IN MEMORIAM 1934-2009

A MESSAGE FROM HIS SON

My father Khalid Hasan passed away peacefully this evening after a courageous fight against cancer.

We have been by his bedside day and night for the past few weeks, taking care of him and praying that he would find the strength to overcome this insidious disease. He exhibited courage, dignity and honor throughout his fight with cancer, no different than the qualities he exhibited throughout his lifetime. My father, mother, sister and I were able to find peace together in his final few hours as we talked to him, played him his favorite music, read him his favorite poetry, and created an atmosphere of calm and peace that took him gently on to the next step of his journey.

For those of you who did not know him, he was a man of great intellect, accomplishment and integrity. He published over 40 books drawn from his newspaper columns and translations. He spoke several languages fluently, and is the worldʼs preeminent translator and authority on the works of Saadat Hasan Manto, one of the great story tellers of the 20th century and Faiz Ahmed Faiz, one of the worldʼs great poets. In addition to his diverse career as a journalist and translator, he also served as the first press secretary to Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto; served in the Pakistani Foreign Service; and was the CEO of the Shalimar television network.

My father was a proud Kashmiri who championed the cause of freedom in Kashmir throughout his lifetime. He lived and breathed the culture, history and politics of his homeland, and never stopped working towards peace and freedom in the region. The people of Kashmir have lost a great son and advocate.

Beyond his many professional accomplishments, he is highly regarded and loved throughout the world. He was a friend and mentor to countless people, and his reputation knew no bounds or borders. His generosity of spirit is legendary, and he helped countless people throughout his lifetime.

All of us hope to leave a positive mark on the world. My father left many marks. He left this world a better place than the one he found, and we will never see anyone like him again. I am proud he is my father, I am proud to be his son, and I cannot wait to tell my own son about him one day.

As-sa-laa-mu `a-lai-kum wa rah-ma-tul-laah.

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un [انّا للہ و انّا الیہ راجعون]

“We are to God, and we are to Him returning.”

I have lost my father, a great man, I am heartbroken.

KHALID HASAN - EXCEPTIONAL JOURNALIST OF MANY PASSIONS
By Afzal Khan

Last year when he wrote a stirring piece on Benazir Bhutto after her assassination, I e-mailed a message to Khalid Hasan to reiterate my belief that nobody writes better obituary in English than him and in Urdu than Munnoo Bhai. He was six years older than me, but fit as a fiddle. I sometimes wondered whether he would at all be tempted to write about me, and if so, what would it be like.

Khalid is no more. Little did I imagine that I shall have to do the obit piece on KH, but I thought I owed it him. More so, because he was a friend who had been so caring and generous to the fault in egging me on to keep writing political analyses by appreciating them and even passing them on to others, including BB. A couple of weeks back when I learned from Akmal Aleemi that he has been constantly running fever, I called him to enquire about his health. I found him more worried about my own post-operation condition that has kept me from writing anything for past some months and urging me to come to the United States for further check up.

Khalid was most gifted and versatile journalist, outstanding author, a kind caring human being, generous host and an extremely loyal friend. Innately diffident, he was finicky about the dress, demenour, taste and standards. A journalist of deep commitment and profound knowledge, he was also an author with great flourish, prolific pen and peculiar sharp, facile style. He had varied interests including literature, cricket, photography and music. He had a special place in his heart for Noor Jehan. These passions, which were common to our generation, tied us in a bond of mutual recognition. Intensely patriotic, the Kashmir cause remained his lifelong zeal. Honest to the core, he lived a modest, austere life and had only recently paid off mortgage of a small townhouse in Northern Virginia. He built a vast circle of friends and admirers around the world.

He passed in CSS competition but soon left the Income Tax Service and opted for journalism in early 60s. In Pakistan Times he served under Khawaja Asif (one of the finest editors this country has produced), who polished his writings and tamed his exuberance. Several years later, KH, Khawaja Asif, H.K. Burki and Farooq Mazhar would relish nostalgic memories of their association with Pakistan Times.

Khalid settled down to write tantalizingly fresh and lively columns full of humour, gibe and barbs that attracted instant attention in the country. ZAB was so impressed by Khalid’s sharp intellect and provocative views that he named KH his first press secretary. Khalid recalled this episode last year: “A week after ZAB took office in the dying days of that catastrophic year of 1971, he sent for me and asked me to work for him. Until then, the press officer to the president – which ZAB then was – was called a public relations officer, which I thought was more appropriate to someone selling soap. I said that much to ZAB and suggested that I should be his press secretary. “Fine,” he said, “but not the kind they have in America.”

