An Unsung Hero
of the Pakistan Movement
By Mohammad Ashraf Chaudhry
Pittsburg, CA
History
may be the biography of great men, but it was never
made by them in isolation. In fact, it could never
have been made, had those unsung, unrecognized and
nameless “heroes”, not soiled their
faces with dust and blood, and not stayed with them
as determinedly as they did. We must remember them,
as by doing so we learn to look around and notice
the unnoticed heroes that surround us all the time.
Munshi was one such unrecognized hero of the Pakistan
movement in London.
Who was this Munshi?
His passport confirms that he was born on April
4, 1903, in a small, but a Sikh-Jatt stronghold
village, called Thiara, in district Ludhiana, India.
His father, Muhammad Buta, otherwise a small farmer,
was a well-respected Muslim mainly on two counts:
he had seven sturdy sons, and one sole daughter,
a good half of them over 6’.3”, and
one of them, Noor Mohammed, a known wrestler and
weight-lifter of the area; and second that he was
a Muslim in whose circle of friends, non-Muslims
equaled if not outnumbered because he knew not what
hatred meant. Munshi was his first born, and he
named him, Ghulam Muhammad.
Munshi perhaps was the first in the area to clear
his Anglo-Vernacular Middle School
Exam sometime in 1916-17, acquire a teaching diploma,
and start his teaching career at a distant place,
Kamalia, now a part of Pakistan in 1918. His parents
fondly, and then everybody as was the custom, began
addressing him as Munshi. Prem Chand (1880-1936),
the famous short-story writer also had the title
of Munshi eternally prefixed to his name.
LUDHIANA TO LONDON
Munshi was a visionary, a big-city man, and Kamalia,
a small sleeping town was too small for the realization
of his dreams to be something in life. Besides,
India didn’t have much to offer him. It stood
depleted after the First World War. Hatred and hunger
ruled supreme.
Those were bad times in India, especially for the
Muslims. Hindu nationalism was on the rise, and
hatred, if it was not directed towards the British,
came to be directed towards them. World recession
of the 1929 had already begun pinching people. The
Quaid after his setback at Nagpur in 1920, had resigned
from the Congress, and Muslims virtually had become
a community without a leader in the1930s. Jinnah,
too, left for England in 1930 (two years after Munshi),
perhaps for good.
However, fate ideally combined four things for Munshi
when he arrived in London in 1928. He was handsome,
healthy and had lots of Buta’s good genes
in him; he came in contact with a wonderful young
English woman, Bessie, who later became his life-
partner, and remained so for over 50 years; he was
able to own a house in London, and above all, became
fairly rich within a short span of time due to his
silk imports.
Who knew that this son of illiterate Muhammad Buta
of Thiara would one day play host to the Quaid-i-Azam
in London in 1946; would make the living room of
his East London home a meeting venue for the UK-based
Muslim students and Leaguers in late 1930s-40s;
would become the founding father of the famous East
London Mosque( in all he helped establish some 50
mosques in England and Scotland); would arrange
the first big party celebrating the creation of
Pakistan on the 14th of August, 1947; would act
as stage secretary in the meetings at the famous
Albert Hall. In the words of his world-famous scientist-son,
Eric Hamilton, “Overall dad was always of
an opinion that England was the best country in
the world to live in and bring up children”.
Munshi did that and much more.
Munshi, himself a nominally educated person, sired
this son, Eric Muhammad, now known to the world
as Eric Hamilton. Eric became a world-class scientist
in geochemistry, a founder and developer of the
world famous MRC, Stable Element Lab., (SEL), a
PhD in geochemistry of uranium from Oxford; an expert
member of the WHO and IAEA; an advisor to the Royal
College of General Practitioners on the epidemiology
of diseases; founder and editor-in-chief of two
famous scientific journals, “Earth and Planetary
Science Letters”, Government consultant on
radioactive wastes; author of more than 200 scientific
papers and a world-class author of three books.
Munshi did not fail his parents; nor did he fail
the world. His contribution had been quite tangible.
Munshi lived with this famous son of his till he
breathed his last in 1981.
In a recent email, Eric Hamilton, Munshi’s
son writes to me, “Recently through my sisters
Laila and Miriam some new information has been provided.
It seems that Mum, before she met Dad, together
with her parents had befriended and become friends
of an Indian family, the wife called Fatima who
were Muslims living near Mum in the East End of
London, and who ran a haberdashery business. …we
are informed Mum had already accepted the Moslem
faith through her association with Fatima, had added
the name of Hamida to her”.
Munshi became prosperous and rich within a few years
of his arrival in 1928. He took care of his parents
in India so well that as the saying goes; they carried
the money he sent them on a donkey back. He became
a silk importer from China, but after the Second
World War, he suffered great financial losses. Neither
in prosperity, nor in adversity, did Munshi lose
sight of his compassion and passion to reach out
others in need. In the words of Eric, “We
lived near the East India Docks that was the main
entry of goods from the East. Poor Asian seamen
were often sent ashore. Some went to the local Sailors’
Rest Home, but often there was language problem
and particular food requirements. The police and
the Salvation Army would often knock on the door
of our home, and seek assistance on matters of language.
