Islam and the Age of Globalization

#181 Dotty

Ama yaar...

[I don`t think Ahmed would`ve found a Pakistan writer to do this. They`re not good enough.]

Hmmmm....

You maybe right dotty. Lets hear it from Omar.

The cricket commentator Qureshi was not into this as far as I know abt this controversy but who knows.

What I recall now Akber accused Omar Rashid Qureshi who was a Dawn staff.



Jamil Dahlvi`s father S.K Dhalavi was a foreign secretary for Pakistan during the Ayub Regime. He was known for his integrity. I have met Jamil a couple times in London and in Karachi. He is married to someone known to our family.

Jamil seemed like a good guy but there are many things that go into these projects. Jamil was a film maker by profession. I don’t know what his trade is now but knowing the family, I would take jamil over Akber anytime.

Re: # 180
there was another by the same name - he was a great journo - and the Dawn bawa`s bossom friend - a cricket commentator, etc etc. Think he was mullah`s uncle - could be wrong here (maybe Omar Q could confirm it).

The Farukh Dhondy (then channel 4`s man) interview to OUTLOOK - where he suggest that the Professor Asked him to keep stum about writing the script for the Jinnah Movie. The interview itself is interesting for other factors ....

http://www.outlookindia.com/10question.asp?listauth=t&secname=Arts+%26+Entertainment&fodname=20000306

On how Akbar Ahmed asked him to script Jinnah and keep quiet about it

Did your perception of Gandhi and Jinnah change after scripting Jinnah?
The film looks at things from Jinnah`s point of view. But I don`t think my views have changed. Gandhi was one of the greatest figures of the 20th century. But Jinnah also genuinely felt that Muslims were under threat.

Was the writing process difficult?
It was a pretty rough writing assignment because I began with being completely out of sympathy with the subject, and I did it by telling Ahmed I`ll write what I find out.

Why do you think Ahmed asked you, an Indian, to script the film?
I kind of knew him at Cambridge, I`d worked with the film`s director before and I don`t think Ahmed would`ve found a Pakistan writer to do this. They`re not good enough.

Did you face a conflict in scripting a film of this sort?
I stuck to what contemporary historians gave me, and they think Jinnah wasn`t as bad as we in India have made him out to be. The Partition was sad, and Jinnah shows that.

Why was the fact of your having scripted the film kept secret?
It was to protect Ahmed from how the Pakistanis would look upon a film written by an Indian, and an Indian socialist at that.

How did you react to Ahmed`s admitting your involvement?
No skin off my nose. It was to protect him. He and Jamil Dehlavi have had a quarrel and that fact`s become exposed in the course of the quarrel.

Has this soured your relationship with Ahmed?
Of course. And just to clarify things, Dehlavi cooperated with the production of the script. He read the drafts, made suggestions, was very much involved and Ahmed was not.

Why did you script it and risk the controversy?
For money, for fun, for creative challenges. But I`m not ghosting any more scripts now.

Does the film suggest the Partition was a good thing?
Partition was brought about by a lot of personal factors. What the film does say is the decision to partition the country was taken in difficult circumstances for all sides.

Were you happy with the end result?
Christopher Lee, the guy from Dracula, plays Jinnah. It`s well-directed, fairly well-acted.

Dotty and others...

Look folks! I dont know how true this story is but Akber on many occasions had accused presumably, our own Omar R Qureshi, formerly of Dawn for destroying Akber’s game before the movie was released.

Akber comes up with schemes every two years and I don’t know what his motivations are. He may be completely sincere or maybe a scam artist, but he does seem to run into problems regularly with every project.

I think this current project may just be another way for him to make some money or establish creditability in the academic world.

Akber claimed that Omar Qureshi wanted to work in the movie.

I hope Omar reads my post and confirms or denies this. This could be an identity issue too. But as far as I know, there was no other Omar Qureshi working for Dawn in 1999-2000.

and then this from the paper pf mantolives` The Daily Times - the waters were so muddy that they made people here cringe in embarassment. And all for paltry sums when compared to the stature of Jinnah! Professor Ahmed was at the centre of this controversy. Sad to see that a man of his stature was dragged through this ordeal.

