Our Announcements

Not Found

Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn't here.

Archive for July, 2018

“Pakistan: Elections or Revulsion against Hall of Shame” By Mahboob Khawaja, PhD.

Uncommon Thought

“Pakistan: Elections or Revulsion against Hall of Shame”

By Mahboob Khawaja, PhD.

15 July 2018
Narwaz Sharif, Pakistan

 

 

[Photo: Nawaz Sharif (right end of row) at the kickoff of a USAID rural water project(WAPDA) in Pakistan.]

Editor’s Note

Will Pakistan ever recover from imperialism? Will the entire region do so? Will the world? The wounds of imperialism reverberate down through the generations of nations and peoples. The corruption of spirit that imperialism engenders tears apart both culture and social structure that leaves a system that no longer functions holistically. Under “normal” social development, a culture (a shared system of values, beliefs, and norms), continually reinforces and reproduces social structures (organized social institutions like family, economy, and polity) that in turn reinforces and reproduces the shared culture.With imperialism, the culture and social structure of the imperialists prevail or are insinuated into another society. Only those areas considered as “important” by the empire are truly transformed. Often, the imperialists will select (or leverage) one group within the society to be their proxies or henchmen within the host society. This disrupts normal patterns but also places internal groups into conflict. Often, the group selected is not the dominant group within the society, but one that will need the ongoing support of the empire in order to maintain power, but also survival. For without the backing of the empire, the people might rise up and not just overthrow, but obliterate the “collaborators”.

I believe that imperialism – first the British and the American (as reflected by one arm of that power, USAID above) – are at the root of the corruption that seems all too typical of Pakistani politics. How Pakistan or other nations might reclaim their integrity and build societies that work for the people is a question I cannot answer. Problematically, the societal system has been permanently damaged, and whatever replaces it must be something different than the pre-imperialist form because by now no one remembers that state. However, to even start that process a nation must remove the boot of the imperialists from its neck.

Mahboob Khawaja, PhD.

Are the Pakistanis Living In A Fantasy World?

The logic of the July 25th parliamentary elections in Pakistan is questionable for being a ceremonial stunt to undermine the reality of a highly corrupted and disoriented political culture.  For decades, Pakistan has lacked the systematic working capacity to organize fair and honest election campaigns representing the interest of the masses. At the forefront of this charade is the intent to hold elections on a short time span. Why was the interim government was not formed a year or at least six months ahead of the planned elections?  Given the extremely hot climate and the month of Ramadhan in between, it should have been a rational discourse. These facts should have helped to organize the necessary systematic mechanics of an election body to plan and organize all facets of complex elections. Because of the missing political accountability, and fearful of the on-going legal actions against Sharif brothers, the whole scenario of hurriedly arranged interim government tells a lot.  The Sharif regime had no interest and no priority to hold fair elections or to transfer power to another legitimate political party. They were all sadistic maniacs full of greed and deliberate mismanagement to dehumanize the Pakistani masses. Leaders are supposed to enjoin a vision of the future, creative thinking and selflessness, ethical character, a sense of positive thinking and commitment to serve the interests of the people. None of these is reflected in the profiles of any politicians in the recent history of Pakistan.Pakistan needs a major change in its constitutional framework, political system and the role and responsibilities of the political establishments. None of this is available in any rational context. If Pakistan is to spearhead a sustainable democracy, it needs major planned changes – a new constitution, a Presidential system of governance (elected directly by the people), new political institutions enriched with young, educated and people having a clear vision articulating a sustainable socio-economic and political future for the country. This rebuilding of the nation cannot be done by just one group or one party already operating in a highly corrupt and dysfunctional manner, and lacking political legitimacy. Have you ever read “Pakistan- Enigma of Change” (1999);  “Pakistan: Leaders or Political Monsters” (2015), and “Pakistan in Search of Political Change”, (2015) by this author?  Our nation has been robbed by its own so-called political leaders- Bhutto, and a few Military Generals, Zardari, Sharifs and Musharraf.  Truthfully, none were leaders except being military-backed opportunists and thumb lickers who could be used for all purposes in all seasons – legitimate or illegitimate – this is Pakistan’s junk history for the last 50 or more years. How could you imagine regaining that precious time and opportunities for change and development for socio-economic, political, moral and intellectual infrastructures to sustain the present and reconstruct nationhood?  Could this forthcoming July 25 elections take any remedial steps for what is required to be undertaken by hundreds and thousands of thinking people, strategic planners and political experts? Those who imagine miracles out of nothing must be living in a self-engineered fantasy world – a world that does not correspond to the prevalent realities of the 21st century.

Could Pakistanis Learn from Others and the Challenges of Time?

South Korea sentenced President Park to 20 years or more on corruption charges. It was done in a visible systematic legal framework. Why could Pakistanis not hold Zardari, Ms. Bhutto, Sharif and Musharaf to the same legal criterion action?  Is Pakistan a legally dysfunctional State? See how the Brazilian legal system dealt with the past two presidents. Now, see how Malaysia handled Najib Razik’s corruption scandal as he is being held for trial.  If the Pakistani political elite and judiciary were honest and effective, should they have not taken tangible measures to exercise the legal accountability in a public court of law against so many political gangsters?

