Remembering Colonel Abdul Qayyum

As the anniversary of the 1971 War again comes closer, I am reminded of some fine officers from East Pakistan who served in the Pakistan Army. By far the most brilliant was Abdul Qayyum was an intellectual star who ascended on the horizon of the Pakistan Army in the early 1950s. He was born in a conservative Muslim family in Bengal. His father was a civil servant and gave Qayyum the best of education at the Royal Indian Military College and Aitcheson College at Lahore. He joined 6th PMA and was an outstanding cadet with four colours for sports and his grasp of English was so exceptional that during the English period the instructor would send him to the library.

In his early years Qayyum had socialist leanings. However, because of the 1951 Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case, Communists and Socialists were viewed with suspicion. Close to the passing out in 1952, he was summoned by the commandant and asked about his beliefs. Qayyum replied that it was a personal matter and his loyalty to the nation and the army was absolute. It goes to the credit of the commandant and the army that he was awarded both the Sword of Honour and the Norman Gold Medal for academics which is rare. He was the second cadet after Raja Aziz Bhatti, Nishan-i-Haider to be given this honour and the only cadet from East Pakistan.

He was commissioned into 11th Cavalry when Sahabzada Yaqub was commanding. Though there was a large gap in age and experience, both were on similar intellectual plane and in later years became close friends. Qayyum not only had a beautiful handwriting like print, his prose was enviable. In an article Qayyum recollects when he was appointed Mess Secretary and made some cosmetics changes to the table dressing. “The Sahabzada was pleased” he writes, “And the Colonel in him ordered three dinner nights a week, the rest were supper. We ate for four nights and starved for three. On dinner nights all electric lights were switched off in the dining room, as were the fans. We dined by candle-light, dripless candles on silver candelabras presented by Queen Victoria. If you know what June is like in Kohat and Peshawar, you know what I am talking about. What God ordains is bad enough, what Man inflicts on himself is worse”.

After the 1951 Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case, Communists and Socialists were viewed with suspicion. Close to the passing out in 1952, he was summoned by the commandant and asked about his beliefs. Qayyum replied that it was a personal matter and his loyalty to the nation and the army was absolute

Khurshid Ali Khan, was also a recipient of the Sword of Honour and commissioned into the same regiment. Khurshid was called ‘K’ and Qayyum ‘Q’ and both were excellent friends. K recollects that Q had some very strong qualities both of body and of mind. However, K also felt that Q was a misfit in the army and within a few years of service he “found life in the army going against the basic grain of […] mind and spirit” and submitted his resignation. However, General Yaqub persuaded him to continue serving.

Qayyum served as Sahabzada’s adjutant and then in 1954/55, along with another Rimcollian Habib Akbar, the two under Hugh Catchpole the legendry principal started ‘Cadet College Hasan Abdal’. Qayyum topped the Officers Weapons and Leadership Course at the Infantry School at Quetta in 1953, which was unusual for an officer from the armoured corps. In 1965 he was attending the staff course in Germany but rushed back when the War broke out.

After the war he was appointed Brigade Major (BM) of 3rd Armoured Brigade. The division which was still in the field at Daska and Qayyum developed a friendship with Zia ul Haq who was the GSO-1. In the words of Qayyum,

“We laid the foundations of a friendship that blossomed for ten long years (1966-76) and then crumbled over another ten (1977-87), till all twenty were buried under the ashes of 1988.”

Qayyum was still the BM when Gul Hassan with his restless energy took over the reins of the division in Multan. Following a stint in the Military Operations Directorate, Qayyum was promoted to command 11th Cavalry in 1969 at Kharian taking over from General Arif. Qayyum had a lot of respect for Arif’s qualities on staff but a decade later came in conflict with him when Arif was handling the CMLA Secretariat and Qayyum was writing critical papers in the Ministry of Information.

His younger brother Mehboob, serving in 25th Cavalry opted to return home, but when asked, Qayyum replied “My father and I had pledged our allegiance to the dream of Pakistan. No matter how soiled the dream is, I would never leave Pakistan”

An officer who was serving in the regiment when Qayyum was commanding, recollects: “While he [Qayyum] was undoubtedly the most well read & learned person I know of and an intellectual giant, he also had a flair for the dramatic and we enjoyed his lectures on mundane matters with this undoubtedly natural propensity’. He would open the regimental durbar by dispensing with the religious teacher and recite a Quranic sura followed by translation in English for the officers, in Urdu for the troops and in Bengali for a couple of Mechanics attached with the regiment. He used to advise the soldiers to, ‘Approach your tank as you would the mosque - in reverence and before climbing on board take off your shoes’”.

