The Begum

by Deepa Agarwal

  They made their first international visit to the US in May 1950 on the invitation of President Harry Truman.

  For most small or newly liberated countries in Asia and Africa, it seemed a given imperative to ally with one camp or the other of the two superpowers if they wanted to ensure economic and political survival. Liaquat Ali Khan was in favour of visiting both USSR and USA. Reportedly, the Soviet government under Stalin had invited him to Moscow in 1950, but the proposed dates fell at the same time as the Independence Day celebrations of Pakistan and upon request for fresh dates the latter had not been forthcoming.

  So with little or no choice in the matter, he embarked on his first official tour abroad to the US. Begum Ra’ana, who accompanied him, was given her first opportunity to display her intellectual and diplomatic prowess on foreign soil. She was a complete hit with the hosts as well as the foreign media covering their visit. Her inclusion in the delegation went a long way in softening the overall perception and stance towards Pakistan and, particularly, towards the women of Pakistan.

  During her visit, she addressed many formal as well as informal gatherings where she elaborated the role that Pakistani women had adopted during the first three years of the country’s formation. She stressed upon the proactive approach taken by the leadership including herself, that inspired the women to take up new challenges and broaden their horizons to face the future. A lesser-known and now almost obscure report written by Sarat C.V. Narasimham titled ‘Liaquats in America’, which was published in July 1950 by Madina Press in Karachi, furnishes many details and anecdotes of this historical tour. He writes, ‘Begum Ra’ana Liaquat Ali Khan with her high modern education, her intense and truly religious life must have had a telling effect on the American women . . . and they must have been pleasantly surprised by the wide awake, well-informed wife of the Pakistani Prime Minister. Her tour has not only proved of great educative value to American women, but will prove of equal value for our nation as she returns from America. The detailed study she has made of the vast humanitarian and social services of that country will enable her to infuse some of the spirit of service in the women of this country.’1

  She also visited Canada during her 1950 visit to the US and delivered a public address which was widely broadcast on the radio. Sarat Narasimham quoted her words and views in this broadcast in his report: ‘People in Pakistan were determined to follow the Islamic way of a balanced life—a belief in God, in the brotherhood of man and in social justice.’ She went on to say, ‘The greatest satisfaction and deepest contentment that a human being is capable of comes through the proper balancing of his life between the temporal and the spiritual . . . if our people succeed in creating such a society . . . perhaps they will succeed in removing a great deal of confusion that has vitiated the political thought of today.’2

  During one of her speeches to the faculty and students of a girls’ college in Maryland, she was asked what is meant by social and economic justice. Her answer was, ‘While every individual should be free to earn his livelihood as he pleases and receive the due rewards for his toil, there should be no undue accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few. Islam frowns upon accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few, as that tends in the long run to the exploitation of one group by another.’3

  During her short visit to the US, several awards and distinctions were conferred on her such as the Jane Adam Medal and the Women of Achievement Medal. She was also awarded the Honorary Citizenship of Texas and the Honorary Membership of the Negro Women’s Association. She was also declared the ‘Mother of Pakistan’ in 1950 while she was still in the US and presented with a citation and medal on her return home.

  She would continue to win acclaim and recognition through many such awards, both at home and abroad. In 1952 she had the opportunity to visit the US once again. She went there as a member of the Pakistan delegation to attend the UN 7th General Assembly. By this time, she was already a widow, after the tragic and unfortunate death of her husband in October 1951. She once again successfully projected her views and established her image as a modern, forward-looking and emancipated Pakistani woman.

  She made many new friends and won admirers during this prolonged sojourn in New York. She was given the title ‘A Dynamo in Silk’ by one of her admirers, which was later adopted by Kay ‘Billy’ Miles as the name for a short biography she had decided to pen to chronicle her friend’s life as she knew it. This biographical account covered her early years, from her time as a college student in India, right up to her stint as Pakistan’s ambassador to Italy which ended in 1963.

  During this period, she was also grappling with her own personal struggle as a single mother who was now fully responsible for the future of her sons. This problem was further compounded due to a paucity of funds needed to finance their education abroad. Fortunately, the government came to her rescue and decided to appoint her as the Pakistani envoy to the Netherlands.

  In June 1953, she was invited to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in London. According to Kay Miles, she was the only female royal guest to be invited from a Muslim country or in fact from any of the Commonwealth countries. She decided to take both her sons with her and this trip gave her the much needed opportunity to look at the appropriate educational institutions for them in England. By the time she joined her diplomatic assignment in the Netherlands in 1954 she had already completed their admission formalities and they were able to join their respective institutions.

  The government also decided to assign a monthly grant of £50 a month to both her sons up until the time they reached the age of twenty-one. Her younger son, Akber Liaquat Ali Khan, during an interview with me in Karachi, recounted how this amount was barely sufficient to cover their monthly school fees. His elder brother, Ashraf, had to join evening classes at Rugby College in order to take up a paid job during the day. The income he received was able to cover some of their additional monthly expenses. Their mother also contributed from her own meagre government income to meet their travel expenses to visit her in Holland during their vacations.