Nawaz Sharif has been sentenced to 10 years on corruption charges, but he will not serve the sentence because he has already fled the country. Why did the higher court allow him to leave the country? Were the Supreme Court judges ignorant of the fact that he could leave the country and avoid all measures of legal accountability?  Likely not as this was nothing new in Pakistani political culture.

Rationality and truth have their own language. Everywhere the blame game is used by corrupt politicians to cover up their cruel impulses. Their insane egoism does not recognize its own incompetence, criminality and failure. Across the nation, agonizing situations warrant urgent attention to deal with insecurity, conflict prevention and conflict management, Pakistani Taliban’s terrorism, problems in responsible governance, disdain trade and commerce and to revitalize sustainable national unity. The dismissed PM Sharif and his colleagues amassed wealth, stole the nation’s time and opportunities for political change and killed peaceful civilian demonstrators. They react like paranoid maniacs as if the masses are the problem. If conscientious Pakistanis living abroad are concerned about the decadent political culture and rebuilding of the moral, intellectual and economic-political infrastructures, the ruling elite will ensure to deprive them the opportunity to be heard at a national level. When people are forced to live in political darkness, they lose the sense of rational direction.

These corrupt leaders demonstrated a dehumanized gutted culture of naïve politics, be it inside the Higher Courts, National Assembly or the political powerhouses. It makes no sense in the 21st century knowledge-based age of reason and political accountability.  People’s pain, political agony and continuing sufferings cannot be transformed into a single portrait to show to the global audience. All of the political monsters have stolen time and looted the wealth and positive energies of the people. At a glance, Pakistan appears to be reaching a dead-ended political discourse. The political misfortune needs a high power jolt of intervention to pave a smooth way out of the stagnated political culture of the few. People are the legitimate force for change if there is any hope of democracy still operational in Pakistan.

 

Leaders or Monsters of History – Pakistanis Should Look in the Mirror

The military dictator – Bhuttos, Zardari and Sharifs – could never have come into power unless the nation had lost its sense of rationality, purpose and meaning of its existence. These sadistic monsters have institutionalized chaos and fear, demoralization of a moral society and dehumanization of an intelligent nation, and have transferred these naïve traits and values to the psychological-social-economic and political spheres of the mainstream thinking hub of the nation.

Pakistani politics is operated by those who have absolutely no qualifications to be at the helm of political power – yet they are continuously engaged in systematic degradation of the educated and intelligent young generations of Pakistanis who are deprived of opportunities to participate in the national politics. The contemporary history of political degeneration includes generals, neo-colonial feudal lords, members of the assemblies, and a few family-vested houses of political power, ministers or prime ministers; they have the distinction of all acting in unison against the interest of the people of Pakistan.  Political power is an aphrodisiac. Do the people belong to this mad scrum overwhelmingly witnessed across the peoples’ movement against the oligarchy? To an impartial observer, the scene is clear that the wrong people are conducting the political governance where reason and legal justice are outlawed. This contradicts the essence of the Freedom Movement of Pakistan. It appears logical to think that at some point soon, those who are fit to lead must take over from those who are unfit to govern with credibility. It could be a bloodless coup – or it could be a bloody insurrection. One way or another, the process of phasing out the obsolete and phasing-in the fair and much desired and deserving must happen.  Are Pakistan’s freedom and futuristic integrity being sacrificed for the few dumb and dull criminals who wish to extend their power beyond the domains of reason and honesty?  It will be extremely harmful and deeply flawed and dangerous ethos to the interests of the people if Sharif brethren –Bhutto’s family including Zardari reemerge in the outcome of the July 25, 2018 elections and are allowed to continue the crime-riddled political governance while their legitimacy is under sharp questioning. The path to peaceful change and political success requires the wise and informed to establish an organized council of responsible oversight to move-in to the void once the despots are ousted. That is an essential component of any public uprising determined to manifest genuine and sustainable political change and legal justice.

In “Pakistan:  Reflections on the 70th Independence Day:  Imperatives of Optimism and Future-Making,” (Uncommon Thought Journal, USA: 8/15/2017), this author made the following observations:

The political elite and the people live in a conflicting time zone being unable to understand the meaning and essence of the Pakistan Freedom Movement. This purpose needs unwavering public commitment and continuous struggle for political change. It needs not to be invented, it is living in the mind and spirit of the people, it just needs to be revitalized and better organized as the momentum is waiting for the grieving people. Pakistan urgently needs a saviour, not Sharif, Bhuttos or the few Generals. The solution must come from the thinking people of the new educated generation – the intelligent Pakistanis to facilitate hope and optimism for a sustainable future of the beleaguered nation. This should be the framework of the message and active agenda for change and reformation as the core of the celebration of Pakistan’s 70thIndependence Day.

