In memory of Zaheeruddin Ali Khan, Managing Editor of The Siasat Daily, who breathed his last on 7 August.
File photo of Zaheeruddin Ali Khan and N Venugopal. (nvenugopal.rao/Facebook)
Zaheer and I were chatting under a shamiana in front of Gaddar’s mortal remains as a deluge of grieving people were milling around in Lal Bahadur Stadium on the afternoon of Monday, 7 August.
Just then, Gaddar’s body was moved out and into the van ahead of the procession that took him to his residence.
Zaheer abruptly cut our conversation saying, “Main body ke saath jaatoon bhaai (Let me go with the body, brother),” and shook my hands and left.
It was not even six hours later that the shocking news of his demise arrived!
In fact, Zaheer and I had been almost together since Saturday afternoon. That evening was the event to launch my launch book. I wanted Zaheer to preside over the meeting where Aakar Patel would release my book.
The next day, Sunday morning to evening, was a meeting of the Telangana Vidyavantula Vedika, where he was a speaker. Again, from that evening, we were at Gaddar’s lying-in-state at LB Stadium.
The evening before the book launch event, Zaheer called me and said, “Bhai, why don’t you bring Aakar Patel to our office? We can have lunch together, before going to the meeting.”
I accepted and made arrangements to pick up Aakar Patel from the airport and drop him at The Siasat Daily office. The publisher, Bal Reddy, and I started for the office and called Zaheer. He said he just started from home and would reach within 5-10 minutes.
That day, there were a lot of traffic jams and so there was a slight delay in his arrival. In the meanwhile, Aakar Patel reached the newspaper office.
Zaheer arrived while we were talking to Jahed Ali Khan and Aakar Patel. We had lunch and Zaheer then took us to his room while Aakar Patel was being interviewed for the daily as well as TV.
It was the same place where Abid Ali Khan began his office in a tin shed way back in 1949, and now Zaheer had set up his office as the managing editor.
When military action took place in the Hyderabad state in September 1948, fearful Muslims began leaving the country for Pakistan and other countries.
Abid Ali Khan not only felt that “this is our country”, but also launched his newspaper to spread his message to the people of his community. Zaheer inherited and continued that legacy of secular and democratic tradition.
Indeed, he was such a devout Muslim that he proudly displayed 205 frames of Bismillaah names in his room.
But he held a real and genuine secular belief that religion should be strictly restricted to personal life, and should not interfere in administration and social life.
That was why he was vehemently against the communalism of the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) in the Old City as much as he was against the Sangh Parivar’s dreadful acts.
He would always argue that it was imperative to inculcate education and consciousness among the youth of the Old City — who were uneducated, unemployed, and poor — to fight the MIM’s machinations to keep them under its control.
Thanks to that kind of secular beliefs, he became a close friend of a number of democratic and secular-minded people as well as several democratic, progressive, Dalit and revolutionary organisations — both in Telangana and all over the country.
Particularly after the Gujarat riots, he earned the love and affection of all the progressive groups and individuals who came forward to extend help and cooperation to the Muslim victims of the carnage.
By his own account, he might have visited Kashmir at least 50 times to provide succour to the victims of violence.
Just a few days ago, he had been to Haryana to hand over the financial help collected from The Siasat Daily‘s readers to the families of Junaid and Nassir, who were lynched by Hindutva goons in February.
In the last nine years, in the context of growing belligerent fascism, he made it his duty to expand the purview of secular and democratic ideas in society, and had been going to different places to speak and share his views.
Indeed, immersing himself in social activities, he almost ignored his own health and the health of his wife, who had been battling cancer for several years.
I came into contact with Zaheer during several literary, cultural, and social programmes in united Andhra Pradesh and Hyderabad in the aftermath of the Gujarat massacre.
He would start and end every sentence with a “bhai” while talking to me, and always exhibited brotherly love and affection.
There are a number of memories in this friendship spread over 20 years. We participated in a lot of meetings together. We shared the dais many times at many places. We travelled together to participate in the programmes of the Telangana Journalists Forum during the separate-statehood movement. Both of us were speakers at a seminar on Mahaboob Ali Khan and Nizam’s rule in Mahaboob Nagar.
