Looking Back, Looking Ahead – A Historical Review
By C. Naseer Ahmad
As the Women’s History Month in 2021 comes to a close in the US, students of history and international affairs might note down that while history might not repeat, it does help looking back while looking ahead. The horrific scenes coming out of Myanmar, formerly Burma, during the most brutal repression of the Burmese people by its own military bring back memories of atrocities committed by armies against the very people they are hired to protect.
Think of Syria and even here in Washington where unarmed Black Lives Matter protestors were mistreated so badly by the troops under an autocratic regime. Most recently, the world saw enactment of a law in Georgia which make it a crime to give food or water to voters in the line while allowing guns to be carried openly. And, in this month the Republican Party Chairman in Michigan apparently called Governor Gretchen Whitmer and two elected women “witches” who should be “burned at the stake.”
Long before the Aung San Suu Kyi’s struggle against military dictatorship and authoritarianism in Myanmar (formerly Burma), there was Mohtarama Miss Fatima Jinnah, the younger sister of Pakistan’s Founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who not only shouldered her widowed brother’s burdens but also his struggle for the creation of Pakistan.
Fatima Jinnah was an accomplished dental surgeon, who co-founded All Pakistan Women Association after Pakistan became a country. She was censored by successive regimes in Pakistan but never gave up speaking truth to power. She wrote a book “My Brother” in 1955 but successive governments did not let it get published until 1987.
In 1965, Fatima Jinnah contested the presidential election which was rigged against her. Even though she was not declared the winner, Fatima Jinnah won the majority of the votes in Pakistan’s two largest cities, Karachi and Dhaka. For Ayub Khan, the 1965 presidential election was a pyrrhic victory because he was forced to hand over power to another General Yahya Khan, who like the Burmese military, wreaked havoc on his own people in East Pakistan and lost more than half of the country in a disastrous war in 1971. Think of the possibilities if Fatima Jinnah was not cheated out of the 1965 election, for she had won Dhaka with ballots not bullets!
She died in July 1967 and nearly half a million people attended her funeral. For her life’s work, Fatima Jinnah is remembered in Pakistan as Māder-e Millat (" Mother of the Nation ") and Khātūn-e Pākistān ("Lady of Pakistan"). In her recent column , Ms Izza Malik said: “ Jinnah fought for all Muslim women —for equality, for their economic independence and liberation, and for their political empowerment. She became a symbol of hope for Muslim women. “
History has a strange way of settling things. Fatima Jinnah’s name lives on in the most noble way she deserves through the Fatima Jinnah Medical University (FJMU) in Lahore Pakistan – the premiere institution for training women in medicine.
History also has a way of connecting people who have no familial connections and perhaps never met. The Ganga Ram Hospital established one hundred years ago by Sir Ganga Ram – considered the father of modern Lahore because most of the landmark buildings in the city are still being used, as one of his philanthropic initiatives, serves as the teaching hospital for FJMU. So, the names of two people become a noble legacy of healing and alleviating human suffering.
During a recent conversation with the author, Vermont State Senator Kesha Ram – a great-great-granddaughter of Sir Ganga Ram - recalled an incident when her aunt Baroness Shreela Flather was harassed on the London Tube by a man complaining: “What have your people done for Great Britain?” Instead of getting angry, she worked with the Prince of Wales for erection of the Memorial Gates on Constitution Hill near Hyde Park, London – as monument to the sacrifices of all heroes from South Asia and other parts of the Commonwealth during the two World Wars.
When Senator Kesha Ram mentioned this story, the name Bahadur Ali Haidar - born in Kohat, recipient of the Victoria Cross for his heroism in World War and buried in Shahukhel Village, Hangu District Pakistan on July 15, 1999 - immediately came to my mind as it happens to be my younger son’s name. It was the name that I first noticed on a visit to the Memorial Gates in London not long ago. Upon hearing this story, I came to once again appreciate the legacy of Sir Ganga Ram and the courage of Baroness Flather.
Senator Ram is a dynamic young leader who has seized opportunities as life presented to her. During her senior year in college, she was asked to introduce, who was then a rising star in American politics, first-term Senator Barack Obama at a campaign rally to help elect Senator Bernie Sanders. Then Senator Obama was so struck by her speech that he told the crowd that if Bernie did not deliver then they have “Kesha Ram who can replace him.”
Family history can be a blessing or sometimes a curse and a burden. In Senator Ram’s case, family history is a source of inspiration and links her to some remarkable women, whose unique contributions too need to be recognized during the Women’s History Month.
Though Miss Fatima Jinnah and Senator Ram have no direct familial connection or religious association, they are linked through Sir Ganga Ram and the common passion for public service among the three.
Being human, all leaders regardless of their gender, are prone to make errors of commission as well as omission. The smart and successful ones learn to fix them and move on. For the young and energetic ones like Vermont State Senator Ram, Michigan Governor Whitmer and her colleagues, time is on their side to make the politics of disenfranchisement and division history. And, when they do so history and perhaps the spirits of those on whose shoulders they stand, might be waiting for them:
“May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.”
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