 

Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including Global Peace and Conflict Management: Man and Humanity in Search of New Thinking. Lambert Publishing Germany, May 2012. His forthcoming book is entitled: One Humanity and The Remaking of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution

, , ,

No Comments

The Accursed and Traitorous – BudhBakhti Ke Akhirey Hud

The Accursed and Traitorous

Inline image

,

No Comments

 The Strategy of Madness by Saeed A. Malik.

 The Strategy of Madness.

Saeed A. Malik.

Although Machiavelli did advocate that a Prince may sometimes profit by playing mad, I can only think of a couple of times this strategy was actually employed.
The first time it was used was by Richard Nixon during the Vietnam War. He told Melvin Liard to let the word out so that it gets to the Russian and Vietnamese leadership that the U.S President harboured such extreme hatred of communism, he could be expected to do just anything to end the Vietnam War. He wanted it bruited about that it was not beyond him, in a fit of madness, to order a nuclear strike on both the countries! He believed that if played properly this could induce both the Russians and the Vietnamese to come to the table and to end the war on U.S terms.
Melvin Laird, who was Nixon’s secretary of defense at the time, was then ordered by Nixon, to lay out plans which would give credibility to this “Madness”. But he chose to put off giving shape to any such plans by one excuse or another. He thought this strategy was too “crazy” and dangerous and could lead to a nuclear war.
But Nixon insisted, and in Oct 1969, US bombers, loaded with nuclear warheads were ordered to fly along the borders of USSR. And for three successive days, they did this.
No one is certain about the degree of fright these manoeuvres created among the Soviets, but nothing much came of them.
But the next time this strategy was employed, it did create an immense amount of fright. This was when Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, then under arrest and knowing his quarters were bugged, began issuing fusillades of invective against Zia ul Haq and his generals, enumerating all the nice things he would do to them when he returned to power.
By this stratagem, Bhutto did succeed in generating some serious fright. Serious enough to get himself hanged!
And now we are seeing Mian Nawaz Sharif, egged on by his brilliant daughter, taking a leaf out of Bhutto’s book and running with it.. Whether the result he achieves is going to be as brilliant as the one achieved by Bhutto, one cannot predict at the moment. But one can clearly see where he is headed.
He has decided that being the lion that he is, it best behoves him to roar and to keep on roaring until the roar flattens out into a bray. And he seems to have arrived at the felicitous conclusion, that without him, Pakistan stands to lose all meaning. Thus, if he cannot have Pakistan all to himself and his brood, Pakistan would be better off as a heap of rubble.

So far his crowning achievement is the tattering of a political party built of three decades of loot and plunder.

The only thing more pathetic than

Nawaz Sharif is his sorry remnants of slobbering court jesters, making excuses for him and trying to put Humpty
Dumpty

together again.

 And then there is Chaudhry Nisar–sulky little Jack Horner…the sole carrier of the flag of integrity in the late lamented PML-N…the symbol of loyal service to the party. So loyal in fact, that he has proudly confessed to advising Nawaz Sharif at every turn, of how to make away with the wealth he stole from the country he pulverized and pauperized, and therefore to escape the just deserts coming to the plunder king of a ravaged land. 
But luckily for Pakistan, whatever be its plight, Nawaz Sharif’s last attack on the state and its army seems to have put public support decisively behind the army. 
Most writers and nearly all the anchors have given to cutting him slack, have either genuinely turned, or seem too embarrassed to help him along with their usual platitudes of mercenary support. Perhaps Pakistan will see better days yet. 
Perhaps the process of accountability now underway will be an across the board process, and proceed from top to bottom, because the poor bottom, having been buffeted so long and so mercilessly, is now in a truly sorry state and needs some relief.

Saeed A. Malik. 

, ,

No Comments

RACISM & ISLAMOPHOBIA IN AMERICA -A LOOK INTO THE MINDS WHO ELECTED DONALD TRUMP

 

RACISM AND ISLAMOPHOBIA DURING AND AFTER TRUMP’S ELECTION IN AMERICA

 

Trump retweets anti-Muslim videos

https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/29/politics/donald-trump-retweet-jayda-fransen/index.html

 

Islamophobia and the Empire

 

 

, , ,

No Comments

EXPOSING TIME’S MALEVOLENT QUOTE AGAINST QUAID-E-AZAM By Commodore Tariq Majeed PN (Retd)

 

Image result for quaid-e-azam quotes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Awareness Brief–AB-03-18, Thursday, 17 May 2018, 1 Ramazan 1439

EXPOSING TIME’S MALEVOLENT QUOTE AGAINST QUAID-E-AZAM

 

Commodore Tariq Majeed PN (Retd)

 

This analytical article on a critical matter was written in May 1997 and was published in weekly The Facts International, Lahore, in its issue of June 1—7, 1997. The article’s circulation was limited to The Facts’ readers. Besides, that was 21 years—nearly a generation—ago. There was a need to bring this important matter to the knowledge of the present generation of policymakers, writers and other relevant people.

  

            A malevolent statement allegedly made by Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah and said to have been quoted by a doctor who treated him in the last days of his fatal illness, was printed by the American weekly Time in its issue of December 23, 1996, in a story on the founder of Pakistan.

