Iqbal Shafiq had dreams, as young men and women stepping out into the big world do, to build a future for themselves. As vague as the future may be, and as quiet as those dreams may be. But futures have a way of making themselves, irrespective of what their dreamers can imagine. The quiet young man who began a small independent college newspaper in the 1960s, partly as a way to mitigate his boredom, could hardly have predicted that more than 50 years later, he would be celebrated as the founder of the largest college newspaper in all of Great Britain.

Shafiq’s parents had great ambition to see their children highly qualified in academics as they themselves did not have the same opportunities in Karachi. First to Abbottabad’s Burn Hall went Shafiq and, then, with the assistance of his father, to the land of sophisticated scholarship and history: Great Britain.

Wanting to pursue a degree in economics, Shafiq applied to what he considered the top three schools there: Oxford, LSE and University of Manchester. He packed his bags to go to the first among the three schools that accepted him and that turned out to be the University of Manchester. The letter of acceptance from Oxford came only a couple weeks after he had accepted Manchester’s offer. “Being impatient of nature, I did not want to take the chance of not getting admission anywhere,” he says.

Five decades ago, a young Pakistani student in Manchester launched what has now become Britain’s largest student newspaper

Whereas the textile centre of Manchester is one of the places where the earlier Pakistani immigrants had gone to seek work — the life Shafiq was consumed in was, naturally, worlds apart from a migrant labourer’s. It was a dull place, overcast with clouds and dreary weather, he recalls. Loneliness beset him. But college life offered him opportunities that soon lifted the clouds of ennui and isolation for the young man living away from family and friends.

He heard of the Students’ Union which served as a social space for students. It was akin to a members’ club where students could have a meal and a bath. “In 1957, the Victoria University of Manchester moved into a brand new building which housed a large debating hall, a coffee bar, a common room and a mixed bar called the Serpent Bar,” states the Union’s website. In 1963, The Main Debating Hall started to hold concerts, too. In 1964, The Kinks’ Ray Davies performed there and since then, it saw The Who, Jimi Hendrix and The Rolling Stones take the stage as well.

Various student societies were active there, such as the medical, debating and literary societies, for which the Union provided assembly rooms and catering for meetings. There was also a small Pakistani society when Shafiq was a student and a large Indian society.

It helped, he says, that “In those days, Pakistanis were more accepted. The British used to become friends towards people who were quiet and gentle types.” Moreover, he says: “In my case the only friends I have are those who I made at university.”

“I started the newspaper mainly because I was lonely. Loneliness took me to the university union which was very well-organised and you made friends easily.”

Shafiq’s desire to find company resulted in launching a productive legacy for Manchester. “Fortunately or unfortunately, you make friends in England who are the sophisticated types, literary types — I got in the company of a doctor, an aristocrat from Argentina of British descent and there were four of us, no girls,” explains Shafiq. This was the bunch of blokes who thought of starting a student newspaper because not only would it keep them busy in their spare time, “[We thought] we will also maybe make a name, make a success. Which we did. I’m still in touch with [my friends], via email especially.”

So they launched the Mancunion — named after the Manchester Union. At the time the university had no student paper. In fact, the university had banned student publications for the previous four years and his teachers were not enamoured of the initiative. Shafiq was actually warned by the head of his department, he says, who told him ‘You shouldn’t have done that because you could have got a good degree.’

“I replied I hope I still will get my degree,” recalls Shafiq.

When Shafiq visited his alma mater recently to find out about the newspaper, by chance he bumped into the vice chancellor on the stairs. She recognised him and asked if he was the person who had started the Mancunion 53 years ago, and got a degree as well. It was amusing to Shafiq “because there was no correlation between the two things” but it echoed what he’d been told by his professor. “She told me to go and find out, that the paper is doing quite well. So I went and discovered that it is now the biggest student newspaper in Britain!”

When Shafiq had founded the Mancunion it was just four tabloid-sized pages. It is now a hefty 34 pages. The Guardian, he recounts, had sent a reporter to him in the initial days when Mancunion had just started publishing, interested to know if Shafiq planned for the newspaper to be a serious journalistic effort or focused on trivialities, dabbling in journalism only like a hobby. With the longevity of the newspaper, that question has presumably been answered.

Though based at the Students’ Union, the Mancunion’s full editorial independence has allowed it to speak its mind freely, even criticising the Union and the University of Manchester as necessary. Uniquely, it considers both the university’s student affairs as well as local and national issues within its ambit, covering cultural events, music festivals and op-eds on the social issues of the day. In 1983, the Guardian Student Media Awards honoured the paper with the Best Student Media Award. Since the 1980s the Mancunion has won a number of journalism awards, from the Best Student Media in 1983 and Best College Newspaper in 1987, for example — both awarded by the Guardian Student Media awards, to its most recent one in 2017 for Best Design at the Student Publication Association Conference Awards. In addition, it has also received six nominations from the same organisation.

“We were critical about fees for the poorer people,” the founder answers when asked about what sort of issues his paper would take up under his editorialship. “I paid my full fees, maybe that’s why they liked having people like me studying there. But quite a few students could not afford the education,” he says.

Living amid the rock-and-roll culture of the swinging ’60s in a college town, for Shafiq the Mancunion offered more personal privilege. He would be invited to film premieres and restaurant openings, which he rather enjoyed. “That was a novelty in student life, in a place like Manchester,” he remembers. “Pakistani restaurants, Bangladeshi, Indian restaurants — we used to advertise [them] — they used to invite me to taste the food, and thank God for that, because I didn’t have much money!”

As the editor of Mancunian, Shafiq also once received a special invitation from the Indian Society to meet the President of India which he still cannot dismiss from memory. “That, for me, was the highlight of my college days!” He also stayed in close touch with Pakistani ambassador Agha Hilaly, whom he calls “a great man”. “He used to ask me if we should have a Pakistan House, for which he had even started construction but then things changed,” he recalls.

Another prominent Pakistani he had the chance of meeting was the late Air Marshall Asghar Khan. “I met the late Air Marshall Asghar Khan in Islamabad once. He asked me to come over for coffee the next day at 11 o clock. I arrived there 11 on the dot. Those were the days when he had put his name down for president. He talked very gently. After half an hour I begged leave but he said, ‘no, please sit down’. He said, ‘You see, I am having an interviewer over from BBC and it’s a lady. I’m not used to talking to British ladies. So can you sit down with me so that she can see that there are bright Pakistanis as well.’ He was so simple. And he meant well for Pakistan, he wanted to do good,” relates the Mancunion founder.

After college, Shafiq went into publishing, working in London for Oxford University Press at the Ely House on Dover Street. Upon returning to Pakistan, he took up consultancy work for the Asian Development Bank and for the Kalabagh Dam project, among others. He feels he got such opportunities because of his skills in coordinating with the British because he was not a qualified engineer to be involved in such work. Specifically with respect to the Kalabagh project, he says he stopped promoting it when he realised that it was causing conflict among the provinces. “Having friends amongst Pakhtuns and Sindhis, I thought why get involved for the sake of money or career.”

For Shafiq, starting a legacy like Mancunion and see it have become the biggest student newspaper in Britain is an achievement to write home about. “So Manchester has the distinction of having the Manchester United, The Guardian and I will name my paper as well [as one of the things the metropolitan borough is known for].” For Shafiq it is still ‘his paper.’

He is currently running a recognised college, International School of Business and Law, which has recently launched a diploma programme. “For a Pakistani, it has been a long journey,” Shafiq feels.

The writer is a member of staff

Published in Dawn, EOS, February 4th, 2018