QUITE a few letters have appeared in these columns in recent times lamenting the absence of Liaquat Ali Khan from the portraits of the founding fathers that adorned the celebratory currency note issued by the State Bank of Pakistan to mark the 75th anniversary of the country’s Independence Day.

As a biographer of Pakistan’s first prime minister (Liaquat Ali Khan: His Life and Work, Oxford, 2003 with many reprints), I want to add that the character assassination of Liaquat was the precursor of attacks on Mohammad Ali Jinnah at the Karachi Adab Festival in 2020. Seasoned writer Javed Jabbar had responded to that propaganda by quoting excerpts from Ishtiaq Ahmed’s book, stressing that the assassination of Liaquat was a deep-rooted conspiracy.

The late Dr Safdar Mahmood, while he was education secretary, had straightaway named Ghulam Muhammad and Mushtaq Gurmani as the abettors (Barg-i-Gul, Karachi, Federal Urdu College Magazine, 1999, Pp41-44), while Syed Muhammad Zul- qarnain Zaidi established that Liaquat was shot in the back, and that Said Akbar was not the murderer (Pakistan Perspectives, University of Karachi, Vol XIII: January-June, 2008).

The story of the Quaid-i-Azam’s broken ambulance is widely cited as a condemnation of Liaquat, while Brig Noor A. Husain, the ADC of the governor-general on duty, wrote that the first ambulance had been chosen by the governor-general’s military secretary and Liaquat was following the second ambulance in his car (The News, March 23, 1995).

On the pages of Dawn itself (March 13, 2019), Liaquat was accused of having turned Pakistan into a theocracy through the Objectives Resolution. This is despite the fact that the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan Debates (Vol V, p5) carries these words from Liaquat: “Sir, I just said that the people are the real recipients of power. This naturally eli- minates any danger of the estab-lishment of a theocracy.”

As for the prime minister’s Russian invitation, Liaquat said before embarking on his trip to the United States that the erstwhile Soviet Union’s invitation was outstanding and he was waiting for a date as the host country had advanced the date (Karachi Press Conference, Aug 23, 1950).

Lastly, people would do well to read John Connell (Auchinleck, London, Cassell, 1959, Pp 872-873). If they do, they will find that it was Liaquat who was named as the leading personality in having Indian armed forces divided.

Dr Muhammad Reza Kazimi
Karachi

Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2023