 

A Proven Concoction

            It immediately drew denunciation and protests from many Pakistanis who read the evidently untrue statement in Time or some of the local newspapers which had reproduced it. Several letters refuting the statement and demonstrating its falseness appeared in various newspapers.

            That the statement is a concoction had been proved indisputably as it will be further demonstrated in this study. The issue, however, cannot be left there. Time is a prominent worldwide publication. Why did it indulge in such a repugnant venture? Moreover, where exactly did that cunning canard spring from? Who all participated in the subversive scheme? These questions ought to be seriously looked into. The canard should be thoroughly exposed.

 

The Weapon of Propaganda

            In the game of power politics between nations, propaganda is used as the main weapon. Indeed, no other weapon or agent of aggression can match poisonous propaganda in its destructive effects against societies and states. Therefore, expansionist powers, aiming at imperialistic hegemony over weaker nations, extensively employ this weapon to demoralize and debilitate and thus subdue, their targets. Deception, fabrication and disinformation are a staple menu of propaganda fed to the people for such purposes.

 

As the hegemonic powers are clear about their strategic aims, they are able to plan the menu of the propaganda and its methods of dissemination years in advance. How this stream of fake or untrustworthy information is passed off as a credible and acceptable material is an intricate art in itself. The main method is to propagate the information through prominent media organs whose credibility is well-established. It has the added advantage that if anyone challenges the questionable information, the managers, drawing on the prominent image of their periodical or network, manage to overlook or deflect the criticism. This should be kept in mind while examining the malicious statement in Time’s story.

 

 

Letters Not Published

The exact words in the story, written by Carl Posey, were. “On his deathbed, according to his doctor, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the wealthy lawyer of Bombay, rendered his final judgment on his signal achievement: ‘Pakistan,’ he said, had been ‘the biggest blunder of my life’”. When I read it, I immediately wrote to Time by e-mail with the intention of not merely refuting the statement but challenging the whole episode.

The first step to know was what was Time’s source, as Posey had cleverly left the reference and even the doctor’s name out. I expected there would be other letters also disproving the statement, and the editors while publishing the letters would certainly reveal the sources to support their story. My letter, dated 27 December 1996, to the editor was as follows:

 

I am a reader of Time since 1960, and am aware of its brilliant reporting of facts and equally brilliant reproduction of concoctions and distortion of facts. Carl Posey’s report (Dec 23) that on his deathbed, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, according to his doctor, said that Pakistan had been the ‘biggest blunder of my life,’ falls in the latter skill. Mr Jinnah’s sister Fatima Jinnah, and two prominent doctors, Riaz Ali Shah and Colonel Elahi Bakhsh remained by his side till he breathed his last. None of the doctors ever quoted such a statement; neither is it mentioned in Col Bakhsh’s book, With the Quaid-e-Azam during his Last Days. Indeed, both of them and Fatima Jinnah, who wrote a book, My Brother, narrated that Mr Jinnah continued to express his love for and pride in Pakistan till the end.

 

Simultaneously, a letter countering Carl Posey’s tale with weighty reasoning was dispatched to Time by a friend of mine who used to be a student of Dr Elahi Bakhsh in late 1950s, and had heard from him many an anecdote about Quaid-e-Azam but never anything like what Time had quoted. Both of our letters were not published by Time. Subsequently, it was learnt that Time had refused to publish several other letters including one by a former Aide-de-camp to Quaid-e-Azam.

 

Time’s Tactics

            Not finding my letter in Time’s issue of January 20, 1997, which carried a few letters on the subject, I at once sent a reminder, and only then received a reply. By then, it was obvious from several indications that Time knew the statement to be disinformation and was using all kinds of tactics to camouflage its motives and deceive the protesters and the public.

 

Before looking at its reply, let us take a look at Time’s tactics. The piece of disinformation is placed at the very end, to serve as the closing words of the two-page story, “The Great Pleader for a Muslim State.” Reading through the story when you come to its end, the malevolent closing words hit you like a knock of a hammer, and all that you may have found favourable to Pakistan’s founder, in the story, fades away. The story’s writer triumphs, in the effect that he wanted to create on the readers.   

 

It is a usual practice with any standard periodical, including Time, that when its information is questioned or disproved, it reveals its own source or extends an apology. Time did not publish in its own pages the source of that statement. It disclosed the source only to individual protesters.

Time did not indicate how much mail it had received on this topic of the false quote. Normally, in such cases, it publishes several of the letters in a separate box and even cites brief comments from some of the unpublished letters. A recent example could be seen in the issue of January 27, 1997, in which the editors, after publishing 12 letters about a previous cover story, had given short excerpts from a number of the unpublished letters.

 

Posey’s story, as mentioned, did not reveal the name of the doctor who had leaked the so-called quote of the Quaid. On the other hand, the one-sentence statement was so phrased, and with such audacity, as if the writer, Carl Posey, had himself heard the statement from the doctor!

