This house is worth much more than its monetary estimated value of $400 million. It was a house built by Mr Jinnah in 1936 at a then exorbitant price of 2 lakh (200,000) rupees when he returned to Mumbai from England to take charge of the Muslim League. Jinnah House is located on Mount Pleasant Road (now Bhausaheb Hirey Marg) in the upmarket Malabar Hill area of South Mumbai. Malabar Hill is the most expensive area in Mumbai today. Right opposite it is the residence of the Chief Minister of Maharashtra.
Mr Jinnah had shown willingness to return to that house after partition and had requested Mr Nehru, India’s first prime-minister, through the Indian High Commisioner to not sell the house or declare it evacuee property, but give it to a foreign mission or family to live in so that they may appreciate its European architecture.
Nehru, on his part decided not to declare Jinnah House as an evacuee property and in a note to the Cabinet on March 7,1955 had said. “I think we should further be prepared to make a gift of it to the Pakistan government,” as documented in Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru. But, Nehru could not get approval from his cabinet.
Continue reading ‘Quaid’s daughter lays claim to Jinnah House’
The BBC commissioned Tariq Ali to write a three-part TV series on the circumstances leading to the overthrow, trial and execution of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the first elected Prime Minister of Pakistan. As rehearsals were about to begin, the BBC hierarchy - under pressure from the Foreign Office - decided to cancel the project. Why? General Zia ul Haq, the dictator at the time, was leading the jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He was backed by the USA. According to expert legal opinion, there was a possibility of a whole range of defamation suits from the head of state to judges involved in the case. In consequence, it was decided not to broadcast this hard-hitting and provocative play. The Leopard and the Fox presents both the script and the story of censorship.
Tariq Ali, who was commissioned by the BBC to write the TV serial in 1985, has now published the play in the book form titled ‘The Leopard and the Fox’. (Libertybooks.com)
This is a short 16 min BBC Urdu interview hosted by Mahzar Zaidi on Tariq Ali’s new book ‘The Leopard and the Fox’. The interview covers the summary of the book with reference to historical footage. The book is available in the UK and Pakistan. In the U.S, it is due to come out on May 1st 2007.
Video: Interview with Tariq Ali
This document is significant as it illustrates the issues discussed by Mr. Khan during his visit of West Pakistan in 1948. It is unfortunate to see that a year after partition, the issues holding the country back from true progression in the right direction are the same issues that we are still dealing with presently.
Liaquat Ali Khan was the first Prime Minister of Pakistan and the head of the Muslim League, the dominant political party in Pakistan. It almost seems like fate as he issues a warning against fifth columnists active against Pakistan and three years after this visit he was assassinated. It is also interesting to note that he managed to quell the first coup attempt in Pakistan to overthrow his Government by Major General Akbar Khan in the famous or rather infamous Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case 1951, which can be seen as the Army’s first attempt to enter the political arena.
The assassination of Liaquat Ali Khan is definitely a moment to remember in our history. As it not only swelled the political vacuum already present from the Death of the Founder but it left the country’s most important neighboring and domestic issues to catch dust on the shelves.
Please click on the pictures below separately to enlarge. Continue reading ‘Pakistan: Upon Crossing The Rubicon’
Omar Farooq, who is also known as Mirwaiz, is in Pakistan to talk about his latest epiphany. People think that he is the chief priest of Kashmir. That is not true. I am surprised that people call him the chief priest of Kashmir, for there does not exist such a title in Kashmir. Omar Farooq is a priest or a mullah in Srinagar and again, not the Grand Mullah of Kashmir. I am going to call him Mirwaiz in this post. I don’t believe that this title of Mirwaiz amounts to anything substantive, but since he markets himself as Mirwaiz I am compelled to call him that. Mirwaiz has now realised that Kashmir (I am referring to the Indian Kashmir as Kashmir throughout this post) should stay under the sovereignty of India and that the armed struggle in Kashmir, which he supported for sixteen long years, is not going to achieve anything for him. Musharraf, on the other hand, has buried the argument which suggests that Pakistan has a historical claim over Kashmir and hence is willing to concede on the vexed question of Kashmir. Indians like this solution because they are on the winning side and have to make no concessions. Mirwaiz is doing this for his own benefit and so is Musharraf. But what about the Kashmiri people then?
Continue reading ‘Indian controlled Kashmir disagrees with Musharraf’
Many of us will be acquainted with the western stereotype of Pakistan: hostile, intolerant and in some cases radicalised. Many of us will also be aware of the societal schisms within Pakistan itself. In the quest for a modern state, many Pakistanis have wholesale secularised themselves and those around them. More still are fairly rabid in their quest to eliminate all traces of Islam from Pakistan’s national consciousness. On the other end of the spectrum, we have the equally intolerant, highly literalist and in some cases bigoted self-anointed ‘defenders of the faith’, out to press their interpretation of Islam on any and all. An observation both sides of the chasm would do well to stare down into, however, would be that of the importance of truth- truthfulness towards others, and themselves. For this truthfulness would let us realise that there is to be no compulsion in religion, and yet that there are tangible benefits to be had from a more genuine incorporation of Islam in the fabric of Pakistan. This post will briefly seek to touch on this conceptual touchstone that I call truthfulness, and exemplifying some of its benefits to Pakistan’s overarching identification issues. Continue reading ‘Truth: the lodestar of (a better) Pakistan?’
14th August 1947. The day which saw the biggest mass migration in recorded history. The day which saw a nation existing for centuries divided into two separate nations; one for the Muslims and one for the Hindus. For many politicians, this day was the day which shattered their dream of a united India, with Muslims and Hindus living together peacefully. For others, it was the day which saw their greatest ambition being realized; the day which they had been waiting for had finally come. However, this day was filled with tragedy, as more than a million lives were lost during the cross-border migration, with both Muslim and Hindu fanatics trying their best to kill as many people of the other religion as they could find. It is a commonly held view amongst Indian politicians that Pakistan was brought about by the disappointed ambition, the vanity and the intransigence of one man, Mohammed Ali Jinnah. However, the view shared by most Pakistanis is that Jinnah was our saviour; who rid us from Hindu dominance, and created for us our own separate nation, where we are free to practice our religion, enhance our culture and further our own interests.
Continue reading ‘What Would Life Have Been Like for Muslims Under United India?’
