Page 8 - Pakistan Link - November 10, 2017

P8 – PAKISTAN LINK – NOVEMBER 10, 2017 OPINION
Her Father’s Daughter monument.
n By Ardeshir Cowasjee

aying her third visit last month to the country found- Fift y-seven entries were received and in 1958 the jury assembled
ed by her father, Dina Wadia, writing in the visitors’ in Karachi and the design sent in by Raglan Squire of Britain was
Pbook at Jinnah’s Mazar, expressed the wish, “May his selected as the winner. It was a beautiful design, striking in its sim-
dream for Pakistan come true.” plicity, a huge concrete fl owing canopy, far surpassing all others in its
She fi rst came to Pakistan in 1948, when the perfection.
year-old country lost its founder, Mohammad Ali Th en in stepped the obdurate Miss Fatima Jinnah. She pulled
Jinnah, and she her father. Her memories of 1948 rank and prevailed upon the government of the day to reject Squire’s
must solely be confi ned to the sad circumstances, design.
to her own sorrow, and to the massive outpourings At her insistence, an architect from Bombay was brought in and
of grief by the hundreds and thousands who in 1960, President General Ayub Khan, fi tting in with her wishes, ap-
climbed the rocky hillock at dusk on September proved his design. Construction was started, work progressed at a
12 to bury him. snail’s pace until in 1969 when President General Agha Mohammad
It was a great pleasure to meet Mrs Wadia (who so resembles Yahya Khan appeared on the scene, banged down his swagger stick,
her father in features and manner), her son and his two sons, and to and the mausoleum was magically completed in December 1970.
converse with her in our common expressive lingo, “ParsiGuj”, which A shortage of funds, of water, of initiative, of interest and of will,
in one sentence can convey almost a written chapter. ensured that nothing was done about the landscaping - until along
I took with me an old photograph of her father, cigarette in came another general in 1999. (Ironically, the three generals were
mouth, lounging on the lawn of his London house playing with his more concerned than “our democratically elected” civilian heads of
dogs, Essie, his Doberman bitch and Peter, his West Highland Ter- state and government).
rier. What else we discussed must remain private in deference to her Musharraf, in his early years, made much reference to Jinnah.
wishes. He maintained it was not too late to revert and attempt to rebuild the
Invited by the chairman of our cricket board, Shahryar Khan, country and the nation in the mould visualized by its maker. Speak-
Dina Wadia came, with son Nusli and grandsons Ness and Jeh, to ing to the people from the mazar in 2001, on the 125th birth anniver-
Lahore to watch the fi nal one-day cricket match. Th e man, General sary of Jinnah, the general told the nation that the way forward, the
Pervez Musharraf, who was extremely fi rm on the fact, soon aft er he way he was attempting to take them, was Jinnah’s way. But to move
took over Pakistan, that his dream for the country echoed Jinnah’s forward “we will have to step very cautiously.”
dream, travelled to Lahore to meet her. His decisions, said Musharraf, were to be taken with Jinnah’s
She, her son and grandsons then fl ew to Karachi, just for the day, vision of Pakistan in mind, encompassing a welfare state drawing
to visit her father’s tomb. Th at to her mind her father’s dream was a inspiration from the tenets of true Islam, built on foundations of de-
far cry should come as no surprise to even the most unthinking of us Mr Jinnah and Dina share a private moment in the mocracy, with respect and protection for the individual, with equal
Pakistanis. grounds of their home on West Heath Road in Hamp- rights for men, women and children irrespective of religious faith or
She, however, should have been impressed with the upkeep of political views. (And it must be remembered that religion, according
the tomb and with the development of the grounds in which it stands. stead, London.—Courtesy National Archives Islamabad to Jinnah, is a matter solely between a man and his God - it has noth-
She perhaps does not know that full credit for the landscaping of the ing to do with the business of the state).
gardens must go to the president general and his army team who have Architect Mehdi Ali Mirza and his junior, the young Khwaja Musharraf quoted from a speech Jinnah made in 1941: “Th ere
so well transformed a neglected, rundown and barren area. Zaheeruddin, were summoned. Th ey did the correct thing. Th ey ap- are at least three main pillars which go to make a nation worthy of
It may have taken over a half century to provide gardens in possessing a territory and running a government. One is education.
memory of a man who created this country, but how many, including She, her son and grandsons then fl ew to Karachi, just Next, no nation and no people can ever do anything very much with-
his daughter, are aware that it took 22 years to build and complete the for the day, to visit her father’s tomb. Th at to her mind out making themselves economically powerful in commerce, trade
mausoleum in which he lies. her father’s dream was a far cry should come as no and industry. And lastly, you must prepare yourselves for your de-
He lay under a tent to begin with, with architects coming and fence, defence against external aggression and to maintain internal
going, suggestions made, draft s drawn up, disagreement and discord. surprise to even the most unthinking of us Pakistanis security.”
In 1956 the Quaid-i-Azam Mausoleum Committee was formed and it In tune with Jinnah’s creed in his never to be forgotten speech of
sought the advice of Khan Bahadur Suleiman, a former chief engineer proached the International Union of Architects in Paris and set about August 11, 1947, to the members of his Constituent Assembly
of the public works department of undivided India. organizing an international competition for the design of a suitable DAUGHTER, P28

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