 

Its timing was perfectly calibrated. The story was printed to coincide with the birth anniversary of Quaid-e-Azam on December 25. As it was reproduced by several of the local newspapers, it was read by a large number of people. The malignant disinformation, even though disbelieved by almost everyone, created a sense of confusion and frustration among the people, at a time when they traditionally celebrate the merits and achievements of the founder of the country with a measure of pride.

 

With this story, Time also closed its special series titled “Newsmakers of the Half Century” under which it was written. The series had been started just two months earlier, with its issue of 21 October 1996, for write-ups on Time’s own selection of nine Asian leaders including Sukarno, Mao Zedong and Nehru. A comment on Quaid-e-Azam by Time in its special issue on Asia, ahead of the series, should be exposed. Donald Morrison, writing in a column, otherwise exclusively devoted to praising the weekly and its staff, made a mean swipe at Quaid-e-Azam. He claimed: “Our readers included nearly all the region’s top political and business leaders—the founding father of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, for example, who once granted a Time correspondent an interview in exchange for a subscription.” Were the facts to be dug out, this statement too will turn out to be false.

 

After its December 23 issue, which carried Posey’s story, came Time’s end-of-the-year double issue, meaning the next issue would not appear till after two weeks. That meant a week’s long delay in publication of letters protesting that false quote—which, thus, remained unquestioned in the pages of Time for that extra period.

The magazine, of course, also had a more concrete plan to deal with the letters of protest and refutation. Time, the champion of all kinds of conceivable and inconceivable human rights, including freedom of speech, equality and impartiality, had no intention of publishing them! Indeed, the editors adhered to their plan, without the least remorse.

 

Time’s Own Choice of Letters

            The editors cleverly selected just four letters, on the topic, which they published in the issue of January 20, 1997. Only one of these, from a lady in Islamabad, questions the false quote—just in one sentence! It reads: “For Jinnah to have said on his deathbed that Pakistan was his ‘biggest blunder’ flies in the face of all that has been recorded and written about the Quaid and is entirely out of character.” That was all, to represent the anger and protests over the false statement registered by many Pakistanis and the undeniable refutation of it presented to Time by some very authentic protesters!

 

The editors did not stop at that dishonest act. They employed an additional trick without any qualm. Immediately below that letter, they placed a letter which purports to sustain the canard, though the comment made is incoherent! It is by someone named Umer Pasha, from Lahore; and he is made to say:  “Time has really done justice to the tremendous personality of our great leader Mohammad Ali Jinnah. I think Jinnah knew what he was saying when he called his nation-building the biggest blunder of his life. None of the current leaders of Pakistan has the sincerity and the will to build the economy of the country.” The other two letters do not speak about the false quote and comment on some other aspects of the story.

 

Time’s Reply

            We can examine now Time’s reply to my letter. The same reply was received by a few other people, who persisted in demanding a reply to their letters. The full text of Time’s reply is as follows:

 

            Thank you for taking the time to register your reaction to our December 23 anniversary supplement about Mohammad Ali Jinnah. We were, of course, sorry to learn of your disappointment with our reporting but we do appreciate the opportunity to consider your critical perspective.

            In addressing broad-based criticism of the overall tone of our reporting, it is often difficult for us to do more than offer our assurances that we have no interest in pursuing programmatic biases in the magazine. We are certainly most sensitive to the extraordinary diversity of our audience and, naturally, we strive to apply a consistently dispassionate measure to each and every topic with which we engage.

            Having said that, we would like to speak specifically about the deathbed quote you mention. Our source was M. J. Akbar’s Nehru: The Making of India (Viking 1988). On page 433 of that biography, Akbar writes “Jinnah’s personal physician in his last days, Colonel Elahi Bakhsh, had recorded that once Jinnah, on his deathbed, blew up at Liaquat Ali Khan, who had come to see him, and described Pakistan as ‘the biggest blunder of my life’. The story was printed in Peshawar’s Frontier Post in November 1987 and quotes Jinnah as saying, “If now I get an opportunity I will go to Delhi and tell Jawaharlal Nehru to forget about the follies of the past and become friends again.” We do know that Colonel Bakhsh did not include this quote in his own memoir, With the Quaid-e-Azam during his Last Days, but that does not, in our view, mean that he may not have remembered it nonetheless and related it later to a different audience.

            In closing, we thought you might be interested to know that several letters expressing similar criticisms to yours were published in our Asian edition, where the story originally appeared. Although we were unable to include your letter as well, you can be sure that it met with an attentive audience among our editors. Again, our thanks for letting us hear from you, and best wishes.

 

Sincerely,

Winston Hunter

 

Analysis of Time’s Reply

One cannot be impressed by the “courtesies” in Time’s letter when the subject is its inaccuracies and prevarications—which is a courteous expression for lies.

            It is incorrect for the editors to say that they “have no interest in pursuing programmatic biases in the magazine.” The fact that they deliberately did not publish many letters of protest from Pakistanis disproves their statement. This itself testifies to their programmatic biases.”

            It is a lie on their part to say “that several letters expressing similar criticisms to yours were published in our Asian edition”. How could they make such a false claim against the evidence in their own magazine! There were not several but just four letters; and out of these four, only one letter expressed criticism of the quote, in just one sentence!

