Tag Archives: Rafiq Zakaria

A noble soul passes away

Aurangabad /Mumbai, MAHARASHTRA:

It was December 2001. I was at Dr Rafiq Zakaria’s beautiful, book-lined study at Cuffe Parade house in South Mumbai. In that spacious room Allama Iqbal vied for space with William Wordsworth and Mirza Ghalib sat alongside Shakespeare. World religions and their prophets and pundits were there in plenty. So were heroes and heroines of India’s freedom struggle. Present also were a few villains amidst a pantheon of popular leaders. Muhammad Ali Jinnah could not have been absent. He was there too.

In fact, Jinnah those days was in the intellectual air on both sides of the Indo-Pak border. The Outlook magazine had sent Dr Rafiq Zakaria’s book on Jinnah ‘The Man Who Divided India’ to noted Pakistani journalist Najam Sethi for review and he had panned the book. In the review Sethi had also suggested that Dr Zakaria should have heeded advice of his wife Fatma Zakaria who had tried to stop him from wiring the book, suggesting, “I think you should leave Jinnah alone for a while.” Dr Zakaria had written a rejoinder to Sethi’s piece and explained that he could not help but write about a man responsible for not just dividing India but breaking the social cohesion of the subcontinent Muslims. First, Muslims were divided between two countries–India and Pakistan. Subsequently, a part of Pakistan broke away, leaving Muslims divided in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The blood-curdling riots that accompanied these divisions had left Dr Zakaria deeply disturbed and could not rest till he took the grief off his chest.

While he gave an interview to me for the ‘Indian Express” on why he wrote this book and the debate it had generated, he told his office staff that he would not entertain any telephone calls or visitors for the next one hour. Dr Zakaria was holding forth forcefully in the closed room when unexpectedly and suddenly the door opened and Fatma Zakaria, in yellow salwar-kameez clutching a page, breezed in. “The secretary is so terrified after you asked her not to disturb you that she pleaded with me to come. This needs your signature and has to be faxed urgently,” Fatma said, got the paper signed and left quickly.

The Zakarias, husband and wife, complimented each other. One half left in 2005. The better half departed yesterday. She was 85. Her famous son, US-based author and Television anchor Fareed Zakaria couldn’t have encapsulated his feelings in a tweet better than this: “My mother, Fatma Zakaria, passed away last night at 85. She lived a long, rich, eventful life, with children and grandchildren whom she adored. She loved this photograph.” The photograph that I use with this essay is the one Fareed Zakaria tweeted. She is survived by, apart from Fareed, her son Arshad Zakaria and step son Mansoor Zakaria and step daughter Tasneem Mehta Zakaria.

Life was never the same again in Mumbai after Dr Rafiq Zakaria had exited. Life at the beautiful educational campus Dr Rafiq Zakaria built in Aurangabad will never be the same again after Fatma Zakaria’s departure. After Dr Zakaria’s death in 2005, Fatma had stepped in to carry on the educational legacy her famous educationist, politician and Islamic scholar husband had left behind.

As you enter the green campus, a sense of gratitude for the Zakarias grips you. For years, Dr Zakaria and then his wife Fatma nursed this seat of learning, endowing it with institutions of repute. Most politicians use their constituencies to scale heights and abandon them once they leave politics and walk into sunset. Few remain clung to their constituencies till they die. Dr Rafiq Zakaria belonged to the second category. “He is the architect of modern Aurangabad and Mrs. Fatma Zakaria was a big pillar of support to him. I don’t think Dr Zakaria could have done so much in the fields of politics, education and scholarship without her,” says eminent Urdu scholar and linguist Prof Abdus Sattar Dalvi who have known the Zakarias for the last five decades. Prof Dalvi had also translated Dr Zakaria’s seminal work Iqbal: Poet and Politician in Urdu.

