Sayed Fida Hassan advocated accountability

Sayed Fida Hassan advocated accountability

Dr. Jassim Taqui

The Islamabad Club witnessed a thriller. The event was launching the memoir of the legendary CPS (Civil Service of Pakistan)  and former Pakistan Ambassador to India Sayed Fida Hassan.

The renowned journalist Anjum Niaz, the daughter of Sayed Fida Hassan spent 7 long years editing the diary of her father and presented it to the people as a symbol of recognition of a highly respected person.

For Anjum Niaz, the memoir titled, “ Pakistan, the promise of the early years, a memoir” is an attempt to produce in the form of highly authentic manner an unfinished and unedited narrative. She grappled to grasp the past, present and the future that for her came together all at once, as though time bore no beginning or an end.

Four distinguished personalities  were sitting on the dais. They were the former Interior Secretary Roedad Khan, Dr. Irshad Ullah Khan who was nominated for Nobel Prize for Literature, Shuaib Sultan Khan, a senior CSP officer and pioneer of rural development programs in Pakistan.

Other speakers included Kamal  Azfar, a Sindhi politician who was finance Minister and later Governor of Sindh,  Sayed Fareed Hassan, the son of  Sayed Fida Hassan who is ranked by Marshal Goldsmith among the top 5 business leaders globally and the last speaker was the proud daughter Anjum Niaz whose speech was a unique mixture of prose and poetry . Indeed, she stole the show by showing her talent,  intellect and dedication to the cause of justice and accountability; depicting all in an extremely emotional and highly expressive speech in which she explained in detail  her solo quest to unravel the truth as her father lived.

All the speakers were unanimous on the theme that  the center piece Sayed Fida Hassan focused on was the spread of corruption in the early years of Pakistan. This is related to people’s attempt to grasp the pricy properties of evacuee and the method used to allot  evacuee properties abandoned  by the wealthy Hindu escaping the bloody partition of the Subcontinent. Sayed Fida Hassan foresaw that failing to hold  accountable the usurpers of evacuee properties  would result in the spread of corruption. He warned that corruption would undermine the democratic system and pose a threat to the very survival of Pakistan.

The story must end with Anjum Niaz; reminding me of the famous poem of Dillingham,

“ Love’s force swells my heart…..Until it feels tender and bruised.

I look at my daughter and see myself reflected in her face.

My bones, my flesh and blood run through her.”