Justice Muhammad Ibrahim

At a time of reluctance and apathy towards history by our civil societies, I consider it a proud privilege to write something about a patriot, idealist and great personality like justice Muhammad Ibrahim. I had the occasion of seeing him from close proximity during his last days and would venture to talk about him from the reservoir of my personal memory.

Justice Ibrahim joined the cabinet of president Ayub Khan as law minister following the imposition of martial law in 1958. That time, I was working as the press attache in the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi, but was transferred to bureau of National reconstruction in Karachi as deputy director violating my service conditions.

After I joined the Bureau, I was told to write and read out at a seminar an article on "National integration: Relations between West and East Pakistan." As I expressed my support for making Bangla as the state language of Pakistan in the initial stage of my article, I was threatened to be sent to jail as a sequel to an altercation on the article with the additional director of the Bureau. There is no denying that I was unnerved and turned to law minister Justice Ibrahim like most of the Bengalee government servants as he was seen by them as a "friend in needs". He made me his private secretary and arrangement was made for my accommodation at the 303, Peshwar Road, Rawalpindi, residence of the minister.

The law minister left his family at Dhaka as his differences with the president had already crept up and he was prepared to resign any time. My wife was also in Dhaka as she worked at the Eden Girls College and I had plenty of time to watch justice Ibrahim. I saw him restless and disturbed as he was soon disillusioned about Ayub Khan and began realising that he was taken for ride on false promise. Ayub Khan made him law minister for helping him formulate a modern, secular and democratic constitution. Popular politician Shaheed Shurwardhy had also become law minister of Pakistan government for enacting a constitution and holding national elections. Justice Ibrahim accepted the offer in Ayub's cabinet with the same intentions.

The political situation in Pakistan was then characterised by instability and the politicians were busy in changing or breaking political parties. It is against that backdrop Justice Ibrahim joined Ayub Cabinet as law minister with the purpose of formulating a constitution to create the ground for meaningful elections and in the process accomplish the rights and autonomy of the Bengalees in erstwhile Pakistan as Ayub Khan had also assured him of these goals.

The government took several people-oriented measures in the first year of the martial law like curbing corruption and smuggling with iron hand, improvement in the law and order situation and bringing down the prices of essential commodities. But soon the true face of the government began to come to the fore yet Justice Ibrahim relentlessly continued his determined effort in the cabinet for what he wanted to achieve. It was because of his initiative the revolutionary Muslim family laws were enacted, which gave liberty and democratic rights to a large extent to the women.

Justice Ibrahim was involved in many momentous decisions like setting up a second capital in Dhaka that was taken as per his proposal. It was also decided that an imposing parliament building will be established with permanent seat of the legislature. This building under the design of famous architect Louis Khan stands today as a landmark site of Bangladesh and it is the contribution of Justice Ibrahim. Justice Ibrahim also tried to protect many Bengalee officials who were in trouble during the martial law. As a result, many Bengalees were benefited and he was seen as the "protector" for them in those days in the central government.

They accepted him as the president of the East Pakistan Association and in this capacity he extended help and assistance not only to the Bengalees in the then West Pakistan but also those lived abroad. I feel greatly honoured as he consulted with me on many matters because of my proximity with him. I was fortunate to learn many things and my small arena of knowledge was enormously embellished. At times he would take me to the cabinet meetings and sitting in the next room I could guess the heated arguments he entered with Ayub Khan on many issues. He was otherwise a calm and soft-spoken person, but never failed to rise to the occasion whenever it was a matter of interest of East Pakistan and Bengalees. He used to argue forcefully for increasing the representation of the Bengalees in the armed forces and central government. He would always project the discriminations against East Pakistan and would make strong plea for substantially enhancing the allocations for development of East Pakistan. He was totally uncompromising on these issues. Justice Ibrahim remained an embodiment of this struggle till the last day of his ministership in the central government.

Here, I like to mention a small incident. The government took acquisition of a large segment of land for construction of Kamalapur railway station in Dhaka and a big number of people were rendered homeless in the process. Justice Ibrahim persuaded the then powerful chairman of DIT Mr Madani to resettle the affected in Khilgaon area after necessary development of the locality. Today's developed Khilgaon area is his contribution. Such instances are galore and all these are the tip of iceberg for a person, whose role for the development of erstwhile East Pakistan is largely unknown to many till today.

When Ayub Khan unduly denied promotion to Justice Kayani to Supreme Court and decided to remove him, Justice Ibrahim clearly wrote in the file that such a decision would make people disrespectful to judiciary. He mentioned his feeling in the "note of dissent" and Justice Kayani chose to visit Justice Ibrahim at his house to convey his thanks and respect for the principled position he had taken. He said Justice Ibrahim's stand for the sake of justice and fairplay would give him a unique place in the history.

Gen Azam Khan was made Governor of East Pakistan at the instance of Justice Ibrahim and proved himself quite popular. Justice Ibrahim's differences came to a height over the formulation of the constitution. A sub-committee was constituted under foreign minister Manzur Quader to examine the report of the constitution commission set up by the government. Other members of the committee were Justice Ibrahim, AK Khan, Shoeb and Bhutto. Justice Ibrahim on May 6, 1961, wrote to Ayub Khan "the unity and integrity of Pakistan is the main consideration and the national cohesion depends on the spontaneous consent of all to live together -- these are the fundamental elements of national unity and as such need to be preserved with great care. To that end it is important to eliminate mutual suspicion and distrust and also the sense of discrimination and exploitation -- particularly the yawning gap of economic disparity between the West and East Pakistan must be bridged and there is a need to recognise two parts as two separate economic entity. He clearly told the sub-committee that the central government's control will be only defence, foreign affairs, foreign exchange and communications between the two parts of Pakistan while the rest will be handled by the provincial governments.

He also recommended parliamentary system of democracy on the basis of universal franchise. However, if presidential form of government is accepted, in that case the position of a vice president has to be created and the president and vice president will be swapped between the provinces. In other words, if the president is from West Pakistan, then the VP has to be from the Eastern wing and subsequently, the positions will be inter-changed. He also demanded equal number of ministers from two wings of Pakistan. Not surprisingly, Ayub Khan did not accept these demands. Justice Ibrahim demonstrated indomitable courage during that difficult phase of martial law.

It was in November 1961 that Justice Ibrahim returned to Dhaka after attending the last meeting of the cabinet and did no go back to Rawalpindi. That time he expressed his desire to quit, but at the request of the president, he finally resigned a few months later -- in April, 1962.

Justice Ibrahim established contacts with different political leaders on return to Dhaka and played active role in fashioning anti-Ayub platform. He wanted to strengthen such a campaign bringing the Bengalee politicians under a broad platform with a view to realising the rights of the Bengalees. For this purpose, he held detailed discussions with leaders. But except Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman none agreed to his proposal. It may be mentioned that the first conference of the reconstituted Awami League under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman took place in his Green Road's "Ambagan". Sheikh Mujib offered him to become the president of Awami League, but Justice Ibrahim did not agree as he wanted to play the role of a kind of "guardian" from behind the screen. He was a firm believer in secular and democratic politics and was a symbolic of a "Bengalee" from head to toe.

Bahauddin Chowdhury is a former information secretary to the government.