Fatma was Dr Zakaria’s first reader and critic too. With their children flown out of the nest and into the wider world where they planted victory flags on as varied fields as Investment Banking and Journalism, it was Fatma who provided the much-needed inputs as well as emotional support to Zakaria who heads so many institutions and i wrote so prolifically till his end.

Fatma had worked under legendary editor and ‘dream boss’ of every fledgling journalist, Khushwant Singh, and knew how to curb verbosity in a sentence and straighten a complex paragraph. In book after book that Dr Zakaria churned out, he acknowledged the unpaid services of this able, inhouse editor. She knew Urdu too and could write on arts and literature with as much felicity as she could do political pieces. The biggies she had interviewed included Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher and Jaya Prakash Narayan.

Bachi Karkaria, M J Akbar, Bikram Vora, Jiggs Kalra, Badshah Sen and Ramesh Chandran were her contemporaries when they worked with “The Illustrated Weekly of India” under the stewardship of Khushwant Singh. When I informed Akbar about Fatma’s death yesterday, he reacted with a few words: “What a tragedy. I am saddened.” Akbar was so close to the Zakarias that once I heard him saying, “I feel adopted by the Zakarias.” Perhaps no book launch of Dr Zakaria–and he had at least one or two every year—was held without Akbar as one of the speakers. The speed with which Dr Zakria wrote books, published and launched them left us youngsters amazed. I once joked when he informed me about the launch of yet another book: “Dr Sahab, now I have left count of the number of your book launches and book readings I have attended.” This couldn’t have been possible without the meticulous planning Fatma Zakaria did and tireless support she provided.

It was the launch of Zakaria’s book ” Indian Muslims: Where Have they Gone Wrong?” at the Nehru Centre in Mumbai. The 900-odd capacity auditorium was houseful with young college students (Dr Zakaria and, Fatma after him, was chairperson of the Maharashtra College in Mumbai) occupying a substantial number of seats. As always, Fatma Zakaria didn’t figure among those who graced the stage. When Akbar rose to speak, he inquired about Fatma Zakaria who was seated among the audience. Akbar requested her to come on stage. She refused and was seemingly embarrassed for being invited to the stage. Leaving her to where she felt comfortable, Akbar went on to say: “It is only Dr Rafiq Zakaria who can turn a book launch into a public meeting.”

A couple of years after Dr Zakaria’s death, Islamic scholar and secretary general of the Wisdom Foundation, Dr Zeenat Shaukat Ali, and I were in Aurangabad to participate in a seminar political scientist Dr Zaheer Ali had organized. Historian and ex-VC of Jamia Millia Islamia Prof Mushirul Hasan too had flown in from Delhi. After the seminar, Zeenat Shaukat Ali and I went to see Fatma Zakaria in her office. She was in fine fettle, command of things and ran the show meticulously. We chatted for a while and then she told us not to leave without visiting Dr Sahab’s grave on the same campus.

Zeenat Shaukat Ali and I walked down the paved pathway and reached a small patch of land where Dr Zakaria’s open-to-sky grave squats. With several couplets of Allama Iqbal adorning the place, it resembles a Sufi saint’s last resting place. After a long, eventful life, Fatma Zakaria joined her husband. They will be there till the creator calls them up, along with all of us, on the Judgement Day.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> India / by Mohammed Wajihuddin in Beyond the Burqa, India, TOI / April 07th, 2021

Dr Rafiq Zakaria: A Patriot, Politician and Scholar

Mumbai, MAHARASHTRA :

Sadly today there is no one of Dr Zakaria’s caliber, scholarship and forceful articulation to bat for Indian Muslims

One evening in the late 1990s, as a cub reporter working for The Asian Age, founded and then edited by eminent journalist M J Akbar, I landed at the iconic Nehru Centre in Mumbai. It was a lecture by Samuel Huntington, the famous American scholar who had stirred a huge controversy with his Clash of Civilizations hypothesis. After Huntington’s speech, Dr Zakaria spoke and, while acknowledging the renowned scholar’s debt in mentoring the Zakarias’ son the famous author and journalist Fareed Zakaria, Dr Zakaria disagreed with Huntington’s hypothesis and attacked him for spreading fear among the peace-loving section of the world community.