Sunday, November 17, 2002

Jinnah movie company goes bankrupt

Minister responsible, says ex-envoy’s wife

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: The Quaid Project Ltd, (QPL) UK, the maker of the Jinnah movie, has been declared bankrupt.

Earlier, a London court had awarded the movie’s Pakistani film director Jamil Dehlavi 58,000 pound sterling plus costs and directed QPL (UK) to pay him.

With the declaration of bankruptcy, Dehlavi is unlikely to recover his dues from the company set up in 1994 by Dr Akbar S Ahmed and some others. The QPL’s current director is Dr Ahmed’s wife, Mrs Zeenat Ahmed, who is now living in Washington with her husband, a professor at the American University, Washington. QPL (UK)’s registered office was in Slough, England.

The movie, a victim of unresolved problems leading to litigation, consequently, has not been released commercially anywhere, except in Pakistan where it ran in both its English and Urdu versions.

Following the bankruptcy, Mrs Ahmed addressed a letter to President Pervez Musharraf, asking him to proceed against Dr Nasim Ashraf, head of the National Commission for Human Development, whom she accused of “theft” and an “Indian connection”.

Dr Ashraf raised a good deal of money in America as head of the Quaid Film Project (USA) that enabled the director, Jamil Dehlavi, to complete the movie.

In her letter to the president, Mrs Ahmed has accused Dr Ashraf of having “encouraged” Jamil Dehlavi to go to the London High Court of Justice and file his lawsuit against QPL. She concedes though that the court directed that monies due to the director’s company, Petra Films Ltd, be paid to it, but takes the position that it was Dr Ashraf and his US-based company that was required to pay Dehlavi and not QPL (UK), something that is not part of the court order which appears to have determined that director Jamil Dehlavi’s company was owed 58,000 pound sterling plus costs by the UK-based QPL.

In her letter to Gen Musharraf, Mrs Ahmed also accuses Dr Ashraf “a minister of your regime standing with Pakistan-hater Farukh Dhondy, who swore on the Bible, although he is a Parsi, both attacking QPL and both giving statements in defence of Dehlavi.” Dhondi, it may be mentioned, was engaged by the producers to co-write the script of the movie, something that would appear to be in ironic clash with what is now being asserted by Mrs Ahmed.

She also accuses Dr Ashraf of trying to sell the movie to Eros, a worldwide Indian entertainment distributor, stating that if the deal goes through and the movie “lands up in the unclean hands of anti-Pakistan and anti-Jinnah Indian-Hindus or the ‘Pakistani’ agents of India — who have been so instrumental in trying to destroy it — they will distort the pure message of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the liberator of the Pakistani Nation. Pakistanis can no longer afford to just sit back, relax and watch the corruption dramas of the corrupt.” Dr Ashraf, who has been given the status of a Pakistan minister of state by President Musharraf, denies the charges and would counter them legally.

Home | National

and immediately after this - he was sacked (or left of his own volition) the job of being Pakistan`s representative at St James` Court and moved to the states for pastures new.

here is the guardian article from the same era

http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,137433,00.html

Diplomat accused over film funds

Appointment of Cambridge academic as high commissioner risks backfiring spectacularly as row erupts over Jinnah script and money

Seumas Milne
Thursday February 17, 2000

When Akbar Ahmed was chosen to be Pakistan`s high commissioner in London by the country`s new military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, after last October`s coup, the appointment seemed to be a masterstroke by a regime struggling to avoid international isolation.
Here was an unexpectedly respectable frontman for the generals, a Cambridge academic acclaimed for his success in presenting a liberal face of Islam to the west, who might win understanding for the coup leaders` proclaimed mission to root out corruption in Asia`s new nuclear power.

Three months later, the posting risks backfiring in spectacular fashion as Mr Ahmed faces allegations of wrongful use of funds from a feature film he sponsored about Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the country`s founder, which stars the actor Christopher Lee in the lead role.

He also finds himself at the centre of a bitter dispute over whether he - or the Indian-born, non-Muslim former Channel 4 commissioning editor Farrukh Dhondy - co-wrote the screenplay. Mr Ahmed, who conceived the film as Pakistan`s answer to Richard Attenborough`s Gandhi and acted as executive producer, is accused by the film`s British-based producer, director and co-writer, Jamil Dehlavi, of unjustifiably paying himself more than £50,000 for the script and diverting £70,000 to an offshore bank account to pay his son and son-in-law for jobs they did not carry out.