Dad, following his faith, was concerned that Muslims
among the seamen had difficulty in finding acceptable
food, carrying out the practice of praying 5 times
a day… Dad organized and contributed significantly
to the purchase of a four-floor house in Stepney
to provide on the upper floors room for sleeping,
lower floors, a room for reading and meditation
and the writing of letters to the homes of the seamen,
mediating on any legal residence issues etc. …Later
the building was redeveloped to become the East
London Mosque as it exists today… throughout
its development Dad played a very significant role”.
Munshi was very clear on the matter of religion.
He believed in no coercion. In the words of his
son, Eric, “I and my sisters, Miriam and Laila
at least, attended the East London Mosque on Sunday
mornings for instruction in Islam and prayers…
even today I can still read Arabic, albeit I do
not know what the words mean… but, Dad made
it clear from the onset that it was up to us to
decide what faith, if any, we would adopt”
Munshi had friends among Catholics, Methodists,
Jews, Salvation Army, Plymouth Brethren… his
purpose was always to learn and understand, albeit
he had firm beliefs (in Islam).
MUNSHI AND PAKISTAN MOVEMENT
Mr. Z. A. Sulehri, the famous journalist and Editor-in-Chief
of the Pakistan Times, who had supped hundreds of
tea cups as a student at Munshi’s home at
Canton Street in East London in the late forties,
writes in one of his articles, published in 1990,
“The time for the departure of the airplane
in which the Quaid was to travel was very early
and in those days underground trains were not in
operation. One of our friends, Mr. Ghulam Muhammad,
a businessman came from the East End of London by
hiring a taxi at five pounds (a very big amount
in 1946); just to see off the Quaid. We felt proud
of our friend, and presented him to the Quaid, telling
him how deeply and sincerely people like Mr. Ghulam
Muhammad loved him. The Quaid first smiled, but
then said spontaneously, ‘You Muslims are
extravagant’ ”.
Munshi appears prominently in a group photograph
in Mr. Sulehri’s book: “My Leader”
(1946). It is another story that Mr. Sulehri never
during his hay-day in Pakistan remembered ever to
invite Munshi to Pakistan, a country in whose creation
Munshi had spent thousands of hours and pounds.
Munshi was disillusioned. In the words of his son,
Eric, “After partition Dad became very disillusioned
with personalities, for example, a governing group
emerged from the more wealthy Regents Park Mosque
with attachments to the new Pakistan Embassy etc.
Dad did not approve of these newcomers…my
father saw corruption becoming significant as a
consequence of partition… it would be unlike
my father to discuss such matters with me…
as I have said my father was deeply involved (in
the Pakistan movement).”
Munshi also appears sitting very gracefully just
behind Mr. Liaquat Ali Khan in Victor Boletho’s
famous book “Jinnah: Creator of Pakistan),
pp 172-73, when the Quaid came to address the Muslims
at Kingsway Hall in December, 1946. When I met Munshi
in April, 1978 at Plymouth, he told me endless tales
of betrayals of some of the very important people
of Pakistan. I was shocked when he called all of
them as corrupt and ungrateful people. “Ashraf,
these leaders of yours did not even bother to send
me a receipt of the 77,000 pounds I had collected
through appeals made at the East London Mosque,
and by going from door to door, to help the refugees
and the displaced refugees that included my brothers
and sister too”.
These leaders of Pakistan who had frequently supped
at Munshi’s, and whom his wife, Hamida (Bessie,
Charlotte Kathleen), had most generously accommodated
at their East London home for years, forgot them
all. Some did remember him: the East London Mosque
Board of directors, and the Indigent Moslems Burial
Fund of London. On Munshi’s death on February
19, 1981, both sent messages of condolences, stating,
“Marhoom (late) Ghulam Mohammad was a founding
member of this Trust and was very much devoted to
this Mosque…”. Eric and his sisters
(Munshi’s children) made sure that his religious
beliefs were respected, and that he got the proper
Muslim burial. They saved all his religious books,
even the Qur’an Munshi had specially brought
from India in 1928, and some rare family photographs
and letters.
WHAT WAS MUNSHI TO THE WRITER OF HIS PROFILE?
Munshi was none else, but my own eldest Mamoo, the
eldest brother of my mother. Muhammad Buta was my
maternal grandfather, and Eric Hamilton, Laila,
Miriam and Aysha, my cousins. I was pleased to learn
as I met Eric this April in Birmingham that he,
his sisters, and grandchildren still address Ghulam
Muhammad as Munshi, and hold him in great esteem
and respect. Munshi’s story reminds me of
the Qur’anic verse, (49:13) which says, “You
Mankind: We have created you from a single pair
of a male and a female, and made you into nations
and tribes that you might come to know and cherish
one another, (not to despise one another). In the
court of Allah, good deeds (personal usefulness
to mankind), will mainly determine which way one
is to head…to Hell or to Heaven. Munshi, indeed,
was a useful human being for this world. Eric Hamilton,
at age 74, still appears greatly interested in knowing
who his ancestors from the Munshi-side were, and
some of his grandchildren born with black hair keep
reminding them all that Munshi is not dead. He is
an integral part of their DNA.
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