In September 1987, Dr Ahmed was appointed as the university’s vice chancellor, a position he held till July 1990.
KARACHI: A former vice chancellor of the University of Karachi (KU), Prof. Dr Manzooruddin Ahmed, died at the age of 83 in Syracuse, New York.
Born at Sultanpur (UP) India in 1929, Dr Ahmed earned a Master’s degree in diplomacy and international affairs from Allahabad University in 1949. Afterwards, he did his PhD in political science from Columbia University, New York in 1960.
Dr Ahmed joined KU as a professor of political science in 1973, but left after some time for Columbia, where he also taught the same subject. He also served as the Quaid-e-Azam distinguished professor of political science and the director of Pakistan Centre/South Asian Institute at Columbia.
Between 1976 and 1979, he also held the Pakistan Chair, which was revived by former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto during his 1973 visit to the United States. The chair was suspended during the 1965 Indo-Pak war.
Upon his return to Pakistan, Dr Ahmed became the chairperson of KU’s political science department and later served as the dean of the arts faculty. In September 1987, Dr Ahmed was appointed as the university’s vice chancellor, a position he held till July 1990.
“His unique quality was his simple nature that is hard to expect from such an intelligent and learned man,” said Dr Tanweer Khalid, a professor at KU’s political science department, who was a student and a colleague of Dr Ahmed.
Dr Khalid was fortunate enough to meet her mentor, who also supervised her doctorate thesis, in San Jose, California, this year in May. “Despite his weak health, Dr Ahmed arrived to welcome me at the gate,” she recalled. “By chance it was his birthday and I saw who happy he was with his sons, daughters and grandchildren.”
Dr Ahmed had written and contributed to a number of books, including the latest one “Pakistan: Independence and Beyond”, published in May 2012. He is survived by three daughters and two sons.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 29th, 2012.
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Very sad to know of uncle Manzoor’s sad demise. May Allah (swt) rest him in Jannah and gives strength to his family to bear this loss. I had so many associations with him. First of all, he was a fatherly figure for all of us in the friend’s circle specially because of Rubina and Raees Nizam (his daughter and son-in-law respectively). For me he had a special status as my father’s name was also Manzoor. At the heyday of our medical school, I decided to go into civil service and uncle Manzoor was the first port of call to seek counsel on selection of subjects. I distinctly remember that I selected Constitutional Law on his recommendation and surprisingly didn’t do bad! Dr. Manzoor was one of those academic who was a progressive thinker in his own right. He encouraged me to blend thematic knowledge with practitioner’s experience and several of my initial publications on public sector reforms bear testimony that I followed my mentor’s advice. Throughout his career and life he remained passionate about Pakistan. His latest book published during his last days is a living example. Dr. Manzoor’s greatest favour to me was to encourage me to do PhD – rather unfashionable in bureaucracy. I will always owe a gratitude to him for his guidance on this. I consider myself fortunate to have a number of his autographed books that occupy cherished positions in my library back home.
Dr Munawwar Alam, Adviser, Commonwealth Secretariat, London
I got to know Dr Manzoor through my very close friend, who is also her father. He was such a wonderful and loving person. He made me feel like one of his daughters and cared about my family a lot. May Allah rest his soul in peace and give him the highest place in jannat. He will be missed dearly.
One of the very few genuine intellectuals of Pakistan.
As a colleague, I can say that he was one of the very few genuine intellectuals of the University of Karachi.
I had a chance to take few sessions from him while he was a visiting faculty at Sir Syed University of Engineering & Technology in 2002.Pakistan has lost a writer,historian and an educationist.
May KU somehow return to attracting men and women like him. The University had something going all these years, it saddens one to see how places like that lose their glory. To better times hopefully. Pakistan needs it.
He taught me at the Karachi University in 1970 - 71. He was brilliant. May he rest in peace.
Learned and intelligent persons are invariably down to earth and Dr. Manxoor was a genuine person with lot of abilities and potential. Few people know that he wrote many articles in the Urdu daily Jang, advocating the case of stranded Pakistani's in Bangladesh for repatriation to Pakistan. Unfortunately all his efforts and pleas fell on deaf Ear's.