Lahore has changed a lot over the past several decades. What has not changed is the familiar sight of a 37-year, 1966 model Volkswagen driven by a silver-haired slender man. He is Dr. Mubashir Hasan.
Dr. Mubashir Hasan was born on January 20, 1922 in the town of Panipat, fifty-five miles away from Delhi where Babar trounced the army of Ibrahim Lodhi, the Sultan of Delhi, in 1526. Mubashir was the son of Munnawar Hasan. He had three sisters and two brothers. Mubashir hailed from a Shia family (heavily inter-married into Sunnis) of learned people mostly Maulvis and Hakims as well as engineers and doctors. He came from the same clan as that of Altaf Hussain Hali. His family was active in imparting girls’ education since the 1930’s.
Mubashir matriculated from Panipat Hali Muslim High School in 1937 and in 1939 he did his F.Sc. from Government College Lahore. He graduated in 1943 from Punjab University Engineering College.
Lahore, he remembers then was well known for sports, education and fashion. Mubashir stayed in a 52-room students’ hostel where he was the only subscriber to the Civil & Military Gazette. The other copy was purchased by the common room for the rest of the students. He remembered that its editor was an Englishman by the name of Bustin. The other paper, Tribune, espoused the cause of the Indian National Congress. Such was Mubashir’s intellectual curiosity that he listened daily to BBC News relayed by All Indian Radio.
In 1943, Mubashir joined the irrigation service of Punjab and was posted in Amritsar where he could not find a house to rent because he was a Muslim. So he lived seven miles away. He was in charge of maintaining running channel canals and made his name for refusing to sign a false certificate on water flow and discharge.
In 1945, the Government of Indian selected him to go to America for higher education. He took a ship directly from Calcutta to New York also carrying GI’s from the Burma war theatre to New York reaching it on December 31, 1945. Mubashir returned in early 1948 after doing his Masters in Civil Engineering from Columbia and joined Engineering College as a lecturer. In 1952 he was granted study leave to go to the USA to work on his PhD on hydraulics in the State University of Iowa. For two years, he stayed returning to Pakistan as its first PhD in civil engineering. He married Zeenat in 1953 who was working in a hospital in Iowa. During the journey back home, the new pair drove on a big Ford from England to Pakistan. Mubashir rejoined the Engineering University and became full professor in 1961. The same year, he resigned from his job and crossed swords with the Vice-Chancellor. He started his own practice as a consulting engineer, which was very remunerative. His work took him to both the wings of Pakistan. He discovered that his basic requirement and expenses could be met by two hours a day instead of 14 hours a day.
In 1966 he founded a group to see what could be done in the areas of education, economy and infrastructure to improve the lot of the people. He spotted the issue as one of political guidance and wrote a manifesto “A Declaration of Unity of People” in 1967. It coincided with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s announcement of a political party. Bhutto and J.A.Rahim invited Mubashir’s cooperation and asked him to join in the founding of People’s Party. Mubashir could find no place or hall to rent for the founding convention of PPP so the founding convention was held at Mubashir’s house in Lahore on November 30/December 1 1967.
Mubashir found Bhutto to be a ‘charmer’ and within two years helped establish 250 units of the party in Lahore. On 13 November 1968 Bhutto and Mubashir were arrested from Mubashir’s house in Lahore where Bhutto was staying. He said Bhutto had a great appeal among the downtrodden and the deprived and could mobilize people. He saw Bhutto as a great actor and mimic and as a complex personality of contradictions who was capable of great compassion and cruelty. He credits Bhutto with the awakening of the people but never once worked for his daughter Benazir. He warned Bhutto of overly relying on the establishment, which he thought, would nudge him away once he was weakened.
Mubashir was a reluctant parliamentarian and Minister having being told by his mother that once you are a Minister you perforce act in an unjust and unethical manner and, therefore, counseled him against becoming one. He also became the Secretary-General of the People’s Party.
In April 1974, Mubashir in his capacity as Finance Minister made a landmark speech at the UN General Assembly’s Economic Session on the New International Economic Order that won plaudits from NYT noted columnist James Reston.
In the last 14 years, he has been involved in Indo-Pak Track II diplomacy and has met every Indian Prime Minister since Rajiv and is a well-known figure there. Currently, he is a leader of the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Shaheed faction because he believes that it is a Sindhi based party with which there is a need to liase with the Punjab. Also, Mubashir started photography in 1979 having never before held a camera. He is now a respected ornithologist and has written a book and produced a calendar on the birds of Pakistan. He has been a life-long nature lover and has been enamored of animals, insects, trees and plants. He won’t even kill a cockroach or a lizard in his house.
In the summer of 1995, three armed masked robbers broke into his house and took Rs. 250, 000. They stayed from 11.pm through 4.am. Mubashir remembers the robbers as being very polite and apologetic saying that they really needed the money. Today, Mubashir does not own a residence or an urban building plot of land in Pakistan. He lives austerely in a very simple house owned by his brother, Dr. Shubbar Hasan, 86. Its main furnishings are its overflow of old books. When land was plentiful and cheap, Mubashir did not have sufficient cash.
Mubashir feels that man is only one of millions of living species on Earth and our planet is only one of billions in the Universe, so there is no reason for man to consider himself superior to other life forms.
There may be ample reasons to argue politically with Mubashir, but one fact stands out, and that is of his financial probity. He feels that financial honesty is one’s duty and that is how a person should be. Mubashir’s beige Volkswagen remains a well-known car in Lahore. He never locks it. People want to buy it as a souvenir because he drove Bhutto many times in this car, which has done 300,000 miles. Its engine has been overhauled again and again by the same mechanic for 34 years who has just retired. But Mubashir with his Volkswagen doesn’t seem to quit.
