Mehdi Masud — a diplomat par excellence

During the mid-1940s, the time of former ambassador Mehdi Masud, who died after a prolonged illness on Tuesday, was devoted largely to the movement for Pakistan. As a student activist and an officer-bearer of the Lucknow Muslim Student Federation (and the UP Muslim Students Federation), Mr. Masud played a dynamic role in mobilising support for the Pakistan movement and the All Muslim League during the general elections of 1946, during which he also led groups to far-flung areas of his province and the adjoining areas.

He migrated to Pakistan immediately on its establishment in August 1947. He topped the Central Superior Services Combined Competitive Examination in 1952 on the basis of which he was selected for the Foreign Service from amongst several thousand candidates.

During his thirty-seven years in the Foreign Service, he served as Pakistan’s ambassador for over fourteen years. Before retiring in Grade 22, he headed the Pakistan embassies in the Federal Republic of Germany, European Union, Belgium (and Luxembourg), Kuwait and Jordan.

In 1980, soon after the Iranian Revolution, he was appointed Pakistan’s ambassador to the then very challenging Iranian assignment, but was unable to assume his post due to the intervening Iran-Iraq war.

He also served as the deputy permanent representative to the UN, in New York, deputy high commissioner in Delhi and deputy high commissioner in Calcutta. Mr. Masud also served with the Pakistan missions in Washington, Tehran and Colombo.

During the East Pakistan crisis in 1971, Mr. Mehdi Masud was assigned to Calcutta on twenty-four hours notice to meet the situation created by the taking over of Pakistan’s Deputy High Commission by India-inspired defectors. Having failed to threaten and intimidate the Pakistani diplomat by methods unprecedented in diplomatic history, including repeated attacks, on his place of residence, the Indian authorities incarcerated him under military/police guard for several months with a view to blocking his efforts to meet his East Pakistan colleagues.

In a city like Calcutta where assassinations and terrorist bombing, even against Indian politicians, were at that time a daily occurrence, Mehdi Masud had put his life at serious risk in undertaking this hazardous mission.

Mr. Masud was for many years a regular writer for Dawn’s op-ed pages, contributing several hundred articles on international and national issues. He lectured extensively on current affairs at defence Institutions, think-tanks and universities and was a regular participant in television programmes on the subject.

Mr. Mehdi Masud received from the International Biographical Centre, Cambridge, the “twenty-first century award for outstanding achievement”.

The citation from the International Biographical Centre, Cambridge, which has a forty years’ history of biographical profiling, said inter alia that “each year certain individuals from the many that we review are selected for further recognition and you should be very proud of being in the top percentage of such illustrious company.

“…The Centre’s publications are recognized as essential reference sources around the globe, your nomination for this award continues our tradition of recognizing individual excellence wherever it is found”.

Maintaining a high-level of activity in the post-retirement period, he was appointed by the government as a member of the Foreign Policy Advisory Committee. He also served on the Boards of Governors of the Islamabad Institute of Strategic Studies, the Area Study Centre for Europe, Karachi University, and a number of other think-tanks.

In 1992 he was elected as the first Speaker of Hamdard Majlis Shura, Karachi. He also served as senior member of the Sindh Public Service Commission.