Presidential Elections: Sirdar Shaukat Hayat Khan’s Version
Major Sardar Shauket Hyat. Skinner's Horse WWII
When I returned from Kaghan, the telephone bell rang in my house at Lahore; the person at the other end introduced herself as Fatimah. I asked which Fatimah and she replied Fatimah Jinnah.
Madr e Millat Miss Fatima Jinnah.
She said, Shaukat, I need your advice urgently because you were always treated like a son by my late brother.
Quaid e Azam Mohammad ali Jinnah and Sir Sikandar Hyat
How soon can you reach Karachi? I told her that I would be there by the afternoon and she asked me to ring her up as soon as I arrived. I booked myself into the Intercontinental Hotel from where I rang her up. She asked me to come over immediately and share a cup with her. While we were having tea she confided in me that van parties including Maulana Bhashani and Maulana Madoodi’s representatives were pressing her to become the Combined Opposition candidate for the Presidential Election and they had asked for her permission to call on her in a Deputation, the next afternoon.
She was completely doubtful of the Ulemas’ sincerity in proposing a woman to assume power in Pakistan. 1 asked her, Miss Jinnah, do you want a politician’s answer or that of a well-wisher? She replied, of course I have called you as a son to obtain a correct and frank advice. My reply was, Miss Jinnah, if you hope to win, please do not make even an attempt, because elections will be rigged against you. It would be impossible to win in this limited electoral college of eighty thousand created by him, but if you are prepared to lose it, it would be the greatest service to the Nation by breaking the back of the present dictatorship. She said, let me sleep over it for the night. Come and have breakfast with me tomorrow morning and I will convey my decision to you. The next morning I reached the Mohatta Palace on the stroke of eight.
Mohatta Palace, Karachi
She opened the door and ushered me into the dining room. She told me that she had herself scrambled an egg and brewed some coffee for me. While we were having our breakfast I noticed that she was smiling happily. I enquired, Miss Jinnah, have you decided not to contest? You seem so happy as if a load is off your mind. She replied, No, Shaukat, I have accepted your advice, given in the interest of the Nation and shall jump into the fray to extricate our people from the clutches of the usurper. But please keep it as a closely guarded secret till I have given a shock to those hypocrites who are calling to see me. But you have to give me your word that you would run my election and arrange the entire campaign. I promised that 1 should be happy even to lay down my life for the Quaid’s brave sister. Ayub had violated his own Constitution which had been drawn up by a naïve lawyer gentlemen, by asking for another term of office, as he was short of three votes that were required for the majority to amend the Constitution and win a second term. He managed to purchase two from the Punjab and the third of a Maulana, whose vote was purchased in no other place than the Holy precinct of Holy Kaaba.
Chaudhry Zahoor Ellahi
Chaudhry Zahoor Elahi told me himself that they had obtained this vote by offering a large sum for Maulana’s madrassa in lieu of his vote, under instructions from Ayub Awan, the head of Intelligence, who had accompanied him to Mecca. After amending his Constitution he agreed to be nominated as the next President for which he was not even qualified because he had promoted himself as the Field Marshall, who never retires from the Government’s Service. When he heard that we were going to take this objection to his nomination he had two pages removed out of the Army List and ordered every keeper of the Army List to replace them but we got two of them through the good offices of Jamaat-i-Islami. This objection was unlawfully rejected my Mian Mueenuddin, helper of Khizar Hyat in 1946 elections, by now Ayub’s Election Commissioner. Presidential Elections: Sirdar Shaukat Hayat Khan’s Version 35 I arranged a tour for Miss Jinnah in the Army-producing regions of Punjab and the Frontier. We started Madr-i-Millat’s Election Campaign in Peshawar and later Jhelum, which we reached in a cavalcade of cars via Gujranwala and Gujrat. We stayed the night at Jhelum. The next morning she addressed a huge meeting near the river, which was a great success. It took me and Chaudry Altaf (now Benazir’s Government’s Governor of the Punjab) a long time to extricate ourselves from the crowd at the meeting to reach his house, from where we had to carry lunch for her party.
Ch Altaf Former Governor Punjab with Benazir Bhutto (Late).
