Anis Mirza, a journalist who remained associ­ated with Dawn for more than three deca­des, died in New York peacefully at the age of 90.

The news of death of Ms Mirza, who spent her entire career in journalism as political corres­pondent until her retirement in the 1990s, was received with shock and grief by a number of senior journalists who had worked in different news organisations dur­ ing the era when there were very few women in the profession.

Anis Mirza is known as a pioneer among women who dared to write on critical political issues in a country where writing on politics has never been easy even for male journalists. She is also known as the first woman to write a regular diary based on the proceedings of parliament under the caption “From the Press Gallery”.

“When I stepped for the first time into the National Assembly’s press gallery during the government of prime minister Mohammad Khan Junejo in the 1980s, I found Anis Mirza welcoming me there,” says Mariana Baabar, a senior journalist presently working as diplomatic correspondent in The News.

Ms Baabar recalled that after meeting Ms Mirza at the Parliament House, she went straight to the library of Dawn’s Bureau Office in Rawalpindi and read a number of articles written by her that had been archived in the form of files. She said that it was Ms Mirza’s writings and personal guidance that encouraged her to continue to work as a parliamentary reporter.

Besides good writing skills, Ms Baabar said, Ms Mirza taught her how to interact with politicians.

“Look straight into the eyes of politicians while talking to them or putting a question before them, she used to tell me,” Ms Baabar said.

Born in a broad-minded Bohra family, Anis Mirza started her career as a newscaster with the BBC in 1946 in London, soon after completing her graduation. Later, she returned to Pakistan, did a master’s in English from Punjab University, Lahore, and then joined Radio Pakistan where she worked as a newscaster and broadcaster for 15 years.

It was in 1960 that she joined Dawn with which she remained attached till her retirement in the 1990s. Initially, she had started writing on social and cultural issues, but later she was asked to cover political events and parliamentary proceedings due to her impeccable English writing and journalistic skills.

“I would call Anis Mirza one of the old guards. She had seemed to be around on the fringes, as many other women journalists had been. Unnoticed, they made waves with their succinct journalism but never appeared in the mainstream,” said Zubeida Mustafa, another woman journalist who retired as an assistant editor of Dawn in 2009.

“When I joined Dawn as a Leader Writer in 1975, Anis Mirza already enjoyed a huge readership for her popular column ‘From the Press Gallery’ which appeared when Pakistan had a parliament,” recalled Ms Mustafa, adding: “She reported the doings of our lawmakers with great zest and with an eye for detail. Thus not only would a woman parliamentarian’s speech find coverage, so would her hairstyle and head cover, if there was one.

“I met her soon after I had joined the paper when she was on one of her routine visits to Karachi from Islamabad where she was based. She made it a point to call on the editor when she was in town. Being the only woman around at the time in Dawn’s office, I found that female visitors ended up in my office on one pretext or another. Out-of-station colleagues always found time for a tete-a-tete. We had much to share and Anis introduced me to the inner workings of our politics,” Ms Mustafa said.

She said they remained in touch until Ms Mirza went off to the US where her sons lived. “But our small group — Naushaba Burney, Munni Wahid, Anis and I — would meet at the press club for lunch whenever she was in town,” she said.

“This magic circle was broken when Anis’s son died. I didn’t hear from her and my letter of condolence remained unanswered. May be she never received it. And now she has also gone. RIP.”

“If journalism was generally a boys’ club back then, the parliament beat was particularly so. But that didn’t deter the feisty Anis Mirza, whose wit and eye for detail livened up her column — ‘From the Press Gallery’ — that she penned for Dawn. In one column she wrote: ‘Outside the National Assembly… rain washed away the stifling dust, heat and haze of the Punjab. But in the National Assembly, octogenarian Maulana Hazarvi was asking stifling questions on whether or not government provided separate compartments for ladies in rail cars’.” The excerpt quoted above is from a column published in a Dawn special report that gave complete description of Ms Mirza’s personality and work.

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2018