Shaukat Khanum: Who shaped the personality of Imran Khan

A video of Maulana Rashid Mahmood Soomro has gone viral on social media in recent days, in which he made inappropriate and immoral conversation about Imran Khan’s mother. Maulana Rashid Mehmood Soomro hails from Larkana and is the Secretary General of the Sindh branch of Jamiat Ulema Islam (F).

There is an impression that the language Imran Khan speaks about Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Maulana Rashid Soomro has responded in the same language, but since the matter was not Imran Khan’s but his mother’s, therefore Maulana Rashid Soomro’s allegations were strongly condemned by every section of thought.

In the last few years in Pakistan, it has become a common practice to cast aspersions on the opposition. Some people say that this method was introduced by Imran Khan and some people say that it was created by Sheikh Rasheed who used to talk immorally about Ms. Benazir Bhutto in his meetings.

But looking at the pages of Pakistani history shows that this practice is not new but has been a part of our politics since the beginning. The vile allegations about Ms. Fatima Jinnah are still preserved in the newspapers of that time.

Shaukat Khanum is the mother of former Prime Minister of Pakistan and PTI chief Imran Khan. His introduction to the public is due to his son who built Pakistan’s first cancer hospital in Lahore in 1994 in his name. Shaukat Khanum died in February 1985 due to cancer.

Imran Khan started the Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital project in 1988 and started a campaign to collect donations for it. It was during this campaign that he developed a direct connection with the people that eventually led him into politics.

In this way, it can be said that the hospital built in the name of his mother provided the basis for the environment in which he went on to become the Prime Minister of Pakistan.

Belonging to South Waziristan

Shaukat Khanum belongs to the Barki tribe of Pathans, which is considered a warrior tribe and has been displaced and exiled many times due to its attitude. These people participated in attacks on India with Mahmud Ghaznavi for which they were gifted the territory of Kanigram in South Waziristan. Barkis describe themselves as Turkic and their language is not Pashto but Ormuri which is a separate language and is spoken only by the people of that region.

Indian writer, poet and journalist Frank Huzoor’s book, whose Urdu translation has been published by Jamhoori Publications Lahore under the name ‘Imran Khan Fasana Ya Haqiqal’, says that until the early part of the 14th century, the beautiful region of South Waziristan, Kanigram Barkiyo. was the homeland of When this beautiful valley suffered from the worst famine, Shaukat Khanum’s ancestors migrated from there and took refuge in Jalandhar. Some Barki tribes are still living in Kanigram who claim to be relatives of Imran Khan.

Shaukat Khanum and Jalandhar settlement

Shaukat Khanum’s family settled in Basti No, Jalandhar. Her father Ahmed Hasan Khan was a pre-Partition bureaucrat, who served British India for 30 years as Deputy Commissioner, Settlement Commissioner and Magistrate. Shaukat Khanum’s mother Ameer Bano was also a highly educated but consummate housewife. Shaukat Khanum was born in 1927 in Jalandhar Basti Nau. His three siblings Naima Khanum, Iqbal Jan and Ahmed Raza Khan were also born there. Ahmad Hasan Khan was also the Deputy Commissioner of Mianwali from 1937 to 1940. After retirement, he bought a beautiful mansion in Dalhousie, a tourist destination 194 km from Jalandhar, with a breathtaking view of the Himalayas.

After five years, he suffered a severe heart attack and shifted to his younger brother Muhammad Zaman Khan’s house in Lahore, who had built a spacious house on the outskirts of Lahore at that time. At that time, the area used to be farmed and the only house in the area looked like a farmhouse.

Later, when more houses were built around, this area was called Zaman Park after Zaman Khan. Zaman Khan moved to Lahore in 1940 and was the Postmaster General of Lahore. The purpose of building a house in this area was to be near Aitchison College, then called Chiefs College, where Zaman Khan’s children studied. Shaukat Khanum also came to Lahore from Jalandhar to take care of her sick father.

Married to Ikramullah Niazi

Shaukat Khanum’s sister Naima Khan was married to Dr. Jahangir Khan, principal of Government Ludhiana College and famous cricketer, in 1942. The six-foot-tall Jahangir Khan played for India in India’s first Test match at Lord’s in 1930.