Mr Dehlavi, who is also suing the high commissioner over the film`s credits and unpaid debts, says Mr Ahmed ``did not write a word`` of the screenplay, and insists his co-author was Mr Dhondy.

Mr Dhondy has confirmed his role, which he says he was asked to keep secret. He was hired by Mr Ahmed, who asked for some minor amendments to parts of the script which he decided were ``not Islamic enough``, he says, and was paid £12,000 for his work.

Mr Ahmed rejects the allegations - though he accepts Mr Dhondy was involved in the screenplay - and insists he has earned nothing from his years of involvement in the £3m Jinnah project.

He says he is preparing to go to the fraud squad with counter-claims about Mr Dehlavi`s handling of the film`s accounts.

The high commissioner says the accusations against him by Mr Dehlavi and Mr Dhondy are part of a campaign by the ``Indian lobby`` to discredit him and, by extension, the new military regime.

He claims credit for the film`s philosophy and says his collaboration in the script was an essential part of the process.

The eruption of controversy around the film, which is expected to be released in Pakistan in the spring but has yet to be sold in the west, follows a series of bitter disputes during shooting, when it was wrongly alleged at one point that Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses, was the real scriptwriter.

Jinnah is a revered figure in Pakistan and his portrayal by an actor best known for his role as a Dracula caused outrage in some quarters. The alarmed Pakistani government eventually withdrew £1m from the film.

During its production, Mr Ahmed let it be known that he would take no more than one rupee for his involvement - a claim witnessed by several of those involved in the production. The declaration was in emulation of Jinnah, who took a salary of only one rupee as Pakistan`s first president.

Documents seen by the Guardian confirm that Mr Ahmed was paid £51,500 by QPL, the company he set up to oversee the project, as a ``writer`s fee``.

They also show that £35,000 was paid through the film production company to Mr Ahmed`s son, Babar, as co-producer, and another £35,000 to his son-in-law, Arsallah Khan Hoti, as associate producer, into a private family bank account in Jersey in the name of his wife, Zeenat Ahmed, who acted as an unpaid company secretary for QPL.

Mr Ahmed - an author of books and a television series on Islam and an Iqbal fellow, sponsored by the Pakistan government, at Selwyn college, Cambridge, until his recent high commission appointment - rejects all accusations of wrongdoing, as does his wife. They say that they have had to sell jewellery and land to keep the film afloat.

The high commissioner says that, although he paid tax on his £51,500 writer`s fee, he has ploughed the money back into the film, and his executive producer`s fee of £70,000 has been deferred.

He has, he says, taken nothing for his role as head of the project, but like Jinnah, is entitled to his ``professional fees``. Future profits will, his spokesman now says, go to an ``educational trust``.

Mr Ahmed rejects the claim that he was not co-writer of the script and says his son and son-in-law were fairly paid for work for the film, notably helping to raise hundreds of thousands of pounds from their family.

Their fees have gone back into the project and will entitle them to a share of any profits. All Pakistani legal regulations have, he says, been followed over the Jersey account.

Mr Dehlavi denies that Mr Ahmed`s son or son-in-law played any role in the production. Two other men who worked on the film, production accountant Peter Winstanley and production supervisor Andrew Wood, also insist that neither of the men was to their knowledge involved in any way.

Re: # 175the man has been caught with his pants down many a time. Indeed there were a series of articles in the DAWn and the magazines associated with it a few years back...here is one

from 2000, April

All in the family


By Irfan Husain

IS NOTHING sacred? Must just about everything and everybody in Pakistan be tainted by sleaze? Can`t we even make a film about Jinnah, the founder of the country, without accusations and counter-accusations?

The production itself was mired in controversy as everything from the original surreal script to the choice of Christopher Lee to play the Quaid was questioned in the press. In the face of this raging debate, the government decided to withdraw its financial support. To his credit, Akbar S. Ahmad, the moving spirit behind the project, persevered and finally prevailed. Last year, the film was completed and has since been shown to a few select audiences. Not being part of this august company, I will withhold critical comment until have seen the movie; however, audience response has been somewhat mixed.

