Heptullah unjust to Azad grandnephew

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By Mohammed Anis Qasmi
Delhi: That Najma Heptullah has eked out maximum mileage for being a woman from the minority community using Maulana Azad plank while contributing nothing for the country, the community or the Congress. In the process she blatantly hijacked the Azad lineage from a closer heir, Firoz Bakht Ahmed is clear from this revealing piece.

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, considered a non-controversial leader during his life-time, has been dragged into one controversy after another ever since Najma, in the presence of another closer heir, started claiming that she was the only one closest to Azad. Earlier, she touted herself as Maulana’s “granddaughter” but when some people objected, she re-christened the relationship to “grandniece”!

What does it mean when Najma Heptullah, the Rajya Sabha deputy chairperson addressed a gathering recently at Delhi’s Constitution Club on the occasion of Hakeem Ajmal Khan Awards ceremony and instead of highlighting the contributions of the exponent of the Unani system of medicines, she chose to speak for one whole hour advertising her relationship with Maulana Azad and proclaiming that she is the only certified grandniece and real heir of the Maulana? It only meant that something is fishy. What’s doubly ironic is her declaration that she hasn’t ever used the Azad name for furthering her own career! The crowd jeered and booed her. The truth is that all these years she has blatantly misused the Azad lineage in spite of the fact that other closer relatives of the great stalwart of the freedom struggle have been around and they never misused his name for he strictly forbade his relatives to use his reference.

Azad never wanted his relatives to use his name
Once Azad’s nephew Nooruddin Ahmed (son of Azad’s elder brother Abun Nasr Aah Ghulam Yasin), whom he loved as his own son, applied for an advertised job in the ICCR giving Maulana’s reference. Maulana was not in Delhi at the time. The position was immediately offered but when Maulana came back from his foreign tour and came to know of this episode, he rebuked Nooruddin and asked him to resign immediately since he had used Maulan’s name. Nooruddin had to resign. Such was the character of Maulana Azad. Writes Deccan Herald (November 29, 1992): “Firoz Bakht Ahmed, a grandnephew of Maulana Azad, a school teacher in Delhi, who has been unflaggingly championing the cause of putting Azad back on the center-stage and reinterpreting the history on the basis of Azad’s books and papers, points out, ‘The Maulana lived a frugal life in the capital of independent India. My father (Nooruddin Ahmed), the Maulana’s nephew who lived with Azad almost all his life, told me that Azad did not even want to hold the post of Education Minister in the Cabinet, but was coerced into it. Apart from books and papers, there were hardly any other effects that the Maulana possessed at the time of his death.’”

Real heir of Azad a low profile man
Firoz Bakht Ahmed, the grandnephew of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, and Nooruddin’s son, is a low profile community worker devoting his time to the educational upliftment of Urdu schools besides having a penchant for places of cultural heritage. Through his PILs, he got the old Delhi haveli of Mirza Ghalib restored besides getting the lavatories removed and getting the mazar of Zauq reconstructed who was the poet laureate of Bahadurshah Zafar’s court and his tutor. Firoz also got the shrine of the renowned Sufi Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia in Delhi freed from the clutches of encroachers and vandals. He is also a prolific writer writing in English, Hindi and Urdu on education, heritage and socio-religious issues. Despite being the closest Azad heir, he has never used the family name. He is not a political animal as a little hobnobbing with politics a couple of years ago indicated that this is not his cup of tea.

But Mrs Heptullah knows very well how to hog limelight. This time round too she is in the news — for the wrong reasons as usual. In fact, she sponged out the maximum from the Congress for close to two and a half decades and fearing that there might not be another term for her, she was quick to go public where her loyalties actually lay — the BJP. There’s nothing wrong in praising the prime minister even if he is from an opposition party but what matters is the fact that she gives the signals that she is ready to embrace the ideology which she spent almost her lifetime fighting. She ditched the Congress at a time when it needed her most. It’s the rats that jump out of a sinking ship first! She thinks that at least in the near future the Congress might not be in the driver’s seat and obviously not in a position to offer her vice presidentship of the country or a simlar job with adequate perks. She also brushed aside the fact that whatever she is today, is only because of Congress lifting her from oblivion to political glamour.

