Pakistan’s social-democratic conscience - I

The primary word of a conformist society is a tiny three-letter word: ‘yes’. This word conceals even greater efficacy than the ‘Open Sesame!’ of Ali Baba. And as for people who know the art of saying ‘yes’, all the doors of worldly and Heavenly blessings open for them. Power invites them to sit in its lap. Authority kisses their feet. Rulers and nobles feel pride in their friendship. The religious scholars become their guardian angels. Their worst crime is deemed free of the inquiry of the law.

But every conformist society also consists of mavericks who have always refused to play along and were punished. The constitution of Mian Iftikharuddin – who passed away 56 years ago on the 6th of June – was also fermented from the truths of refusal. He was one of those personalities who identify the truths and falsehoods of their time and following such awareness, no power or trial can persuade them to compromise. Perhaps Ghalib had said for similar souls:

We kept writing the bloody tales of passion

Though our hands were severed in its narration

The people of lust are the victors when the battle of love is abandoned

The feet which are lifted became their flags

But to say ‘No’ requires great moral courage. This moral courage is born of a firm belief in the truth of thought and feeling and integrity of character and action. People who weigh truth and falsehood by the scale of profit and harm, are deprived by Nature of both the passion of truth and the courage of refusal. They can become idol-worshippers, but iconoclasm can never become their fate. Mian Iftikharuddin never worshipped the self-made idols of power, but his entire life was spent in battling them.

Mian Iftikharuddin was born in the mohalla of Baghbanpura in Lahore, 1907. This locality is adjacent to the Shalimar Bagh. Mian sahib’s ancestors were the custodians of Shalimar Bagh during the time of the Mughal emperors. Mian sahib used to narrate that even now he received ten rupees annually from the Punjab Government in lieu of this position of gardening. There is an old ‘baaradari’ inside Shalimar Bagh which too was granted to Mian sahib’s family by the Mughals. So one of Mian sahib’s innumerable projects was the repair of this dilapidated baaradari anew.He wanted to establish a Humanist Club-type centre in this baaradari. Mian sahib’s ancestral house, too, is of the Mughal type and his mother used to live there in those days. He prizes the narrow lanes of Baghbanpura over the spacious air of Aikman Road.

Perhaps it was the influence of these same family traditions that Mian sahib was never enamoured of the splendor of Europe despite being educated in Oxford University and living in Europe for many years. Actually, his personality was a very attractive combination of the Western method of thought and vision and Eastern manners of living. He had complete grasp of Western philosophy, its political ideologiesand its history; he had learnt respect for the self, qualities of the individual and democratic values from the West. Though his style of living was typically Eastern – albeit feudal. A khaddar kurta and a shervani of local cloth constituted his dress. His diet, too, was Eastern. To meet both friend and foe with a smile, to entertain everybody, possessing neither the pride of wealth nor a feeling of superiority, having neither a doorkeeper nor a gatekeeper at the mansion – such was his style. There was no need to send a visiting card: whoever wanted could enter by opening the door, enjoy Mian sahib’s hospitality and sit for as much time as they wanted. Well, so far so good, but the problem was that like wealth, Mian sahib did not care about time, too. He had no specific time for sleeping, or for waking, or for working. The morning arrived and the visitors lined up. Friends, political workers, workers, peasants, office babus, the needy, there was no distinction.

Hide-and-seek with time was a regular routine for Mian Iftikharuddin

People are seated. A round of tea is in progress. Arguments are going on. Jokes are being narrated. While this is going on, Mian sahib rushes to the bathroom and begins to shave. If he remembers something in the middle, he returns, the soap still on his face. Here the telephone rings, there Mian sahib rushes to pick it up. It’s a call from Karachi. “Yes, yes I will definitely come today. Send the car at the airport. No, don’t come yourself. I will call when I arrive at the hotel.”

The round of conversation resumes, the servant comes. “Begum sahib is saying that it’s time to go to the airport.” Mian sahib says “Yes, yes, I know, you help with the luggage in the car.” Then he again gets busy in conversation and the time to catch the plane passes by. Then Khizar is summoned and he is ordered to go and change the ticket for the next day. “And yes, do get some paan on the way and yes, do not tell Begum sahib!”

Such hide-and-seek with time was a regular routine for Mian Iftikharuddin.



Mian sahib was a strictly social person. Making conversation was his favourite hobby. He was neither bound by late night nor day in this pursuit, and if anyone objected, he would laugh a lot. He would remark, “Who says that I waste time? I learn from people. Haven’t you heard that proverb of (Alexander) Pope, ‘The Proper Study of Mankind is Man’. Listen! Time is a meaningless terminology although a moment is a reality so Man should value a moment, and enjoy it. Now what happens is that someone enjoys a moment by consuming wine, another by embracing the beloved, someone by reading a book or by making money. If I am happy spending these moments with people, what’s the harm?”

Mian sahib would render even Gandhiji speechless with his arguments, what to talk of us today!

