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Wednesday, April 2, 2014

He left the room


with a smile on his face

K
By Fazil Jamili

Remembering
a true
Indian-Pakistani

Khushwant Singh:
A lifelong love for Lahore
and Urdu poetry

hushwant Singh, the man


of so many colours and
shades, was bowled out
just short of a century, at age
ninety-nine. Born in Hadali, district Khushab (later in Pakistan) in
1915, he grew up in Lahore. There is no
greater friend of Pakistan in India than
myself, he would often say.
Author of 85 books, including
collections like History of the
Sikhs and Dilli , his novel
Train to Pakistan stands out
as the hallmark of his
creativity and expression of the pain he
felt at the bloodline
that partitioned India, like Manto s short
story Toba Tek Singh and Quratulain s
novel Aag ka Darya .
Khushwant Singh had the rare privilege
of receiving Mr. Jinnah as a guest at his
wedding in 1939, as he documents in his
autobiography. He writes that Mr. Jinnah
came from Mumbai to Delhi to attend his
event and got all the guests attention, and
the groom was left alone, although Mr. Jinnah did not bring any gift for him.
After Partition, Mr. Jinnah offered him
the position of High Court judge in Lahore.
Although Khushwant Singh refused, visiting Pakistan was almost a holy ritual for
him. I go to Pakistan like the Hindus to
Varansi and the Muslims go to Mecca. My
roots are in Pakistan and I perform my Hujj
and Umra over there, he said.
He has written about how his mother
would advise him against such visits, saying that Pakistanis are cruel people who will kill him.
Yes, they are killing me with
delicious foods and wines, he
would reply.
She would continue to object
to his visits, but also send her
salams to various Muslim
friends in Lahore and remind
him to take gifts for their children.
Khushwant Singh had no
such ambivalence about Pakistan. He was clear that both
countries should live like
peaceful neighbours, without
visa restrictions, allowing
people to travel to each other freely. It is
only the well to do who have gained independence, he would say. The poor, enslaved
by the British earlier, were now the slaves
of Indian and Pakistani elites.
His schoolteacher Maulvi Shafiuddin
Nayyar himself a poet, instilled in Khushwant Singh a love of Urdu poetry that remained a lifelong passion. Singh found
Urdu poetry more inspiring that Urdu
prose or English verse. He memorised the
verses of Ghalib, Zauq, Zafar and Akbar Ila-

B R I E F S
Celebrating Womens Day, together
ndians and Pakistanis came together to celebrate Women s
Day together last month in Artesia, a town near Los Angelos in southern California. The event, initiated by the International Sindhi Women Organisation, drew mainly Sindhis, Hindus and Muslims hailing from India and Pakistan,
reports Hiro Badlani in India Journal.
Sindhis originating from both sides of the border met perhaps for the first time in such
big numbers and celebrated
the occasion with gusto,
good music, fine speeches,
delicious food and warm hospitality.
The event included a
panel discussion with speakers including Sobhya Agha
talked about violence against
Organisers: Mohan and Kamla Dadlani women, based on her experience with criminology in
Karachi, Sara Sadhwani, a post graduate student at the University of Southern California, Dr Geet Chainani, an American of
Indian origin who has worked with flood survivors in Pakistan
and participated via video link, and attorney Kavita Teckchandani who talked about her work concerning the settlement of
Hindu refugees from Pakistan languishing in camps in India.
The event included a fundraiser for women-centred charities, one in India and one in Pakistan.

Ex-Pakistani envoys tribute to Khushwant


our former High Commissioners of Pakistan to India Humayun Khan, Riaz Khokhar, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, and
Aziz Ahmad Khan issued a joint statement last week in
homage to Khushwant Singh.
We have a special reason to do so because, among the many
things he will be remembered for, was his love for Pakistan, the
land of his birth.
Khushwant was a larger than life character. Historian,
scholar, journalist, wit and bon vivant, he enriched our lives with
his writings and, above all, with his friendship. He relished his
privacy, but his doors were always open to visitors from Pakistan. In his later years, he avoided public occasions, but always
found time to spend an evening at our embassy, provided we
followed his strict adherence to time, which ennabled him to go
home early.
He was not only rational about Indo-Pak relations, but genuinely emotional. He took pride in having Pakistanis as his best
friends. Because of this, we were able to enjoy, in addition to
his wit and his wisdom, his fraternal affection. In remembering
this great man, we must all continue to strive for the ideals he
promoted and the courage, the humour and the total lack of
hypocrisy that he always displayed.