Najma is aiming to be UN General Secretary with Vajpayee’s help
Some in Delhi believe that Najma is aiming to be the next secretary general of the UN, as India’s turn comes up soon and all she has to do is to garner the support of a couple of African and Arab nations besides the ruling party at home. In the process, she has cast aspersions on Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her own party claiming that she has heaped praises on the BJP as it has achieved what Congress originally set out to do but could not!.

Najma happens to be brutally self-centred and narcissistic as history testifies that she can go to any length to monopolize the Azad legacy ruthlessly putting down the claims of others. No wonder Kapil Sibal, the Congress spokesperson, rightly called her the Siberian Crane, migrating at election time in search of loaves and fishes!

Najma has been unjustifiably harvesting the Maulana legacy harping on three basic facts in order to be a top political climber — firstly that she is a woman, secondly that she is the only heir of Maulana Azad, and thirdly that she belongs to the minority community.

Najma a raw politician
Najma is very shrewd when it comes to opportunism but as a politician she’s quite green as revealed by Vir Sanghvi in Hindustan Times (March 7, 2004) that in a meeting with Jack Straw, the British Foreign Secretary, she stated that Muslims in India felt secure because Vajpayee was improving relations with Pakistan! The fact is that Hindu-Muslim relations have nothing to do with Pakistan. This logic means that Hindu- Muslim relations must have been at their worst when the Indian army was at the borders just two summers ago!

And now think of what infuriated her against her leader. She complains that Sonia Gandhi did not congratulate her on being the president of the International Union of Parliamentarians! In fact, Sonia told Shekhar Gupta in a television interview that the reception to Heptulla by Manmohan Singh was at the behest of Congress Party only to congratulate her.

Going a litte back into history let us read what a letter published in the Calcutta weekly Sunday (May 15-21, 1988) said. “Najma Heptullah has not inherited her granduncle Maulana Azad’s intellectual qualities. Instead, she has been busy matching the colours of her sarees with those of the walls. Maulana Azad never indulged in such cheap acts. And what does Mrs Heptullah mean by calling herself the real heir of Maulana Azad? The Maulana’s real heir is Nooruddin Ahmed, his nephew and adopted son who resides in Calcutta as a recluse,” the letter said.

Opines senior Congress leader RK Anand that even during the conduct of the Rajya Sabha proceedings, Najma’s undue preference for BJP could clearly be gauged. Umpteen times she disallowed members of her own party to speak on significant issues but allowed a cake walk to opposition members even when they were on the wrong foot. Reportedly her overtures began years ago even before she received an award from the RSS chief, K Sudarshan.

Azad heirs wash dirty linen in public over India Wins Freedom
Back in 1988, at the time of release of Maulana Azad’s 30 unpublished pages of his book India Wins Freedom, witnessed Najma’s tantrums to block the publication of those pages claiming to be the only or the nearest heir of Maulana. Orient Longmans, the publishers, had been giving the book’s royalty to Nooruddin Ahmed, Maulana Azad’s nephew. Najma even gathered the support of other members of the family who were in the film business, namely, Nasir Hussain, Tahir Hussain (actor Amir Khan’s father) and Baquar Hussain. Ultimately it was Leila Kabir (George Fernandes’ wife and Prof Humayun Kabir’s daughter) who filed a PIL and averred that the papers should be immediately released to the nation. Her father, then a minister in the cabinet, had transcribed and translated the memoirs and signed the publishing contract. Leila inherited that contract.

Upon watching Najma dictating terms and trampling over the rights of his father Nooruddin, Firoz Bakht Ahmed appeared on the scene and sided with Leila Kabir that the papers should be published in the interest of the nation. Now Najma threatened Bakht who held the fort and wanted to make his stand clear that he didn’t want any royalty of the book but only desired that the world should recognize him as the nearest Azad heir as his legal right. He categorically stated that he had no desire to cash on the Azad’s name.

Najma asks for nikahnama and calls Firoz an illegitimate son!
Najma could not bear Firoz coming to the limelight and stooped to allege that he was the illegitimate son of Nooruddin! The Day After monthly (April, 1988) carries an article by Maulana Mohammed Taiyab Ludhianavi that states that Najma, in order to grab the royalty of India Wins Freedom and claim the book to be her “family” property, charitably dubbed Firoz as a “bastard child” of Nooruddin. At another instance, Najma asked Firoz Bakht to produce the nikahnama (marriage contract) testifying the marriage of his mother late Nazuk Jahan Begum and Nooruddin. Firoz was shocked that Najma could stoop to such depths. Who retains the nikahnama of his parents or grandparents? Does she retain the nikahnamas of her parents and grandparents?

