The Brothers Hasan

The last couple of years have been devastating on multiple counts; we lost many activists, journalists, intellectuals and writers. Mubashir Hasan and Mehdi Hasan – cousins – were two of them. Mubashir left us in March 2020 at the age of 98, and Mehdi passed away in February 2022, a few months before his 85th birthday.

Mubashir Hasan was 15 years older and served as a mentor and guide to Mehdi Hasan and many others. Both were born in Panipat in India; their families emigrated to Pakistan after Partition. When Pakistan came into being, Mubashir Hasan was completing his MSc in civil engineering in the US and Mehdi Hasan was still in school. Mubashir taught for a while at the University of Engineering and Technology (UET), Lahore and left to pursue his PhD in the US.

After coming back to Pakistan with his doctorate, Mubashir was full of zeal to teach engineering to his young students. But his teaching was not confined to engineering, and he delivered lectures on various economic, political, and social issues too. He also began writing and attracted many followers who respected him. He was a staunch opponent of the military dictatorship of General Ayub Khan and longed for a democratic setup in the country. When Z A Bhutto developed some differences with Ayub Khan in 1966, many could foresee the inevitable change.

In the meantime, Mehdi Hasan had started his career as a journalist. He worked at the Pakistan Press International (PPI) from 1961 to 1966 and then started teaching journalism at the University of Punjab. He joined the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) and held its elected offices multiple times. That was the time when he also worked as an analyst and commentator for Radio Pakistan and at the newly launched state channel PTV. By the late 1960s, the Hasan brothers had become vocal critics of the dictatorship. Both were also teaching and influencing the young minds of their students.

Mehdi Hasan faced the wrath of the former governor of erstwhile West Pakistan, Nawab Kalabagh, who imprisoned him for writing a satirical column. By this time Mubashir Hasan was in his mid-40s, and he decided to get involved in politics and became one of the founders of the PPP with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as its chairman. Their senior comrade was a Bengali politician – 60-year-old J A Rahim – who had served as Pakistan’s foreign secretary in the mid-1950s. Bhutto led the PPP to victory in West Pakistan and aligned with Gen Yahya Khan.

Bhutto and Yahya did not allow the majority leader, Mujibur Rehman, to form government. This led to the 1971 war and the creation of Bangladesh. In retrospect, one could disagree with Mubashir Hasan’s policy of nationalisation that he introduced as the finance minister in 1972. But that was the time of a socialist mirage that attracted many leaders around the world. In Pakistan, the nationalisation of banks, education institutions, and industries ended up being more of a process of bureaucratisation. This sudden control of the state over big industries ultimately resulted in the downfall of industries in Pakistan.

But that was not the intention of Mubashir Hasan who soon got dismayed by Bhutto’s arbitrary appointments in the state sector. He resigned from his post of finance minister in 1974 but stayed with the PPP as its general secretary. During these years, Mehdi Hasan, who was still in his 30s, completed his path-breaking research work titled ‘The separation of East Pakistan and the role of mass communication’.

The draft of this research was completed in 1975 and printed in 1977 by the South Asian Institute, just a month before General Zia staged his coup. I have its first print in my personal collection and occasionally refer to it as it is so relevant even today. Mehdi Hasan showed through his research that one of the major causes of East Pakistan’s alienation from West Pakistan was state-controlled media which only broadcast the approved state policy in the 1960s. Newspapers faced strict censorship and were unable to perform their duties. Mehdi Hasan contends that had there been democratic freedoms for the media it could have presented the real picture.

When General Zia toppled Bhutto unconstitutionally in 1977 and imposed martial law, Mubashir Hasan also had to face the ire of the general. He was imprisoned multiple times, and he produced some of his best writing while in detention. His Urdu book ‘Razm-e-Zindagi’ was published in 1978. It is a collection of five essays – the first of which he wrote in the cells of Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore.

The essay ‘The Feudal Society of Western Europe’ draws heavily from the book ‘Feudal Society’ by the French medievalist, Mark Bloch. Bloch was one of the founders of the Annales School of French social history. Writing from prison, Mubashir Hasan reminds us that Mark Bloch was a professor of history but ended up in jail for his opposition to the Nazi-German occupation of France. Bloch was shot dead in 1944 by the Gestapo. Mubashir Hasan was a keen student of history and extensively wrote about the rise and fall of feudalism in Europe. His style of writing is convincing and easy to understand even for a college-level student.

In 1984, Mehdi Hasan completed his doctoral thesis while teaching journalism at Punjab University. The same year, he wrote his sixth book on journalism titled ‘Sahafat’ (journalism). Mehdi Hasan was a progressive and secular intellectual, teacher, and writer who enjoyed respectful relations with his colleagues irrespective of their right-wing leanings.

Dr Abdul Salam Khurshid was his teacher and senior colleague with highly religious leanings. Mehdi Hasan in the foreword of ‘Sahafat’ not only acknowledged Khurshid but also went so far to say that all books on the history of journalism in Pakistan will be based on the research of Khurshid.

The conservative military dictatorship of General Zia was taking regressive steps and while Mubashir Hasan was repeatedly put in jail, Mehdi Hasan became a target of reactionary student outfits such as Islami Jamiat Talaba (IJT), the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, that General Zia and his supporters promoted. Mehdi Hasan had to face removal from his position as a lecturer, but the court granted him a stay that continued until his retirement. In 1986, Mehdi Hasan and Dr Abdul Salam Khurshid co-authored a textbook ‘Journalism for All’. This book has seen dozens of reprints and has guided thousands of students in Pakistan.

In the late 1980s, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) emerged as a strong voice of resistance, and both Mubashir and Mehdi Hasan played an active role in it. They remained associated with the HRCP and advocated peace between India and Pakistan. The Pak-India Peace Forum was a platform to promote peace and democracy in the two countries. In the late 1990s, Mubashir Hasan wrote a marvelous book titled ‘The Mirage of Power: An inquiry into the Bhutto years – 1971-1977’. It is one of the best books on the five-year rule of Z A Bhutto with clear and objective analysis.

During the last years of his life, Mubashir had become frail. Mehdi Hasan, being younger, was active in conferences, seminars, and TV shows – many of which are available on YouTube. Both remained convinced that democracy, enlightenment, human rights and peace should remain a rallying cry of all progressive people. For them, there was no room for pessimism.

The writer holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham, UK and works in Islamabad.

He can be reached at: mnazir1964yahoo.co.uk