Without any warning, any hint, no hospitalisation, while talking, conversing with friends and inviting them to come and see your new house in DHA, and then, all of a sudden, this shocking news of your melting away. Not fair, Badshah. Was the call final that it defied all efforts to stop you from flying to the unknown world? Maybe the will of the Supreme, the pull of living in heaven, and the mortality of this world, or a combination of all three, was the power pushing you towards this hasty goodbye to us.
Muhammad Ali Siddiqui was not merely a batch-mate, a colleague and a friend, but an institution in himself — a mentor. It was simply shocking to experience the saddening feeling of his sudden disappearance from amongst us. He had Parkinson’s disease. Not long ago, I attended his son Fahad’s marriage at the Beach Luxury Hotel. He was attending to his guests and cracking jokes with them. His hands were shaking a bit, but he was visibly in control of his health condition. Only close friends and relatives noticed it. He was physically fit and active, mentally alert, with his sharp wit and signature humour. He introduced me to his team of colleagues and friends working with him on the publication of the Weekly Weekender.
Ali was the most popular member of our batch, rather, the Sixth Common Training Programme at the Civil Service Academy, Lahore, in 1979. He was the darling of the entire batch. The atmosphere of the Academy was overloaded with academic curricula, as the sword of the Final Passing Out Examination (FPO Exam) was hanging over our heads. Merit positions were to be calculated on the performance of officers in both examinations; positions of merit were to be determined on a national basis, and within the provinces, with service groups allocated from provincial quotas. A tedious procedure, straining the nerves of officers fearing any debacle in the FPO. The Martial Law regime reverted the system back to the allocation of service groups based on the merit obtained in the Entry Examination.
This was the first batch at the Academy after the imposition of Martial Law on 5 July 1977. The officers felt somewhat suppressed and a little hesitant to speak their minds. A few officers, spearheaded by Muhammad Ali Siddiqui, came to the fore with their subtle remarks, retorts and criticism of the Martial Law regime. Their questions to guest speakers, who were carefully selected, were very unsettling for these visiting scholars and for some of the Directors of the Civil Service Academy.
Neither did he accept the bureaucratically developed colourless life of Islamabad, nor was Islamabad willing to accommodate his restless mien for long
Their subtle questions to the guest speakers were music to the ears of those who disliked the Zia regime, particularly officers from Sindh. They were worried about the life of Z.A. Bhutto, whose appeal against the capital punishment had been rejected by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. He was languishing in a death cell, and there was no trace of the senior PPP leaders. Only the Bhutto ladies, Begum Nusrat Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto, incarcerated at Sihala Rest House near Rawalpindi, were leading the party. The PNA leaders were enjoying power and pelf in the dictator’s cabinet. Some of them proved to be worthless men of straw.
Ali was close to Kamran Lashari. I think they knew each other before joining the Sixth Common Training Programme. Kamran was another witty and intelligent officer. They mimicked a few Directors of the Academy and made fun of certain officers, calling them by crude nicknames. Ali had repeated the Competitive Examination to acquire the Foreign Service of Pakistan, which was his first choice. In the Fourth Common Training Programme, he had landed in the Income Tax Group. He was finally allocated to the FSP, and we joined the Ministry together. After initial in-service training and desk jobs, he avoided all postings abroad until he got himself appointed as Consul in Bradford.
On his return from abroad, he remained on deputation at the Governor’s House and served as Deputy Secretary to Governor Mian Muhammad Soomro. For a long time, he remained Deputy Chief of Protocol, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Camp Office Karachi. He never wanted to leave Karachi. He did his mid-career National Management Course (NIPA) in Karachi. Our batch had already been promoted to Grade 20. He approached the late Riaz Hussain Khokhar, who took over as the new Foreign Secretary from Ambassador Inaam ul Haq in 2002, for his posting as Consul General in Frankfurt. The late Khokhar asked him to serve as Director General in the Ministry for at least one year before going out as Consul General or Minister Plenipotentiary. He posted him as Director General (Middle East). I was also in the Ministry as Director General (East Asia and Pacific).
He hated the boring life of Islamabad. He was seriously thinking of quitting the Foreign Service. He had served as Section Officer in the Ministry in the early 1980s, and now he joined it as Director General after an interregnum of almost two decades. Neither did he accept the bureaucratically developed colourless life of Islamabad, nor was Islamabad willing to accommodate his restless mien for long. He confided in me that he was going to leave the Foreign Service to join the Dawn Group of Newspapers on a good package. I tried to persuade him to serve out one year as Director General in the Ministry and then go abroad as Ambassador. He had a good future ahead. But I failed to convince him.
We lost contact with each other until 2013, when I finally settled down in Karachi. I had already started writing for some dailies and journals. With the encouragement and active help of certain old colleagues and friends, Muhammad Ali Siddiqui started publishing a well-managed and well-designed weekly journal, Weekender, from Karachi. He managed to publish the journal regularly for five years, featuring columns and essays of a high standard under his skilful editorship. I wrote regularly for Weekender. The journal ceased publication in 2023 only when the trembling of his hands increased manifold, making it difficult for him to use his computer. His essays on various subjects, including the political history of Pakistan, were a regular feature of Weekender.
Very few friends know that Ali was a prolific writer. He wrote on a wide range of subjects, including history, social sciences, Pakistan’s political, constitutional and economic studies, music and musical instruments, ragas, and more. He had written a series of articles on ragas in The Friday Times some years ago. He shared these columns with me just a few months before his passing.
Ali, you will remain ensconced in our hearts and memories.