Azad’s nephew Nooruddin married clandestinely
The tragedy with Firoz Bakht, the nearest of the living heirs of Maulana, is that he has been overshadowed by an over-ambitious and opportunist Najma who being elder to him in both age and stature, has cornered all the glory of the name of Maulana Azad, wrote Delhi Urdu daily Milap (July 10, 1988).

The controversy began only when Firoz made his presence felt in 1988 on behalf of his ailing father Nooruddin. In fact, Nooruddin married Firoz’s mother Nazuk Jahan Begum clandestinely on May 9, 1956 at his 4 King Edward Road, New Delhi residence (now the vice president’s official residence at Maulana Azad Road) while Maulana Azad was away on a tour according to Bombay Urdu daily Inquilab (July 24, 1988). After Maulana returned, he was pained to find that his nephew had entered into wedlock with Nazuk Jahan Begum without informing him, let alone seeking his consent in advance as is the custom. Maulana was upset with Nooruddin and started cold-shouldering him. According to Delhi Urdu weeklies Ahkbar-e-Nau (June 26, 1988) and Kashif (May 11, 1988), Maulana who had brought up his nephew like his son, was unhappy the he was not taken into confidence. Nooruddin’s father was a poet and used the pen name of “Abun Nasr Aah”. He died at the young age of about 24, leaving behind Nooruddin the only son. As Maulana Azad did not have any issue, he took Nooruddin under his care and gave him good education at St Xavier’s, Calcutta.

Seeing Maulana Azad unhappy, Nooruddin got cold feet and started neglecting his wife. Their relations turned so sour that he deserted her within less than two years of their marriage. Maulana Azad did not approve this maltreatment of Nazuk Jahan. He bluntly told Nooruddin, “Ab nikah kiya hai to ise nibhao bhi.” (Now that you have married her, treat her well). But the Nooruddin somehow overlooked Maulana’s injunctions and stopped meeting her on account of eccentricities he had been known to posses.

Current weekly of Bombay (July 16, 1988) writes, “Close confidantes of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad recollect only three days when the legendary figure ambled ceaselessly in distress, in the confines of his house, all night. The first when the Partition took place, the second when his friend, philosopher and guide Mahatama Gandhi was assassinated and the third when his nephew Nooruddin Ahmed married without even consulting him.”

Writes Delhi’s Evening News (June 27, 1988) that the trauma that Firoz has suffered is gigantic. Firstly his psychic father didn’t support him and secondly Najma turned maliciously against him for reasons of her own insecurity that this man with both calibre and charisma might just pip her as the Azad kin.

Besides, Maulana Azad was already a broken man on account of the tragedy of the Partition. The jolt given to him by his nephew only added to his agonies. Azad passed away on February 22, 1958. After that Nooruddin left Delhi and settled in Calcutta and even when Nazuk bore a son to him on May 17, 1957, he never returned to take care of his family. Pandit Nehru asked Nooruddin many times to come out of his dungeon and work in any capacity he desired, look after his family and lead a normal life but he totally segregated himself from the outside world. He closed the doors upon him and turned a recluse.

Najma’s attitude always negative
The attitude of Najma has always been negative and unfortunate towards Firoz as she singly wanted to monopolize the Azad name. According to the Sunday Observer (July 24, 1988), asked if she knew anything about the relationship between Firoz and Nooruddin, Najma Heptulla responded first with agitation and later said evasively, “I have nothing to do with that man. You should ask Nooruddin about Firoz Bakht Ahmed, not me. It’s for Nooruddin to say whether Firoz Bakht Ahmed is his son or not. How can I prove his credentials? He is not my son.”

Relates Firoz that his mother was so paranoid about Nooruddin that she did not want to send her only son to him owing to his unpredictable nature. Often she used to utter, “Nooruddin aa rahey hein” (Nooruddin is coming) during the three years at the fag end of her life when she was bedridden. She died on December 18, 1986 waiting and watching for Nooruddin who never came.