We had arranged that she would stop at a rest house near Dina before attending her next meeting at Chakwal. Her party reached the Rest House before us. Part of this Rest House was occupied by the Army on an Election Exercise. On seeing them, she lost her temper and left the place before we could reach it with her luncheon. We rushed but we could not catch up with her cavalcade right up to Chakwal. On the way her car was showered with flowers, mostly by Armymen who were travelling on that road. When she reached Chakwal she stayed in the Rest House. The meeting was being addressed by the two speakers whom we had sent as an advance party. The local Muslim League had just arranged food for two of them because they had not been asked to arrange luncheon for Madr-i-Millat’s party. On arrival Miss Jinnah demanded her lunch because she used to travel without taking any breakfast. On finding that the food was not available, as we who were bringing it along had been left behind, she lost her temper again and refused to address any more meetings. The workers, in a hurry, washed the chicken but it contained chilies; as she was not used to them she refused to eat it. She asked how an old lady of her age take the strain of long drives, interspersed with speeches, could go without any food? When I arrived I found Chaudhri Mohammad Ali and her Secretary Syed Matloob hiding outside the Rest House to avoid her temper. They explained the situation to me. I went in and when Miss Jinnah saw me she scolded me for my failure to provide her food and refused to address any meeting at Chakwal. 1 told her frankly, it was due to her own fault, of not sticking to the programme we had drawn up. She herself left the Rest House at Dinah where the arrangements for her meal had been made. Then I adopted a daring course of admonishing her, to the effect that if she could not stand the delay in one meal how would she run the Government for a hungry people who were facing starvation. It shocked her. My tactics obviously worked. Thereafter she meekly ate her lunch and attended the public meeting. The meeting was such a great success that she came out of the place in a very cheerful mood. We were delayed in our departure and people had been standing along both sides of the road from Chakwal to Mianwali since early in the morning, and were being disappointed. It was dark by the time we in the vanguard reached the people. They had lit lanterns with a desire just to get a glimpse of the Quaid’s sister. My car was rushing far ahead of hers wishing to reach Mianwali to warn people of the delay so that they may not disperse. On the way I took pity on those poor people flanking the road and thought of a stratagem. Abu Saeed Anwar who was travelling in my car had grey hair like Madr-i-Millat and he also resembled her slightly, so we draped him with a Dopatta (Scarf) and started shouting slogans MADR-IMILLAT ZINDABAD. Abu Saeed sportingly kept waving his hand to satisfy the people, along the road, who thought that it was actually Miss Jinnah who was passing them. Ever since we jokingly called Abu Saeed. ‘Madr-i-Millat’, which-nick name stuck to him. At Mianwali, Malik Kalabagh’s own District, the reception was overwhelming. After spending the night there we left for Bannu and Kohat area on our way to Peshawar and Rawalpindi. When we reached Kohat, I got a frantic message from Lahore. My wife told me that my sixteen year old son, Sikandar Hyat, had been arrested from his bed early one morning on a trumped up charge that he had Written on the Government House walls Quit or we shall make you Quit, although he had not done so.
Sardar Sikandar Hyat-Khan son of Sardar Shauket Hyat and PM Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto on Sikandar's Marriage in Wah Village Gardens.
This was a slogan used by the Indian National Congress during the war in 1942. My wife asked me to come back immediately because they had taken the boy to the torture chambers of Lahore Fort. I could immediately see that this was a ploy to wean me away from Maadar-i-Millat’s campaign team, therefore I told my wife that the Presidential Elections: boy may die if he must, but I was not going to forsake Miss Jinnah and her campaign started by her to win our freedom from dictatorship. Mussarrat went to see the boy in the Fort along with Begum Bashir Ahmad (Sister of Begum Shah Nawaz) and found that the boy had been kept awake for several nights and was quite un-recognizable on account of coercion. She went straight to the High Court. Luckily the Bench consisted of Chief Justice Aziz son of Maulana Ghulam Mohiyuddin Qasuri and an Englishman, Mr Justice Ortcheson. The Government Advocate General tried to make much of the case, painting it as if it was inciting people to rebellion. There was not much room for argument under the Public Safety Ordinance and Defense of Pakistan Rules. Mian Mahmood AH Qasuri, our lawyer, felt stymied. At which point my wife got up and said ‘My Lord! I do not know intricacies of Law or of Pleading, but as a mother I can well judge how sick my young boy is. All I request you is that Sikandar should be summoned to the bar of this Court and the Court should judge for itself whether he has been tortured or not during these last few days in the Fort and has lost his senses. I cannot see how else could a youngster who was taken away in good health from his bed in my house only the other day, should have transformed so much. When Sikandar was brought to the Court, they decided that his mother was right and they ordered that he should be removed to a hospital. Nawab Kala Bagh viciously, to please his master, sent the boy to the lunatic asylum from where he was eventually rescued again by the orders of the High Court. These were the methods used by the so-called President and his loyal Satraps. Some days later 