  Soon after the death of her husband, the Government of Pakistan also fixed a monthly grant of Rs 2000 to be paid to her for life. This amount was barely sufficient to meet her domestic expenses or to pay for her children’s education abroad. She had initially been reluctant to accept a diplomatic assignment as it meant that she would have to leave Karachi, and her projects and her friends, in order to move to Europe. However, after much deliberation and close consideration of her financial situation, she decided that it was in her best interest to move abroad.

  One of the young diplomats, Birjees Hassan, who had been posted under her in the Netherlands in the mid-1950s underscored this decision of hers when he paid tribute to her on the occasion of her first birth centenary in Karachi: ‘In accepting the offer of ambassadorship to the Netherlands, she not only became the bread-earner of the family but opened a new chapter in the service of her country.’4 He also spoke of the times when they would travel by car all over the country and how after the day’s hectic schedule he would fall asleep in the car but Begum Ra’ana remained perennially fresh.

  The Netherlands was probably the most suitable and appropriate choice for a posting. It was close to England which meant her sons could easily visit her during school breaks.

  The Netherlands at that time was ruled by Queen Juliana who later became very close friends with Ra’ana. For her, the new challenge as an envoy to another country was a fairly easy one as she had travelled widely and had received recognition and appreciation wherever she had gone because of her achievements in her own country. She was also well-attuned to public speaking. She took to her new role like a duck to water and became a popular figure in a very short time in the official and diplomatic circles of The Hague.

  During her assignment she travelled across the Netherlands as she was very keen to observe the welfare schemes of the government. She took special interest in homeless shelters for young children and schemes for
mentally and physically challenged children. These visits left a lasting impression on her, and she hoped that she could replicate as much as she saw and learnt back home.

  She also proved to be a highly accomplished and popular hostess, a task usually relegated to the spouses of male ambassadors. She had adorned her official residence with many artefacts and antiques and also a variety of handicraft items selected from the APWA Cottage Industrial Home. She was an avid bridge player and her circle of bridge partners grew very rapidly.

  As mentioned previously, she had established a close friendship with the Dutch monarch Queen Juliana and was on excellent terms with the Government of the Netherlands, so much so that it agreed to help the Government of Pakistan acquire a valuable and beautiful heritage property at a far lower price than the prevalent market rates. This property, which was located in the heart of the capital, at a stone’s throw from the royal residence, was to be the embassy residence. Now nearly a 100 years old, the property still functions as the residence of the Pakistan ambassador. The queen also graciously gifted her all the furnishings for the official dining room.

  She was also the first woman diplomatic representative from her country and at that time probably the only one from the entire Muslim world. However, the move abroad brought with it a huge change in her personal lifestyle and for the first time, after leaving her original family behind in India, she was to leave behind the company of all her friends and loved ones. But she tried her best not to dwell on this and continued to adapt and make new friends. It was also the presence and unwavering support of her English friend, secretary and travelling companion, Kay Miles, that probably provided her the continued sense of familiarity and warmth.

  As the head of a foreign mission, she, for the first time, had to step into the shoes of a bureaucrat and that too in an entirely male-dominated environment. Here too she fell effortlessly into the role and ran her mission at The Hague with an iron fist but in a velvet glove. She had to learn the bureaucratic rules and regulations of running a mission and also to protect and secure the respect that was accrued to her as an ambassador.

  Her assignment in Holland proved to be a rather extended one as she completed two consecutive terms there. She became the dean of the diplomatic corps and served at The Hague, a position occupied by the senior-most representative of diplomats stationed in any capital abroad. Towards the end, the government of the Netherlands honoured her by conferring ‘The Order Grand Cross of Orange Nassau’ upon her. Kay Miles wrote in her biography that it was the highest award given to anyone by the government of the Netherlands and was an unprecedented decoration for any ambassador as it was usually reserved for heads of state and members of the royal family.

  During her stay in Holland, her older son Ashraf fortuitously found a job in Amsterdam with the Royal Dutch Airlines and moved there with his young English bride. At the time of their marriage, Ra’ana had not been wholly reconciled to the match. According to her daughter-in-law, Pat, Ra’ana had decided not to attend the ceremony in London and had sent Kay Miles to represent her. Pat sadly recounted that her own father too had not consented and did not attend the marriage ceremony either. Later, during their relocation to Holland, they both had the opportunity to know each better and soon became very close. Their first son Rustom was born in The Hague at Ra’ana’s home. The Hague was only a short drive from Amsterdam and she continued to enjoy the company of her young family.

