The Begum

by Deepa Agarwal

  Their personal relations were such that Jinnah and his sister Fatima would often join them in the evening for a game of cards in their Delhi residence, Gul-i-Ra’ana. Once, at the end of a game, Liaquat asked his leader and friend about his probable loneliness and the need for him to get married again. Jinnah smiled at Ra’ana and said, ‘Yes, I might have married again if I had found another Ra’ana.’ That was the kind of admiration he had for her.5

  It is also a well-known fact that during their honeymoon to UK in July 1933, they had contacted and visited Jinnah at his Hampstead residence and at this meeting had requested him to return to India. Recalling this meeting to Hector Bolitho in a personal interview, Ra’ana observed, ‘After dinner Liaquat repeated his plea to Mr Jinnah that the Muslims needed him. I too had hero worshipped Mr Jinnah for a long time. I chirped in and said, “I’ll make the women work for you and will bring them back to the fold.”’ At the end he said to both of them, ‘You go back and survey the situation . . . I trust your judgment, if you say come back, I’ll give up my life here and return.’6

  In the last decades of his life, since he remained a bachelor, Jinnah had the constant companionship of his sister, Fatima Jinnah. She had resigned from her work as a dentist in Bombay. This enabled her to travel to England and to remain by his side when he decided to set up both his home and law practice in London.

  By the time the creation of Pakistan took place, his health had begun failing, and he came to Karachi as a frail and ailing man. Fatima remained by his side like a shadow and became somewhat overprotective and possessive. This tendency tragically led to attempts on her part to guard him from all those people with whom he had enjoyed close relationships. This also included Liaquat Ali and Ra’ana. On one occasion, Fatima complained to her brother about what she felt was the inconsiderate attitude shown to her by Ra’ana. He in turn saw it necessary to tick her off. The resulting rift grew enough for Liaquat Ali Khan to contemplate his resignation, which he offered to Jinnah in a strongly worded letter.

  The biographer Hector Bolitho had been commissioned to write Jinnah’s story by Liaquat Ali himself, but he was neither able to meet nor interview Jinnah. The opportunity to interview Liaquat Ali also never arose. He was able to come to Karachi only after both Jinnah and Liaquat had sadly passed away. During this visit, he met Ra’ana. She warmly welcomed him and gave him all the support and cooperation he needed. Hector, in his biography published in 1954, made no mention of any rift between Jinnah and Liaquat Ali. In fact, he quoted Ra’ana as saying, ‘The first time I saw Jinnah he captured my heart. He gave the impression of being haughty and conceited, but once you came to know him he was deeply human.’7

  It therefore appears that the above-mentioned incident had been kept away from the public and brought to light much later by Roger D. Long in a compilation of essays by Mohammad Reza Kazimi titled M.A. Jinnah: Views and Reviews published in 2005. At the time he was in Pakistan and was a tutor at the Chief’s College (actually a school) for boys. He is currently teaching at Eastern Michigan University and has been working on a biography of Liaquat Ali Khan. He was invited as a guest speaker at the Karachi Literature Festival in 2017. He also hosted a panel in which he engaged Akber Liaquat in a discussion on Liaquat Ali Khan and his political legacy. I got the opportunity to meet him and sought a tacit verbal approval to quote the said text. He seemed happy and readily agreed and requested me to formally approach the publishers of the book. He was able to reproduce the full text of the letter of resignation as well as a memorandum on the incident penned by Kay Miles in his essay titled ‘Jinnah and His Right Hand: Liaquat Ali Khan.’8, 9

  As would be expected, Jinnah was very upset on receiving this letter. He refused to consider the resignation as he had always held his relationship with Liaquat Ali Khan as not just a political partnership but as a strong bond of personal friendship. Liaquat Ali reiterated that under the cloud of unjust aspersions being cast on his wife, he was unable to continue in office. After much discussion, Jinnah requested Liaquat to promise that any misunderstanding between Fatima and Ra’ana should never be allowed to become a cause for any rift between them. He also explained and in fact stressed that he had actually spoken as a father would, due to his affection for Ra’ana. So luckily for both of them and at that time for the country the matter was set aside and resolved amicably. Whether these rather obscure and sad incidents caused any discomfiture after the sudden change in her circumstances will remain unknown except to the few who were close to her.

  Within days of the tragic demise of her husband, Begum Ra’ana in her usual quiet and dignified manner decided to move out of 10 Victoria Road, their official residence, along with her two young sons and Kay Miles. She carried with her only a couple of suitcases and Liaquat Ali’s personal effects which included his books and the collection of cigarette lighters. Their very close family friend Ambassador Jamsheed Marker, came forward at this time and offered a blank cheque to Ra’ana and said that he was fully aware of his friend Liaquat Ali’s real financial situation and also knew that being a proud woman she would not ask for anyone’s help.

  3

  Ra’ana Liaquat Ali Khan’s Professional Life: The Philanthropist

  During the initial years after the creation of Pakistan, Ra’ana had managed to build a viable workforce of trained and employable men and women. However, she soon realized that the setting up of one industrial home for workers or one artisans’ residential colony was not sufficient to tackle the problems of rampant poverty and unemployment. Along with her team of dedicated volunteers, Ra’ana started to envisage and plan the setting up of a national-level organization which would replicate their efforts throughout the country.

