| November 06, 2007 | Tuesday | Shawwal 24, 1428 |
Lahore High Court; an eyewitness account
After the fire
Allama Iqbal’s correct date of birth?
I REACHED the Lahore High Court at 9.15am on Monday and stood in the forecourt, not filled to capacity, listening to the chants of protesters. An hour later, everybody went inside the Karachi Hall where various speakers read out clauses from the Constitution which they said did not allow Gen Musharraf to declare ‘martial law’.
THE nation is going to commemorate Iqbal’s birth anniversary on November 9. But the question is: when was Iqbal born? Was he born on Nov 9, 1877?
THE body of a middle-aged gardener slumped over his fallen twisted bicycle was a scene from last week’s suicide bomb attack in Rawalpindi Cantonment that will be etched in many people’s minds for a long time to come.
The poor fellow was, as the saying goes, in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The scene, shown on the electronic media and also captured in the print media, is a grim reminder of how vulnerable members of the general public are to suicide bomb attacks despite claims and reports that the targets of suicide bombers are “sensitive installations and important government personalities,” especially army officials and other uniformed officials.
Of the seven killed, including three policemen, and 31 injured in last week’s attack near the Army House in Rawalpindi’s high security zone, the majority were general members of the public.
Pakistan may arguably be not the most dangerous country in the world, but security (or rather the lack of it) has definitely become a major concern, no less so in the Islamabad-Rawalpindi vicinity in 2007, with last week’s suicide attack in Rawalpindi Cantonment being the seventh such incident in the twin cities so far this year, the fourth in Islamabad and the third in Rawalpindi.
Although there has been some controversy over whether some of the incidents were suicide attacks or not, this however does not detract from the fact that 2007 (and the year has not even ended yet) has seen the maximum number of bomb blast incidents in the twin cities in any given year, in total killing some 63 people and injuring over 200 others.
Since the first suicide bomb blast hit the twin cities in 2002 after 9/11, there has been one suicide bomb attack in a year in the twin cities up to 2005.
The first terrorist attack occurred in March 2002 when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a church located in the Diplomatic Enclave, killing five persons and injuring 40 others. In December 2003, suicide bombers targeted a convoy of President Gen Musharraf in Rawalpindi Cantonment, killing five people.
The next attack took place in February 2004 when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a mosque in Satellite Town, Rawalpindi, injuring four persons. In May 2005, a suicide bomb attack took place during the Urs ceremony at the Bari Imam Shrine in Islamabad, killing 25 people and injuring 100 others.
There was then a lull in suicide bombing activity in the twin cities in 2006, with no incident in that year, but it suddenly surged to seven incidents (so far) in 2007, four in Islamabad, and three, including last week’s in Rawalpindi Cantonment.
The first two in the beginning of the year were relatively minor attacks as compared to the extent of fatalities and damage in the other five more serious incidents in the later part of the year.
In January 2007 a suicide bomber blew himself up at Marriott Hotel killing a security guard and wounding several others, and in February a suicide bomber was reportedly thwarted at Islamabad International Airport when the police killed him.
In July, two suicide bomb attacks took place in the Capital city, the first targeted a lawyers’ convention in F-8 Markaz in which the chief justice was to address, killing 17 people and wounding over 60 others (although it has been reported that eye witnesses disagree that this was a suicide attack), and the second occurred at Aapbara Market, killing 13 people and wounding over 50 others.
In September two suicide bomb attacks took place on the same day in two different markets in Rawalpindi Cantonment, killing at least 25 people and wounding 70 others, many of whom were uniformed personnel belonging to the army. The latest suicide attack last week in Rawalpindi Cantonment killed seven people and injured 31 others.
Whether suicide attacks or not, given the rising number of such incidents and thus, the increasing number of people who are being injured in such attacks, including both security personnel and the general public, the question inevitably arises: are our hospitals and paramedical services in the twin cities adequately equipped to deal with tens if not hundreds of people at a time with injuries associated with bomb blasts?
It has been five years since the first suicide bomb attack in the twin cities in 2002 but it was not until after the Bari Imam incident in 2005 that serious effort was made to establish the first ever proper burn centre in the twin cities at PIMS, work on which was reported to have been completed only recently in October after several months of delay. The Rs180 million, 20-bed burn centre, reportedly equipped with the latest facilities, awaits inauguration by either the President or the Prime Minister.
