorrow - Newspaper - DAWN.COM
Fatima Jinnah: A sister’s sorrow

…one of the best and most authentic accounts of her disappointments arrived in the shape of a book that she wrote in 1955 (My Brother) but which was published 32 years later in 1987!
Even though her status was immediately elevated to that of being a patriotic heroine after the creation of Pakistan, why did it take so long for her book to be available for public consumption?

The answer to this can be found in some of the contents of the book. In it she laments how her brother was quickly ‘betrayed’ by even some of his closest comrades who had worked with him during the Pakistan Movement.

Jinnah had assumed the role of Pakistan’s first Governor General in 1947. But he faced his first surprise when, after his famous Aug 11 address to Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly (in which he declared his vision of Pakistan being a progressive Muslim majority state), the bureaucracy of the time (pressed by Muslim League’s leading members), asked the country’s nascent print media and radio to only publish and broadcast an edited version of Jinnah’s speech.

According to Miss Jinnah’s book, her brother, who had been suffering from tuberculosis throughout the later stages of his struggle for Pakistan, began to lose his health more rapidly after 1947. In her mind this was due to the disappointments and the sense of betrayal he felt at the hands of some of his closest comrades.

Miss Jinnah seemed particularly bitter towards Pakistan’s first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, who was perhaps Jinnah’s closest colleague in the Muslim League.

She wrote that her brother told her that many of his former colleagues were coming to meet him only to determine how much life there was left in him, implying that they were most probably waiting for him to quietly perish.

In her book Miss Jinnah also laments how heartlessly her brother was picked up and put in an ambulance (to be taken to a hospital) and how the ambulance broke down in the middle of the road. Jinnah expired on Sept 11, 1948.

There might have been pressure from the government in disallowing Miss Jinnah to publish her book in 1955, but there is also ample evidence suggesting that it was Miss Jinnah herself who hesitated to get the book published. Pakistan was just eight years old and Liaquat Ali Khan had been assassinated in 1951.

Author and intellectual Khaled Ahmed, in his 2001 book, Pakistan Behind the Ideological Mask quotes celebrated lawyer, Sharifuddin Pirzada (who was a secretary to Jinnah), in saying that when Miss Jinnah appeared on Radio Pakistan to announce her brother’s death, the state-owned radio channel’s director-general, Z A. Bokhari, got a call from a government official asking him to switch off Miss Jinnah’s speech the moment she began criticising the government’s heartless attitude towards the founder of the country and how he was left to die in an old ambulance.

She became a virtual recluse after Jinnah’s death, until in 1965 when she was pulled out of her self-imposed political retirement to challenge Field Martial Ayub Khan in a Presidential election.

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Re: Fatima Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan

c. 1960s: A Color portrait of Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah —

https://scontent-a-fra.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/t1.0-9/10152483_785656164792797_3145089122091188117_n.jpg
We never respect our history . Our great people and prefer our foolish ideals .

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Re: Fatima Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan

It is too late to regret the past. He founded Pakistan and soon after its creation he regretted. Only visionary person in this madness was Mualana Abul Kalam Azad, who predicted future of Pakistan decades before its creation. Unfortunately what he predicted, became reality.

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Re: Fatima Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan

The future, I’m sure you’ll find, is far from finalized.

There still is a little time to prove Abul Kalam Azad wrong!

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Re: Fatima Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan

Agree. After fighting the concept of a secular India for all religions and dividing India based on religion, how could Jinah expect to put the Jin back in bottle so quickly? If anything the khotay sikkay were consistent in their actions. It was Jinah that wanted to change track as soon as he got the state that he was governer general of.

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Re: Fatima Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan

Both were the great leaders of the country.

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Re: Fatima Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan

Are you sure? Does breakup of Quaid’s Pakistan in 1971 ring some bells? Does present condition of remaining Pakistan seems to you a condition of successful state? I think Pakistanis should come out of following syndrome and change their attitudes.

pewista reh shajar se umid-e-bahar rakh

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Re: Fatima Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan

Oh, I am sure. :hypo: Quaid’s Pakistan broke up within the first few months of independence, anyway. Present conditions could barely be worse, the few humans in the country are surrounded by wolves and sheep, I agree. I also agree that a major change in attitude is needed. But I still believe, firmly, at that, the fact that this is not our future.

Things might improve in 10 years, they might in 30 years, but they will. Indubitably!

No sane person, would ever advise against hope, I’m sure you know that. :flowers: What we need is hope + action.

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Re: Fatima Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan

Specifically, Quaid’s Pakistan broke up in 1949 when Objective Resolution was passed. It then became a Pakistan of Maududis, and waderas/chaudhrys.

QA had a dilemma of choosing between fanatic Hindumat which was sure to marginalize Muslims in One India, and the risk of feudals and religious fanatics in Divided India.
At the time he chose the second option, hoping that he would be able to stop the usurpation of government from the two groups in Pakistan. But he did not realize that his closest comrades in Muslim League will ditch him to throw Pakistan in Maududi’s Talibani lap. Once Pakistan was created, they ensured that QA was eliminated asap so that their version of religious country could take place. Hence the Objective Resolution.

These comrades of QA were however clearly against feudalism. But they themselves failed to curtail the rising power of those leeches. One after another they all were sidelined. Liaqat Ali, Hussain Shaheed Suhurwardy, Khaaja Nazimuddin, Abdur Rab Nishter, etc.

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Re: Fatima Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan

Azad was no visionary. He was an extremist mullah who opposed Pakistan just like other extremist mullahs of his time. People like Maududi, and Khaksars.
These people hated Quaide Azam the person more than the idea of Pakistan the country.

Some people say that creation of Pakistan divided the strength of Muslims in the South Asian subcontinent. In a united country Muslims would have been about 35% of the population. A significant number.

But what they don't realize is that just percentages do not matter. It is the influence which means more. Examples are minority rules in Saddam's Iraq, Assad's Syria, and Khalifa family's Bahrain.

Majority Muslim population centers, which became Pakistan, were one of the most economically backward places in British India. Bangali Muslims of present-day Bangladesh were marginalized in a United Bengal which was being ruled by Hindu Bengalis. This is why there were efforts to free Bengali Muslims in 1910s by dividing Bengal in Muslim and Hindu areas. But these efforts failed and Muslim majority remained poor and powerless in Bengal.

Same thing happened in Sindh which was put under Bombay province. Present-day Sindh was also being ruled by Hindu minority with help from Bombay Hindus.

Had Pakistan not been made, Muslim majority places would have remained economically marginalized with little say in national politics. Pakistanis and Bangladeshis would not have been able to enjoy this freedom to rule, and a chance to develop themselves had Pakistan not been created.

It is another matter that we are trying our best today to ensure that QA's vision of Pakistan would appear like a mistake. This is due to our wrong priorities. Today we have Taliban on one side and feudals on another (Nawazs, Bhuttos, Shujaats, Sardars).
It is these wrong priorities which have destroyed Pakistan. It is not QA who should be blamed for making THIS Pakistan, because this Pakistan was not his vision at all.