            The editors said they were unable to include my letter; they said the same words to others whose letters were not published. But the editors presented no reason to anyone, as to what made them ‘unable’ to publish those letters? What else could be the reason, except that the editors were afraid the readers of Time would know that the statement about Mr Jinnah was a concoction.

 

Indian Author’s Book

            From the wording of their reply, it appears that the book of the Indian author, M.J. Akbar, is Time’s main source for the quote. I found the book in Quaid-e-Azam Library, Lahore. On looking up the book, one finds that Akbar’s source for the concocted statement is none other than the Frontier Post story! Incidentally, this book on Nehru is considered of no authentic value. Even in India, it is treated with disdain, because in his adulation of his subject, Akbar became blind to Nehru’s faults losing all sense of objectivity, while the Indians from authentic literature have been learning more and more about Nehru’s moral weaknesses and political blunders. It should also be of interest to know that M.J. Akbar’s zealous devotion to the Indian National Congress surprises even the party’s own Hindu loyalists!       

 

Tracking Down the Primary Source

            Next, we come to the so-called primary source—the story in the Frontier Post. It was a bizarre situation; an unheard of the statement had found a passage into an Indian author’s book and an American weekly, and its primary source was a little-known, literally obscure newspaper!

 

            Both Time and M.J. Akbar had intentionally not mentioned the exact date of the story. I reckoned there would be some difficulty in finding the date and then the story in Frontier Post Files. It turned out I had underestimated the problem. The Frontier Post office in Lahore plainly expressed their inability to help in the matter, saying that the Lahore Edition was launched only in July 1989. A letter, followed by a reminder to the Frontier Post’s chief editor, in Peshawar, requesting his help failed to elicit any response from him.

 

            Inquiries revealed that a ‘seasoned hand’, who had spent several years at the Frontier Post and was considered a walking encyclopedia on the Peshawar daily, could be contacted in Lahore. He did prove to be ‘seasoned’. He was a diehard congressite in his political allegiance. He knew about the Frontier Post story and its author’s name, and even defended it, but said he did not know its date, and that even the year could be 1986 or 1988 and not necessarily 1987! I understood his trickery.

 

            Finding the Frontier Post Files of 1987 was another problem. It was the Dayal Singh Trust Library, Lahore, which, in this case, proved to be an asset, superior to all the other local libraries. On a day, in the month of Ramazan (1997), I spent several hours going through the Frontier Post Files of November and December 1987, but the story was not found.

 

An Intriguing Column

            However, I found two unusual features in the paper. It carried a continuous stream of subtle, and sometimes even blatant, propaganda against Pakistan and its raison d’etre ie, its reason for existence. Unfortunately, it is also a characteristic of several other dailies in our country, but the Peshawar daily topped the other papers in this respect. The second was an intriguing feature. The Frontier Post, sometime in October 1987, had initiated on the ‘City Post’ page, a special but occasional column titled “Historical Notes.” It seemed to be a technique for airing ‘new disclosures and theories’ to distort the facts about the Pakistan Movement, the Muslim League, and the leading personalities who led the movement and the party.

 

            Under that ‘special’ column, on Saturday, 12 December 1987, is a story “Quaid Wanted To Abandon Muslim League” by Al-Huma, obviously a cover name. An inscription at the story’s beginning says, “The writer of the article is a student of the history of Pakistan Movement. In 1972 he undertook a self-imposed mission of collecting information and historical evidence so as to set the historical record straight for the posterity”. Al Huma’s narrative which he says is based on an interview of Mir Ahmed Yar Khan, the Mir of Kalat, is pathetically unfit to be of any historical value. Four days later, on 16 December, the newspaper was compelled to publish a reply challenging Al-Huma and exposing his narrative to be manifestly inaccurate.

 

The mystery around the Concocted Story

            A study of that column did give a clue to finding the story. It was obvious the elusive story would be found in the “Historical Notes” on the ‘City Post’ page. But, I failed to find the story! It was eventually found by a helpful source, Hakim Naeemud Din Zuberi, the learned Director of Library, Hamdard University, Karachi, to whom I had written to help with the research.

            The story was in the paper of 25 November 1987. It was indeed on the ‘City Post’ page and in the special column, this time more grandiloquently titled as “Footnotes of History.”  It is by Mohammad Yahya Jan, and is headlined, “What Quaid’s Physician told me”.

How did I miss it? In the Frontier Post Files in the Dayal Singh Trust Library, the page was not there! It had been removed—by design.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  The Story’s Author

            An inquiry into Yahya Jan’s background revealed that his father was a brother of Dr Khan Sahib and Abdul Ghaffar Khan. They were the founders of the anti-Pakistan ‘Red Shirts’ movement. They were loyal to the Indian National Congress, deadly opposed to Pakistan. Yahya Jan had served in the pre-partition Congress régime in the Frontier Province as education minister in 1945. Yahya Jan was a tottering old man touching the debilitating age of 90 in 1987, when he ‘remembered’ to disclose something which, he said, had been told to him by Col Elahi Bakhsh 35 years before, in 1952!