Once he forgot that caution and held a press briefing in Lahore that did not go well with Bhutto who later dispatched him abroad as press minister. In that capacity he served in Paris, Ottawa and London. When Zia staged the coup in July 1977, Khalid was in London as member of Pakistan Service posted there by ZAB personally. He immediately resigned rather than serve the dictator or, in Lillian Hellmann’s words, “cut my conscience to suit today’s fashion.”

In December 1971, he covered the stormy UN Security Council session while Indian army was knocking at the gates of Dacca. In his subsequent columns he would fiercely defend Bhutto against persistent slander that ZAB had torn the Polish resolution which is erroneously touted as the last attempt to save Pakistan army from surrendering. While even China opposed the resolution for being anti-Pakistan, Bhutto had shredded only the notes he had before him after delivering a tough speech. But like so many other calumnies about Bhutto, the allegation still sticks.

“Bhutto entered the Security Council looking grim and made the most emotional, though well-prepared, speech of his career, “KH once wrote. It was in that speech that ZAB said, ‘I have not come here to accept abject surrender. If the Security Council wants me to be a party of the legalisation of abject surrender, then I say that under no circumstances, shall it be so. The United Nations resembles those fashion houses which hide ugly realities by draping ungainly figures in alluring apparel’.”

I had my first interaction with Khalid in 1960s when he and another enterprising journalist, Salahuddin Mohammad, were running the Feature Syndicate. I was with APP in Multan and Khalid asked me to write a feature on a ‘begar camp’ near Muzaffargarh where scores of kidnapped youth were forced to do bonded labour on a road project while being kept in chains. He appreciated it and after tat we remained in touch.

When Bhutto called a meeting of scientist in Multan on January 20, 1972 and launched country’s nuclear programme, only three journalists were allowed- Khalid, myself and Masood Ashar. There Bhutto declared: “I want nuclear fission within three years”. Khaled was often asked questions by Western media about this meeting. In 1978, he also featured in the infamous documentary:” Islamic Bomb” in which he was interviewed. He faithfully related the episode but the documentary twisted it. For years he had to face the wrath of Pakistani agencies for what he had said.

Khalid authored about 40 books that included his Bhutto memoir. But he would be best remembered for brilliant English translations of verses of Faiz Ahmed Ahmed, short stories of Saadat Hasan Manto and many other distinguished writers. Two of these were short stories written by Masood Ashar in his collection “Ankhon par donun haath”. These were based on a series of letters I had written to Masood Ashar while I was in East Pakistan covering the nightmarish military operation of March 1971 as an “embedded” correspondent. These letters offered a glimpse into the carnage that culminated in the disintegration of Pakistan.

Khalid upheld the finest professional standards of integrity, objectivity and deep research. He would go extra length to gather and verify facts and fully observe journalistic norms while attending news conferences, briefings and interaction with political figures. His strong commitment to professional ethics is best depicted by his reaction to the episode of Iraqi photographer Muntazir al-Zaidi, who lobbed his shoes at President Bush last year. It incensed people around the world. But Khalid looked at its sordid side as well.

This is what he wrote:

“As a journalist, I have reservations about the Iraqi journalist’s action. A working journalist is permitted close physical proximity to presidents and prime ministers in order for him to perform his professional duties. He must not misuse that privilege or employ it to push his personal or political agenda. Therefore, regardless of what al-Zaidi or the rest of us think of President Bush and his policies, what the man did was wrong. He abused and betrayed the trust that had been placed in him. Journalists should use their pens and their cameras, not their shoes, to express themselves. ”

Some of his columns have lasting effect. Khalid wrote a memorable though nasty column “Anthro-Pantrhro Akbar Ahmed” on the renowned anthropologist-turned-film producer and diplomat. Both later became friends and together we went to Los Angles for the premiere of Akbar Ahmed’s film “Jinnah”. Though Akbar boasted that it could be rated somewhere between film Gandhi and Lawrence of Arabia, both of us concluded that it was more a feature-cum-documentary with very few dramatics. When Indian films began showing heroines with naked naval, Khalid wrote a scintillating column captioned “Naval attack”.

He was great lover of music and had excellent collection. We had several special sessions to listen classic and semi-classic music with Dr. Feroze Ahmed who had still bigger collection. Once Nazir Naji in his column mixed up younger Master Madan with music director Madan Mohan, I wrote to him to make the correction which he did. I also sent its copy to Khalid who said he had all the six songs with him which Master Madan had sung before he died at the age of 14 and sent these to me. Madame Noor Jehan was his great admirer and often asked him to write her biography. He did an inspiring obit piece when she died.