Although the film is due to be finally launched in Pakistan later this month, it has yet to be accepted by a major distributor abroad. Meanwhile, the Guardian of London ran a major story last month carrying serious allegations of financial impropriety by those responsible for raising funds for the project and authorizing expenditure. Apparently, Jamil Dehalvi, the director and producer of the film, has sued Akbar S. Ahmad and has made a a number of serious allegations in articles he has written for various Pakistani publications.

For me, the most shocking charge was that not only did Akbar Ahmad charge 50,000 pounds for himself as ``writing fees,`` he also doled out 70,000 pounds to his son and his son-in-law. On top of this, his wife is the managing director of the Quaid Project. None of these accusations have been denied by any member of the family. Akbar Ahmad`s money went into an offshore account which is pretty fishy in itself.

All this would have been par for the course in a country that has witnessed a depressing amount of corruption at the very highest levels. But what makes it all so much worse is that after the movie was made, this government appointed Akbar Ahmad our high commissioner to the United Kingdom. Initially this was perceived as a good move as he was generally well regarded in academic circles in Britain because of his TV series on Islam as well as his anthropological studies (hence the nickname ``anthro-panthro`` bestowed on him by columnist Khalid Hasan).

Now, however, this government is in the highly embarrassing position of having its representative to the Court of St. James`s dragged through British courts on charges of sleaze, Presumably, members of his family will also be called upon to testify. It goes without saying that, given the nature of the case, the media will have a field day.

Apart from the unsavoury financial details that have surfaced, Akbar Ahmad`s intellectual integrity has also been questioned as it has been alleged by Dehlavi that although the former did not contribute to the script, he has claimed equal credit for it with the director. In actual fact, it appears that Farooq Dhondi was the principal scriptwriter, and he agreed to stay in the background. However, now that the matter has become public, Dhondi has confirmed his role in the film.

Quite apart from the legal, artistic and intellectual questions raised by the Guardian article and the subsequent publicity, the most pressing issue to my mind is the morality involved in paying large sums to close relatives who have no qualifications for the work they have been paid for. How can somebody with a lifetime of government service behind him be unaware that such rank nepotism is unacceptable even in Pakistan? and since most of the money for the film was raised abroad, surely our high commissioner should have maintained an even higher standard of probity.

In her somewhat disjointed and confusing defence published in the monthly Herald, Mrs Zeenat Akbar Ahmad has stated that the money received by her husband was put back into the project. This is good to know, but some documentary evidence would have been more convincing. She justifies the payments made to her son and son-in-law as being in the interest of the project. She does not, however, tell us their qualifications for this work. Dehlavi is categorical in dismissing their contribution to his film.

Nepotism is endemic in our part of the world, and people think nothing of giving jobs, junkets and contracts to close relatives when they are in positions of authority without seeing anything wrong with this practice. One would have expected that as a scholar, serving civil servant (now a diplomat) and somebody with much exposure abroad, Akbar Ahmad would have refrained from doing the desi thing of putting his whole family on the project payroll. Unfortunately, the temptation of furthering family interests at the expense of the film seemed to have proved too powerful to resist, and the project is in danger of entering the long and dishonourable list of scams made in Pakistan.

This is a pity because I am sure Akbar ahmad had entirely honourable intentions when he started off to make the film. Virtually from the time Attenborough`s film ``Gandhi`` made such an impact on the world nearly 20 years ago, he has been dreaming of producing a cinematic response based on Mr Jinnah`s life and struggle. To have achieved his goal and then get bogged down in such a sleazy saga is as sad as it is unnecessary.

What makes this scandal specially reprehensible is that the subject of the film was a man of such absolute and towering integrity. Not even his worst enemy has ever accused him of fiscal impropriety, and if he was seen as uncompromising, it was because there were no skeletons in his closet. For his name to be associated with a project that has become the centre of controversy, even posthumously, is a national disgrace.