In the case of Rawalpindi, it was reported last month after the double suicide bomb blasts in September, that the Punjab government had finally approved the establishment of a Rs170 million burn centre in Holy Family Hospital.
Despite that incidents of terrorist attacks began in 2002, both PIMS and Holy Family Hospital have only been making do with makeshift burn units, with serious burn cases having to be shifted to burn centres either at the Pakistan Ordnance Factories Hospital in Wah Cantonment or the Combined Military Hospital in Kharian for treatment, which was what happened to some patients of the Bari Imam bomb blast.
Given the recent trend of bomb attacks in the country which, whether suicide in nature or not, seem to be far from being a thing of the past, the other public hospitals in the twin cities should also be equipped to deal with blast injuries through the establishment of burn units. Other facilities associated with the treatment of bomb blast injuries in these hospitals ought also to be upgraded.
Justice Fakhurunnisa (retired) of the Lahore High Court was also one of the speakers and relayed a verbal message from the Supreme Court Bar Association’s president, Chaudhry Atizaz Ahsan, to a packed auditorium. “Mr Atizaz Ahsan has appealed to all of us not to give up the fight against dictatorship. He asked me to let you know that people from Khyber to Karachi have hope in the ones wearing the black coat,” said Justice Fakhrunnisa.
An advocate standing close to a window overlooking the forecourt moved the blinds and let them fall back with a smile. “There’s a huge crowd outside. It’s big!” revealed the advocate complacently.
I rushed out to see what he meant by a `huge crowd’. The courtyard was swarming with black coats. Somebody from the crowd came up to me to ask in astonishment what I was doing there. He was a colleague from Dawn, deputed to cover the lawyers’ rally. “What are you doing here? Do you have any idea how heavy the police deployment is outside?” A pang of fear initially gripped me making me say something absurd like as long as they were outside the Lahore High Court I had no fear. How wrong I was would be proved in the next one and half hours of running from one room of the Lahore High Court to another, trying to escape the fearsome form of police.
After an endless wait, the lawyers decided to head towards the front gate of the Lahore High Court. I looked around and saw the undaunted, indomitable expressions of the people in the black coat who’ve had a rough summer and for whom the winter did not look too welcoming. While we were inching towards the gate, I heard Dr Pervez Hasan, the eminent lawyer, tell everybody wearing glasses to remove them. “They will go straight for the head. Please, all those wearing glasses take them off,” his directive produced a fresh wave of fear in my gut. I had already taken off my contact lenses to protect my eyes from tear gas. If I were to remove my glasses I would need a white cane for assistance. I decided to wait and see.
The wait was barely for a few minutes and I found myself following the angry mob of lawyers towards the front gate. I deliberately stopped a few feet away, my heart pounding uncontrollably. Outside, the premises of the Lahore High Court were surrounded by a force so huge that the road encircling the outer wall was invisible. The police stood ready to combat.
The first shell of tear gas was lobbed inside the building and from then onwards it was ‘they’ versus ‘us’.
They charged towards us opening the gate locked from the outside. Sounds of gas shells continued as the people surged backward to escape the police truncheons. In the middle of all this mayhem somebody pulled my hand to put my leaden feet into action. “Run unless you want to be beaten up!” said the person pulling my hand.
We ran. I know not in which direction to end up in an open, narrow alley. It was not the safest place. If the police came we would have no place to run. I ran in the opposite direction and ran into Justice Fakharunnisa pressing the back of her head. The man escorting her told me that she had been beaten. (At the time of writing this piece I was informed that Justice Fakhrunnisa (retired) was later rushed to the Intensive Care Unit of the Mayo Hospital).
I found myself in the small room of the dispensary where 25 to 30 people were huddling to find safety from the operation. As I waited in that small room, I could hear the loud thud of footsteps, sound of window smashing and lawyers shouting directions to each other. Inside, we waited and waited.... “I wish I had a press card,” exclaimed a Lums student.
A press card would indemnify me? I rummaged through the knick knacks in my bag to take out my press card. And just as I was looking at it the door to the small room was first kicked and then smashed by a heavily padded policeman who looked contemptuously at all of us. “You people are not going to give up that easily. Are you?” he shouted.
I had to make my move now. I went to him and not looking into his glowering eyes showed him my press card. “Bibi ko janay do (let the woman go),” he instructed those standing behind him to arrest.