 

Cleverly-Written Narrative

            At the outset, Yahya Jan says, “I cannot vouch for the truth of Col Elahi Bakhsh’s account. All I can say, with God as my witness, that this is what he told me”. Then follows a long narrative of how and what Dr Elahi Bakhsh confided to Yahya Jan and Dr Khan Sahib, in a patients’ ward in the Mayo Hospital, Lahore, where an ailing Ghaffar Khan was under treatment. Yahya Jan claims he received the information, that he had disclosed in the story, over a number of sessions of conversation with Bakhsh. On this point, he writes: “Col Elahi Bakhsh, as the superintendent of the Mayo Hospital, used to come on his rounds of the wards between 8 and 9 in the morning. He would exchange a few words and then pass on. As he got to know us better he occasionally lingered on for longer periods. Sometimes our conversation stretched out for quite a while, and their memory endures in my mind.”

 

            The narrative contains the malicious quote and a number of other preposterous statements, allegedly made by Quaid-e-Azam to Liaquat Ali Khan when the latter, accompanied by Chaudhry Muhammad Ali, called on the Quaid at Ziarat in late July 1948. The utterances are exceedingly insulting to Quaid-e-Azam, Mr Liaquat Ali Khan, Miss Fatima Jinnah, the State of Pakistan and the entire Pakistan Movement. The basis of the narrative is that Col Elahi Bakhsh was in the room throughout when Quaid-e-Azam had the exclusive meeting with Liaquat Ali Khan.

 

            According to Yahya Jan, apart from the Khan Brothers, the only person who learnt of Col Bakhsh’s account was Agha Shorish Kashmiri, a well-known journalist, to whom Yahya had passed it on. According to the narrative, Agha Shorish, apparently, had it confirmed from the doctor but then kept it to himself!  The full narrative mentions other malicious things also. Towards the narrative’s end, Yahya again swears by God, and says, “I hold myself accountable to God if I have misquoted anything Col Bakhsh said”. Swearing by God is an old ruse to make concocted statements ‘credible.’

 

Refutation of the Story

            Amongst the evidence that appeared in newspapers proving the falseness of the story, the accounts by three persons are of special significance. They are: Dr Zafar Omer, an assistant of late Col Elahi Bakhsh, Dr Ghulam Mohammad Khan, the only living doctor out of a team of four from Mayo Hospital who attended Mr Jinnah during his terminal illness in Ziarat and Quetta, and Brigadier (Retd) Noor A. Hussain, Quaid’s ADC in the last four months of his life in Karachi, Quetta and Ziarat. Excerpts from their letters which appeared in Dawn on 30 January, 26 January and 4 March 1997, respectively are reproduced below.

 

Zafar Omer, Lahore. “I was privy to most of the observations of late Col Elahi Bakhsh (about Quaid-e-Azam), because I was his assistant, and quite close to him. I never heard him mention any such remark. In fact, according to Col Elahi Bakhsh, the Quaid till the last seemed most proud of his achievement and had great hopes regarding the country”.

 

Dr Ghulam Mohammad Khan, Lahore. “I have no wish to dwell upon all the malicious and vituperative statements of the writer (of Time’s story). However, the last paragraph of his story should not go without comment. Besides other things, it states that on his deathbed Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah told his doctor that Pakistan had been ‘the biggest blunder of my life’. I happen to be the only living doctor out of a team of four from Mayo Hospital, Lahore, who attended Mr Jinnah during his terminal illness in Ziarat and Quetta. He was never left unattended—day or night—as we had adjacent bedrooms. It is absolutely unimaginable and unbelievable that a statement of such import and implication was ever made by Mr Jinnah and none of the doctors present at hand had known it for nearly 48 years till Carl Posey brought it to our notice.

            “Furthermore, late Col Elahi Bakhsh makes no mention of any such statement in his book “With the Quaid-e-Azam during his Last Days”. The statement attributed to the founder of Pakistan by Carl Posey is a figment of his own imagination. It is clear that this statement has been deliberately concocted in order to malign a great leader and the country he brought into existence, and it is obviously sponsored by the enemies of Pakistan.”

 

Brigadier (Retd) Noor Hussain, Rawalpindi. “I was the Quaid’s ADC in the last four months of his life in Karachi, Quetta and Ziarat. I cannot recollect the Quaid ever feeling or making such remarks to his doctor or anyone else, even on his deathbed, where I was present throughout.

            “I was ADC on duty when Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan arrived in Ziarat late July 1948, to see Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah. After Quaid’s consent, I ushered him into the bedroom on the top floor. They exchanged greetings. Miss Jinnah came out as was the protocol for such meetings between the two. Doctor Elahi Bakhsh and Riaz Ali Shah chest specialist were not present in Quaid’s bedroom but were waiting in the Lounge on the ground Floor with us. After about 40 minutes, the PM came downstairs, met the doctors, had lunch with Miss Jinnah and ADCs and drove down to Quetta for the flight back to Karachi by PAF’s DC-3 aircraft.”