In his obituary on Benazir he recounted in words and in pictures fond memories of an association with her and her father spanning a lifetime. “If Benazir Bhutto was to be summed up in one word, that word would be kind. Indomitable though her will was, and extraordinary the courage she was gifted with, behind her sometimes steely exterior lay a deeply humane woman who felt for the poor and the deprived, a quality she had inherited from her father. In many respects, she resembled him, but in several ways she was quite different from him.

“Zulfikar Ali Bhutto found it hard to forgive those who had once crossed him, or who he thought had crossed him.. That was his great failing…. Benazir was forgiving. She had an amazing capacity to take personal abuse – and that was one count on which she was never to want. She did not harbour a grudge; but being a Bhutto, she was born with a photographic memory. She remembered but she did not settle scores.”

In Simla, Benazir who had accompanied her father because Begum Bhutto was ill at the time in Karachi. “She was put under my charge, so to speak” Khalid wrote. “She had barely turned 19 and was a big hit with the Indian media. I remember one headline that ran, “Benazir is benazir.”

Benazir was a great e-mail sendor. Khalid kept a steady to and fro email correspondence with her. I too would often send my columns to her and would feel elated by her profuse praise. Once I did a piece which was somewhat critical, particularly of Asif Zardari. I did not send it to her but Khalid passed it on. To my pleasant surprise she wrote to Khalid: “As ever, Afzal is incisive and objective”. .

In Washington we had formed a small group and regularly met at a restaurant that sort of replicated “Pak Tea House” of yesteryears of Lahore. Khalid was always at the centre stage of lively discussions on wide range of subjects there. In his dispatches to Pakistan, he called it “Kabab Masal” group after the name of the restaurant. We rotated chairmanship with every meeting. Several years ago when Shah Mahmood Qureshi came to Washington, it was Khalid’s turn to preside. He recalled his first meeting with him in Vienna while Qureshi was finance minister Punjab. “I had my gut reaction that he is a prime ministerial stuff”, Khalid said. Shaheen Sehbai mixed up this remark and attributed it to Qureshi himself in his report to Dawn. Qureshi was very upset and a clarification was made next day. I told Shaheen: “You have perhaps permanently destroyed Qureshi’s career in the PPP.’ When Ms.Bhutto named him as ARD’s candidate to the office in 2002, I recounted this episode to him in the presence of Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan. He was again in the reckoning when PPP won elections last year.

When I broke the sad news in an email to common friends and admirers of Khalid shortly after I got Mian Shakeel’s call from Washington, there was an immediate stream of message to share common grief and pain. From India Kuldip Nayar, Inder Malhotra and so many others mourned his demise. As “the fragrant Sherry Rehman” (in KH’s words) put it, Khalid was an institution on his own. “The world of Pakistani journalism will not be the same without him.”

“It is difficult to imagine that Khalid is not with us” Shafqat Mehmood wrote. Ziauddin: “What a loss! A gem of a journalist. God bless his soul. The last time I talked to him was some time last December on telephone and I told him: Your columns make my day.. ”

“He stands out tall among those who serve as an example for our younger journalists to emulate,” Farhatullah Babar flashed.

“I met him in November last and subsequently exchanged some emails with him,” says Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan adding:”These make interesting reading and show what a tortured soul he was”.
Ghazi Salahuddin said: “He was truly an exceptional journalist. I fondly recall meeting him in different cities and locales. Unlike most of us, he worked hard and with passion. His translations from Urdu, particularly of Manto, were a major contribution. What a loss.”

The Hindu’s Islamabad Bureau Chief Nirupama said: “I met Khalid saab only once, two years ago, and cannot claim to know him, but I was a great fan of his column in the Daily Times and Friday Times. I will miss him. I wondered if he might be on holiday in Pakistan, and if I would run into him again. I wanted to thank him for reminding us of George Orwell’s six rules of good writing.”

MEMORIALS

Khalid Hasan Memorial Service, Embassy of Pakistan, Washington, DC

[SP] Pakistani-American journalist, writer remembered

[SAMAA] Pakistani, American intellectuals pay tribute to Khalid Hasan

REMEMBRANCES

[BBC Urdu] Obituary

[VOA] Obituary

[Daily Times] A master of wordplay

[Daily Times] In Memoriam: Rest in Peace, Dear Friend

[Daily Times] Editorial: Khalid Hasan, Great Journalist, Great Man

[Pakistan Observer] The Saga of Unforgettable KH

[DAWN] Khalid Hasan sets aside pen