Holding my press card all the way to the front gate I walked till I reached the safety of my father’s office on The Mall. I was told that more than 150 lawyers were arrested out of the 400 gathered there and several were brutally beaten. Yes, we were at war.
IN 2005, France was rocked by rioting that left many of its inner cities burning and brought to the fore questions of identity, immigration, and integration considering the fact that the violence was sparked by the controversial deaths of two inner city youth of immigrant backgrounds, who were being pursued by the police and were subsequently electrocuted.
French scholar Dr Catherine Wihtol de Wenden knows a thing or two about all these touchy subjects as she is a specialist in international migration. Currently the Director of the National Centre for Scientific Research in Paris, she has also served as a consultant to the Council of Europe, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the European Commission.
She was recently in Karachi to present a paper at a conference organised by the KU’s Area Study Centre for Europe and the Goethe-Institut. Titled ‘Muslim populations in France: Actors and objects of political discourse,’ it demonstrated that there are multiple, complex issues at play and that there are no cut and dry solutions to the problems immigrants face in European societies.
When asked what was the primary factor responsible for the 2005 riots, her answer came without a second of hesitation: “Policemen.”
“Many young boys in the inner city are controlled through identity. These (particular) two young men were (apparently) being followed by policemen. They took refuge in a power substation and were electrocuted. It is a tradition in the inner city that when someone is killed, there is very strong solidarity. And so in the suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, where the two boys died, the youth decided to demonstrate their (anger) against the police.
“Also, the media was a major factor. These youth wanted to show their solidarity in front of the TV cameras. It was their day to become heroes. And so (the rioting) spread. But most of the inner cities did not burn. Most of the youth did not take to the streets to burn cars. The complaints were of discrimination and the absence of equal treatment,” she said.
The French ban disallowing the display of “conspicuous religious symbols” inside schools was also seen by many as a discriminatory act that largely singled out Muslim girls and prevented them from wearing headscarves and freely practicing their faith. Though not in favour of the headscarf ban herself, Dr de Wenden presented an interesting viewpoint when asked if the ban was a violation of the principle of free expression.
“We consider that the girls who are wearing the scarves are minors. The argument that was given in the commission which led to the law of 2004 said that these girls are under the (influence) of their parents or of Islamic associations. So they are not free in their judgement. They are influenced by external actors. But we have many girls wearing the scarf in university and there is no debate about that,” she said.
Dr de Wenden was also asked what right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy’s election into the French presidential palace spelt for Muslims and immigrants.
“Sarkozy has made the French council of Muslims, which is a good thing as now there are debates about how to practice Islam in France. But at the same time there is a law on immigration currently being debated in parliament, which is very restrictive to family reunification and asylum rights. This gives a very bad image of France abroad and a bad image of France to French citizens of immigrant origins,” she concluded.
Iqbal’s date of birth has always been a contentious issue among the scholars of Iqbaliat. The date we believe to be his date of birth, that is, Nov 9, 1877, was determined only in 1962. A few scholars, however, still have their doubts about it.
Although different years (1870, 1875, 1876 and 1877) were often quoted as his year of birth during his lifetime, Iqbal used to mention 1876. In 1905, at the time of his admission to Trinity College, Cambridge, he wrote 1876 against the column showing the year of birth. While joining the Lincoln’s Inn later the same year, he mentioned his age as 29 which matched with 1876. In 1931, Iqbal applied for an international passport and mentioned 1876 as his year of birth. Many books and essays published on Iqbal during his lifetime showed 1876 as his year of birth to which he apparently had no objection because he believed it to be correct.
Shortly after Iqbal’s death (April 21, 1938) Inqelab, one of the leading newspapers of Lahore, published his brief biography and quoted in it December 1876 as his month and year of birth. But in the May 7, 1938 issue of Inqelab, a note appeared saying that “Iqbal’s date of birth mentioned in one of the recent issues was based on estimation and now it has been established after research that Iqbal’s correct date of birth is February 22, 1873, and according to Islamic calendar it is ZilHaj 24, 1289.”Inqelab did not mention its source, neither did it give any proof on which the newly-assumed date of birth was based. Some researchers believe that somebody from Sialkot had sent to Inqelab a handwritten copy of Sialkot Municipality’s register of births and deaths with the note that it was the copy of the entry showing Iqbal’s birth as recorded in the Municipality’s register.
