Punjab Punch...History, Politics & Culture: Mr and Mrs Col Majid Malik and his legacy (Some useful links)

Thursday, August 18, 2016

Mr and Mrs Col Majid Malik and his legacy (Some useful links)

Mr and Mrs Col Majid Malik and his legacy

The first Principal Information Officer of Pakistan appointed by M A Jinnah himself, Colonel Majid Malik was a learned man and friend of Pitras, Faiz, Taseer etc. He worked with Reuters as first local correspondent in India before joining Army and first Indian full colonel in British Indian Army. In his book mission with Mountbatten Johnson recorded his displeasure with Col Majid Malik at August 13, 1947 and that proved a malice among Raj officers. But Johnson was not alone in that campaign but later on a journalist Inam Aziz too tried his best and in his book Stop Press he had claimed charges against Malik. He wrote that Malik called Mr Brown (First editor of Dawn, an Englishmen especially came on assignment) and tried to stop August 11 Speech of Jinnah. Malik was principal information officer at that time. He was progressive and his choice of friends is a proof. When i check facts, i found the complete speech was published in three newspapers i-e Inqalab, Pakistan Times and Eastern Times at August 13 editions. I failed to find newspapers of 12 August 1947 in all the three files. Was there a holiday of Newspapers at August 12, a fact that needs further research. As par narrative of Aziz Dawn had published it and ignored the first press advice. I don't check Dawn so I cannot say when it was published but I knew the speech was Published in three papers other than Dawn for sure. The narrative of Aziz looks tricky when he even praised infamous Altaf Hussain who wrote many tricky and misleading editorial in the same newspaper and was a minister of General Ayub Khan in 1960s. He was power broker that laid foundations of power hungry journalism in Pakistan. You may read about this by clicking HERE