Firoz wanted to go to Calcutta and meet his father but it came as late as 1988 — a wrong timing as well! Incidentally 1988 coincided with the Azad papers controversy. In his first meeting with his father in Calcutta, Nooruddin asked Firoz to go to hell. But after a couple of months in the second meeting, when Firoz asked him to come along to Delhi and that he would serve him for the rest of his life, Nooruddin, in the presence of Bilal Ahmed, son of Maulana Habib-ur-Rehman, a family friend of Azad, said that it was too late and that he rued some of his harsh decisions. Sanity prevailed at last but Nooruddin remained adamant. Similar was the reaction of Nooruddin when Firoz went again to Calcutta alongwith his lawyer friend, M Atyab Siddiqui. Nooruddin asked about the well-being of Firoz’s cousins Mahmood Ali Khan, Shehnaz Begum and Talat in the presence of Siddiqui but again refused to come to Delhi.

Najma tried to grab Azad’s Bharat Ratna
When Bharat Ratna was announced for Maulana Azad on January 23, 1992, a good 35 years after his death, Najma was the first one to shoot off the block! She was initially quite excited about the award, even hosted a public reception at her palatial residence to celebrate the announcement of Bharat Ratna to her “grandfather”. But later realizing that there were many claimants and that she was not the nearest one and further not wishing to get into a controversy, she took the stand that the award was an honour for the whole country and it was not important who received it. When Firoz received a call from the Rashtrapati Bhavan being the nearest heir, he said that his father Nooruddin was still alive and that it should be given to him. By that time, Nooruddin was bedridden and was not in a position to come to Rashtrapati Bhawan. After negotiations, it was decided that the award be sent to him to Calcutta.

Bharat Ratna sent via registered post!
Ultimately, for the first time in the history of India, Bharat Ratna was sent via registered post to Calcutta. The Times of India (October 10, 1992) wrote about this strange episode: “In the only instance of its kind, the posthumous Bharat Ratna award for Maulana Abul Kalam Azad announced on January 23 this year was given away, not as is usually done, by the Rashtrapati Bhawan, but delivered unceremoniously by post in the last week of June to the Maulana’s octogenarian nephew, Nooruddin Ahmed, living in poverty and seclusion in Calcutta.”

As Nooruddin was not in a position to receive it, his cousins Abdur Rahim and Abdus Salim took the award from him. Since then it is with them. Whereas it must have come back to the ICCR, Maulana’s brainchild. Lamented Firoz Bakht, “Even if Nooruddin Saheb was too old and indisposed to come to Delhi to receive the award, it could have been presented to him by the governor at a public ceremony in Calcutta. It was after all not an award for poor old Nooruddin but for one of the founders of Independent India and ought to have been handed over with dignity. (The Times of India, October 10, 1988)”

Were Azad manuscripts sold?
In fact at his Kolkata 32-Bright Street residence near Park Circus, Nooruddin had been surrounded by his cousins (his mother’s sister’s sons) Abdur Rahim and Abdus Salim, who all coveted his wealth — the unpublished manuscripts of Maulana Azad. They waited for him to die. Nooruddin used to sleep over a box that contained Azad’s manuscripts. Times of India (October 10, 1992) reports, “According to Firoz, the trunk contained many handwritten manuscripts of Azad’s unpublished books. One of them, Jashn-e-Azadi ya Taqseem-e-Hind contained Azad’s views on Partition….There were also 12 unpublished sections of Azad’s Tarjauman-ul-Quran and a large number of letters by Gandhi and Nehru written to Maulana in the 1920s and ‘30s.”

There were news reports that the cousins had roped in a Pakistani publisher to sell Azad’s unpublished books for millions. The matter was reported in the press but neither the West Bengal government nor the centre took any action against Nooruddin’s cousins.

Today, 16 years after the Azad papers controversy and Nooruddin’s demise in 1992, one finds that a massive multi-story mansion is built at the premises of the tenement where Nooruddin used to live and died unsung and unnoticed. May be the sale of the manuscripts made way for the palatial mansion for his cousins at his place.

Lawyer M Atyab Siddiqui, a long-time associate of Bakht, tells us that this is an age of self-aggrandizement. Someone laboriously tills the land and the fruits are snatched away by the opportunists. Atyab is all praise for Firoz Bakht who has been devoting his time to education and the social upliftment of Muslim youth, madrasas and Urdu medium schools. “Firoz is a hawk-eyed activist in romance with the poor, looted and decrepit Delhi and quick to react in English, Hindi and Urdu newspapers and the electronic media against those destroying, devouring and demystifying the historic city,” points out Siddiqui.  ¤
http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/2004/01-15Apr04-Print-Edition/011504200485.htm

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