August 3, 2003

Dr Muhammad Reza Kazimi recalls Pakistan’s first prime minister’s role in the country’s politics

THE image of Liaquat as being intellectually negligible had been projected in the highest political circles of Pakistan. When Jamiluddin Ahmed showed Sir Feroz Khan Noon, then Governor of East Pakistan, an Aligarh College Calendar of 1911, which recorded that Liaquat was at the head of his class and he had secured a double promotion, Noon ‘was obviously pleased and jocularly remarked that I should preserve the calendar to give the lie to any one who said that he [Liaquat Ali Khan] was a dud’.

This sort of assumption made the round only after Liaquat had disbanded his Democratic Party to become Secretary of the All-India Muslim League. During his term as member and deputy president of the UP Legislative Council it was his mental acumen, which was the subject of comment, especially with regard to intricate financial issues. Both the Viceroys in whose Council Liaquat served as Finance Member have attested to his ability — even Mountbatten, despite his hostility to Liaquat Ali Khan.

Yet it was this very faculty in Liaquat Ali Khan which was chosen for controversion by Abul Kalam Azad. It was Azad who first depicted Liaquat as being inept in financial matters and completely reliant on his subordinates

As for his dynamism, it may have been his bald and portly figure which created the impression that he was slow. But there is nothing in his political career to suggest that he was less dynamic than Suhrawardy. It was Liaquat Ali Khan’s magnetism, which attracted crowds. He also undertook hectic tours for organizational work or campaigning. The all India tour in 1940, the south India one in 1945 and the north India tour in 1945-46 exemplify the expression ‘reserves of strength’ used for him by K.P.S. Menon. This applies also to Liaquat’s role as member of the Interim Government, where he had to engage in a veritable war of attrition, at first with the Congress alone, thereafter with the last Viceroy as well.

Liaquat’s task in the Interim Government was three-fold. He had to steer the course of the Muslim League through the 1935 Act though he was buffeted and ravaged by the Muslim League’s July 29, 1947 Bombay resolution. At first his ability and sincerity earned him the confidence of Lord Wavell but after his recall Liaquat had to contend with Lord Mountbatten who was not only ill-disposed towards him but also scornful of the existing constitution.

Liaquat’s budget of 1947 was a triumph of Indian nationalism over British interests, but vested interests gave it a communal colour. Liaquat’s proposal hit the Hindu capitalist more than the Muslim capitalist, but it was so for the simple reason that the former by far outnumbered the latter. It was conveniently forgotten that it benefited the Hindu poor more than the Muslim poor for exactly the same reason. The Congress was divided into the socialist and capitalistic blocs and Jawaharlal Nehru who led the socialist bloc, prevaricated publicly before he joined the attack on Liaquat’s proposal. The budget may have frustrated Sardar Patel into opting for Partition as Azad asserts, but the Viceroy had taken every precaution to prevent any subterfuge and Liaquat had been able to carry his Congress colleagues with him in all the meetings preliminary to the Budget speech. This would have been impossible unless the proposals were economically sound.

The unjustified din and clamour surrounding Liaquat’s budget did, however, strengthen his resolve to accelerate the process of partition. This he did mainly by incessant demands to divide the armed forces. Lord Ismay, Sardar Baldev Singh, Sir Claude Auchinleck were all arrayed against him, but since their objections were politically motivated, Liaquat was able to meet them on his own ground and defeat them. The division of the armed forces was Liaquat’s crowning achievement. It was not merely that without an army of its own Pakistan’s sovereignty would be undermined, the spectre of a coup d’etat — the seizure of power by the army — had come to haunt the prospect of any political solution at all. This achievement has been conceded by his antagonists more than it has been acknowledged by his compatriots.

Liaquat’s opponents smarted under his thrusts because he was able to humiliate them. The concept of common defence and the responsibility of maintaining law and order were the grounds on which Mountbatten had perfunctorily dealt with Liaquat’s demand for dividing the army. Shortly after partition, it were the British and Indian authorities who were demanding the closure of the Supreme Commander’s Headquarters. Mountbatten advanced the argument that ‘whereas in Karachi there have been very few incidents, in Delhi there has been almost complete dislocation. The atmosphere in Delhi is far more highly charged than in Karachi, and made it very difficult for the Supreme Commander’s Headquarters to function’.

Liaquat’s retort was to suggest the transfer of the HQ to Karachi instead of closing it down. He came down heavily on Mountbatten by saying that he could have appreciated the Indian Governor General’s contention if the personnel had been Hindu, Muslim or Sikh. He could not understand how the riots would hamper British personnel in Delhi.

The only sphere in which Liaquat can be deemed to have failed is in securing an equitable partition of the provinces. This was despite his best efforts. All the official records in the Transfer of Power and the Partition of the Punjab papers as well as the memoirs of Lord Ismay depict Liaquat Ali Khan as being fully alive and alert to the possibility of an unjust award. His timely warning to Ismay, however, could not stem the tide of perfidy.

Christopher Beaumont’s recent statement that Radcliffe altered the Boundary Awards under pressure from Mountbatten is only a belated confirmation of Arthur Henderson’s evidence at the time of the 1948 Kashmir debate in the UN Security Council. It is only a partial confession. Beaumont’s disclosure may be startling to some gullible champions of Mountbatten’s integrity.