Both Akbar Ahmad and his wife have tried to brush off these accusations as being part of a plot concocted by the ``Indian lobby`` to discredit him and the film. I`m afraid this is not good enough a defence. Surely this lobby did not make him involve his immediate family in the project and pay themselves large amounts of money. The fact that the foreign office has recently written him a strong letter pointing out various financial improprieties alleged to have been committed by him would seem to indicate that where there is smoke, there is a fire. Incidentally, the press reports carrying excepts of this letter have not been denied or contradicted.

No Pakistani could derive any pleasure at the unfolding of this saga, but it is in the nation`s best interest for the government to intervene before it turns into an even bigger international scandal.

#161 jahangasht

Ama yaar, don`t take it so hard. The point of #127 was that the ole Prof. Ahmed looks like a faker to me. His words do not match his deeds. On Oprah he shows up (THREE times) to tout the virtures of peace - then in Kashmir, he roots for the ISI-paid killers. And like all such creatures - he is happy that somebody ELSE is getting killed while he grabs the limelight and the grants!

Chitt bhee meri, putt bhee meri

Just my opinion, of course!

Now, I wonder why you are so miffed. Did the Prof. promise ya a fellowship, or something?

Re: # 146

takhmad:

``masadi #144 Why dont you let off your steam at those who really hate you - namely these Indians who are right here. Rather than letting off hot air about the US. ``

hmmm....

a capitalist mullah sending a SOS to a commie mullah...............

desperate times indeed call for desperate measures........

Netizen #116 {``dude, these people invented it!! they have been running this joint for more than 1000 years. its been only mere 300 years that your family joined the club?
so relax and leave the driving to someone else and enjoy the ride.``}

Netizen Bhai,
Thank you for reminding me of the futility of my efforts to reform Muslim thinking. You have a good point and I am close to getting off this rundown bus. While my ancestry does play an important role in my thoughts, it also gives me the strength to struggle on, to swim against the tide, and to try to rescue people from this self-destructive aberration of an otherwise decent religion. The reason that my grandfather didn`t return to Jaipur after becoming disappointed with Paki Punjoo chauvinism in Pakistan, was his Rajput tendency to be stubborn against odds and not admit to failure. He did not want to face his father and other relatives and admit that he was wrong about Pakistan. Instead, he chose to go to Turkey for a brand new beginning. I am glad that he did because I wouldn`t be here today if he returned to Jaipur.

I am perplexed by the universal perception of Islam and Muslims as a giant, violent, self-immersed, and threatening monolith. In reality, we Muslims are more akin to a loose association of, say dark-haired people - nothing to write home about and certainly nothing to get all agitated about. Yes, we care about each other about as much as dark-haired people care for similarly adorned creatures. Our morals, intelligence, and viewpoints are about as varied as the texture of the dark hair among our members. While we are happy and proud of our hair (some of us even think that dark hair is the best), we do not ordinarily think any less of blonds or redheads. Once exception is that we sometimes tend to look down on people with no hair - that is our own biggest fear and we turn violent at the slightest threat of baldness. We are more or less like other regular people, except that a very small minority prefers to wear their pubic ones externally and makes an ass out of the whole association. Thanks.

Re: # 167

Salimbhai,

Your presence gives us strength.

Here is one bunder roaming and that was a katua. Can u see that?

#170, Tahmed3, {``As such, your accusations and epithets mean nothing to me. ``}

Looks like you have answers to every burning issue - just like you have opinionated and selective ``compassion`` about human suffering. Your protestations and hypocrisy mean nothiing to me either. May the Indian offense have a field day with you playing left field. :) Have a nice day.

Salim: You obviously have too much time on your hands, and too little by way of a life outside chowk. So you spend it all insulting strangers on the internet. As such, your accusations and epithets mean nothing to me.

When you have something slightly intelligent to say (as opposed to writing personal insults), then we can talk. Till then, cheerio. :-)

hamidm2 #117 d{``it may be true except for the fact that a significant majority (70-80%) of muslims refuses to condemn the actions of this murderous minority ............. why ? ``}

Hamid Sahib,
That is the question and the real crux of the problem. Let`s fix that by changing the attitudes of this significant majority. They are like sheep and follow the propaganda de jour - that`s how they supported Pakistan against their own personal interests.