 

Miss Fatima Jinnah’s Book

            Brigadier Hussain’s eye-witness account of Liaquat Ali Khan’s call on the Quaid at Ziarat is fully corroborated by Miss Fatima Jinnah’s description of that visit in her book “My Brother”, (Karachi, Quaid-e-Azam Academy, 1987). In fact, she related that when the meeting was over, she went into the Quaid’s room and wanted to stay with him as he seemed exhausted but he insisted: “Go and eat with them, they are our guests”.

 

            From her book also, it is evident that when Mr Liaquat Ali met the Quaid, there was no one else in the room, not even she or Chaudhry Mohammad Ali, what to speak of Dr Elahi Bakhsh, who was rather a stranger to Quaid-e-Azam till then. It should be remembered that Col Elahi Bakhsh, as recorded in his book, had met Quaid-e-Azam for the first time on 24 July, and it was just around four days later that Liaquat Ali Khan and Chaudhry Muhammad Ali arrived on their visit. Indeed, Dr Bakhsh, in his own book makes no claim of having been present at that meeting; nor is there any mention, or even a hint, of that false statement in the book.

 

The Source of Concoction

            Then, where did that statement and all the other vicious utterances originate from? Who concocted the episode? To analyze this concoction one must comprehend the full dimension of the nature and aims of the psychological warfare being conducted against our country. Once that has been comprehended, then you know that this concoction is the handiwork of the schemers conducting that warfare. Needless to say, the schemers intimately know their subjects, targets, and the local conditions, and have a vast network to gain penetration and influence into the required circles. Indeed, this whole scheme, which in their terminology is called a “sting operation,” has their stamp on it. Like all the other sting operations, this one was also very meticulously planned and had been conceived a long time before it was to materialize.

c

 

            Those people, who think that there would be no harm in befriending Israel, must realize that it will not change Israeli aims. God forbid, if the rulers of Pakistan ever committed the blunder of befriending the Zionist state, they would be offering the Israelis the ideal circumstances and full freedom to realize their aims against Pakistan.  That will also invite divine punishment to Pakistan, for transgressing a divine commandment: “O you who believe! Turn not (for friendship) to people on whom is the Wrath of Allah.”  The “people” mentioned in this Quranic Verse (Surah 60:13) are the Zionist Jews who deny God and His Prophets. “They are the Party of Satan;” (Surah 58:19). They are the creators and rulers of the Zionist state of Israel.  

 

The Local Fifth Column

            Due to various reasons, a Fifth Column exists in Pakistan. Fifth Column, by definition, is “An organized body sympathizing with and working for the enemy within a country.” These people living in Pakistan have amassed wealth and they enjoy many privileges, but they readily act as agents of the Zionist Jews to harm Pakistan. Yahya Jan belonged to this band. The master schemers guided him to be the pivot in this nasty venture.

 

Final Orchestration

            The scheme of the concocted story was made by Zionist schemers. They prepared its full script, had the story printed in the Frontier Post, passed the information to M.J. Akbar and Carl Posey, none of whom, otherwise, would have known about it. The concocted story would find a permanent place in the pages of Akbar’s book and the weekly Time, long after people had forgotten the Frontier Post and Yahya Jan. For Yahya Jan, nearing the end of his life, it was the last desperate stroke of ‘revenge’ against Pakistan whose establishment he and his clan had failed to prevent.            

By November 1987, M.J. Akbar’s book was ready to go into print (it was published in 1988) and a sick, awfully aged, Yahya Jan was close to his deathbed (he died in 1989). Shorish Kashmiri had died in 1975.  A phoney newspaper had been launched since 1985 and a column “Historical Notes” had been initiated in it since October 1987. So, the plan was set for Time (a mouthpiece of Zionism) to bring out a special series in October–December 1996, on Asian ‘Newsmakers of the Half Century’; it should have a write-up on Mohammad Ali Jinnah carrying the concocted quote, and ending the series!  So, the sting operation was launched and successfully completed.  

Action for the Government

            This whole sordid affair has another deplorable aspect— an absence of any action on the part of the government or scholars in Pakistan to challenge and demolish the lies directed against Quaid-e-Azam and the creation of Pakistan. Their insensitivity and neglect were compounded. They let the Frontier Post story go unnoticed, failed to spot the inclusion of the lies in M.J. Akbar’s book, and maintained a conspiracy of silence when Time advertised the malevolent lies around the world.

           

The least the government should do now is that either the Information Ministry or the Quaid-e-Azam Academy should declare the false quote to be a concoction, and formally ask the weekly Time and the publishers of M.J. Akbar’s book to annul it from the pages of their publications. The concerned authorities should also place this article at appropriate websites on the Internet, as, besides unmasking the falseness of Time’s story, it exposes this magazine’s dishonesty in knowingly publishing a false story.   

 

The writer is an analyst of International Zionism’s schemes, particularly the schemes against Pakistan and the other Muslim Countries.

 

 

Tariq Majeed

Lahore, Pakistan

 

No Comments