In 2011, when a thousand journalists from Telangana went to Delhi to meet political leaders and newspaper editors, Zaheer was with us and hosted me in his room at the India International Centre.
In 2014, when the new Telangana government formed a governing body for the Telangana Press Academy, both of us were nominated to be its members. Though I resigned from the position after a couple of months, both of us were part of the deliberations in the initial stage.
We both were speakers at the book release function of the Telugu translation of Kashmiri journalist friend Gowhar Jeelani’s work.
In the last few years, Zaheer introduced modernity into The Siasat Daily with an English website and TV channel. He would regularly ask me to contribute a periodical column. I could only write a few articles.
Recently, when we held a press conference against Hindutva trolling on journalist friend Thulasi Chandu, within an hour Zaheer called to ask me for a piece on the entire issue.
During the Covid-19 lockdown, a relief camp was organised in Medchal to help migrant labourers who were walking back to their villages. Zaheer’s contribution to that camp was enormous.
My wife Vanaja was one of the organisers of the camp, and Zaheer became friends with her and extended great love and affection, calling her bhabhi. Every time he called me, he would enquire about bhabhi and remember her good work in Medchal.
All this pertains to my personal bond with him. But, when I spent some time in his office last Saturday, he suddenly rose and said, “Bhai, come, I will show you what we are doing,” and took me to three different places in the building and showed the tremendous efforts there.
Seeing that immense work of social concern, my love and admiration for him multiplied manifold.
All those works are obviously undertaken by the Abid Ali Khan Memorial Trust or the Siasat Foundation, but Zaheer was the moving force.
First, he took us to a computer training centre. About 20 boys and girls were being trained on computers there.
“We are imparting computer training to poor, lower-middle-class, and middle-class youth to enable them to have livelihood opportunities. Hundreds of youth we trained are now employed in various professions,” he said.
Then we went into another big office. Three or four people were sitting in front of computers and working seriously. Quite a few youngsters — both girls and boys — and some aged people were also waiting there.
The work undertaken by this office was to propagate various Union and state government schemes and programmes that help the youth of minority communities and to fill application forms on their behalf as well as follow up on them.
He asked a couple of people to bring the printouts of the schemes and showed me. “There is a government scheme that helps students of SC, ST, BC, and minority communities pursue higher education and go abroad. However, the sad part is that many communities and eligible students do not even know of such schemes.”
He added: “We provide the information and help them apply, and thus only in the case of minorities the usage of the scheme is 100 percent, while in SCs and STs it is about 5 percent and in BCs it is 30 percent”
Hearing about that achievement, I felt proud of my friend, whose single-handed dedication had made this possible. I was also impressed that he had been doing this without any fanfare or propaganda.
Tears welled up in my eyes. I embraced Zaheer and said, “Bahut khoob, bhai (well done, brother)”.
Then we went into another room, which held the database of prospective brides and grooms from poor, lower-middle-class and middle-class Muslim families. There, we saw huge files containing a lot of information, including the names of boys and girls, their family backgrounds, educational qualifications, job or profession, and expectations from a prospective life partner.
Besides dedicating himself to that kind of immense social service, Zaheer also contributed to the development of The Siasat Daily.
He helped a number of social activists without boasting about it. He also participated in dozens of social and professional bodies, including journalist and social-service organisations.
He was participating in a meeting almost every day — whether in Hyderabad, Telangana, or elsewhere.
Around 5.30 am on Tuesday, after the fazar namaz, I could not control my tears seeing Zaheer having his last eternal sleep at the Shahi Masjid in Public Gardens.
The dawn was unfolding. This person — my brother — participated in so many attempts to bring a dawn to
this country, this society, and his own community.
He wrote, spoke, organised people and events, extended financial and other help, and contributed in many ways to bring about that dawn.
But he left midway and untimely while the entire society was struggling and waiting for that dawn.
Zaheer, I am sure the dawn — the subah — we dreamt together would certainly come.
At the break of that dawn, your name will be remembered with pride and love.
Aasu bharee alvida, Zaheer bhai…
Apr 27, 2024
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