The day my life changed
S Iftikhar Murshed

It was a nippy mid-March afternoon in Madrid when the telephone rang in my modest one-room apartment. The caller asked in Spanish, “Are you alone?” When I replied that I was, he introduced himself as Bedi, second secretary at the Indian embassy. He said that he was under instructions from New Delhi to “repatriate” me to Dacca (Dhaka), and he had a “huge amount of money” for me. With a touch of melodrama he added: “Bangladesh, your country, awaits you.” I told him that he should never even dream of calling me again.
Barely three months earlier, on December 16, 1971, the commander of the Pakistani forces in East Pakistan, Lt Gen A A K Niazi, and the commander of the Indian Eastern Command, Lt Gen Jagjit Singh Aurora, convened at the Ramna Racecourse in Dacca where the instrument of surrender was signed. In an article, probably one of his last, the late Ardeshir Cowasjee recalled that it was all over “at one minute past five in the afternoon... Thus died the Pakistan founded and made by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, a mere 24 years previously.”
For me the wounds of that fateful day 41 years ago will never heal, because I was to be separated forever from my entire family. And this brings me back to the chain of events that were set in motion with Bedi’s phone call. I rushed to the Pakistani embassy to inform the ambassador, the late Maj Gen Abid Bilgrami. He was a soft-spoken man with the remarkable ability of always speaking in phrases of masterly understatement. Bilgrami had lost his son-in-law, a major in the Pakistani army during the war with India a few months back, but he bore his grief with poise and quiet dignity.
The ambassador listened to me attentively, and then, after a few thoughtful puffs of his pipe as he paced the room, said: “Please phone Bedi back. Say you want to meet him, fence with them. I want to know what the Indians are up to here.” Bedi chuckled when I called him and said that he was certain I would re-establish contact with him. Later that night he telephoned to say that we should meet at noon the following day at the Sunset Bar, a restaurant in downtown Madrid. He would be accompanied by his ambassador and requested that I bring my wife along with me.
The Indian ambassador, an urbane middle-aged gentleman, advanced all the reasons in carefully measured sentences why I should proceed to Dhaka. When I said this was not immediately possible because my sons, aged one and two, were in Lahore, he was not flustered and responded that there was no hurry. In the meantime I could be of help in providing his embassy information about Pakistan’s relations with Spain.
And then, as if it was an afterthought, he asked: “Do you have any knowledge about the whereabouts of a PNSC ship named Sarfraz Rafiqi which, we know, was damaged off the West African coast and is now headed towards a Spanish port for repairs? Twelve of its crewmembers plan to defect and we need to contact them urgently.” I told him that I would try and find out and get back to him promptly.
At the Pakistani embassy, Bilgrami anxiously awaited my return. A despatch was quickly cabled to Islamabad about the Sunset Bar meeting. A week later the Indian ambassador invited my wife and me for dinner at his residence, and, without bandying words, said: “Some very important people are eager that you should leave for Bangladesh immediately, but I am convinced that you should go over only after you have your children with you.” He did not disclose who these “very important people” were.
I had never imagined that my initiation to the diplomatic profession would be quite so dramatic. As a young third secretary I was naive enough to believe that I was rendering invaluable service to Pakistan. I was ready to walk through the darkest of valleys and climb treacherously steep slopes for my country. I did not know how daunting the challenges of the immediate future would be.
It was around this time that I received the first of several telephone calls from my mother in Dhaka. She wept and implored me to come over to Bangladesh. I was the only son, she said, and, in their old age, she and my father needed me. The calls became increasingly frantic and I could bear it no longer. I requested the foreign office to recall me to Islamabad and was told that I should withstand the pressure.
About ten days later, Ambassador Bilgrami hosted a dinner at his residence for embassy officials when a desperate message was received from the management of my apartment complex that I should come over immediately. We drove at breakneck speed, and, on reaching the building, found my mother at the entrance lobby.
She had travelled by herself all the way from Dhaka to take us back with her. That emotion-filled night was a turning point in my life. Things would never be the same again. I told her that I could never abandon the country which, despite its myriad faults, I loved so dearly. Then, as if to give vent to her innermost fears, she asked: “Are you sure they won’t shoot you if you return to Pakistan?” I assured her that no harm would come to me and the events of the last 14 months, so replete with hideous atrocities committed by all sides, was an aberration. She then gave me her blessings and made us promise that we visit them often in Dhaka.
I did not realise it as I saw her off at the Madrid airport that this was to be the last that I would be able to talk to her. Ten years later, when we were finally able to visit Bangladesh, it was too late. My mother was in deep coma and died two months later.
I was recalled to Pakistan in the summer of 1972 and, one evening as a tawny mane of early monsoon clouds was slowly spreading over the Islamabad skies, I came across a student with a distinctly Bengali accent at the Aabpara Market. He introduced himself as Gowher Rizvi and said that he had been selected as a Rhodes Scholar but was unable to leave Pakistan because of recently imposed exit restrictions. I promised that I would try and help him.
The next morning I called Giles Bullard, the deputy chief of the British embassy, who said that he would ensure that Rizvi reached Oxford in time. A few days later Bullard came to see me and, with a voice tremulous with joy, said, “Our young friend has finally made it to Trinity College. I wish him every success. And I hope that he will, one day, acknowledge the help given by the Pakistani government, despite these fraught and difficult times, in bending the rules so that he could avail of the scholarship.” Bullard subsequently reached the top of the diplomatic profession and was knighted. He died in 1992.
Fame pointed her choosy fingers along Gowher Rizvi’s way. He distinguished himself as an historian and academic to eventually become the international affairs adviser to the Bangladeshi prime minister. He represented his country at the recent D-8 Summit in Islamabad because, as a precondition for her participation, the prime minister of Bangladesh insisted on a formal apology from Pakistan for the tragedy of 1971. The regrets expressed by former president Pervez Musharraf during his visit to Bangladesh seem to have been forgotten.
Sarmila Bose’s groundbreaking book Dead Reckoning shatters many of the partisan myths that have been nurtured on the 1971 war. There is need for introspection. Pakistan and Bangladesh have to move forward in their relationship. It is pointless to continuously rake up the past.
The writer is the publisher of Criterion quarterly.
Email: iftimurshed@ gmail.com