Opinion

The Army and the Making of Jinnah
By Dr Akbar S. Ahmed
American University
Washington, DC

Late in the 1980s when I began to plan a film on the Quaid-i-Azam at Cambridge University I thought it was important to find out how Gandhi was made and who supported the producers. I was most curious, for example, about the spectacular funeral procession in the film. It was said some 400,000 extras participated in that brief scene and because of the numbers it entered the Guinness Book of Records.

That is when I met Rani Dube, co-producer of the Gandhi film, in London and invited her to Cambridge. Rani was most forthcoming and sympathetic to my idea of a film on Jinnah.

She recounted her own story. Richard Attenborough was finding it difficult to raise money for the Gandhi film when Rani was asked to fly to Delhi and meet Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister. Indira Gandhi was immediately convinced of the importance of making the film. She realized that it would be the most powerful asset in projecting an idea of India on the global stage. Indira summoned several of her leading bureaucrats and instructed them to work closely with Rani. The head of the central bank, the airlines and the army were asked to work closely with the cabinet secretary who would in turn liaise with Rani.

Most crucially, Indira Gandhi sanctioned ten million dollars for the film. Attenborough was able to raise the rest of the budget on the back of that sum.

Talking to Rani, I understood how crucial it was to get the full support of the government. I learnt from her, for example, that the funeral scene was such a success because the sea of humanity was made up mainly of Indian army soldiers.

The film Gandhi came to define the man globally. No biography – and there are many really good ones – has had the same impact. And in ways that cannot be calculated, the film projected the image of India as a land of non-violence, wisdom and peace. In short, Gandhi became the greatest ambassador for India. Today the film is shown frequently across the world and Gandhi is acknowledged as one of the leading iconic figures of modern times. Every new generation therefore sees Gandhi and leaves the theatre in awe of the man. However simplistic in its message and story-line, it is a powerful and spectacular film.

Gandhi was a master stroke for India---it made Gandhi a super-saint while permanently demoting Jinnah to scowling super-villain. Some Pakistanis do not quite get it. Many told me—yes but how can you compare the two? See the film Gandhi---he was a saint and Jinnah was a very negative man!

For anyone who doubts the power of a film to consolidate the image of a man look no further than David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia. More than the biographies and newsreels, Peter O’Toole’s portrayal has become the defining image of T.E. Lawrence. Both Ben Kingsley and Peter O’Toole won Oscars for their portrayals and the films gathered several Oscars each.

In contrast to the making of Gandhi and the consistent and massive support it received from the government of India, I was struggling in the 1990s with my Jinnah Quartet with the most erratic political set-up in the background as governments fell like nine-pins. Prime Ministers came and went with alarming frequency and some came twice. There were even interim prime ministers and it all ended as it invariably does in Pakistan in Martial Law. Every change in government affected my projects. The new leaders inevitably scrapped earlier agreements and looked at projects being conducted with the previous regime with disfavor. In some senses, I had to constantly start again. At one point one million pounds was committed to me in formal agreements by one of the governments and I flew back to London to prepare the cast and crew to fly to Pakistan for the shoot. In the meantime another government took over and promptly reneged.

I was constantly asked by top people: What’s in it for us? There was non-stop slander and incitement to violence in the media. This rattled the cast and crew. I give full marks to them for their hard work and commitment to finish the film in spite of the challenges. Even my meager pay as the Iqbal Chair at Cambridge University was stopped more than once in an effort to trip me up.

There was one exception to the erratic and changing attitudes of the governments: The Pakistan army.

From the very first meetings that I had at GHQ in the early 1990s, the army stood by the Jinnah projects. It had instinctively understood what Rani Dube and Indira Gandhi had grasped: that modern nations project their image through the media and films and that modern wars are fought through ideas and images, not just missiles and tanks.

The Army Chief, Jehangir Karamat, was a soldier-gentleman of the old school and was very positive about my idea.His Chief of Staff was an old school fellow from Burn Hall and many officers also knew me as the elder brother of Brigadier Sikander. In an unprecedented move a full regiment was put at my disposal for the shoot. They provided the crucial crowd scenes for example when we showed the refugees pouring across the borders in 1947 or the railway station scenes with trains carrying dead passengers massacred on the way by fanatics. The news of the support of the army also had a positive effect on people generally, especially important in view of the negative media and malicious rumors.

My friend Abbas Khattak, whom I first met decades ago when he was a dashing young pilot, was now the distinguished head of the air force with the title of the Air Chief Marshall. He met me warmly and when I requested him that we be allowed to use the actual plane Jinnah flew in when Pakistan was created he agreed without hesitation. The problem was that it had been neglected for decades and one of its wings was in serious disrepair. We had the crew fix it and, although the plane is actually stationary, its interior was used convincingly for the scene in which Jinnah flies to Pakistan.

In Karachi a retired Major, influenced by the media, took us to court claiming that the Jinnah film was a conspiracy to destroy Pakistan. If he succeeded the film would be closed down. Once again Lee and others asked me why it was that Pakistanis could not understand that we were here to pay tribute to the Quaid. It was the classic own-goal. In the event SS Pirzada and Liaqat Merchant represented the film in court and brilliantly had the case dismissed (the story is covered in the documentary Dare to Dream https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=VKmJFbWXuzc ). For the record, these two outstanding lawyers worked gratis as they believed in the project and had been supporting and advising me long before the shoot. Besides, by then our budget was exhausted and no money was forthcoming from the government in spite of numerous promises.

For the climactic scene at the Badshahi mosque we needed the largest crowd scene possible and I rang and requested General Karamat, the Army Chief, for another two regiments. He explained that as we were now in Lahore, the protection of the provincial capital was involved, and if he suddenly moved two regiments from the front facing India just a few miles away, the information would be picked up by the Indian army and he did not want to take the slightest risk of a sneak attack.

I will always support democracy as an idea and in practice. Good or bad, politicians must be allowed to play out their tenure till Pakistanis select better and better people. But it is reassuring that there is an alert institution like the Pakistan army with a command and control structure still in place keeping a watchful eye on the fate of the nation. As for the Jinnah film, those who would complain why assistance was given to it by the army need to remember the lessons of Indira Gandhi and the Gandhi film and heed the saying: Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

(Professor Akbar Ahmed is Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, American University, Washington DC. His recently released film is Journey into Europe and he is working on the book of the same title for Brookings Press as the fourth project of his award-winning quartet of studies examining relations between the West and the world of Islam.)