Dr. Mubashir Hasan was witness to the saga of events which led to the end of East Pakistan and the bloody crackdown ordered there by General Yahya Khan. The General reached Dhaka to sign an agreement which would have made Mujibur Rahman the Prime Minister of Pakistan. But it was not to be.
According to Dr. Mubashir Hasan, Mujib’s designated representative kept calling the General to set up the meeting. Yahya left Dhaka without a meeting, which was a prelude to the eventual bloodletting. Hasan records what Mujib said on the occasion: “That bastard has left.”
At the height of the 1977 elections, when Hasan had already left political office, he met Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to warn him about the ominous signs. Upon ZAB’s quizzing Hasan replied, “I want you to gather your power from the people, not civil and military officers.”
Bhutto’s response probably sealed his fate: “What you want me to do, I don’t have the power to do.”
Syeda Hameed dedicates her biography of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to Dr. Mubashir Hasan
And when power indeed left ZAB, Hasan went to General Zia-ul-Haq to try to convince him to spare the ousted leader’s life. Hasan could see through Zia’s false assurances.
In the earlier part of her book on ZAB, Syeda Hameed mentioned a small book Awami Leader authored by Dr Mubashar Hasan in 2014, which is an oral history of the 1965 war, published on the 50th anniversary of that event. It is not only a model of people’s history but greatly helps us understand Hasan’s own views on what a popular leader ought to be. According to Syeda Hameed, “the book is the most authentic record of the common public sentiment during those tumultuous days.”
I certainly had not heard of this book before, neither heard it mentioned in many conversations with left-wing and PPP activists over the years. In fact, in the wake of his passing away, it seems that the book has either been ignored or not read – certainly not even referenced – by the majority of those who were close to him in his life or those who have written obituaries or tributes to him in the English or Urdu press.
A poster promoting the initial nationalization phase of the Bhutto years
So I rushed to meet Dr. Mubashir Hasan in order to get my hands on this book. I remember the date well. It was a pleasant autumnal evening of September 25 in 2018 when I went to see him. He was clad in his signature white shalwar kameez and bedridden. We talked about his health – which was failing. And we talked about Bhutto, Bhashani, Jinnah, Gandhi and the varieties of socialism.
Then I went to search for the book, which Dr Mubashir Hasan had indicated was lying in one of the many cartons in his store room. There I went assisted by his domestic helper. The helper gave up after about 30 minutes; but I persisted. My persistence was rewarded after half an hour, when I found the books stacked in a dusty, dirty carton. I took a copy to Dr Mubashir Hasan and he duly signed it for me.
The book is a result of painstaking research conducted by Dr. Hasan through a diligent team, with a foreword written by an eminent historian: the late Professor Shariful Mujahid (another nonagenarian who passed away earlier this year) and dedicated to “the innocent people of the world.” The people interviewed for the book ostensibly show a marked bias towards the PPP and the city of Lahore, though it does contain a fair sprinkling of views from communists, trade-unionists and journalists as well – who, though not members of the PPP, were broadly sympathetic to its aims. In any event, the impeccability of the research cannot be faulted; it gives us a fair idea of what a cross-section of the youth felt in the heady days of 1965. Perhaps at the time it was published, it was not intended for mass circulation, but the book certainly deserves mass readership now – especially for the middle-class youth who ushered in Naya Pakistan in the last elections.
Dr. Mubashir Hasan remained committed to his original socialist politics, through his last years
What Hasan tried to do in the book is to compare four major South Asian leaders – Gandhi, Jinnah, ZAB and Mujibur Rahman and analyze what made them mass leaders. According to Hasan,
“Mahatma Gandhi, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Quaid-e-Awam Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman were only able to get the leadership of the masses when they discovered the secret of what lay in the hearts of the masses according to the intellect of the masses. Certainly such ideas must be in the minds of these leaders prior to this, but as soon as they expressed this according to the intellect of the masses in a language they could understand, their journey of being great leaders began.”
It is possible to disagree with Dr Hasan on the extent to which Mr. Jinnah was a mass leader, as well as why he left out Maulana Bhashani from this list, since he was the only leader after the Quaid who mobilized and united both wings of united Pakistan – certainly no mean achievement. I believe it would be in the fitness of things that copies of this book now be despatched by the Education Minister Mr Shafqat Mehmood (who spent a long time in the PPP) to Oxford-educated Imran Khan as soon as possible; since the Coronavirus crisis that we are dealing with in Naya Pakistan today is worse than what occurred in 1965 or 1971.
Before we parted that September evening, Dr. Mubashir Hasan asked me to see him again after I had read the book. Alas I did not have the opportunity to discuss the book further with him. But I will end this tribute with a couple of ‘watershed moments’ mentioned by Syeda Hameed in her Introduction to Born To Be Hanged which can help us gain an insight into the man that Hasan was.
Perhaps at the time it was published, Dr. Mubashir Hasan’s book Awami Leader was not intended for mass circulation, but it deserves mass readership now – especially for the middle-class youth who ushered in Naya Pakistan
Just a year into the inception of the PPP, Hasan’s 83-year old mother gave him advice to the effect that ‘Power is an affliction.’ The second watershed moment came when Hasan wrote a 17-page letter to ZAB a couple of years before the latter was judicially murdered. He wrote this: “What is needed in Pakistan is a leadership with the willing partnership of peasant and labour through a democratic process without the intervention of persons whose interests conflicted with those of the working classes.”
Dr. Mubashir Hasan was that rare political animal in Pakistan, a true people’s leader who not only heeded his mother’s advice but whose long life was a testament to struggling for the working classes.
Raza Naeem is a Pakistani social scientist, book critic and award-winning translator and dramatic reader currently based in Lahore, where he is also the President of the Progressive Writers Association. He can be reached at: razanaeem@hotmail.com
Raza Naeem is a Pakistani social scientist, book critic and award-winning translator and dramatic reader based in Lahore, where he is also the president of the Progressive Writers Association. He can be reached via email: razanaeem@hotmail.com and on Twitter: @raza_naeem1979