That was the first time I saw Dr Zakaria. Subsequently, I attended a screening of a documentary made by a British channel on the eve of 50 years of India’s Independence in 1997. The documentary, complained Zakaria, had truncated version of his interview and post-screeing Dr Zakaria was understandably disturbed and livid. In my excitement to have got a “hot” story about a leading Islamic scholar like Dr Zakaria trashing a documentary by a British channel I reported it in the paper but wrongly said that it was produced by the BBC. Next day the BBC sent a letter to my editor denying its ownership. It was a huge embarrassment for me, the editor and the paper and, the then resident editor, rapped me for such a lapse and carelessness while reporting. To my pleasant surprise Dr Zakaria didn’t pull me up, forgetting and forgiving with a remark that it was a misreporting.

Dr Zakarai and his wife Madam Fatma Zakaria were very close to M J Akbar, and he could have got me fired for the blunder that I had committed. But Dr Zakaria saw it as a minor mistake on the part of a young, fledgling reporter and didn’t make it into a big issue. I fell in love with the scholar-politician for his magnanimity and sense of justice.

For the next one decade or so I remained immensely close to the Zakarias. Hardly a week passed when I didn’t call doctor sahib or he didn’t inquire about my progress as a journalist. I can’t remember the number of times I quoted him for stories or interviewed him for The Asian Age or The India Express, the paper I left in 2005 to join The Times of India. He was happy that I joined TOI, the newspaper he had contributed to for decades. Sadly, he didn’t live long to see my works in TOI, except the first story which announced my arrival to the Times. It was about Sare Jahan Se Accha completing a century and doctor sahib, as always, was effusive in his praise for me for this front-page story which in a way also announced my arrival to the Times of India.

I cannot forget a note that he wrote on one of his books he gifted me. Seated at his spacious study at the Cuffe Parade House in South Mumbai, in long hand, doctor sahib wrote:

“To Mohammed Wajihuddin for whose bright future I am genuinely concerned.”

It was a big compliment for me. I felt adopted by the Zakarias who showered unreserved love and affection on me. There was no artificiality in doctor sahib’s expression of concern and love for a boy who had arrived in the city from the backwaters of Bihar without a godfather. After his passing away, I missed him a lot and miss him every day, every moment.

Dr Rafiq Zakaria: An Impressive Journey

Dr Zakaria belonged to a generation which had not only witnessed the horrors of partition but had deeply felt pained at the vivisection of India into Islamic Pakisan and Secular India. Son of a maulvi in Nala Sopara, Zakaria scaled the height of scholarship and politics mainly because of his love for reading and a drive to excel.

A brilliant student, he devoured books on history, fiction, law, religion and everything between them. He had befriended Bernard Shaw, heard Harold Laski and met Bapu the Mahtma who always remained a paragon of truth and non-violence to Zakaria. Even as a student, both in Bombay and in London, he wrote for some leading newspapers of the day. An argumentative mind, he would not take things on their face value. He would question the status quo and side with the victims.

A patriot to the core, Zakaria never lost hope in the Hindu-Muslim unity and never forgave Mohammed Ali Jinnah for formulating the Two-Nation Theory which caused immeasurable damage to the sub-continent’s Muslims. In his autobiographical book The Price of Partition, the release function of which I had the fortune to attend, he has detailed the circumstances leading to the partition of India. He would often quote the famous Urdu couplet about the disaster that partition brought: Lamhon ne khata ki thi/sadiyon ne saza payee.