  The first ever meeting of this institution, All Pakistan Women’s Association (APWA), was held in August 1949 at her official residence in Karachi. The inspiration for the creation of a national-level organization like APWA had come from the neighbouring countries of India and China which had well-established national-level women’s organizations. Begum Jahanara Shahnawaz also advised her to follow the pattern of the All India Women’s Conference for the creation of APWA. Later, Ra’ana requested Begum Jahanara to frame the constitution of the Association, and appointed her as the senior vice president while she herself became its founder president. She held this position till the very end.

  The stated primary aim of APWA was the enhancement of women’s social, educational, political and cultural status in society. It was hoped that APWA would become the representative body for the women of Pakistan internationally too. APWA was also officially recognized as an NGO and was granted consultative status by the UN Economic and Social Council.

  She organized a national-level meeting and invited women’s groups from different parts of the country, representing both rural and urban areas. The women of Pakistan had gathered together on a single platform and Ra’ana said at this event, ‘We have associated ourselves together to fight the evils of ignorance, poverty and disease, so that the land which belongs to all of us and our children may become a happier, healthier and better place.’1 Mehr N. Masroor, a close associate who also served as the editor of the APWA newsletter, describes in her biography: ‘APWA began as an organization for all women of Pakistan and it has consistently displayed, by its membership and its office bearers, how all communities have been fully represented by it . . . APWA has been like a tapestry, the pieces and strands being derived from a thousand sources.’2 In 1950, the constitution of the organization was formally approved and a governing council was established.

  At the time of founding of APWA, the following comments were made by F.D. Douglas, one of its few leading male volunteers, ‘It was her ability to organize an effective national committee for APWA which was displayed in her choice of members, which included many women of distinction from the minority communities . . . as a trained economist and a sociologist she always emphasized the danger to the country in ostentatious living in the midst of wretched poverty. She had pers
onally suffered tragic bereavement when her husband was assassinated, but the spirit of Begum Liaquat Ali Khan remained undaunted and her soul unconquered by grief. By her courageous response to the supreme challenges she earned for herself a niche not only in Pakistan and Asia but in world history.’3

  Ra’ana’s contribution towards the emancipation of Pakistani women will be remembered as a lasting and irreplaceable legacy. She played a decisive role in securing fixed allocation of special women’s seats in the Constituent Assembly in 1956. Liaquat Ali, as the prime minister, had already granted representative seats to women and it was now up to the women not to lose this privilege but to further augment it. In the first Constituent Assembly of 1950, there had been two female representatives, Begum Jahanara Shahnawaz from the western wing and Begum Shaista Ikramullah from the eastern wing.

  The suffrage history of the subcontinent in itself was a fairly recent phenomenon. After several years of struggle, the Government of India Act 1935 had provided special reserved seats for women. The demand had been for 10 per cent of the total seats but only 3 per cent allocation had been granted and representation of women had been accepted in principle for the first time. Now for the first time in Pakistan’s first constitution of 1956, a special provision of ten reserved seats, five from each wing, was formally granted. This was the result of the struggle and untiring efforts of the members of APWA. During the elections of 1970, APWA once again made a call for increasing the number of reserved seats for women and also stressed the need to encourage women to contest for open general seats. Today, women have managed to secure 17 per cent of the reserved representation in the lower house of the Parliament.

  In 1961, the APWA members, under the leadership of Begum Ra’ana, helped to engineer a crucial change in the Islamic marriage law by drafting important clauses and introducing the newly formulated Muslim Family Laws Ordinance. This was to have a far-reaching impact on the hitherto repressive, male-centric interpretation of the Islamic marriage laws.

  On 2 March 1961, the then President Field Marshal Ayub Khan of the Republic of Pakistan signed and passed the following amended family laws through an ordinance under which:

  Unmitigated polygamy was abolished.

  Consent of the present wife was made mandatory for contracting the second marriage.

  Practice of instant divorce where a man could divorce his wife by repeating ‘I divorce you’ three times as per Islamic tradition was brought to a halt.

  Arbitration councils were set up in rural and urban areas at the level of the union council (lowest tier of local government) which were to (a) grant sanction to anyone seeking a second marriage after ascertaining that proper procedure was followed (b) to attempt to bring reconciliation of the marriage dispute over a mandatory period of three months (c) ensure the granting and payment of maintenance allowance to the wife and the children staying with the mother.

  In the following year, APWA decided to conduct surveys on the efficacy of the Family Laws Ordinance and these pointed to the lacunae in the implementation of the ordinance. APWA put forward the recommendation for setting up of special family law courts and hence managed to secure the Family Law Courts Act in 1964.

  APWA’s expansion during its first few years was phenomenal. By 1951 it already had a well-oiled tiered system with branches extending out from the provincial level into all its adjoining rural areas. Industrial work centres were established in all major cities and smaller towns. Sales outlets were also set up for display and sale of products coming out of the industrial homes.

