My Friend Mairaj – An Intimate Biography
By Shamim Ahmad
Ushba Publishing International
ISBN: 978-969-9154-58-4
116pp.

Mairaj Muhammad Khan (1938-2016) was a man of integrity. He had been an award-winning and eloquent debater since his student days at Karachi University, in the late 1950s and ’60s. He was a prominent, left-leaning student leader of the National Students Federation (NSF) in the 1960s and was dedicated to the poor and destitute people of Pakistan and the world.

Khan joined the NSF in 1958. Subsequently, he joined the Pakistan Peoples Party. He was so agitational and defiant that, while in Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s cabinet, he had to be reminded that he was part of the government and not in the opposition!

Except for seven months as a state minister in Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s cabinet, Khan hardly earned a living and depended on his wife Zubaida for domestic and familial obligations. Khan spent an aggregate of more than 10 years in jails during various governments, including that of his mentor Bhutto. Khan died at a relatively younger age compared to his siblings, due to incarcerations, political activism and chain-smoking.

The above is the gist of the book My Friend Mairaj – An Intimate Biography, by Shamim Ahmad, who was a classfellow, fellow debater and a civil servant who remained closely associated with Khan most of his life. Previous books by Ahmad include Torment and Creativity: A Psychoanalytic Study of Literature and Literati (2013), Zulfikar Ali Bhutto: The Psychodynamics of his Rise and Fall (2019) and The Equitable Tax (2022).

A book about Mairaj Muhammad Khan by his friend delves into the often-volatile life and times of the leftist politician and perennial activist

The chapter titles of My Friend Mairaj indicate the details of Khan’s life contained in the book: ‘A Timeless Friendship’, ‘His Ancestry’, ‘Early Life’, ‘On to the College’, ‘An Inborn Politician’, ‘Mairaj and the NSF’, ‘Mairaj and Zubaida’, ‘Bhutto and Mairaj’, ‘His Arrests and Deportations’, ‘Mairaj and Bhutto – the Sequel’, ‘His Mistakes’, ‘Mairaj: The Person’, ‘His Concepts and Beliefs’ and ‘His Last Days’. But obviously most of the interest would be in the details of his interactions with political players of the time.

My Friend Mairaj is about a respected and well-known politician who was a pioneer senior member of three major political parties of Pakistan: the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), the Tehreek-i-Istiqlal, and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI). However, his affiliations remained short-lived with these parties. Khan refused to participate in the 1970 elections as a PPP candidate despite insistence by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

Then when Bhutto formed the government after the separation of East Pakistan, as President and the civilian Chief Martial Law Administrator, Mairaj was inducted as Minister of State for Public Affairs. He resigned on October 10, 1972. Thirteen months and a day after resigning from ministership in Bhutto’s cabinet, Mairaj, even though he was amongst the founding fathers of the party, resigned from the basic membership of the PPP, on November 13, 1973.

Shamim Ahmad writes: “In a letter containing 13 paragraphs addressed to the Secretary General of the party, J.A. Rahim, he bitterly criticised many policies of the PPP government. Notable among them were:

Lack of democracy within the party’s ranks.

Unjust dismissal of Balochistan government (it was dismissed by Bhutto on February 13, 1973. The government of NWFP [the North-West Frontier Province, now Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa] resigned in protest just the next day).

Betrayal of the party’s manifesto.

The mess the country’s economy was in.

Suppression of press, etc.”

Perhaps even more intriguing for readers might be Mairaj’s dalliance with Imran Khan, for which he was roundly criticised at the time.

“How Mairaj came to join Imran Khan and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) is a long story,” writes Shamim Ahmad. “The first person that comes to light in this regard is Hussain Jamil, brother of [political activist] Azhar Jamil. He was very close to Mairaj. Hussain Jamil was friendly with Imran in their salad days, when Imran played cricket and ostensibly had no political ambition at the time.

“Hussain was the one who introduced Naeem-ul-Haque, his brother-in-law, to Imran. We all know that the late Haque played an important role in the formation and success of PTI before his premature death. The two brothers, Hussain and Azhar, introduced Mairaj to Imran.”

Khan’s party, the Qaumi Mahaz-i-Azadi (QMA), merged with PTI on December 20, 1997. Imran was the chairman of PTI and Khan became its secretary general. He parted ways with PTI when the decision to support Gen Musharraf’s referendum was being finalised, to which he did not agree.

This is a diligently researched book, with Khan’s interviews recorded on 23 audio cassettes by the author, plus interviews of Mrs Zubaida Mairaj, human rights activist Hussain Naqi, and Azhar Jamil on four more cassettes.

The book includes several memorable photographs of Khan with different national and international personalities during foreign official visits and events, such as organising protests and large political rallies. The photographs in the book include those with Soviet Union’s Premier Kosygin during a visit to Moscow in 1972; with Bangladesh’s Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in Dhaka in 1974; with Indian foreign minister I.K. Gujral in 1990; and with Benazir Bhutto during an MRD [Movement for Restoration of Democracy] meeting in 1983.

My Friend Mairaj offers interesting auxiliary information about the social and political culture, events and the personalities active, over almost seven decades in Pakistan. It also provides glimpses into backstage happenings illustrating the characters of notable leaders, including Bhutto and Khan’s elder brother, the journalist and trade unionist Minhaj Burna.

Undoubtedly, Khan was a respected and well-known politician. However, sadly, his eventful and stormy political career has apparently had no significant historical impact on Pakistan’s national, or provincial, political landscape.

The reviewer is a freelance writer and translator.

He can be reached at mehwer@yahoo.com

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, September 1st, 2024