Dr Zakaria’s views about Muhammad Ali Jinnah

In his lucid prose which, as Zakaria confesses in almost all his books that he authored, was fine-tuned by the veteran editor and his better half Madam Fatma, Zakaria has quoted several interesting anecdotes about Jinnah whom his supporters called Quaid-e-Azam (the leader) but who actually misled the sub-continent’s Muslims. The pork-eating Jinnah who loved his whisky had nothing to do with the genuine concerns of the Muslims. He was authoritarian, egotist and desperate to see his dream of carving out Pakistan, the so-called Pure land for Muslims. One of the anecdotes in Zakaria’s immensely readable book goes like this:

“Jinnah had started reorganizing the League after the assembly elections in 1937; he was on an enticing spree. Hasrat Mohani, who was a firebrand, went to see Jinnah on some urgent work at his bungalow. He had not taken an appointment. It was after dusk; Jinnah was enjoying his peg of whisky. He called Mohani to his room and thinking then that he was more a revolutionary than an orthodox Muslim, offered him a drink. Mohani, somewhat baffled, said that he wished he had as little fear of God as Jinnah had. Jinnah retorted: “No, Maulana! You are wrong. I have more faith in His mercy than you have.”

Dr Rafiq Zakaria: A Successful Politician

He was a successful politician who even represented India at the United States to counter the arguments of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, then Pakistan’s foreign minister and later the Prime Minister, on the dispute over Kashmir. Besides, Zakaria was a passionate scholar of Islam. His seminal work Muhammad and the Quran, written in response to Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, is a labour of love for which Muslims will be eternally indebted to him. About the huge positive response this book received from noted scholars from across the world, Dr Zakaria once told me:

“After reading this book, a big Pakistani Maulana said, “Mujhe nahim maloom Dr Zakaria ne kitni neki or aur kitne gunah kiye hain lekin main gawahi deta hoon key eh kitab unki bakhshayesh ka zariya banegi. [Truly, if nothing else, at least this book will inshallah help our late doctor sahib find a place in jannah.]

Dr Rafiq Zakaria’s love for Allama Iqbal

His love for the poet-philosopher Allama Iqbal was immense. He defended Iqbal like few in India did. His book on Allama Iqbal, penned to prove that Iqbal was wrongly credited with fathering the idea of Pakistan, is testimony to Zakaria’s love and respect for Iqabl who was undoubtedly a great poet but a failed politician. Dr Zakaria never failed to quote the famous line from Iqbal’s Naya Shivala –Pather ki moorton mein samjha hai tu khuda hai/khake watan ka mujhko har zarra devta hai–whenever he needed to show Iqbal or other Indian Muslims as nationalists.

One thing that is of great relevance to us today is Dr Zakaria’s unshakeable faith in Kashmir’s accession to India. He had even penned a poem on Kashmir, expressing his love for the valley and why it needed to be with India. He justifiably believed that, if Kashmir secedes from India, it will not only be ruinous for the Kashmiris, but Muslims in the rest of India will have to pay heavily for this crime. As anti-Muslim hysteria grips parts of India in the aftermath of the recent terror attack on the Amarnath Yatri, Dr Zakaria’s fears only seem true. It is in the interest of Indian Muslims that Kashmir remains an integral part of India.

Sadly today there is no one of Dr Zakaria’s caliber, scholarship and forceful articulation to bat for Indian Muslims either in the media or in the corridors of power, the two arenas that are increasingly getting poisoned. As majotarianism marches ahead, threatening to turn the secular India into a Hindu rashtra, the absence of a patriot, politician and scholar like Zakaria is greatly felt.

(The author, a journalist with The Times of India, presented this paper at the one-day seminar on Dr Rafiq Zakaria on July 15, 2017 at Aurangabad. The article is reproduced here with the permission of the writer on the occasion of the 15th death anniversary of Dr Rafiq Zakari on July 9.)

source: http://www.ummid.com / Ummid.com / Home> India> Views & Analysis / by Mohammed Wajihuddin / July 17th, 2020