  Ra’ana’s greatest desire still remained the education for women and to create an adequate infrastructure for this purpose. She first helped set up the Ra’ana Liaquat Ali Khan College of Domestic or Home Economics in Karachi and later the APWA Home Economics College in Lahore. She had secured a substantial funding from the Ford Foundation for these institutions. Eleanor Roosevelt, a great social worker and the former first lady of America, was invited to Pakistan to lay the foundation stone of the college. The third such college was set up in Dacca a few years later.

  After the inauguration of these colleges, Ra’ana decided to travel to Peshawar to inaugurate the Frontier College for Women.4 Till then, there had been no degree-level facilities for women in this province. During the same time, in October 1950, Liaquat Ali Khan travelled to Peshawar to inaugurate the first postgraduate university for men. They both then paid a visit to the princely state of Swat where they enjoyed the warm hospitality of the Wali of Swat, Miangul Jahanzeb, who had been enthroned just a year before.

  Her friend, Begum Jahanara Shahnawaz, in her autobiography describes how Ra’ana was nervous and unsure about the dress etiquette in the conservative North Western province where the women were still widely shielded from public eye. She asked her if she would need to wear a burqa. Begum Shahnawaz in turn described her own experience of having visited Peshawar without wearing a burqa and how she had actually received the most courteous treatment from the host community of Pukhtoons. Ra’ana was to experience the same hospitality in both Peshawar and Swat.

  At the same time, in the very first decade, APWA programmes and activities expanded by leaps and bounds. It set up a school for girls, an adult literacy centre and the Quetta Industrial Home in Baluchistan, one of the most under-developed provinces. By 1956 APWA also launched a large-scale adult literacy programme which focused mainly on rural women and smaller towns. By the end of this decade, nearly twenty industrial homes were established in all major cities. There were over sixty-five primary and secondary schools spread throughout the country, including ten in East Pakistan. These were all looked after by dedicated volunteers who also ran Mother and Child Health (MCH) centres and primary healthcare centres. At the end of this decade APWA was able to lay the foundation stone of its national headquarters at Karachi. This was formally inaugurated in 1964, and the organization functions from the same premises even today.

  Several overseas branches in countries such as Canada, North America and UK were opened under its aegis. They were able to sponsor hundreds of deserving students for advanced studies under the Maple Scholarship programme of the Government of Canada. APWA also secured the UNESCO Adult Literacy Prize in 1974 for the success of its countrywide adult literacy programme. At the governmental and administrative level, APWA proved to be the harbinger of the establishment of a special women’s division under the Ministry of Social Welfare to look after all affairs pertaining to women. Later under the government of Benazir Bhutto in 1988, it became an expanded and fully fledged Women’s Affairs Ministry.

  It was the first and still the country’s largest women’s rights organization that has since served as an optimum and model catalyst for all other women’s rights groups. Ra’ana is not called the pioneer and the very ‘first feminist’ of the country without good reason. She had taken the first step in lending her voice to protest all forms of gender injustices and discrimination. She also gave full support to the setting up of the Women’s Action Forum, a platform which lent a voice to women activists struggling against the repression of the Zia-ul-Haq government. Throughout her working life, she continued this struggle for active participation of women in the political, administrative and economic arenas and many of her dreams were realized in her lifetime. She had always held dearly the following vision of an ideal Pakistani woman: ‘I believe very sincerely that women should take active interest and part in public life, but within the sphere of their own specific interests, capabilities and limitations and not to the detriment of their homes and families or their own intrinsic strength and finer qualities as women.’5

  She continued to work full steam for all such causes even while she was serving abroad. She helped to set up the Pakistan National Council for Youth. This council had formal affiliation with the World Assembly of Youth. This was followed by the creation of Karachi University Women’s Association as well as the Business and Professional Women’s Club, both of which are fully functioning even today. The latter has b
ranches in all major cities of the country which now function as autonomous bodies.

  Among her most memorable addresses was the one she gave at the first convocation of Karachi University in 1954. Her often quoted line was, ‘When you educate a boy you educate an individual but when you educate a girl you educate a whole family.’ The period from 1954 to 1963 was the only time when she was not able to focus her complete attention on the functions of APWA and the philanthropic work dearest to her heart as she had been nominated to serve as the ambassador first to the Netherlands and later to Italy. As soon as she returned home from her assignments, she resumed her work at the same pace as before. Her commitment to APWA and to the women of Pakistan was to remain unwavering.

  It will be befitting to close this section with an excerpt from an address she read out at the UN while receiving an award for human rights in December 1978: ‘APWA will continue to struggle through the next decade and the next, until one day the Pakistani woman shall emerge from all her shackles—economic, social and political—and face a future over which no shadows appear to obstruct her path towards her maximum development.’

  4

  Diplomatic Career and Political Life: 1954–77

  During the few years that Liaquat Ali Khan and Ra’ana spent as the first couple, they toured many parts of the country together. They travelled extensively through the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan and also made an eventful trip to Swat at the personal invitation of the ruler, the Wali of the state.