AMID loud but not so effective protests by a section of the opposition, President Pervez Musharraf’s three-day state visit to Bangladesh went off well. While the Awami League’s call, through its student front Bangladesh Chhatra League, for a dawn-to-dusk strike in Dhaka on Tuesday to protest the visit caused some tension, it did not do any harm.

It was the first visit by a Saarc head of state and government to Dhaka since the Oct 1 general election that swept the BNP into power with overwhelming majority in parliament. Although the visit may not have achieved everything that was intended, it should be considered highly successful in the sense that it would boost bilateral relations, ostensibly putting the past baggage behind and establishing a forward-looking policy.

The dinner hosted by Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia on Tuesday for President Musharraf also witnessed accommodation from both sides. The president said: “My brothers and sisters in Pakistan share with their fellow brothers and sisters in Bangladesh profound grief over the parameters of events of 1971. We feel sorry for this tragedy and the pain it caused to both our peoples.”

As he finished, Khaleda Zia responded: “Thank you, Mr President, for your candid expression on the events of 1971. This will, no doubt, help mitigate the old wounds.” She said further: “We are deeply committed to promoting and further strengthening the existing bonds of friendship between the two countries. Our relations have reached a high level of maturity. Therefore, we can together look confidently into the future.

President Musharraf, soon after his arrival on Monday, visited the national mausoleum at Savar to pay tribute to the martyrs of the war of independence and regretted the excesses committed during the 1971 war.

A good beginning has been made by President Musharraf by offering duty and tariff-free entry of raw jute and up to 10,000 metric tons of tea into Pakistan, which should go to an extent to narrow the trade balance favourable to Pakistan.

Officially, the visit was being treated as an occasion to discuss and promote bilateral trade and investment, as well as cultural and technical exchanges. The signing of two agreements on cultural exchange programme and science and technology exchange programme and an MoU between top trade bodies of the two countries to set up a business council will surely put the two country’s relationship on a firm footing. From this point, the visit should be considered a successful one.

However, the last-minute decision of the main opposition Awami League to cancel a scheduled meeting with the visiting dignitary left a bad taste in the mouth. The meeting was arranged at the formal request from the AL leaders.

Former state minister for foreign affairs and AL international affairs secretary Abul Hasan Chowdhury who had requested for the meeting was visibly upset at the party’s stand. In a statement he described it as a “cavalier disdain for established protocol norms and reflects muddled and immature thinking.”

Meanwhile, the print media has also highlighted the positive aspect of the visit. For example, The Financial Express, Dhaka’s lone business daily, in a front-page story reported that trade and industry circles in Dhaka had welcomed the gesture by the Pakistan President to allow duty-free entry of raw jute and tea into Pakistan from Bangladesh. It described it as a sharp contrast to India’s dilly-dallying tactics to grant similar facilities to Bangladeshi goods notwithstanding several promises made by the Indian leaders to do so.

It did not escape the newspaper’s notice that while Pakistan enjoys a trade surplus of about $60 million annually with Bangladesh, India’s annual trade surplus with Bangladesh stands at over $1 billion. In addition, India’s informal exports to this country, a euphemism for smuggling, amounts to over $2.5 billion each year.

The influential business daily also wrote an editorial on the visit. It says: “Expansion and consolidation of bilateral friendship and understanding between Bangladesh and Pakistan on the basis of sovereign equality and mutuality of interests can be a positive factor for deriving maximum benefits from cooperation and collaboration, particularly in economic spheres.”

The official talks between the two sides discussed the whole gamut of issues, including some outstanding ones, such as division of assets and liabilities, repatriation of nearly quarter million of Biharis who still consider them “stranded Pakistanis,” were discussed. Pakistan’s explanation was that the issue could be addressed when the problem of three million Afghan refugees now living in Pakistan would be resolved. It was accepted in good grace.

Bangladesh Foreign Minister M. Morshed Khan has been very careful to answer questions while briefing the media. Asked if Kashmir was discussed, he clearly stated that the Pakistan President mentioned it and Bangladesh renewed its position for de-escalation of tensions at the earliest along the Indo-Pakistan border and peaceful settlement of the dispute bilaterally by India and Pakistan.

KARACHI: A pall of gloom had descended. Jemibhai had passed away. It was not just our family that was deeply grieved at the demise of its greatest scion; the population of Karachi at large was devastated. The thousands who depended on him for financial assistance or for his advice or comforting word would start worrying who they could now turn to. Would the projects initiated by him continue and would Karachi retain its title of the cleanest city of India now that he was gone?