For a brief period, Zia-ul-Haq was in command of 9 Armoured Brigade and his commander. Qayyum recollects that Zia “had the most unorthodox ways of command, [and] skillfully adjusted to the varying temperaments of his subordinates.”

After completing his command, in 1970, he was selected to attended the German General Staff Course at the prestigious Fuhrungsakademie at Hamburg. It is not surprising that he qualified as an Honour Graduate and was also appointed an Honourary Member of the German General Staff – the highest recognition that the German Army could bestow on him. However, Qayyum admits that it was an agonizing year because of the events in East Pakistan and he contemplated rushing back like he had done in 1965. However, he was dissuaded by his old friend and company commander in PMA, Maj Gen Shaukat Raza who was commanding a division in East Pakistan and wrote to him twice a month. “Do not come, Qayyum. Keep away from it as far as you can,” he advised. On his return Qayyum was posted as an Instructor at the Staff College.

The events leading up to 1971 and beyond, must have been stressful for his rich intellect. They also resulted in a personal tragedy. One of the casualties of the military operations in East Pakistan was Qayyum’s elder brother Munier Chowdhury, who was the Head of Department of Bengali in Dhaka University. When General Yaqub was appointed Commander Eastern Command, Munier gave him some lessons in Bengali and was murdered by the Mukti Bahini.

After the 1971 War, Qayyum was interned in a camp in Quetta but remained a patriot to the core. His younger brother Mehboob, serving in 25th Cavalry opted to return home, but when asked, Qayyum replied “My father and I had pledged our allegiance to the dream of Pakistan. No matter how soiled the dream is, I would never leave Pakistan.” After East Pakistan’s secession, Qayyum rremarked that he would live for Pakistan – and that even if it consisted of just a flag, he would cling to its pole. When Gul Hassan became the army chief he ordered, “Bring Qayyum back from that silly detention camp! He will go to Bangladesh when he wants to.” Qayyum was reinstated as a Senior Instructor at the College but his heart was heavy and he pursued his case for release. Finally, during a visit to the College in 1972, General Tikka Khan, who had replaced Gul Hassan agreed but insisted that Qayyum continue to work at the College.

When he retired in 1974, he was re-employed to teach Geopolitics, Logic and Scientific Methods for the next three years. Those who heard his talks considered themselves fortunate. In 1975 he was asked by his old friend Zia who was now commanding the corps in Multan to give a series of lectures on Islam to the officers of his corps. Qayyum chose to talk about Iman, Taqwa, Jihad fi-Sabilillah and Zia subsequently adopted this as a motto for the corps and later when he became COAS, it was transferred to the army.

I first heard Professor Qayyum (as he was now fondly referred to) at PMA in 1975. It was so thought provoking that after dinner I visited him in his room in the mess. While I had not met him before I knew some of his family like his brother Mehboob who was a term senior to me at the academy and my course-mate Anam who was married to their younger sister.  The Professor confided that he had not always been a staunch Muslim. At various stages of life, he had been an Atheist, a Buddhist and if I recollect correctly also a Christian but ultimately was a borne again Muslim.

When General Zia-ul-Haq came to power, he appointed Qayyum as Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Information where he was a one-man think tank. For ten years he wrote on a variety of issues – domestic and international – on subjects as diverse as Islamization and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. My father came to know him when he was Minister for Information in 1979-80 and Qayyum was a frequent visitor. Zia promoted him to a BS-21 rank but much of what Qayyum wrote remained unread and they drifted apart. After Zia’s crash, Qayyum headed the Institute of Regional Studies in Islamabad from 1990–94 he was then Professor of Islamic Studies at the National University of Sciences and Technology at Karachi.

When his wife passed away, he migrated to USA to live with his daughter Naila. After a long battle with cancer, he passed away in 2013 and on his gravestone is inscribed a stanza from the following verse by W. H. Auden:

“I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you till China and Africa meet –

And the river jumps over the mountain, And the salmon sing in the street. 

Author’s Note: Material for this article has been extracted from the Monograph – Zia ul Haq and I, and Mosaic of Memories published in the Defence Journal. Both were written by Col Qayyum. It also includes the comments of officers who were his students. I am very indebted to his daughter Naila Parveen for allowing me to include some priceless pictures of her parents.