Pakistan lost another of her prized jewels in journalism with the death of Dr Mehdi Hasan.

For me, Mehdi’s death was yet another personal loss after the passing of Mr I.A. Rehman last April. We were introduced to each other as activists in student politics when the country was under martial law, under Pakistan’s first military dictator Gen Muhammad Ayub Khan.

In both wings of the then Pakistan, besides political leaders opposed to the military usurpation of political power, students were the target of military oppression. A new education policy, which was neither discussed with the academia, nor the student community or the public at large, was prepared by the military and civil bureaucracy and was being enforced with military fiat. The Inter-Collegiate Body (ICB) was agitating for the acceptance of students’ charter of demands.

When a dozen student leaders, led by Fatehyab Ali Khan — who headed the ICB — were externed from Karachi, Mehdi and his family became our hosts. Some of the students had to stay at the Hasan family residence in Sahiwal for months. From then onward, I was always welcomed as a guest at his house whenever I went to Sahiwal or Lahore.

Dr Mehdi Hasan, who passed away February 22, was not only the chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan until recently, but a former student activist and journalist and a lifelong teacher who imparted the ethics of journalism to many generations of students. A close friend and comrade remembers him…

Dr Mehdi Hasan was a scion of the Khwajgan family who had migrated from the historic city of Panipat in Haryana province of India. For his post-graduation, Khwaja Mehdi Hasan moved to Lahore, where his elder brother, cousins including Dr Mubashir Hasan, and other relatives had opted to settle. Lahore in those years served as the centre of political activities as the regime had also made it the capital of the so-called ‘One Unit’ through an enforced merger of the provinces, including the Baloch region.

While studying for his post-graduation, Mehdi Hasan started writing for newspapers and also doing research for writing books on a variety of subjects. These included the political history of Pakistan, the history of journalism in the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent and the role of newspapers in the freedom movement. This also formed the subject of his thesis for his doctoral degree in journalism from the University of Punjab and, later, from the US.

In 1961, Mehdi began his journalism career with the Pakistan Press International wire agency while he was attending college. He also got his MA in journalism from Punjab University in 1964. When his classmate and love, Rakhshanda Qureshi, was working with Progressive Papers Limited’s (PPL) Urdu daily Imroze, Mehdi could be found in the rooms of Rehman Sahib and Hamid Jehlumi Sahib.

Despite the regime’s takeover of PPL, most of the staff — comprising progressive journalists, some of them Marxists — was retained. Rakhshanda’s eldest brother, Safdar Sahib, was a leading journalist who had headed the press clubs and also the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists. Another brother, Sajjad, worked as a reporter with the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP). So Mehdi’s became a family of journalists as well.

Mehdi became a widely sought-after public speaker at different platforms. These included gatherings of progressive and secular political parties and activists, of working journalists, civic bodies, trade unions and academic institutions — he held the rare distinction for a committed leftist to have been invited to address military-run institutions as well.

Mehdi’s teaching career began as a lecturer at the Punjab University, Lahore, right before he and Rakhshanda got married in 1967. During his long academic career at the university, the country faced the military dictatorships of three usurper generals, namely Muhammad Ayub Khan (who also elevated himself to the rank of Field Marshal), Ziaul Haq and, later, Pervez Musharraf. Mehdi spared none of them in his classrooms, his writings and his public addresses.

Mehdi’s openly professed progressive political views and commitment to ethical and objective journalism, along with his popularity with the students community on campus, did not find favour with the university’s administration, on the one hand, nor the authoritarian regime, on the other.

When he faced termination of services, he challenged it in court and was granted stay. He used to tell his friends as well as his audiences at various gatherings, including seminars on freedom of expression and journalism, that it was the stay granted by the court that enabled him to continue teaching for decades and guide his students to become true professionals, both as media persons and members of the teaching community.

Mehdi became a widely sought-after public speaker at different platforms. These included gatherings of progressive and secular political parties and activists, of working journalists, civic bodies, trade unions and academic institutions — he held the rare distinction for a committed leftist to have been invited to address military-run institutions as well.

Mehdi’s openly professed progressive political views and commitment to ethical and objective journalism, along with his popularity with the students community on campus, did not find favour with the university’s administration, on the one hand, nor the authoritarian regime, on the other.

His well-researched findings raised many eyebrows when he asserted that any Shariah-based system of governance cannot usher in democracy. He did not spare the country’s media (which is represented by journalists including hundreds of his students from different universities and institutes) either, asserting that its misreporting was responsible for distorting the country’s history. He considered media barons to be responsible for substandard journalism and the low quality of their products.

In this regard, he referred to an interesting conversation he had had with an investor who was launching a new media house. Mehdi asked him who had been appointed the ‘gatekeeper’ (of newsgathering). To this came the reply that the gatekeeper had been hired through a leading security company!

One can imagine how painful it would have been for Mehdi to see the deterioration of a profession whose ethical responsibilities he had tutored to thousands of students. It would not have been easy for Mehdi to face the diminishing returns on the investment he had so passionately made in journalism.

It was the end of the office of the editor by media barons, who assumed this position themselves. The agony of this change is shared by all committed journalists who had started their career at a time when the profession was guided by esteemed editors such as Maulana Ghulam Rasool Mehr, Chiragh Hasan Hasrat, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Sibte Hasan and Mazhar Ali Khan as well as Maulana Akram and Salam sahib in what was then East Bengal, and had later become East Pakistan.

All the above-mentioned luminaries of journalism performed the onerous task of gatekeeping, guarding what was being communicated as news and opinion related to different events. Those were the times when the public trusted the printed word.

Mehdi’s contribution to human rights has also been invaluable. He was on the board of the non-governmental Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP). He served as the vice chairman of its Punjab chapter and also the chairperson till 2021. His lectures to the HRCP correspondents and core group coordinators were a permanent feature at the annual general meetings.

Last but not the least, Mehdi also contributed to the basic documents of the Pakistan People’s Party before it was founded in Lahore. It was a treat to be at Dr Mubashir Hasan’s residence when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Safdar Mir, Jalaluddin Abdur Rahim and Mehdi discussed political issues.

Mehdi deserves well his rest in eternal peace after living through an eventful period which marks a watershed in the history of South Asia, and witnessed both the partition of colonised India, dismemberment of Pakistan and the state of emergency in Bangladesh.

The writer is a veteran journalist and a human rights activist

Published in Dawn, EOS, March 13th, 2022