I had just turned fifteen when Jamshed Nusserwanjee Mehta, President of Karachi Municipality for twelve years from 1922 and subsequently its first mayor, when Sindh was unshackled from the Bombay Presidency and became a separate presidency, expired fifty years ago on August 1, 1952, at the age of 66. As the first cousin of my father and his siblings, he was fondly referred to by them as Jemibhai, which we youngsters in the Mehta family also called him and which, I think, he enjoyed being so addressed. Despite his very busy schedule in his business and civic matters, he would come visit us a few times each week and after inquiring after our health, he would simply chat or reply to the questions of our elders. On a few occasions, he would take the disinterested me along on his rounds of his beloved city or to his office in Macchi Miani and at times he would just make me sit in his study at his house. It was later as I started growing up that I realized what he was doing. He was imparting to me lessons in what life is all about and how it should be lived, without being didactic.

Jemibhai was a remarkable man. He had so many qualities that one wonders how they could all be encapsulated in one single human being. Yet, he was such a simple person. When he visited us, he would sit with the rest of us on a hard wooden bench on our porch, politely refusing the chair offered to him. He was always dressed simply, but neatly and, oh, so very clean. His normal attire was a white buttoned up cotton Parsi dughla, similar to a sherwani, over white cotton trousers, with a light grey, beautifully embroidered cap and white soft shoes akin to moccasins. It was during the cooler months, I think, that he would put on a grey or brown woollen dughla with either matching trousers or the white cotton one. The cap and shoes remained unchanged. No Saville Row suits for him, even though he could easily afford them. He stood out resplendent in his usual garb. There is a lovely photograph of him so dressed greeting H.R.H. The Duke of Gloucester and another with the Quaid-i-Azam who was dressed immaculately in a suit.

By nature he was austere. His office was furnished sparsely and at home in his study, even when others were present, he would be seated cross-legged on the carpet behind a low writing desk for hours at end. He was patience personified and once reproached me privately when I, seated along the wall of his room, started being fidgety over a long monologue that a complainant was treating him to. He explained to me that the burden of a man could be relieved to a very large extent if one were to simply listen to him intently. What a wise man he was! No wonder that scores of people would come to his doorstep just to unburden their worries and go back with spirits elevated.

Jamshed Mehta was a kindly person. He was genuinely concerned about sick people and often saddened when he had to encounter them. He would take time out from his busy schedule to visit the poor in their hovels, make note of their needs in his little note book and subsequently attend to them without the recipient knowing where the medicines or blankets or whatever had come from. All of it obviously came from his own cavernous pocket. He reaffirmed the motto “Parsi, thy name is charity”. He was also a great organizer, excelling in town planning. To him the Karachites in those days, and even today, owe a lot. Much has been written about his accomplishments, so I shall not go into that except to reproduce his own quote which speaks volumes on the subject:

“In fact anything and every thing that inspires, that brings joy, removes sorrow, and makes each one draw towards the other and towards Nature, is the work of a municipality, entrusted with this department of building, engineering, garden, recreation and other sub-departments”

Devoted to the ideals of purity and righteousness, Jemibhai lived the life of a true Zarathushtri [Parsi]. Influenced by the renowned theosophist, Ms Annie Besant, he treated all other religions with equality. To him it just did not matter whether one was a Parsi or a Muslim, Christian, Hindu or whatever; they all commanded equal attention and respect. I have seen him mingle freely with everyone and on those special occasions, he would rejoice with the Muslims at Eid, be with the Hindus lighting divas in their temples on their holy days and march side by side with the Roman Catholic on Saint Patrick’s Day. He would be there at our own community’s jashans and was the first to visit us on our Naoroze. He must have had boundless energy for he would be conducting or attending several meetings each day and yet find time to confer with the needy and visit his family. Such a stressful day, one following the other, with no holiday to speak of, could drive a normal being crazy, but Jemibhai never displayed anger or uttered a brash word. When on his morning visits at our house, he would at times express disappointment at the behaviour of certain workers, but never criticized them.

In his foreword to ‘Jamshed Memorial Volume’, published in 1954, Law Minister Mr Allahbaksh K. Brohi writes: “He gave love to all those who came in contact with him. It came as naturally to him as the air we breathe. Selflessness, disinterested benevolence, devotion to higher graces came naturally to him. He laboured indefatigably all the time he had at his disposal in order that sorrows and sufferings of others be reduced.”

I still wonder how one man could be showered with so many attributes. His was always a smiling face; whenever he was around, I felt, probably imagined, a light encircling him, — a radiance, definitely — an aura, perhaps. Maybe, I had not imagined it.

Yes, no doubt, uncle Jamshed was a remarkable man.