http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/mar-2003/24/main/top5.asp
Monument looking for a buyer
LONDON - Khalid Hassan doesn’t actually say he wouldn’t sell to a Jew or an Indian - for one thing, that would be illegal - but he is not at all keen about such a prospect. He would much rather the house went to the Pakistani government or a fellow Pakistani. It is not difficult to understand his sentiments, writes Amit Roy in The Daily Telegraph.
The blue plaque erected by the London County Council outside 35 Russell Road tells why this 14-room, three-storey house in West Kensington has such historical importance for Pakistanis: “Quaid-i-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah 1876-1948 founder of Pakistan stayed here in 1895.” Near the plaque are his watchwords, “Unity, Faith Discipline”.
Hassan, who is acting as agent for the owner, a Pakistani by the name of Ahmad Asrar who is based in the United States, wants £1.5 million for the property. It will be auctioned by Barnard Marcus on April 28 with a guide price of £1.25 million. Unfortunately for him the only serious offers so far have come from a Jewish businessman and an Indian property developer.
Hassan takes visitors on a guided tour of M A Jinnah House, where the banister has been painted green to reflect the colour of the Pakistani flag. In fact, the hall is festooned with dozens of tiny paper flags. In the main hall, where independence day functions have been held, there are balloons - green, of course - and a large flag draped over the back window. Cooking smells indicate some of the rooms are let to students and tourists, but the property is being offered freehold with vacant possession.
Jinnah apparently had the first-floor bedsitter - named the Jinnah Room - overlooking Russell Road. He was 17 when he arrived in London from Karachi to study law in 1893. A chair, large walnut wardrobe and a couple of mirrors from his time have been preserved. For Pakistanis, this is hallowed territory, which makes it all the more baffling that the Pakistani authorities have been lukewarm about buying the place.
“It is our setback that neither the Pakistani government nor the Pakistani community has come forward to purchase the property,” says Hassan.
Hassan thinks that for such a “unique” property to slip into non-Pakistani hands would be sacrilege. “Once it’s gone, it’s gone,” he says. “It will be a very painful decision for us.”
The word from the Pakistani High Commission is that the price is too high, although it may think that because the owner is Pakistani he will ultimately have to sell to the Pakistani government for less.
At any rate, a brief but polite fax from “Shahzad Iqbal, deputy secretary, department of archaeology” has informed Hassan that the Pakistani government had given the matter “due consideration” but purchase was “not found feasible” because of “bylaws”. “I don’t know what bylaws they are talking about,” Hassan says scornfully.
The history of the property, probably built in 1825, is vague. Once owned by an elderly English couple, it was acquired in 1989 by a Pakistani, Javed Khan, who apparently passed ownership four years ago to the present owner, Asrar, a friend or relative, for £500,000.
There is, however, evidence of Jinnah living there. In a letter from this address he asked the British Museum for permission to use its reading room. In another, to Lincoln’s Inn, he stated that he wanted his surname, Jinnahbhai, shortened to Jinnah.
The Indians could legitimately have a claim on Jinnah after all - or at least the idealistic young man who registered at Lincoln’s Inn on June 5 1893 and was called to the Bar on April 29 1896. He admired the liberalism of England, and Gladstone in particular, and campaigned hard for an Indian Parsee, Dadabhai Naoroji, who became the first non-white to be elected to the Commons.
Jinnah proved so passionate a champion of Hindu-Muslim unity in an undivided India when he returned home that the Hindu nationalist leader, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, said: “He has true stuff in him and that freedom from all sectarian prejudices which will make him the best ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity.”
Jinnah wanted the British out of India but “could not endorse the non-co-operation movement by Mahatma Gandhi”. Crucially, he feared that Indian Muslims were being marginalised by the Hindu-dominated Congress. “Jinnah was a great believer in democracy, modernity and Islam,” says Cheema.
Cheema also quotes from the biography of Jinnah by the American academic Professor Stanley Wolpert: “Few individuals significantly alter the course of history. Fewer still modify the map of the world. Hardly anyone can be credited with creating a nation-state. Mohammed Ali Jinnah did all three.”
The contrast between the two Jinnahs is caught in the 1998 movie Jinnah, directed by Jamil Dehlavi and intended as a rejoinder to the caricature of the founder of Pakistan in Lord Attenborough’s Oscar-winning Gandhi. In Dehlavi’s film the fresh young Jinnah is portrayed by an English actor, Richard Lintern. The older Jinnah is played by Christopher Lee. “I wanted to cast a Pakistani but couldn’t find someone who looked like Jinnah and was also confident in English,” says Dehlavi. In the event, Lee looks uncannily like Jinnah - immaculate, tall, thin, austere, unbending.
Most historians agree that without Jinnah, there probably wouldn’t be a Pakistan. When it formally came into being on August 14, 1947, Jinnah was a sick man; he died on September 11, 1948. Had British intelligence been better, Lord Mountbatten, sent out as the last viceroy to affect the transfer of power, might well have stalled the bloody partition of India.
Given Jinnah’s place in history, one Pakistani High Commissioner in London had suggested that 35 Russell Road be “donated” to the nation. Hassan dismisses this as “a silly idea” - “the present owner has other commitments as well”.
One Pakistani foreign minister visiting London was asked by journalists why his government wasn’t keener. “Jinnah may have lived in 20 properties in London,” was his response. “Does that mean we have to buy all 20 places?” To which, Hassan says: “Tell me, does any other place have a plaque?”
The vendor has certainly employed considerable spin. A report in a Pakistani newspaper stated: “The area is so expensive that only multi-millionaires dare to bid. For instance, on a nearby property, Jemima Khan, Liz Hurley and a member of the (British) royal family are locked in a bidding war. Pakistan’s former prime minister also lives in the same exclusive locality.”
Hassan insists that comparable properties in Holland Park command prices well in excess of £3 million. But an FPD Savills estate agent says that Russell Road is “the last road in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea” and that “being west of Holland Road, it is on the wrong side of the psychological and geographical divide”.
However, Katie Gibbon, from Tate estate agency in West Kensington, had a look at the property and values it at between £1.25 million and £1.3 million. “Actually, it’s in not that bad a condition,” is her verdict.
Hassan wants the plaque thrown into the equation. “We have to consider the history of the house and put something on top,” he says.
Maybe the best solution is for the house to be bought by an Indo-Pakistani consortium and used as a centre to strengthen friendship between Indians and Pakistanis in Britain. The young Jinnah would have liked that.