Her solo flight

Begum Kulsum Saifullah Khan was 40 years old when her husband, Barrister Saifullah Khan, died in 1964 at the age of 49. As her son Salim Saifullah Khan recalled, she didn’t even know how to write a cheque when a servant asked her to do so to draw money from the bank.
This put Kulsum Saifullah, who had lived a sheltered life before and after her marriage at age 17, on a learning course that continued throughout her long life. She kept learning things as an entrepreneur and politician while raising a family of five sons.
In due course, she had strengthened the foundation of the Saif Group of Companies and pioneered the political dynasty of the well-known Saifullah family. The family’s business empire gradually expanded from food and flour mills to textile, power generation, oil and gas exploration, real-estate development, healthcare, environmental technology, telecommunications and information technology. The zenith of her 20-year long political career, during which she was three times elected MNA and twice MPA, came in 1987 when she was appointed Pakistan’s first woman federal minister by then prime minister Mohammad Khan Junejo.
These were remarkable achievements for a woman in the conservative Pakhtun society. It wasn’t surprising then that tributes poured in from all over Pakistan and even abroad when Kulsum Saifullah died on January 26 aged 91. She was praised for her pioneering entrepreneurship despite being a woman in a man’s world as well as for her political acumen. She also earned praise for serving women for years from the platform of the All Pakistan Women’s Association (Apwa) and for her social and philanthropic work.
In her old age, she had almost lost her eyesight. However, her zest for life continued as she even ventured to write her memoir, Meri Tanha Parvaz (My Solo Flight) in 2011 which ruffled quite a few feathers and generated controversy.
Kulsum Saifullah was a graceful and soft-spoken woman. She lived well and dressed beautifully. Though she could afford the good life after making money in her business ventures, she always seemed to have a refined sense of culture and civility. One saw this personally during meetings with her when she was healthy and living in Peshawar before shifting to Islamabad. Here was a woman who gave and earned respect while interacting with people from different walks of life.
Kulsum Saifullah belonged to the Pakhtun tribe Khattak and hailed from Karak district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. She used to remark that she was a Khattak but was also the mother of Marwats, the tribe to which her husband belonged. Her husband Saifullah Khan, among the first barristers in the country, was the son of Faizullah Khan Ghaznikhel, a landowner and contractor from Lakki Marwat who had the vision and the resources to establish the first power plant in the area in 1920.
Her father, Quli Khan Khattak, was a civil servant. He served the British rulers of undivided India with dedication and was rewarded with the title of Khan Bahadur. He played a key role in rescuing Molly Amis, the daughter of a British army officer who was kidnapped by freedom-fighter Ajab Khan Afridi from Kohat to settle scores with the British authorities for showing him disrespect.
Kulsum Saifullah’s brothers – Aslam Khattak, Yousaf Khattak and Lt-Gen (r) Habibullah Khan – also did well in their careers, the first two as politicians and the last-named in the army and also in business. Her brother’s progeny and her five sons have also made some accomplishments in different walks of life and some of them are almost at the end of their careers. Her 22 grandchildren are now expected to carry forward the Saifullah family’s mantle, particularly in politics and business.
Kulsum Saifullah was born in Parachinar, the picturesque headquarters of Kurram Agency, where her father was serving in as the assistant political agent. The year was 1923 and the times were peaceful in the tribal areas where her father had earned a name as an able administrator.
One could not have expected Kulsum Saifullah to indulge in politics of rebellion. Her family, both from her brothers and husband’s side, had been in the Muslim League and therefore often part of the government. However, her first election victory in 1970 was from the platform of the National Awami Party (NAP), a secular party now called Awami National Party (ANP) and led at the time by Pakhtun nationalist Abdul Wali Khan.
In a controversial move, she switched sides when her brother Aslam Khattak formed a group against the NAP to come into power. This set the stage for a never-ending tussle with Wali Khan and subsequently his successors, wife Nasim Wali Khan and son Asfandyar Wali Khan. The Saifullah family’s support for the Kalabagh dam project and its opposition to renaming the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa further fuelled the rivalry between the two sides. On both counts, the Saifullahs suffered a setback as the Kalabagh dam couldn’t be built and the province was renamed, but they stuck to their guns on these critical issues.
Kulsum Saifullah’s son Anwar Saifullah, who is in the PPP, could have become the governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as former president Asif Ali Zardari intended to give him the prestigious job, but the ANP leadership put its foot down and got another PPP leader, Masood Kausar, appointed to the post.
The Saifullahs’ tendency to change parties didn’t often go well with those in favour of principled politics. Humayun Saifullah, Salim Saifullah and Anwar Saifullah, the three brothers who have been practising politics unlike the remaining two – businessman Javed Saifullah and cardiologist Dr Iqbal Saifullah – have also at times been in different parties despite being a close-knit family. This strengthened the impression that the family wanted to ensure that one or two brothers were part of the government all the time. This isn’t unprecedented in Pakistani politics because being on the wrong side of the powers that be could damage one’s interests.
That Kulsum Saifullah was invaluable to the family’s politics was known since long, but it was reinforced when her three sons had to contest the May 2013 general election in her absence. She was old and ill and unable to take part in the campaign in Lakki Marwat. She no longer had the energy to visit homes and meet women to seek their votes. A personal visit, friendly talk and some gifts would do wonders and ensure a lot of votes for her sons. Such was her persuasive power and contribution to the Saifullah family’s political fortunes that her sons agree that one major reason of their defeat in the election was the inability of their mother to take part in the campaign.
Now that she is dead, the Saifullahs would have to work even harder to win elections in the conservative Lakki Marwat district where the JUI-F has a strong presence and the PTI has made inroads. They would also have to use money in winning from the one National Assembly and three provincial assembly constituencies in which moneyed candidates have made the contest one of the most costly in Pakistan.
The Saifullahs have money and influence and could make a match of any future electoral contest, but they will sorely miss their mother who often played the decisive role in ensuring their victory.
The writer is resident editor of The News in Peshawar.
Email: rahimyusufzai@yahoo.com