‘Fatima Jinnah lived in a house that was encroached upon by the govt’

Owner of Mohatta Palace was forced to leave to make way for foreign office, Sardar Ahmed.

KARACHI:

The “qabza” mafia is the first word that comes out of the mouth of politicians when they are explaining the worsening law and order situation.

But during Friday’s Sindh Assembly session, the lawmakers went a step further. Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Sardar Ahmed claimed that the government had “encroached” upon Mohatta Palace, the pre-partition landmark located in Clifton, since it forced its Hindu owner to vacate it after Partition. The palace was later given to Fatima Jinnah, sister of the country’s founding father, Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

According to Ahmed, the palace was built by a Hindu businessman, Shivratan Chandraratan Mohatta. MPA Ahmed said that the Hindu entrepreneur was “forced” to vacate the house after Pakistan’s creation. Mohatta migrated to India a few years later, he said.

The commonly held belief in the country is that the Government of Pakistan had, after Partition, purchased the house from Mohatta. The palace’s website also supports this version of events. There have also been reports over the years that Mohammad Ali Jinnah had himself purchased the palace from Mohatta, and later allowed the government to use it as it saw fit.

By all accounts, including Ahmed’s, the palace housed the foreign affairs office from 1947 to 1964, when it moved to Islamabad. The house was then given to Fatima Jinnah, who managed her presidential campaign against then-president Field Marshal Ayub Khan from there. With her death the same year, the house passed onto her sister, Shireen Bai, who lived there until her death in 1980.

Ahmed claimed that Mohatta had told the government that if they wanted to give his house to Jinnah’s sister, they should have just asked him, instead of forcibly occupying it. Sindh culture minister Sassui Palijo appreciated the “detailed briefing” the lawmaker gave, but insisted that the Sindh government had taken over the ownership and converted it into museum.

New provinces

With the federal government going ahead with its plans to create the Bahawalpur South Punjab, opposition parties in the Sindh Assembly spoke up against any attempts to divide Sindh. They rallied behind Pakistan Muslim League-Functional leader Jam Madad Ali’s call to take up a year-old resolution against a proposal to allow the creation of new provinces in the country, without the consent of provincial assemblies.

During Friday’s assembly session, Ali said that the tenure of the provincial assembly would come to an end in March, and therefore lawmakers needed to address the issue now, and “leave no chance for anyone to conspire to divide Sindh [in the future]”.  The session was adjourned till Monday.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 9^th, 2013.