Advertising’s moving spirit

IN the death of Syed Haseen Hashmi, Pakistan has lost a dynamic institution builder. He single-handedly founded or inspired others to set up several institutions, many of them for public good. Achieving this in a country where institutional rot remains a perennial problem was no small feat. A self-made adman through sheer hard work and dedication to his ideals, Mr S.H. Hashmi was the spirit behind many academic, literary, cultural and social organisations that he saw come to flower in his lifetime.

Few individuals in Pakistan have been the recipient of so many accolades and laurels as Mr Hashmi was able to collect for his efforts in a number of fields, both at the national and international levels. But more than any coveted award, the one prize he collected and cherished for himself was the love and respect he earned among his peers and from a multitude of young professionals, students, journalists and ordinary Pakistanis whose lives he had touched through his benevolence and good counsel.

Mr Hashmi had established Orient Advertising (1953) at a time when the trade was seen as no more than being in the business of paid ‘publicity’. Today, the company is part of a multi-million-dollar global advertising, PR and event management network. He helped put Pakistan on the world business map long before the age of globalisation. He was the first in the country to involve an advertising agency in a political campaign.

Born in 1935 into a family of respected scholars steeped in religious and literary knowledge, he was the son of the late Allama Syed Abdul Qudoos Hashmi of Gaya in Bihar, India. At independence, much of the family migrated to the then eastern and western wings of Pakistan, with Mr Hashmi and his siblings making a permanent though modest home in Karachi. The country of his adoption, he was told, was the place he could call a dreamland, where everyone would have equal opportunity to achieve through hard work whatever he desired without being hindered in any way. He not only made the promise come true for himself, but also set about making it possible for many others to do so. This was his basic philosophy to which he remained true all his life.

Meeting Mr Hashmi was a unique experience. Here was an unassuming, gentle and polite individual who, if you didn’t know who he was, would never as much as reveal his status in society. Well-connected as he was, he never abused that privilege even when faced with adversity. He was a keen and sympathetic listener, and when you sought his advice in trust, he gave it to you in a friendly and unbinding manner.

Mr Hashmi will be remembered and his absence will be felt by the many institutions of which he was among the founding fathers. His death has come at a time when the fate of a number of academic and vocational institutions, especially those set up to impart modern knowledge in Urdu, and skills to the poor, are still at the mercy of apathetic authorities. It was due to his good offices that red tape was often cut to size and things got moving for the benefit of thousands. The National Arts Council of Pakistan, the Central Institute of Arts and Crafts as well as the Urdu University, Karachi, and allied institutions owe many recent developments to his dedicated efforts.

The vacuum he has left behind at the Pakistan Advertising Association and the Marketing Association of Pakistan, too, will be hard to fill. But more than anyone else, he will be missed by his countless beneficiaries, including three million stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh for whose economic uplift and repatriation he worked tirelessly in the tragic aftermath of the 1971 war. His admirers in various fields will continue to feel the loss of his patronage for a long time to come.