Gues Post by Salim Chowdhrey
It was late summer in 1984 or 1985. I received a surprise call from a friend in Pakistan. We had been friends since kindergarten but our destiny had carried us on different trajectories. However, to date we have managed to keep abreast of what is going on in eachother’s lives. When my friend called me he said that he was in New Jersey, USA. He said he was sent here from the then President Zia-ul-Haq. I was very impressed that he was sent here by the President and conveyed my thoughts to him. He gloomily said that that he may not be able to meet the goal of his visit.
Zia came to the dinner that evening. No not the President Zia-ul-Haq but Zia Hussain my childhood friend. In our conversation that evening he shared that he was the General Manager of Oxford University Press (Pakistan) - a Publishing house in Karachi. Their parent company in New York had published the biography of the Father of the Nation titled as Jinnah of Pakistan. Though the book was full of unvarnished facts, it was also scholarly honest and unbiased. Most of all; the image of Jinnah that came through the book was of a once in a century hero- much like George Washington of the US.
Amazingly enough the book got banned in Pakistan. President Zia-ul-Haq, on the other hand, not only wanted the book be published, but he also wanted it to be the core of all undergraduate studies in the Universities across Pakistan. In his mind President Zia could not smudge Jinnah Sahib’s image. So the mention of Jinnah Sahib ’s indulgence with whiskey and eating forbidden flesh was unacceptable to him. It had to be excluded from the book. This was Zia Hussain’s mission. He had to convince Mr. Stanley Wolpert to expunge a part of Mr. Jinnah’s Life, in order to make him a “True Hero”.
Zia Hussain’s mission failed. Wolpert didn’t even feel the need to meet Mr. Hussain. His publisher Oxford University Press and Zia Hussain were told firmly and politely (which was his style as I later found out) that the book was written to document the life of a Great Man. A part of President Zia’s message contained the temptation of selling millions of copies in Pakistan as it was proposed to be part of a perpetual curriculum of all the Universities in Pakistan. Mr. Wolpert alluded that having written many books, text and otherwise; and being a Professor at Stanford University (He is now Professor Emeritus there), he was financially more than secure and riches were not his goal.
Years later Mr. Wolpert came to Asia Society in New York City, to introduce his book Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan. I had the good fortune to meet him. He had flown in from California; and had directly arrived at the Asia Society. It was dinner time. A few friends and I invited him for dinner. He graciously accepted. We instantly arranged for a catered Pakistani meal at Tariq Malik’s place. We spent five unforgettable and precious hours with Mr. Wolpert. In an informal setting one could see that he himself is a great man. No pretensions, but very proper, gentlemanly, polite and firm. We talked about ZAB, Nehru and Gandhi. He has since then written books about all of them. He was respectful talking of his subjects but there was a special respect for the Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah. In the conversation, more often he called him the Quaid than Mr. Jinnah. He said that no one suggested to him to write about Jinnah Sahib. It was his own admiration that led him to research and write about this remarkable hero. I was left wondering whether great historians have heroes too? And heroes from far off lands?
About the Author: Salim Chowdhrey M.D. is a Clinical Associate Professor at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and an Attending at St Barnabas Medical Center. He practices Psychiatry in Livingston. NJ
Re: Wolpert’s Jinnah;
Eidee Man you are right SWis at UCLA and not at Stanford.
Athar Osama ji; Musharraf fooled many of us by his gallant stance portraying himself in the Ataturk mould. In 2001
his apparent sincerity and liberal outlook seemed to signal
the emergence of a second Quaid-e-Azam. Alas the faintness
of heart was shrouded by the uniform. In my opinion it was not a lapse of judgment by Wolpert but Musharraf’s trajectory falling short. We now have 20/20 hindsight.
You are right that secular-religious and good- bad are separate axes(s:axis) and can cross each other at any level.
Dear Dr. Athar Osama: Some one said the other day that I was getting nasty towards you. I want to dis-spell that notion by agreeing with your comments regarding the commonly held believe in the West that anything secular is wonderful and anything Islamic is not so. I concur with you when you say that not everything secular is clearly good and not everything Islamic is clearly bad. Similarly true is the opposite. Not everything religious is clearly good and not every thing secular is clearly bad.
and to YLH: I have come across your one reference regarding my earlier teacher Professor Syed Ali Abbas Jalalpuri. I am trying to write about the late Shah Sahab and if you would kindly contact me through ATP I will be highly obliged. Thanks.
Mr. Chowdhrey,
Thanks for this informative article…. I am a bit of Jinnah biographer myself and this certainly is a reaffirmation of a lot of what we do know.
It is ironic that we did not come across each other in NJ. Around half a decade ago… I was a student at Rutgers University in New Brunswick and Robert Wood Johnson was my hospital.
Apologies for the multiple posts - it seemed that I was getting an error and kept trying again, only to discover that it got posted each time.
Admin: could you remove the additional postings.
Again, my apologies.
Mr. Chowdhery naively states that “President Zia could not smudge Jinnah Sahib?s image” and so “the mention of Jinnah Sahib ?s indulgence with whiskey and eating forbidden flesh was unacceptable to him.”
It seems fairly obvious to me that the issue wasn’t smudging Jinnah’s image, but to reinforce (or at least not contradict) Zia’s islamization drive (from which we suffer to this day). Zia simply did not want it to be noted that Jinnah ate pork and drank whiskey because it contradicted the farily tale about the Islamist Jinnah that he was creating.
Finally, from my own (perhaps flawed) reading about Jinnah, I understand that he prefered to be called Mr. Jinnah rather than Jinnah Sahib.
Likewise, Zia also “expunged” any references in texts to Jinnah’s famous exhortation that Pakistani’s were “free to go to their temples, to their mosques or churches…because that has nothing to do with the State” and also that he looked forward to the day when “muslims would cease to be muslims, hindus would cease to be hindus and christians woudl cease to be christians”…not in the religious sense becasue that is a personal perogative, but in relation to the State.
@Athar Osama
nicecomment…i agree….
I had a couple of encouters with Dr. Wolpert while I was in Los Angeles. He is a jolly nice fellow and very very down to earth. There can be no better ambassador for Pakistan than him in the United States. I’ve heard him taking on and even bashing pro-Indian crowds at conferences. However, there is one thing that I want to highlight here. I think, like all of us, he also made serious errors in judgement in assessing Musharraf.
This was immediately after 9/11 and he was talking at Los Angeles Word Affairs Council meeting. During that meeting he repeatedly refered to General Musharraf as Pakistan’s Second Quaid-e-Azam. It would be interesting to see if he still stands by that assessment. I bet, he won’t.
I think a lot of people in the West make an error in judgement when they view things in our part of the world with Islamic vs. Secular lens. Anything secular is wonderful and anything Islamic is not so. Thats just the perinial bias in Western foreign policy that they can’t seem to get around. Not everything secular is clearly good and not everything Islamic is clearly bad. I hope.
I think it’s UCLA, not Stanford.