The inspiring tale of how the Sharifs went from Ram Gali to Raiwand Palace, by @SHaiderRMehdi
A thread 🧵 👇
💡Haider Mehdi has sourced this from acquaintances & family friends of the Sharifs since Partition and eariest days in Lahore, as well as the public record 💡
Former neighbors of the Sharifs stated they lived near Ram Gali.
According to them, Nawaz Sharif’s grandfather was a flower garland seller in the Amritsar Heera Mandi.
Eventually they emigrated to Lahore incl Mian Sharif (Nawaz’s father), after partition as an unskilled laborer
Mian Sharif emerged as the cleverest among them, putting together a small iron smelter.
It was commonly known among locals that the raw materials they were smelting was sourced from stealing gutter covers and railway line tracks.
Eventually he caught his first big break after installing tubewells at one of Nawab of Kalabagh’s farms.
This contract allowed Nawaz's father to be introduced to the Lahore Municipality.
There, he bribed officials to receive a deal to supply gutter covers in Lahore.
M. Sharif (d. 2004) was a very respected individual of Lahore, a burgeoning businessman known by many names:
- 'Mian duaani aala' for bribing peons outside govt offices with a 2 Anna coin (Duaani)
- 'Mian Uthanni' for bribing jnr clerks w/ an 8 Anna coin
But here's my personal favorite;
- 'Mian Gutter Chor': young boys were employed to steal gutter covers- the very same covers that he had earlier sold to the local Lahore Municipality!
The Sharifs, now under 'Ittefaq', varnished & repainted them before selling them back to the LM
Here's Allama Iqbal's daughter-in-law, Ret. Justice Nasira Iqbal, a Lahore native, corroborating that Muhammad Sharif was involved in the gutter business as a burgeoning young entrepreneur:👇
The Sharifs did not care about morals or ethics.
They were prepared to lie, cheat, steal, or bribe for lucrative govt contracts/deals, & saw absolutely no conflict in simultaneously displaying piety, donning beards, attending prayers & giving to mosque charities.
Eventually they moved to Model Town. Nawaz was a pampered simpleton,a failed actor, cop & cricketer w/an avg college record, while Shahbaz handled major parts of the family business
Nawaz's father valued him as a driver; he drove potential clients around in his father's Mercedes
How sad that man who ruled this country for three terms was, in reality, such a simpleton that his own father saw him for the simple lackey he was, unable to even hold a menial position in his own father's company and failing completely across the board.
Meanwhile M. Sharif managed to oblige, bribe or buy his way into power, into Zia's circle, using his influence to get his simpleton son picked as Punjab's Finance Minister in 1981.
He would use the position to increase the family fortune through lucrative government contracts.
Finally finding his son a job, M. Sharif had secured his family's future.
Nawaz enjoyed power in office for 21 years.
Including Shehbaz, they've has held power for a combined total of 35+ years
That's more than Ayub,Yahya,& Zia COMBINED.
And what've they got to show for it?
Who's the real ladla?
~The army rigged his first elections as PM, allowed him to leave to Saudi scott-free after looting millions & creating a property empire in London, and then return, only to be let off scott-free, along with his entire family, who are now back in power.
Muhammad Sharif was buried in the grounds of his family's sprawling mansion in Raiwind, constructed through a lifetime of 'hard work'.
From Amristar Hira Mandi & Ram Galli to PM office, the Sharifs have shown that with enough dedication towards material gains, you can make it!
Here’s the original article;
If anyone can, please translate the above thread in Urdu.
Federation of Pakistan vs Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan case, (1955).
In light of the Supreme Court recurrently being called in to solve a political crisis, everyone should know about this case & why it's so important.
🧵
Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan was a true patriot.
A Bengali Muslim Leaguer, he took over as Deputy Speaker after Jinnah's death.
By 1954, the Assembly begun plans to replace the increasingly dictatorial Governor General Ghulam Mohammad, who promptly dismissed the Assembly in response.
Maulvi Tamizuddin stood defiantly against this decision & took it to the courts, where CJP was Muhammad Munir.
On the grounds that “necessity knows no law” for upholding “the well-being of the people”, Munir ruled that the political turmoil justified Ghulam's undemocratic act.
Important points claimed by Bajwa on Naya Daur, in English:
🧵
• Bajwa had no involvement in firing of Talat, Murtaza Solangi & Nusrat Javed, or the attack on PMLN member Absar Alam- 'Maybe a frustrated lower lvl officer did'- i.e he had little control over his own soldiers.
• He released Mir Shakeel-ur Rahman (Why?- That's not his job.)
• Matiullah Jan's alleged kidnapping was done by the ISI under Gen Faiz's orders, whom Bajwa reprimanded (how?), and set Matiullah Jan free. - Again, Bajwa had no idea what was going on under his very nose, in his own army, by his own generals.
Watching Imran Khan's TBT interview, I think Muzamil (@hoflolz) did a stellar job in communicating some of our concerns, including the feeling of hopelessness creeping over us all.
However, I feel some things in this interview need to be clarified/ emphasized.🧵
Off the bat, IK makes it clear (again) that the cypher is real, that Pakistan's NSC, (including Bajwa), verified it as an attempt of foreign interference, but it was Bajwa who had initiated it through conjuring himself as Pro-American, and IK as anti-US. The chicken laid the egg.
IK's predictions on the economy (with dates); our nuclear assets our now up next on the chopping block.
Also pointing out here that from the perspective of a student of history, the sheer scale of how unprecedented these times are in Pakistan. Probably even crossing the '71 war.