Larry Collins, Dominique Lapierre, H.V. Hodson and even Leonard Mosley, who is critical of the last Viceroy on every other issue, attest to his rectitude in connection with the Boundary Awards. Beaumont in his statement spoke of the ‘grave discredit’ to Radcliffe and Mountbatten their conspiracy had earned for them. Correspondingly, credit accrues to Liaquat Ali Khan for having salvaged from the grasp of an unscrupulous and dishonourable Viceroy a barely viable structure for the new state of Pakistan.

With Liaquat’s assumption of office began the last and most arduous phase of his life. Liaquat was eventually able to solve all the difficulties that beset Pakistan at Partition. To stem the tide of refugees he went to Amritsar on August 30 trying with the help of Sardar Swaran Singh to stem the violence. A central government structure was established at Karachi after much wrangling with the government of Sindh. The withholding of assets by India was partly remedied.

What would not go away was the Kashmir problem. It required all his efforts to solve it and it was here that they proved of no avail. Jawaharlal Nehru feigned illness as is now conceded, to stay away from the November 1, 1947 meeting, Liaquat attended it in spite of a thrombosis. The Kashmir problem also brought about a personal tragedy for Liaquat.

The options of a bulk Indian withdrawal instead of complete withdrawal in Kashmir, the reference to the UN or Sardar Patel’s offer to exchange Kashmir for Hyderabad, created a gulf between Liaquat and his mentor. Patel’s offer was open till December 22. On Christmas Eve, Liaquat hosted a birthday party for the Quaid-i-Azam at the end of which some unpleasantness took place. A question of formal precedence between Miss Fatima Jinnah and Begum Ra’ana Liaquat took place during which Jinnah personally upbraided Liaquat’s wife. On December 27, 1947, the prime minister sent in his resignation to the governor-general, Jinnah did not accept his resignation but on December 30 a notification was issued to the effect that the cabinet had decided that no question of policy or principle would be decided except at a meeting of the cabinet presided over by the governor-general. This convention was personal to Jinnah until Pakistan’s constitution came into force. The Quaid-i-Azam had already been presiding over cabinet meetings since Independence. We have referred to Jinnah’s Notebook entry whereby Liaquat had agreed to defer any commitment on Kashmir to Jinnah a month earlier (November 30). So the December 30 notification was tied in not only to the issue of Kashmir, but also to Liaquat’s resignation. It would have been preferable for Liaquat to have his resignation accepted than be faced with a stripping of his powers.

In 1936, Jinnah had accepted Liaquat’s resignation but maintained a link. In 1947, Jinnah rejected his resignation but their ties had snapped. In the atmosphere of mistrust that was created there is no reason to doubt — or edit — the Quaid-i-Azam’s suspicion that his prime minister had not come to Ziarat to enquire after his health but to see how long he would last. Yet there is also no ground to believe that Liaquat had lost any affection for his leader. His tributes to Jinnah were not confined to ceremonial occasions.

In the realm of foreign affairs Liaquat Ali Khan still suffers the obloquy for having alienated the Soviet Union by manipulating its invitation to go to the United States instead. Even after his return from the United States he told a reporter on January 22, 1951 that if he succeeded in obtaining Moscow’s blessing Liaquat would have no compunction about looking to it for a solution to the Kashmir problem.

In internal politics his triumphs were indistinguishable from failure. His efforts to achieve economic independence took its toll in institution building. Liaquat distributed the powers of his own office, but could not achieve decentralization when so much effort had gone into building a centre. These failures were not apparent then because Liaquat’s personality cast them into the shade. He refused to send any special car to the border to fetch his mother and brothers saying that they would have to come like other refugees. He filed no claim for his Indian property. Gul-i-Ra’ana, where so many momentous meetings of the All-India Muslim League Council were held and which was gifted to the new nation. This palatial building even now serves as Pakistan’s High Commission in India.

Liaquat did not lose his popularity with the masses but created a strong nucleus of opposition among his peers. The Rawalpindi conspiracy in which this was manifested need not detain us here as Hasan Zaheer has covered it threadbare. Liaquat’s assassination remains a mystery. Suspicions have been voiced most amazingly, by the famous author on Pakistan affairs, Dr Safdar Mahmood, who pointed his finger inexorably at Ghulam Mohammad who became Governor-General on Liaquat’s demise and Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani. He says that during his investigations he discarded all ethnic consideration which were to raise their head after Liaquat. However all the evidence he cites is circumstantial.

Mahmud Chaudhri, later, IG Police, was posted at Khulna, East Bengal, when Liaquat was assassinated. Recalling that India had attacked Hyderabad on the Quaid-i-Azam’s death he feared that East Bengal would be the next target. He visited the most remote outposts carrying the tragic news to the guards. ‘I remember that on every post, the soldiers cried’ ... These were the lowest members of the Bengali police who had never even seen Liaquat Ali Khan. Liaquat’s assassin Said Akbar was killed on the spot. No one seriously considers him the author of the conspiracy. When the bullets struck Liaquat, he prayed with his dying breath, ‘God protect Pakistan’. On October 16, 2001, Liaquat Ali Khan’s fiftieth death anniversary passed without official commemoration in Pakistan.

 

Excerpted with permission from

Liaquat Ali Khan: His Life and Work

By Muhammad Reza Kazimi

Oxford University Press, Plot # 38, Sector 15, Korangi Industrial Area, Karachi

Tel: 111-693-673

Email: ouppak@theoffice.net  Website: www.oup.com.pk

ISBN 0-19-579788-4

354pp. Rs595

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