THE Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of elite is “the choice part, the best”. Vasim Aon Jafarey was elite. He excelled in every aspect of the multifarious activities that he pursued throughout his rich and productive life, and did so with a combination of charm and modesty that was truly heartwarming.
His brilliant academic achievements commenced with a first class first in Allahabad University and continued until his admission into the Civil Service of Pakistan of which he was in the first 1948 batch. His talent, administration skills, and dedicated, hard work soon brought him to the upper echelons of government administration, particularly in the sectors of finance and economics, where he held some of the most important offices, including governor of the State Bank and finance secretary. He eventually became finance adviser, with the rank of cabinet minister, to president Ghulam Ishaq Khan and toprime minister Benazir Bhutto, in both her administrations.
Vasim combined a brilliant mind with visionary ideas, and was bold and resolute in pursuing and implementing them. But behind the gentle manners and the kindly smile was a will of steel and a fearless, scrupulous honesty in thought and deed. He possessed the rarest of combinations: intellectual brilliance and intellectual honesty.
Vasim Jafarey was a leading member of a cadre of administrators who helped put Pakistan on its feet in the early days of its creation and went on to guide it through its subsequent periods of turbulence, both political and moral. Whilst standards of public integrity were being desecrated by politicians, generals and fellow bureaucrats, Vasim Jafarey maintained his impeccable honesty with a quiet dignity that remained as admirable as it was unassailable.(Yes, dear friend, I can see your soft smile and hear your quiet sardonic chuckle, as you read these lines from heaven, or Valhala, or wherever it is that true heroes go to after their work is done. But it would have covered both of us in embarrassment if I had tried to say it to you when we were around.)
Vasim’s interests were wide and varied, and he was one of the most erudite and well read persons that I have known. His expertise included Urdu as well as English literature, he was a near professional historian as well as an amateur botanist. One of his greatest passions was his long walks in the Margalla Hills in company with that saviour and guardian of the Hills, our mutual friend Roedad Khan.
As Vasim, in his usual tolerant manner, listened to his companion’s righteous tirades on the day’s political issues, he decided that it would be a good idea to designate the wide and beautiful flora of the forest, many of the species which he could recognise and some which he could not. So Vasim, in a rare case of exercise of authority, instructed the Forest Rangers to mark the trees and plants with their correct botanical names.
My personal friendship with Vasim had lasted for some years before I had the great good fortune to be associated with him in a professional manner. In 1968 when I was Pakistan ambassador in Bucharest, I was notified that a delegation, led by secretary, economic affairs, would be visiting Romania and Bulgaria in order to negotiate trade agreements with Pakistan. At Baneasa airport in Bucharest the Romanian officials and I gathered to welcome ‘the Pakistan delegation’, which turned out to be one man, Vasim Jafarey.
Vasim as a master of his subject, had no need of assistants and flunkeys, and believed in saving public funds. He handled the negotiations with a professionalism and skill that profoundly impressed his interlocutors. In both Bucharest and Sofia the venues of the conferences were similar. Large conference rooms, heavy, polished furniture, large green cloth covered tables, and the wall bearing the regulation portraits of stern and grim visaged Marx, Engels and Lenin, plus Nicolai Ceaucescu in Bucharest, Todor Zhivkov in Sofia.
In each case our hosts were in force, eight to 10 burly apparatchiks in dark suits, bearing a pile of files which they kept shuffling throughout the meeting. Vasim and I, seated at the table across this phalanx, must have provided the ‘conference’ with a somewhat imbalanced and incongruous appearance. There was not much scope for negotiations by way of trade and economic affairs between Pakistan and these two communist countries, situated in the Balkans and firmly tethered to the Soviet economy. But Vasim’s persistence somehow managed to find openings, to explore and exploit them, and to leave with the first-ever economic treaties between Pakistan and Romania and Bulgaria respectively.
He later went as ambassador of Pakistan to Bruxelles, where he soon became one of the most admired and respected diplomats accredited to the European Union. On his return to Pakistan Vasim continued his brilliant career, and his significant contribution to the cause of his country, as finance adviser with ministerial rank first to president Ghulam Ishaq and then to prime minister Benazir Bhutto. In his retirement he was struck by a devastating disease which he endured with fortitude.
Vasim was deeply attached to his wife Farida and their daughters. A devoted family man he remained, in this as in all his other relationships, a role model. Farewell, Vasim Jafarey, dearest of friends and staunchest of patriots, man of genius, of courage, of empathy and of dignity. Your like was not seen before and is unlikely to be seen again.
The writer is a former ambassador.