Re: The case of Afaq Ahmed
In search of PK Shahani’s profile I found this report from Dawn. I can’t understand why Khoji compared him with ZM? Was he some what involved in implementation of quota system?
http://archives.dawn.com/2002/11/21/top9.htm
KARACHI, Nov 20: Prem Kevalram Shahani, one of the nation’s best known political and social figures, passed away in a London hospital on Tuesday night after a brief illness. He was 63.
Popularly known as PK, the late Shahani leaves behind a wife, two sons and a married daughter to mourn.
According to family sources here, PK, who had gone to London in September this year, was admitted to the hospital a few days ago. The family said his body would be brought to Pakistan in a few days, after completion of formalities in London.
During his lifetime, PK, as he was widely known, exhibited the qualities of a Renaissance man par excellence.
Pakistan’s only Chartered Surveyor, PK was educated at the Karachi Grammar School, Lawrence College, Murree and the University of London where he majored in Economics and Estate Management.
PK Shahani was a shrewd political analyst, a political scientist and an expert in economics, agriculture and public finance.
He was also respected as a historian of twentieth century Sindh with a vast expertise in fields as diverse as electoral politics, civil and human rights, and municipal finance.
During his lifetime he supported causes as controversial as the right to self-determination in Kashmir. He was a major contributor to the international activities of the Kashmir Committee and had just concluded a visit to the UN General Assembly in that capacity where he met several leading figures from contact groups and liberation groups from both sides of the Line of Control.
**PK Shahani served twice as an elected public representative. He was elected to the Sindh Provincial Assembly (MPA) in the early 70’s during the People’s Party government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. He was also a PPP MNA in the short-lived National Assembly of 1977.
In addition, PK served in various senior policy-making positions. He was an adviser for agriculture in the cabinet of the Sindh Chief Minister Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi (with ministerial status) from 1975 to 1976. He also served as an adviser of Planning and Development in Syed Qaim Ali Shah’s administration of 1988-1990.
**PK Shahani was famous for advising electoral candidates of all shades of opinion on the intricacies of the electoral process and the ballot box. He was particularly a shrewd analyst of indirect electoral elections, frequently using advanced concepts such as game theory and mathematical probability parameters to educate often ignorant political party satraps on the legal, constitutional, moral requirements of the electoral process.
In the 1980s, during the Ziaul Haq martial law years, PK’s association in the mainstream human and civil rights movement became well known when he frequently advised civil activists, NGOs and dispossessed groups who needed access to judicial and political redress.
As a noted agriculturist, PK Shahani was able to correlate farming methods, farm finance, input use and distribution shares of the landlord, agricultural worker or peasant into his theory of agricultural development.
**No stranger to the controversies surrounding the shares of various ethnic, linguistic and professional groups, he strongly upheld the principle of equality of opportunity and access to all resources, as during the formulation of a crucially important Note of Dissent in the proceedings and reports of the National Finance Commission in 1973.
**
As a historian PK Shahani was liberal in his understanding of the often divergent values that constitute the complex process of political change in Pakistan.
Of particular interest was his advocacy of women’s rights and rights of the minorities. Being a pivotal figure in the national mainstream and an ardent nationalist, PK Shahani wholly opposed any concept of special privileges or “separateness” for Christian, Parsis and Hindus, but was never uncomfortable or at a loss for words in the company of Islamic scholars and even politicians from religious parties, many of whom he counted among his closed friends. He helped these groups and NGOs often with a lawyer’s ability for advice, an accountant’s understanding of financial figures and a humanist’s compassion for the advancement of education, scientific thinking and rationalism.
As a historian and political commentator on the history of twentieth century Sindh, PK Shahani’s world view of history depended entirely upon the interaction between political, economic and sociological factors in the creation of the process for change.
PK Shahani was the author of several books on fiscal policy particularly the wealth tax, on the economics and mechanics of land reform and as a pre-eminent commentator on current affairs. Last year he authored a popular volume on the NAB which was sold out within a few days of its publication.
He was the academic supervisor and coordinator for the archival collection of the life and times of Haji Abdullah Haroon after the death of Pir Ali Mohammad Rashdi.
PK Shahani was truly a widely read man. In his youth he dappled in journalism and contributed a regular column to Dawn in the sixties.