akistan In An Age Of Turbulence is the story of a remarkable family’s contribution to intellectual, academic and professional development in the field of national and international affairs. It takes the form of a biographical tale located mainly in Panipat and Karachi in the wake of partition and independence of once-colonised India.

The tale is told by Dr Masuma Hasan, a career civil servant and accomplished scholar and researcher. It is addressed primarily to her two sons, Hasan and Asad.

Dr Hasan describes her appointment as Pakistan’s ambassador to Vienna by then prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, in 1993 as a “fascinating turn” in her career. However, she candidly notes that this came about in part because she could not be appointed a federal secretary in any division other than the women ministry, her seniority as a civil servant notwithstanding. The civil service elite had “probably warned her that this was their turf.” Before being chosen for Austria, she was offered diplomatic appointments in some of the less important countries that she declined. The Vienna posting allowed her to excel through her scholarship and dedication. That an abiding interest in international affairs was something of a family affair, also helped. (Her father Khwaja Sarwar Hasan was amongst the founders of the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs.)

Masuma Hasan was thus part of Pakistan’s delegation to the United Nations General Assembly session in 1994 where she spoke in the plenary sessions and in the Fourth Committee and introduced resolutions on disarmament and a nuclear-weapon-free zone in South Asia in the First Committee. She also sat through Security Council and OIC Contact Group meetings. (Her husband Fatehyab Ali Khan was also part of the delegation.)

Austria at that time hosted a number of international organisations including the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), the Standing Advisory Committee on Technical Cooperation (SAGTAC), the United Nations Drug Control Programme and the Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS). Then there were the United Nations Office in Vienna (UNOV) and the Vienna International Centre (VIC). Pakistan, she complains, was represented by only two diplomats so the workload was heavy. Also, she remembers, they were among the worst paid diplomatic staff. This sometimes forced them to travel to neighbouring countries to buy cheaper groceries.

Despite the difficulties, Vienna provided Dr Hasan with the opportunity to prove her mettle. In 1966, she was elected to chair the Group of 77. She was the first woman to hold the chair of any chapter. She also led the delegation to UNIDO’s Global Forum on Industry and the Meeting of the Ministers of Industry in Asia and the Pacific in New Delhi.

Her deputation ended abruptly with a change of government in Islamabad. The farewell reception for her was attended among others by some leading diplomats including Kurt Waldheim, the former United Nations secretary general, and members of the diplomatic corps with whom she had worked. Vienna’s Diplomatic Media Service wrote, “… it is completely incomprehensible for us all why such a recognised representative of her country has been recalled.”

Dr Hasan’s last civil service posting was as cabinet secretary – a recognition of her merit and hard work. Like some earlier senior postings, this too was resented by some of her colleagues. Some of them even tried to stall it.

Together with Omar Asghar Khan, who had joined Musharraf’s cabinet, she tried to honour some of the people’s heroes. The results were mixed. Sindh’s noted peasant leader Haidar Bux Jatoi was cleared, but not Mirza Ibrahim, the noted industrial workers’ leader. Her suggestions about poets Rasa Chughtai, Jaun Ailya and Kishwar Naheed were approved.

The tale is told by Dr Masuma Hasan, a career civil servant and accomplished scholar and researcher. It is addressed primarily to her two sons, Hasan and Asad. 

Also, during her tenure, Masuma strongly advocated for and had the satisfaction of piloting the approval of the Urdu code plate for computer applications. The keyboard was adopted by the national database authority as well as Microsoft in its WindowsXP English and Urdu versions. She also moved to put Urdu on Unicode and considers it the “proudest moment of my life” when she saw it on their banner. The National Language Authority thus became a full corporate member of the Unicode Consortium.

She also travelled to Kashghar by road with a couple of her colleagues.
She was also on the committee, including the then home minister and foreign secretary, tasked with recommending the course of action with regard to the popular demand for declassification of the Report of the Commission of Inquiry on the 1971 War, popularly known as Hamoodur Rehman Commission Report. She notes that despite the recommendation of the Commission that Lt-Gen AAK Niazi and other officers in the field and headquarters be tried and a high-powered court or commission be appointed to inquire into the allegations of atrocities during the army action from March to December 1971, no trials were held.

There are interesting references also to the family history – the ancestor who arrived in India at the invitation of Ghias ud Din Balban and was instrumental in stopping the clergy’s action against Bu Ali Qalandar; the imambaras the family built to facilitate the observance of Muharram; the move to Hyderabad where her grandfather Anwar Hasan finally got an executive engineer’s job he had been denied in British India despite his education and merit; his considerable legacy including the Mahbubiya Town Hall that now houses Andhra State Assembly; her father’s role in establishing the Institute of International Affairs.

The author also shares her impressions of Ayub Khan’s martial law; the Bhutto years; the takeover by Zia and what followed. She recalls that the opposition leaders had great contempt for ZA Bhutto; wonders why Benazir Bhutto missed the opportunity to elect Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan as president instead of Ghulam Ishaq Khan; and regrets that when Gen Pervez Musharraf assumed power, the religio-political parties welcomed his action and the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) did not oppose it.

Inevitably, the book also documents the role played by Fatehyab Ali Khan (who loved and married the author) in the country’s democratic struggle and political development.

Fatehyab Khan was among the party leaders who signed the charter of the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD) on February 6, 1981. The other signatories were Nusrat Bhutto, Sher Baz Mazari, Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, Fazlur Rehman, Mahmud Ali Kasuri, Abdul Qayyum Khan, Khawaja Khairuddin and Mairaj Muhammad Khan. He was the only MRD leader to be tried and sentenced by a military court. This made him even more popular at the national level. Dr Hasan recalls that her social ostracism during those days “was incredible but not unexpected.”

Fatehyab Ali Khan, her friend and companion for fifty years, passed away on September 20, 2010. Dr Hasan writes, “He was free of prejudices; a teacher who passed his knowledge – and his ideals – to his young colleagues and admirers; uncompromising to reactionary forces in the country; a forceful public speaker; never complained about his personal suffering either publicly or in private; fighting for democracy, rule of law and decency in public life.”

“Few husbands,” she says, “could be as tolerant and proud of their wife’s career as he was of mine.”

The reviewer is a former resident editor of The News and a human rights defender

The web edition has a longer version of the review