back a few days later. I spent my time driving around Islamabad and Rawalpindi to
see what the public reaction was. Then I
flew to Karachi. Mani Shankar Aiyar, who
was posted there, drove me around the city.
Bazaars were open. Boys played cricked.
There were no outward signs of mourning.
I returned to Delhi .
A few days later he was back in Islamabad staying in the same hotel. That afternoon he was taken to President s residence
in the cantonment area. There was a pile of
Khushwant Singh s books in the room
where he was asked to wait. He doubted
that Gen. Zia had read them, or meant to.
But they served the purpose. All the venom
drained out of Khushwant Singh, who had
had a list of loaded questions about Gen.
Zia s hanging Bhutto.
The General came in
dressed in silken salwarkameez, shook hands
warmly and said: Sardar
sahib, before you ask me
questions, please sign your
books for me .
Though much flattered, Khushwant asked
him: General sahib, you
could have shown mercy
and commuted Bhutto s
senctence .

Khushwant Singh: "My roots are in Pakistan"


habadi and later translated the works of
Ghalib, Iqbal and Faiz into English, including Iqbal s famous Shikwa and Jawab e
Shikwa . For particularly difficult words, he
would consult with eminent critic Mujtaba
Husain and poet Ali Sardar Jafri.
He had no compunction in poking fun
at his own community, the Sikhs, despite
being a firm believer in the symbolism of
keeping a beard, wearing the turban and
carrying a kirpan. He felt that if Sikhs
abandoned these symbols, they would
gradually lose their identity. In protest at
the army operation against the Sikh s holy
Golden Temple, he returned his Padma
Bhushan award to the Indian government.
And yet he was the real creator of Santa
Banta jokes, angering many Sikhs. Khushwant Singh would laugh off at their abuses.
He said the most interesting letter he got,

the most full of abuses, came from a Sikh


in Canada. It showed the efficiency of the
post office that they delivered it to him -the envelope was addressed only to Bastard Khushwant Singh .
They consider me the only bastard in
India, he laughed.
Khushwant Singh had controversial relations with various political figures. He
was close to Indira Gandhi (whose Emergency rule he supported), had good relations with Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, liked his
granddaughter Fatima Bhutto s writings
and was also very impressed with the dictator General Zia ul Haq.
He writes about arriving in Islamabad
to meet Gen. Zia the day after Bhutto was
to be executed. Bhutto was hanged the following day. His appointment with the General was canceled and he was told to come

Gen. Zia replied firmly: Mercy is in


Allah s domain, not in a man s hand .
Khushwant described General Zia a
man of average height with well-oiled hair
parted in the middle, and deep, dark sunk
eyes.
He called him surmey wali sarkar.
After he finished his questions, Gen. Zia s
wife with their mentally challenged daughter joined them for tea. Khushwant Singh
wrote that when he was leaving, General
Zia opened the car door for him; no other
head of state did that.
Khushwant Singh was full of praise for
him after that. He was also impressed with
the General s cricket diplomacy and called
him mard e momin (man of faith) and mard
e haq (man of truth), about whom he said he
had pleasant memories . He noted that Gen.
Zia also had a copy of
Ghalib s verses, illustrated by Chughtai,
bearing the General s
signature under my
mis-spelt name
Yet Khushwant
Singh did not contradict the views of Pakistani writers, poets
and intellectuals who
considered General
Zia responsible for so
many miseries in Pakistan. One of his recommended readings on
Pakistan was Muhammad Hanif s novel A
case of exploding mangoes that casts General
Zia as a villain.
He would receive visitors between 7.00 and
8.00 pm. If asked to describe his life in one sentence I would say
that he has lived his
ninety-nine years of
life in just one hour.
At 7.00 the party
began and when the
clock reached at 8.00
he left the room with a
smile on his face.
Nishan e mard e
momin ba tu goyam?
ChooN marg aayad,
tabassum bar lab e ast
(You ask me the signs of
a man of faith?
When death comes to him,
he has a smile on his lips)
Iqbal
The writer is a poet
and editor at
www.jang.com.pk