1 was attending a wedding at Zakir Qureshi’s residence at Lahore Cantt. Doctor Toosi, who had been educated by my maternal grand-father in Amritsar Medical School, now a favourite medical attendant of Nawab Kala Bagh and his mother, stood behind me and started talking with another man loud enough for me to hear. Nawab Kala Bagh is a very good friend and a very gallant enemy. I turned round and told the Doctor that Kalabagh might be a very good friend because he had constructed a house for his mother, in the New Garden Town, but he did not know the rules 38 Pakistan Journal of History & Culture of enmity as practiced by the zamindars (Landed Class) of Punjab. Obviously there was something wrong with him. If he carried a zamindar’s blood he would have murdered me and my son would have gone to seek revenge in accordance with our traditions. But he went about it the wrong way to torture my sixteen-year old boy just to punish me. I said, you will be going to the Government House after this dinner. Please convey this entire message to him. Sure enough I received a telephone call from the Military Secretary, the next morning requesting me on behalf of the Governor to come and have tea with him that day. 1 understood what it was all about and accepted the invitation. When I was ushered into the Governor’s office at Government House, Amir Muhammad Khan was sitting in the very seat used by my father. He pointed out a chair to me, which I had occupied as a Minister, without rising from his chair, which annoyed me considerably. I could remember Amir Muhammad Khan of Kala Bagh standing outside Mianwali Rest house waiting for an interview with me when I was a Minister. He had come to ask me to honour him by having a cup of tea with him at Kala Bagh! I sat there watching him and as was his habit he started twisting his moustache which is considered an insult. On seeing this happen I lost my temper completely. I said, Amir Muhammad Khan how dare you twist your moustache in my presence? Are you in any way superior to me in politics or in position amongst the landed gentry or in Genealogy that you should dare do this? at which he immediately dropped his hand. He got up from the table and asked me to come and sit on the sofa along with him and ordered tea. I remember asking Amir Muhammad Khan, Is it because of Doctor Toosi’s report that you have called me? He said, Sardar Shaib! I am a dog and I bite whomever my Master orders me to do, meaning that he had obeyed Ayub’s instructions in torturing my son. On hearing this, I immediately got up from my chair and said Amir Muhammad Khan, I am nearly fifty years old and in this period I never sat with a dog to partake my food. And before going let me make a prophecy that you will die like a dog. Either your retainer or your son will eventually kill you. This is exactly what happened to him when he was unceremoniously dismissed as Governor and went back home where his son murdered him.
At every place we met with roaring success. Later at Lahore and Multan Miss Jinnah’s support was overwhelming. I stayed back in the Punjab to visit other Districts which she could not visit. Her ‘Election Train passed all major towns on the Main Line in Sind up to Karachi and she was welcomed by roaring crowds at every station. As has been mentioned earlier, Ayub’s henchmen left no hatches barred and stooped to every trick - buying of Election Agents’ Authority Letters signed by Miss Jinnah or her appointed representative; Army units were deployed near the Polling Stations as a show of force to over-awe voters. The East Pakistan tour was even more successful. Therefore not an iota of doubt remained that the entire Nation was behind her. The manipulated result of Ayub’s success were obvious from the fact that the results from far away parts of East Pakistan were announced long before those of the Dacca city and Chittagong. People harshly rejected the phoney announcement. Orders were issued on a very restricted scale, to some senior Commanders, to the effect that every precaution has been taken to avoid the President’s defeat. In the unlikely event of a defeat, the President’s long range Falcon Plane would be standing by to assist his escape from the country. A second one contained instructions for these commanders of action to be taken after his escape. We got hold of the copies of two restricted documents and I flew out to Dacca carrying them to Madr-i-Millat, to deliver these to her. I asked Mr. Fazal-ul-Rehman to be at the Airport on my arrival. As I was getting out of plane and moving towards the lounge of the Dacca Airport people had lined on both sides to receive me. While passing them I gave the letters to Fazal-ul-Rehman asking him to go to Chittagong by the first plane, where Miss Jinnah was scheduled to address the meeting. She had gone in the company of General Azam Khan the ex-Governor of East Pakistan, who had been removed on account of his extreme popularity in that area.
Lt General Azam Khan and Queen Elizebeth of UK.
Ayub feared that he might not challenge him. I took a later helicopter to 40 join her there, where we discussed the orders I had brought and tried to chalk out our own strategy. After the manipulated defeat of Miss Jinnah, jubilation vendettas and reprisals became order of the day. I became the first direct target on account of my conduct during Miss Jinnah’s election. A cinema, planned and sanctioned on our very valuable land situated just a hundred yards from the WAPDA Building and across the Road from the Plaza Cinema, had its license suddenly revoked under the orders of Governor Kalabagh, without any reason whatever; the D.C. just refused to extend the period of construction. Without the slightest consideration to millions that I had already invested on construction.
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