The eminent scholar and activist Syed Sibte Hasan recalls first meeting Mian Iftikharuddin in Bombay in September 1945. He had been released after three years in the colonial prison and had arrived in Bombay to participate in a meeting of the All India Congress Committee. He had put up somewhere else, but most of his time was spent in Sajjad Zaheer’s flat. Mian sahib’s height was short. He was a very well-dressed person of wheatish complexion and delicate body. He was usually dressed in a khaddar churidaar pajama, a khaddar kurta and local silk shervani – which he never abandoned till the end.

Mian solidly believed that British imperialism would continue to dominate until the Congress and the Muslim League come to an agreement. So at the session of the All-India Congress Committee held in Allahabad in June 1942, he endorsed the recommendation of Rajagopalachari on the same basis. He went straight to Wardha after being released from jail in order to persuade Gandhi to endorse the Muslim League’s Lahore Resolution. In this connection, he had also met Pandit Nehru and Maulana Azad several times in Kashmir, but all his efforts yielded no results. Therefore he decided to resign from Congress; though he wanted to openly express his view at least once at a public gathering of the Congress.

This historic session of the All-India Congress Committee was held at the Gowalia Tank Maidan. The top leaders of the Congress including Gandhi and Pandit Nehru participated in this session because this was the first session of Congress since August 1942 (the Quit India Resolution).Apart from the delegates, there was a crowd of several thousand spectators in the tent. Gandhi, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel,Babu Rajendra Prasad, Mrs. Sarojini Naidu and other members of the Working Committee were sitting on the dais with their backs resting against bolster-pillows. A series of speeches was on and whoever rose to speakwould first criticise the governmentand then rebuke the communists to their heart’s content. There was a strange tension in the atmosphere of the session. In the meantime, it was announced that Dr. Muhammad Ashraf would speak. Dr. Ashraf was recognized as the greatest orator in the country next to Maulana Azad but everyone knew that he was also a member of the Executive Council of the Communist Party. Therefore, the minute he stood up, slogans of ‘Communist Party murdabad’ (Death to the Communist Party) and ‘Dr. Ashraf murdabad’ began in the session. Such uproar was nothing new for Dr. Ashraf. Observers had witnessed him shutting up his opponents in sessions bigger than this one, but that day even he was swept off his feet. He barely spoke for ten to twelve minutes but could not control the noise and was forced into silence. The temperament of the crowd was such that it seemed they would not allow anyone to speak, unless they were completely in agreement with the audience.

After some time, the name of Mian Iftikharuddin was called out. He approached the dais hurriedly wearing the khaddar kurta, khaddar churidaar pajama and a Gandhi cap. His face was as long as a fiddle and he appeared very worried. Many well-meaning people present there were certain that Mian would meet the same fate as Dr. Ashraf before him, but as soon as Mian stood up, there was great applause. Mian greeted the crowd with a smile and began his speech. The crowd became absolutely silent. Mian made a passionate speech for about an hour on the Muslim right of self-determination. He counted the fallacies of Congress one by one; unveiled the political tricks of the British and then said, “If today the Muslims are not with us but with the Pakistan Movement, we are to blame for it. We never considered the feelings and desires of the Muslims with sympathy, but with a few actions of ours, we gavethe English and their tent-bearers an opportunity to make the common Muslims become suspicious of us. The result is before you. You will have to accept this bitter reality and the sooner you accept this reality, the sooner will the country become independent. If you are under the misunderstanding that you will wrest authority from the British without accepting the rights of the Muslims, this is your oversight.”

Mian was speaking continuously. He probably feared that if he stopped for even for a moment and the rhythm of the speech broke for even a bit, the crowd would devour him.

Mian returned to his seat after finishing his speech. There was silence in the tent and no one understood what had happened.

Such was his impact, as a lone dissenter at a major Congress event.

There was a huge difference between the ruling elite’s vision of Pakistan and that of Mian Iftikharuddin

But very soon after the creation of Pakistan, the authorities in the Muslim League began to have misgivings about Mian Iftikharuddin. The reason was that there was a huge difference between the vision of Pakistan of the ruling elite and that of Mian. The Muslim League rulers treated Pakistan as spoils of war and were busy in strengthening their personal and class interests. On the other hand, Mian had a map of a free, democratic, welfare state in mind and he wanted Pakistan to progress on those lines. Conflict was essential in such a situation and it happened, and eventually Mian was expelled from the Muslim League.

But who could have put a lock on his tongue, or stopped him from emphasising democratic ideas?

By studying Mian Iftikharuddin’s speeches, one is greatly aided in understanding the rise and fall of Pakistani politics, and the reasons for national decline also emerge openly before us. Actually, these documents are a cry of protest by Pakistan’s conscience against the trampling of democratic values. They are a charge-sheet whose every word has proven true.

Mian’s speeches can be divided into four parts by topic. The problems of civic freedom, constitution, socio-economic reforms and foreign policy. His speeches on these problems are still as relevant today as in Mian’s own time because our national politics is still stuck in a similar quagmire to what he witnessed during his lifetime.

(To be continued)

Raza Naeem is a Pakistani social scientist, book critic and an award-winning translator and dramatic reader currently teaching in Lahore. He is also the president of the Progressive Writers Association in Lahore. His most recent work is an introduction to the reissued edition (Harper Collins India, 2016) of Abdullah Hussein’s classic novel ‘The Weary Generations’. He can be reached at: razanaeem@hotmail.com