In 1955, Abdul Majeed Salik’s book Zikr-i-Iqbal was published by Bazm-i-Iqbal, Lahore. It mentioned February 22, 1873, as Iqbal’s date of birth and, as a result, when Pakistan’s postal department issued a commemorative postage stamp on Iqbal’s 20th death anniversary in 1958, it carried his date of birth as presumed by Inqelab and admitted by Salik. The archaeological department put up signs at Iqbal’s residences in Lahore and Sialkot showing February 22, 1873 as his date of birth. This caught on though many scholars disagreed and kept quoting 1876 as Iqbal’s year of birth.
Faqeer Syed Vaheeduddin, one of Iqbal’s great fans and a scholar of repute, had written and published in 1950 an authentic book on Iqbal titled Rozgar-i-Faqeer. In 1962, while preparing to reprint the book, he discussed the issue of Iqbal’s date of birth with Mumtaz Hasan, who was the president of the Pakistan German Forum. Iqbal had submitted in 1907 a doctoral dissertation to Munich University titled ‘The Development of Metaphysics in Persia’ (later, the university conferred upon him a doctoral degree).
It was decided that the photocopies of Iqbal’s dissertation be obtained and Mumtaz Hasan arranged for the copies. Annexed with it was an introductory note, giving a brief life sketch of Iqbal, as required by the varsity. Though the dissertation had been published earlier without the introduction and scholars here generally did not know it had any such introduction. The important aspect of the intro was that it was written by Iqbal himself.
Iqbal had written in the introduction that he was born on Ziqaad 3, 1294 Hijri (1876), in Sialkot. That should have been enough to satisfy Iqbal scholars but it had small catch. Ziqaad 3, 1294 Hijri does not coincide with 1876. It corresponds to November 9, 1877.
Faqeer Vaheeduddin and other scholars agreed that Iqbal had wrongly assumed that 1294 Hijri would correspond to 1876 and his correct date of birth was Nov 9, 1877. After the publication of Rozgar-i-Faqeer’s second edition in 1963, it was generally accepted as Iqbal’s correct date of birth and Pakistan’s postal department issued two commemorative postage stamps on April 21, 1967, giving 1877 as his year of birth.
In 1971, Khalid Nazeer Sufi, related to Iqbal’s family, published his book Iqbal Daroon-i-Khana and, quoting from Sialkot Municipality’s record, claimed that Iqbal’s correct date of birth was December 29, 1873.
Bazm-i-Iqbal, Lahore, in 1972 constituted a committee to probe the issue. On the committee were renowned scholars like Syed Nazeer Niazi, Prof Muhammad Usman, Justice S.A. Rehman, Dr Waheed Qureshi and others. While the committee was still in session, the government of India announced the formation of a committee, with the then prime minister Indira Gandhi as its head, to celebrate Iqbal’s centennial. This prompted the Pakistan government to declare that Iqbal’s centenary would be celebrated on a grand scale here.
The issue of Iqbal’s correct date of birth, however, was yet to be resolved. To settle the issue, wrote Ejaz Ahmed in his book Mazloom Iqbal, a committee was formed by the government which after deliberations decided in its meeting held on Feb 1, 1974, that the date of birth mentioned by Iqbal himself in his PhD dissertation, that is, November 9, 1877, should be accepted as authentic. An official announcement to the effect was made and it was also announced that the year 1977 was to be celebrated as Iqbal’s centenary year.
At least four scholars, Khalid Nazeer Sufi, Dr Waheed Qureshi, Malik Ram and Dr Akber Haidery Kashmiri, are of the view that it is more probable that Iqbal’s correct date of birth is December 29, 1873. Waheed Qureshi in Nuqoosh’s Iqbal number (vol. 2) and Malik Ram in his book Tehqeeqi Mazameen have discussed the issue in detail.
It is interesting to note that yet another date is inscribed on the Iqbal’s gravestone. According to Faqeer Vaheeduddin and Ejaz Ahmed, the year 1292 Hijri has been inscribed as Iqbal’s year of birth on his tombstone, presented by the government of Afghanistan. This writer does not know whether the tombstone has been replaced or not but this definitely is quite strange as 1292 Hijri coincides neither with 1877 nor with 1873.
It is very difficult, and would be unfair, to decide in favour of any specific date and the debate, in my humble opinion, is still open. But it is lamentable that a decision taken on the basis of political considerations (as the government wanted to score some points) is regarded as authentic.