  It was now 1961 and she had to move yet again. She left Holland on 9 June 1961 with a heavy heart as it had become a home away from home for her. She was to join her new assignment as Pakistan’s ambassador to Rome with concurrent charge of Tunisia. In January of the same year, she had visited Italy at the invitation of the president of the International Conference for Social Work. It was during this conference that she delivered her famous speech in which she enunciated what she termed as the ‘Ten Commandments for Voluntary Work’.5

  Even before her appointment and arrival in Rome, she had set the tone of her public image as an ambassador who believed in philanthropy and people’s welfare. In her new role, she plunged directly into the social and diplomatic duties expected of foreign envoys in any big capital. As her biographer Kay Miles described, ‘She had in less than two months completed her obligatory calls upon all her counterparts and heads of missions, as well as upon key members of the Italian government and the leading gentry of Italian high circles.6

  ‘She set about personally putting the Embassy in order according to her own requirements; received return calls from several Ambassadors and dignitaries; found the time to manage a house full of guests and even managed to put in some sightseeing . . . but all this proved too great a strain on her health and she had to undergo hospitalization for several weeks.’7

  The ambassador’s residence in Rome was a sprawling bungalow in one of the oldest and greenest residential suburbs in the city known as La Parioli. She set a new pace for herself and started entertaining regularly and enjoyed personally supervising all such events. She spent her free time visiting and enjoying the art galleries of the city. She also enjoyed cultural activities such as classical music concerts and dance performances. She herself actively encouraged cultural exchanges between the two countries and emphasized the expansion of trade and commercial links.

  She promoted and supported the Italian excavation project started by the Italian Institute of Middle and Far East (ISMEO) in the Valley of Swat in August 1956. She also developed close contacts with Prof. Tucci, the director of ISMEO and a well-known writer and expert on oriental arts. He had encouraged the study of the Urdu language in their centres in Turin, Naples and Rome. The aim of the project undertaken by them in Pakistan was to unearth the remains of the Gandharan period. She facilitated the renewal of their excavation license for another five years, while she was Pakistan’s ambassador to Italy. This project was to continue for nearly thirty more years and ended during the period when the author’s husband served as the ambassador to Italy in 1997–2000.

  In 1955, she had been appointed as a member of the ILO Committee of Experts on Conventions and Recommendations and continued to attend their annual meetings held in Geneva while residing in both Holland and Rome. It may be of interest to mention how I came across some memoirs of Indian ambassador and former foreign secretary Jagat Mehta, in which he reminisces about Ra’ana’s visit to Bern, where he was posted at the time. Both he and his wife had family connections with her and Liaquat Ali Khan. He describes how she preferred to stay at his tiny flat along with her two boys and Kay Miles even though the British ambassador, who was looking after Pakistan’s interests in the absence of a Pakistani mission, invited her to stay in the high commissioner’s residence. Jagat describes how she, with her characteristic and cheerful aplomb, took over the cooking and even bathing of their two children. He states: ‘This sort of friendship between Indian and Pakistani representatives in the first post-Partition generation must be unique in the annals of diplomacy.’8

  In the meantime, the martial law ruler General Ayub, who took over the reins of power in Pakistan, had been looking at ways to prolong and legitimize his rule, and had decided to introduce a limited form of democracy as opposed to the normal adult franchise system of one person one vote. In 1960 General Ayub announced a new form of presidential elections under this new the system in which delimited electoral groupings called ‘Basic Democrats’ (BDs) were to be elected by members of village-level local bodies. The 80,000 BDs who were thus elected were in turn to elect the President. He was expecting to sail through and did not foresee any opposition. It so turned out that Fatima Jinnah, who had been politically inactive since her brother’s death, decided to contest these elections as a nominee of the combined opposition parties. Ayub Khan had always held her in great disdain and began to lash out at her publicly. In his biography Friend Not Masters he stated, ‘On one occasion I wrote to her that she might acquaint herself with the full facts of government policies before pronouncing judgements on t
hem. I think she never forgave me for offering this advice.’9

  At this juncture he decided to call upon Begum Ra’ana to help him counter the public attacks on him by Fatima Jinnah. He pointed out in his biography that Fatima ‘since the death of the Quaid had maintained a consistent posture of criticism and opposition towards every government. Even during the days of Liaquat Ali Khan she was running an opposition of her own, never missing an opportunity of creating a sense of depression and distress among the people’.10 He hoped that Ra’ana would agree to come to his assistance and perhaps even stand by his side during his public addresses and publicly denounce Fatima.

  He had obviously misread her and had not expected her to refuse him her assistance but she politely turned down his request. She was not prepared to compromise on what she considered proper decorum for a person of her stature and standing. She was also occupying an official position and serving the whole country in that capacity. A few close family friends confirmed that he was rather disappointed and felt let down and also somewhat incensed by her negative response. She had chosen the path of prudence and conveyed her inability to join his political rallies or to publicly denounce Fatima in political forums.

  This decision on her part led to unexpected consequences and as soon as the opportunity arose he asked Ra’ana to relinquish her ambassadorship in Rome. She was never to mention this either in writing or in any public forum, and it was known only by her close family and friends. Both her appointments as Pakistan’s representative abroad were replete with distinctions and totally unblemished in any way. Once again she had received only accolades and awards during her tenure in Italy. She was awarded the Cavaliere di Gran Croce in 1966 by the Italian government in honour of her service towards Pakistan-Italy relations. Soon after, she moved back to Karachi. Both her sons had managed to finish their education abroad and for this she was immensely grateful.