The man called Zafrulla Khan

met Chaudhry Zafarulla Khan just once. It was in the late 1960s. He was in Lahore and speaking at Government College, an event I was assigned to report on for the Pakistan Times, where I then worked. When I arrived, he had just stepped out of his car and I walked with him to the event. He told me that he would need to walk slowly because he had sciatica. That was the first time I had heard the word, so I asked him what it was, which he explained to me with great precision, something that was his hallmark. It was clear that sciatica was something one ought not to wish even for one’s worst enemy.

M. Yusuf Buch, who worked with Zafrulla at the United Nations during the great Kashmir debates of the 1950s and 1960s, assisting him in various ways, principally in drafting several of his speeches and statements, recalled that after Krishna Menon had finished one of his more vitriolic speeches about Pakistan, Aziz Ahmed was fuming. “Chaudhry Sahib, you should take his pants off,” he said to Zafraulla. The foreign minister’s calm reply was, “Aziz, if I do that, will you be willing to perform the necessary?” When he was well into his eighties, he was asked if people changed their views with old age. “Why don’t you go ask an old man?” he answered. His memory was phenomenal. Buch told me that once, while working on a speech, all he could remember of a quotation he wanted to use were a few words. When he told Zafrulla, he said, “That comes from a speech drafted by Chaudhry Muhammad Ali.” And then from memory, he dictated the entire paragraph in which those words occurred. He did not keep notes. His monumental autobiography Tehdis-e-Naima, which has hundreds of names and dates going back to the early years of the last century, was written entirely from memory. No one has so far found even one name or date to have been inaccurately recalled.

In 1995, Anwar Kahlon, who remained Zafrulla’s personal secretary and companion for most of his life, wrote a book to preserve his memories of this remarkable man, whose great services to Pakistan before its birth and after its establishment, are not even acknowledged today by his countrymen, just because he belonged to the Ahmediyya community. Kahlon’s book was privately printed and never really got circulated beyond his own circle. I was given a copy by a friend and I have read it to my delight, which is why I want to share some of the stories it contains.

During one of the Round Table Conferences, Zafrulla was invited to spend a day at Lady Astor’s country home, where he spotted a photograph of Lord Lothian, whom he knew. “Some malicious people say that he was in love with me,” she said. “Half the world is in love with you,” Zafrulla observed. She protested, saying he should read her mail, because half the letters were most disparaging. “Those are from the other half,” he said. Once in Delhi, on noticing the worried look on the face of the rickshaw driver whom Maulana Shaukat Ali, a big man, had flagged down, Zafrulla asked, “Why are you worried? Cart him in two installments.” All the Maulana could do was wave his stick at him. Zafrulla set up his law practice in Sialkot, from where he moved to Lahore. When asked why, he replied that one reason was Sialkot roads, which were very dusty, and he simply could not stand dusty shoes.

Zafrulla was never without his mean-spirited enemies, one of whom sent President Ayub a picture that showed his UN ambassador in light-hearted conversation with Indian ambassador Vijay Lakhshmi Pandit. Ayub passed it on to Foreign Secretary S.K. Delhavi, who scribbled on the file, “When a gentleman becomes a diplomat, he does not cease to be a gentleman.” Once while addressing the Legislative Assembly in Delhi, Zafrulla quoted a passage from one of Gandhi’s books, at which the Congress members began to shout that those were not Gandhi’s at all. Calmly, Zafrulla pulled out the book from his bag and read from it. He had quoted Gandhi from memory word for word. In 1942, Zafrulla was sent to Chungking to establish the Indian diplomatic mission. Once Madame Cheng Ki Shek said to him at dinner that it was a nice Chinese custom to offer steamed face towels. Zafrulla agreed, then suggested that Madame herself take advantage of the excellent custom. That would, of course, have entirely wiped off her heavy makeup. “You are being naughty,” she told him. When Begum Liaquat Ali Khan was sent as ambassador to Holland, Zafrulla said, “Here’s a woman who has been accredited by a woman (Queen Elizabeth) to a woman (Queen Juliana).” Once a Swiss girl asked him where he was off to “To Geneva, then to Cairo, then to Amman and on to Karachi,” he replied. “But eventually?” she asked. “Heaven, I hope,” he replied.

When Zafrulla was Pakistan’s UN ambassador, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the foreign minister, asked him to preside over a meeting of the Pakistani delegation to the General Assembly. “That is the foreign minister’s privilege, but thank you,” Zafrulla replied. A Pakistani living in England and married to an Englishwoman complained to Zafrulla that his wife was always picking on him for not speaking polite English. It so happened that some time later, Zafrulla visited the man’s house. “Do you want some tea?” the Englishwoman asked him. “No, thank you, Madam, I don’t want any tea. However, I would like some,” Zafrulla replied. Once when he was in a London hospital for tests, a nurse came into his room. Looking at the bearded frail old man lying in bed, she asked, “Do you understand English?” “A little,” he answered. It was only when he was leaving the hospital that she realised who he was. Once a young man requested him to pray that the parents of the girl he was in love with would agree to their marriage. Some years later, when Zafrulla ran into him, he asked how far his suit had progressed. “Oh, we got married and we have two children,” he replied. “Why didn’t you tell me? Even this morning, I prayed for you,” Zafrulla told him. When he was president of the UN General Assembly, he would ride in the front seat with his chauffeur, never in the back. He was utterly humble. As far as he could remember, he had never missed a prayer in his life. He would also rise during the night to offer tahajjud . His habits were simple. He would always place the trousers he had worn under his pillow so that in the morning, their crease would be restored. Whenever he would arrive in Pakistan, he would be carrying old socks and undershirts that needed to be darned. That does not mean he was tight. More than 100 poor students were always receiving stipends from him. Such things he did quietly, without fanfare.

This nation has not had the grace to acknowledge, much less thank, its real heroes. Will that ever come to pass? One can only wonder.