Book launch: Collection of Liaquat Ali Khan’s speeches published
The question of whether the first prime minister was responsible for alliance with the US finally answered.
KARACHI:
Did the first prime minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, commit the ‘original sin’ of aligning the country’s foreign policy with the interests of the United States?
This question, which has haunted historians and the general public alike, was answered at the launch of the book ‘Pakistan - the Heart of Asia’ at the Arts Council on Friday. The book is a collection of Khan’s speeches and was compiled during his 22-day visit to the United States in 1950.
The speakers, who included distinguished former ambassadors and one of Khan’s sons, Ashraf Liaquat Ali, stressed that it was the Russians themselves who refused to reschedule the former prime minister’s visit to the USSR, despite repeated requests.
Ashraf Liaquat Ali said the question of whether the government of the Soviet Union had invited the prime minister has held the interest of the country for 50 years. “I hope this book will answer those queries for good,” he said. Ashraf was just 14 years old when his father was assassinated.
The publisher of the book, Iqbal Saleh Muhammad, said that the collection was first published by the Harvard University Press 50 years ago. “I was introduced to this book through a friend and I felt the need to have it reprinted in Pakistan. Harvard University agreed to let me do so without asking for any fee or royalty,” he said.
Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US and Soviet Union, Jamshed Marker, who had close familial ties with Liaquat Ali Khan, recalled numerous incidents from the life of the “truly remarkable man.”
Marker told the audience that a bureaucrat came to Liaquat Ali Khan’s office after partition with a file that listed all the properties he could gain in Pakistan in exchange for the property he left behind in India. “Liaquat picked up the file and threw it,” Marker recalled. He instructed the bureaucrat to first visit the refugees in Orangi. Khan told the bureaucrat to “come back when all the refugees have been given a proper place to live.”
After Khan’s assassination, the total possessions he left behind included lots of books, some clothes, a collection of cigarette lighters and a bank balance of less than 40,000 rupees.
After a hard day at work, the former prime minister used to unwind by playing the tabla. Marker told the audience that Khan would often say that no other ‘shareef admi’ (gentleman) could play the tabla better than him. Former ambassador Syed Mahdi Masud said although Khan was a ‘nawab’ by birth, he was proletarian by character.
The book is available at a discounted price of Rs400 through Paramount publishers.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 13th, 2011.
Did the first prime minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, commit the ‘original sin’ of aligning the country’s foreign policy with the interests of the United States?
This question, which has haunted historians and the general public alike, was answered at the launch of the book ‘Pakistan - the Heart of Asia’ at the Arts Council on Friday. The book is a collection of Khan’s speeches and was compiled during his 22-day visit to the United States in 1950.
The speakers, who included distinguished former ambassadors and one of Khan’s sons, Ashraf Liaquat Ali, stressed that it was the Russians themselves who refused to reschedule the former prime minister’s visit to the USSR, despite repeated requests.
Ashraf Liaquat Ali said the question of whether the government of the Soviet Union had invited the prime minister has held the interest of the country for 50 years. “I hope this book will answer those queries for good,” he said. Ashraf was just 14 years old when his father was assassinated.
The publisher of the book, Iqbal Saleh Muhammad, said that the collection was first published by the Harvard University Press 50 years ago. “I was introduced to this book through a friend and I felt the need to have it reprinted in Pakistan. Harvard University agreed to let me do so without asking for any fee or royalty,” he said.
Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US and Soviet Union, Jamshed Marker, who had close familial ties with Liaquat Ali Khan, recalled numerous incidents from the life of the “truly remarkable man.”
Marker told the audience that a bureaucrat came to Liaquat Ali Khan’s office after partition with a file that listed all the properties he could gain in Pakistan in exchange for the property he left behind in India. “Liaquat picked up the file and threw it,” Marker recalled. He instructed the bureaucrat to first visit the refugees in Orangi. Khan told the bureaucrat to “come back when all the refugees have been given a proper place to live.”
After Khan’s assassination, the total possessions he left behind included lots of books, some clothes, a collection of cigarette lighters and a bank balance of less than 40,000 rupees.
After a hard day at work, the former prime minister used to unwind by playing the tabla. Marker told the audience that Khan would often say that no other ‘shareef admi’ (gentleman) could play the tabla better than him. Former ambassador Syed Mahdi Masud said although Khan was a ‘nawab’ by birth, he was proletarian by character.
The book is available at a discounted price of Rs400 through Paramount publishers.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 13th, 2011.