A versatile writer

A South Asian Union model

B
By Qaiser Shahzad

A young
Pakistani
summarises
his South Asian
Union Model
idea, for which
he was
recently
awarded the
Nepal
Friendship
Peace Award

efore becoming an educationist, I was already an inspired


peace activist working to integrate South
Asians into regional nationhood. One third
of my family is
based in Pakistan
and other two
thirds reside in
India
and
Bangladesh.
The
tragic incidences of
1947 and 1971 caused my
family, along with countless
others, much suffering.
From the platform of Pakistan Peace Corps, I advocated peace in conflict-affected areas like Swat,
Bajour, Waziristan, Karachi
and Baluchistan, and also initiated a small campaign
Hindu-Muslim bhai bhai .
The idea behind this campaign was to remove the misunderstandings around the
two-nation theory that led to
my family s disintegration
and that of South Asia. The
establishment and the militant groups forced us to stop
this initiative but it laid the
foundations of South Asian
Union Model.
In 2012, I joined the Pakistan Educational and Cultural Foundation (ECF) and
was introduced to a mega
project, Connecting Pakistan,
that aims to remove disparities in Pakistan s education
system by connecting rich
and poor students and combating ethnic and sectarian
conflicts. The research for
this project involved in-depth
analysis of the models on
which the European Union,
Arab League and United
States of America were established.

South Asians together: the pull of a common culture


The strength factor in the
European Union model
comes from mutual interests
based on economic collaboration for monetary gain,
while the United States of
America presents an excellent example of celebrating
diversity to complement national unity. The Arab
League, on the other hand, is
a failed model. In Arab region, the economic gain and
inflow of cheap labour follows religion, giving rise of
Shia-Sunni conflict and
plunging the Arab League
into crisis.
Now the big question was,
What is the mutual center of
interest for South Asians?
Pakistan is the Islamic
Republic of Pakistan , and
Afghanistan and Bangladesh
are also predominantly Muslim countries. Hindu nationalism prevails in India, despite her secularism. Nepal is

a predominantly Hindu,
while Bhutan and Sri Lanka
are predominantly Buddhist.
A discussion at an ECF
Board Directors meeting
provided the clue I was looking for the notion that
Subcontinent was never Islamised, rather Islam was Indianised in this region. Culture is more powerful in our
region and provides a
stronger pull than religion.
The common ground in South
Asia is our rich joint heritage
and similar cultural and traditional practices that link us.
Recognising the common
ground was a part solution.
The challenge now was to
compile my findings into a
model for South Asian Union.
For this purpose I started
from the last pre-partition
generation, those who
opened their eyes in this
world at a time when postwar of independence hostili-

ties were at a climax. They


conveyed a lesson of hatred
and the result was Partition
Generation, who inherited
hostilities and divided subcontinent.
The first Post-Partition
Generation comprises our
parents, who led our countries in the wars of 1965 and
1971, apart from bringing nuclear warheads to this region.
We, the second Post-Partition
Generation, grasped much
stereotyping from our parents
narratives. But we are also
growing in the age of Aman ki
Asha and have started celebrating South Asians across
borders. So hopefully, our
next generation will be protagonists of love and peace
across borders. This is the
time to lay the foundation of
a South Asian Union.
In the initial phase, books
containing lessons on connecting South Asians will be

published rather than containing text based on hatred.


Instead of focusing on
Namaz of Muslims and
Pratna of Hindus, the focus
will be on Meditation, which
is universal in this region as
Muraqba for Muslims and
Samadhau for Hindus.
According to Hindu legends, meditation was initiated
in the Taxila region of Pakistan when hundreds of saints
gathered for yaug and shared
knowledge of nature in various forms. Yoga, which is
popular across the world, and
is of prime importance in
India, can be taught in Pakistan s textbooks as it was initiated in the holy region of
Peshawar millennia ago.
The next phase demands
visa freedom in this region.
This will boost trade and will
play a big role in bringing all
eight nations together.
In this manner the next
generation will be primed to
promote richness and peace
in the South Asian region and
across the world.
The result will be kicking
start tourism industry, following joint developmental
projects like SARC rail
passes and SAARC Student
exchanges. Another advantage for the business class
will be the direct access to
the cheapest labour market
and the sharpest brains in
the world a win-win thing
for South Asian communities.
The writer is a Mass
Communication graduate,
a Youth Parliamentarian
(Minister for Information
Technology), and the only
Asian to hold office in the
US-based International
Youth Congress

THE FIRST STEP


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A peace initiative whose time has come...

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Destination Peace: A commitment by the Jang Group, Geo and The Times of India Group to
create an enabling environment that brings the people of Pakistan and India closer together,
contributing to genuine and durable peace with honour between our countries.

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