Pakistan: The way we buried greatness

Dr Salam was buried at his birthplace, but it was not a state burial with official honours and no government functionary attended the funeral.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | US Desk
Source/Credit: The News | Pakistan
By Wajid Shamsul Hasan | February 18, 2012

Greetings!

Not that I fondly recall my days as editor of the Daily News in Karachi which you contributed a regular column to, yet I have always been a fan of your writings irrespective of their contents. Although not too well these days, I could not resist writing this note of appreciation to you for “Dr Salam vs us” in The News of Feb 12.

When I started reading your piece I could not believe it happened in the Pakistan of today. I read it until the end – to receive the rude shock that it was all a dream we all would like to live through. After all, it ended as too good to be true.

What a tragic and shameful pass we have come to; we can only dream of good things happening, hoping against hope that some day we will revert to Quaid-i-Azam’s vision of Pakistan. That vision was to have no room for such madness that afflicts our country and has gnawed the very vital roots that were to make Pakistan a progressive, tolerant and egalitarian state having nothing to do with sectarianism and extremism. The Quaid was categorical that religion would have nothing to do with the business of the state.

I cannot forget the day I called on Prof Salam in Oxford to pay my respects to him. It was in July 1994, soon after I had assumed the office of high commissioner to the UK. In my meeting for official briefing with the then prime minister Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, she had mentioned Prof Salam’s failing health and asked me to call on him at the first opportunity, to convey him her best wishes and prayers for his early recovery.

Subsequently I called on Dr Salam. He was living with his wife and daughter and was in a very bad condition. My meeting with him lasted over an hour and was emotionally wrecking for me. He and his family were surprised to see me – a stranger holding the position of high commissioner – at their door. I was told that I was the only Pakistani official to call on the great scientist in many years. When I conveyed to Dr Salam the message from the prime minister and her profound concern for his health (he was in an advanced stage of Parkinson’s disease and could not talk), tears flowed from his eyes.

Dr Salam tried to speak but I could not understand what he wanted to say. His daughter acted as a sort of interpreter and told me that he wanted me to convey his thanks to Benazir Bhutto and was beholden to her for remembering him. On behalf of the prime minister, I presented him with a flower bouquet, a gift-bag of quality basmati rice from Pakistan and mangoes. He was overwhelmed by the gesture. I also told that the prime minister would be glad to do the needful if he ever needed any help or assistance, or anything else. This was followed by a most touching scene which I will never forget. Through signs and gestures he asked for pen and paper. He wrote down his last wish – he wanted to be buried at his birthplace in Pakistan.

I was taken aback by this strange request because, as far as I knew, families of ordinary Pakistanis had no problem burying their dead in their mother country. I could not see why he felt that he would not be given a decent and honourable burial in Pakistan befitting his iconic stature. I wished him a long life and assured him that, in the eventuality of his death, he would be buried as he desired, and with due honours. Since the great man had doubts, I conveyed his last wish to the prime minister and she told me to inform him and his family that Dr Salam would be buried with state honours in the place he desired.

On my return from Oxford I sent the prime minister a report on my meeting with the great scientist. Though memory fails me now, I faintly remember a number of steps that Mohtarma ordered to honour Dr Salam. She approved establishing a Dr Salam chair at one of the major universities of the country and also naming, or establishing, a university after his name. The prime minister’s spokesperson Farhatullah Babar and I carried out some paper work to initiate the process.

Alas, things fell apart when the PPP renegade Farooq Leghari dismissed the government. Dr Salam was buried at his birthplace, but it was not a state burial with official honours and no government functionary attended the funeral.

Your write up narrates a heart-rending tale from our history that tells us why we have come to be what we are today. We have not learned to take pride in our heroes, we destroy their memories, disown them and hang them. We conspire to kill them for empowering a shackled people.

The great Lebanese poet-philosopher Kahlil Gibran said this of people of our kind:

“Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful...”



The writer is Pakistan’s high commissioner to the UK. Email: wshwsh786@gmail.com

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