Broken record: Quaid’s visit, an RSS cell, and Dawn under attack

As refugees continued to pour into Pakistan, often surviving unspeakable violence en route, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, in a true display of leadership, met with the frazzled masses, urging them to keep hope alive. This, along with the busting of an RSS cell in Karachi, and a violent mob attack on Dawn’s Delhi press, marked some of the prominent stories from Sept 15 to 21, 1947.

Soothing words

Many among the millions that had crossed over into Pakistan at the time of Independence had literally been through hell. They had witnessed murder, arson and communal frenzy on their way to what was supposed to be the promised land. In such delicate times, leaders are supposed to put aside protocol and mingle with the masses in order to empathise with them. The Quaid did just that, as a news report from the Sept 18 issue shows.

Titled ‘Quaid-i-Azam and sister visit camps of refugees’, it details his visits to three refugee camps and a transit centre. “It was a nerve-wrecking hour that the Quaid-i-Azam and his sister [Ms Fatima Jinnah] spent with the unfortunate victims of Sikh and Hindu communal frenzy in Indian states and the East Punjab. Every refugee to whom they talked had harrowing tales of barbarities and wholesale liquidation of Muslim population to narrate.”

Yet despite the horrors they had witnessed, the spirits of the men and women who came to Pakistan remained high, as they “raised full-throated shouts of Pakistan Zindabad and Quaid-i-Azam Zindabad to cheer themselves”.

It was also a fact that many who had left behind land and wealth in their ancestral towns and villages were reduced to penury after crossing the frontier. “A jagirdar of Alwar State [now in Rajasthan], who once paid a land revenue of Rs12,000 but now was in tatters, related the gruesome murders of the Muslims of the state and how lakhs and lakhs of Mewati Muslims had either to flee for their lives or were butchered. …”

Mr Jinnah was clearly overwhelmed by these accounts of sorrow and savagery, but, in his capacity as governor-general of the dominion, told his people not to lose hope. “The Quaid-i-Azam was visibly moved by their tales of misfortune and asked them to bear the troubles well. The Pakistan State, he said, would do all it possibly could to help them.”

Today’s rulers could do much to learn from the empathy and leadership qualities the founder and maker of this nation displayed.

The Balochistan question

Today, Balochistan is wracked by separatist violence and under-development. The sad truth is that over the past many decades, the province has witnessed many insurgencies, with the rulers unable to progressively resolve its issues, and bring permanent peace to Balochistan.

At the time of Independence, Baluchistan, as it was then known, was not one singular entity. In fact, it was divided into so-called British Baluchistan, and four princely states. The latter joined Pakistan in 1948. But early on, there were demands for representative rule, and affiliation with Pakistan.

Qazi Mohammad Isa, president of the Baluchistan Provincial Muslim League, was in Karachi to apprise the Quaid and Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan of the demand that “Baluchistan should be made a full-fledged province with a Government responsible to its people.”

According to Qazi sahib, the people of the province were eager to join Pakistan. “When his attention was drawn to the question whether Quetta will have to be made over to Kalat State [which had not yet joined Pakistan], he said that the question did not arise at all. The Baluchis wanted to remain in Pakistan, and nothing could be done against the wishes of the people.”

The Sangh in Sind

The Sangh Parivar — as the stable of far-right Hindu organisations in India are known — has made life for Muslims, Christians and other minority communities in that country very difficult. While the ruling BJP is the political arm of the Sangh, its ideological fountainhead is the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Once upon a time, the Sangh was active in what is now Pakistan, and in fact, as the Sept 17 edition shows, an RSS cell in Karachi was busted for apparent involvement in terrorist activities.

‘Sevak Sangh plot for revolution in Pakistan’, the headline read, with the subheadings noting that “thirty terrorist leaders arrested: large quantity of explosives confiscated”. The story went on to say that during house-to-house searches, “sufficient documentary and material proof is believed to have fallen into the hands of the authorities to prove the existence of a widespread underground organisation of the Sangh for disruptive work.”

Though the authorities were on the trail of the Sangh extremists for some time, “the chance explosion of a bomb in the house of Rai Bahadur Tota Ram in the Shikarpuri Colony, Karachi [which is located not too far from where the Quaid’s mausoleum now stands] on Sept 10, unexpectedly unravelled the machinations of the Sangh organisation.”

Though the RSS leaders and cadres eventually left for India, they were soon replaced by extremists ‘of our own’.

Dawn under siege

It has always been an uphill struggle for the media to speak the truth in Pakistan. But these curbs, attacks and violent episodes are not new; in fact they go back to the time of Partition. As mentioned in the Sept 16 issue, the Dawn Delhi Press came under attack on Sept 14.

As Dawn was considered the voice of the Muslim League, and therefore the voice of the subcontinent’s Muslims, it was an easy target for extremists who opposed Pakistan and the Quaid’s grand old party. The news report, quoting the BBC, said that the attack was a “two-hour gun battle of the Dawn press and the military.”

The staff at Dawn Delhi sent the following communication to their colleagues in Dawn Karachi: “We have been in the midst of it since Sunday [Sept 10]. Day and night, death and destruction have been peeping round the corner and we have been at the citadel. … Hell was let loose and we were cut off from the world.”

From those harrowing days to the present, the struggle to speak the truth continues.

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With the advantage of hindsight, one has the opportunity to study the historical cycles in a nation’s life. Thanks to this newspaper’s unique, extensive archive of back issues, one can examine the major political, economic and social trends that have shaped Pakistan and the world over the last seven decades and counting. Cliched as it may sound, history repeats itself, and we — as a state and as a polity — largely refuse to learn from it.

Through this platform, we will look back at the ‘big’ stories that made it to the front pages of Dawn, as well as significant developments tucked away in the inside pages, from the birth of Pakistan onwards, and try to put them in perspective. We will study the critical issues of the week, starting from Aug 14, 1947 and examine the major themes and issues that made it to the paper.