In the cricketing world, however, he is best remembered for the ball he bowled to Tom Pearce of the Merrillbone Cricket Club at Lord’s in 1936, which hit an oncoming birdie. The bird had fallen dead in front of the wickets. The dead bird is still preserved in the MCC museum at Lord’s.

Dr. Jahangir Khan also moved to Pakistan at the time of partition. When he was posted in Sahiwal in 1949, Ikramullah Niazi’s brother-in-law was posted as a police inspector in Sahiwal. Ikramullah’s sister asked Naima for her sister’s relationship. He contacted his father Ahsan Khan who lived in Zaman Park. Ikramullah was working as a civil engineer in the Punjab government in those days. The marriage was arranged through consultation between the two families and Shaukat Khanum and Ikramullah Khan Niazi got married in November 1949.

Ikramullah Niazi initially started living in a rented house in Zaman Park where on September 5, 1950, his first daughter Rubina was born. Two years later, on 25 October 1952, a son was born to him at Lady Wellington Hospital, whom his mother named Imran Ahmad Khan Niazi. However, based on some inexplicable reasons, they have written the date of birth of Imran Khan as 25 November while admitting him to the Cathedral School.

Formation of Imran’s ideas and Shaukat Khanum

Frank Huzoor writes that Shaukat Khanum was a Pathan woman by nature. She was tall and beautiful in every way. She lived under the shadow of her husband with love and affection. She would laugh at their taunts and compliments. She would listen to their arguments but she did not always follow their words blindly but sometimes they would argue. They trained their children purposefully and inculcated in their innocent minds the pride of their race and sense of virtue. At the same time, he developed the courage to stick to his principles.

Imran Khan writes in his autobiography ‘Main Aur Mera Pakistan’ that my mother used to tell us a story every night which was religious and had a moral lesson. About Hazrat Musa, Pharaoh, Hazrat Yusuf and Rahmat al-Alamin. Every night mother reminds us to pray.

She used to narrate an incident with abundance and with great passion. An old man in Makkah came to the Prophet’s service and said, ‘I am the last man of the tribe who has not accepted Islam. I want to convert to Islam but how can I change my habit at this old age. Tell me one thing that can be saved from action.’

He said, ‘Speaking the truth and always telling the truth, this little thing will be enough for you to remain a Muslim.’ My parents were gentle about religion, open-minded, they used to tell us that Allah is very kind and merciful. We were never forced to perform prayers and fast. My mother belonged to Barki tribe. They used to say very proudly that our forefathers never accepted British slavery.

‘On regaining consciousness I had two kinds of feelings. Most anti-colonial. From childhood I was taught that slavery was the worst thing that mankind could suffer. A man cannot be insulted more than that. Amma Jan used to tell me the stories of the lion Mysore Tipu Sultan. In 1799 it was attacked by three forces, the British, the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Marathas. Then she would tell the story of the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, who died a helpless death in 1862. He repeats Tipu Sultan’s saying that a day’s life of a lion is better than a hundred years of a jackal’s life.

Death of Shaukat Khanum and change in Imran Khan

There is no doubt that it was after the construction of Shaukat Khanum Hospital that his friends advised him to enter politics. The construction of the hospital was an achievement that gave him more self-confidence and he began to understand that the dream of change in Pakistan that he had come up with would one day be successful. Shaukat Khanum was diagnosed with cancer in early 1984. There were no treatment facilities in Lahore and she was not ready to go to London for treatment, however, on the insistence of her son, she went to London where she died.

Earlier, when Shaukat Khanum was in severe pain in Lahore and the doctors were helpless, Imran Khan started shouting in the hospital saying that I will build a cancer hospital here.

Imran Khan writes in his autobiography that ‘when I was coming to Pakistan with my mother’s dead body on February 10, my determination to give the gift of a cancer hospital to my nation became stronger. It would have been my humble offering to my mother. I had always learned under my mother’s shadow to live life fearlessly. I was constantly repeating my resolve: never to leave the field. There is no need to fear tomorrow because Allah is with me.’