Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman was one of the very illustrious and devoted builders
of the Muslim press in the Sub-continent. In the 1940s,
during the Second World War, his creation in New Delhi, the Daily
Jang, was the most powerful spokesman of the Muslims of India and
a fearless supporter of the mission of the all India Muslim League
under the leadership of the Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah to give
the Muslims of India an independent State. During that crucial phase
of the Muslims' heroic struggle for freedom and independence, Mir
Khalil-ur-Rahman's Daily Jang was in the forefront of the Muslim-owned
newspapers.
As compared with the very affluent Congress-supported Hindu-owned
daily newspapers in India, the Muslim press suffered many disadvantages
and difficulties but valiant Muslim newspapers such as the Daily Jang
were not cowed down by pressures exerted by influential congress acolytes
who wielded power in the Congress Ministries which ruled seven provinces
in British India in the wake of the 1935 elections in the Sub-continent.
Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman was not tempted by the bait of Government advertisements
dangled before pliant newspapers during the Second World War. Mir
Khalil-ur-Rahman gave the best years of his life to building up the
Daily Jang as a model newspaper. The Jang Group of newspapers today
command the largest circulation in Pakistan, according to many readership
surveys. As a newspaper entrepreneur, Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman's achievements
remain unmatched. His reportage for the Jang from his foreign tours
was so prolific and interestingly newsy that it gave him a unique
position in Pakistan's Fourth Estate.
Despite the power and prestige Mir Saheb acquired in Pakistan, his
life was a model of simplicity and humility. He was a pious Muslim
and an intensely patriotic Pakistani. He loved Pakistan with the passion
of devotee and he always wanted his newspapers to be Pakistan's heralds
of good news. His newspapers in course of time became nurseries of
journalism, breeding journalists who won name and fame not only in
Pakistan but in many other countries of the world. He set new and
revolutionary standards in newspaper management and news reporting
for his readers. He introduced in his newspapers the most advanced
techniques and equipment in the print technology. Thus his newspapers
became trend-setters in the media world of Pakistan. Their impact
on the other
newspapers was so great that it enormously helped in making Pakistan's
Press industry robust and progressive. By enforcing in his newspapers
the higher pay scales prescribed by the Journalists Wage Boards appointed
by the Government of Pakistan from time to time, Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman
attracted the best talent to his Group of newspapers. Many Pakistani
journalists produced by Mir Saheb's newspaper nurseries won fame and
recognition in Pakistan and abroad. Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman set an excellent
example to his peers in Pakistan's press industry by ploughing back
into improving his newspapers' the profits which accrued from his
press domain.
A man of high vision and tireless enterprise, Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman
was never daunted by an initial lack of success. He maintained excellent
relations with his peers in the press industry. He did his best to
foster unity in the ranks of the newspaper editors through the Council
of Pakistan Newspaper Editors (CPNE) and the All Pakistan Newspapers
Society (APNS). When faction fights erupted in the Editors' forums,
his peers turned to him for peace-making and he accomplished the task
assigned to him with admirable success.
Aside from the legacy of the Jang Group of newspapers, Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman's
greatest gifts to the nation are his two sons, Mir Javed-ur-Rahman
and Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman who manage ably the Jang's newspaper empire.
Like their good father, they have extraordinary newspaper management
skills and a determination to boost the circulation and revenues of
their newspapers, investing their profits into newspaper improvement
and more facilities for the Jang's employees and workers.
Upholding the cause of press freedom was a ruling passion with Mir
Khalil-ur-Rahman. He had fought against the muzzling of the Muslim
press under Congress rule. He wanted Pakistan to uphold freedom of
the press. He and his newspapers opposed draconian laws which aimed
at muzzling the press. He put questions to the high and mighty in
their press conferences to elicit information which in his views the
public had a lawful right to know. He crossed swords with President
Ayub Khan in a crowded press conference in Rawalpindi in 1959 by asking
him when he proposed to lift Marital Law.
The question seemed to irritate the Field Marshal and his response
was laced with resentment.
A senior member of the bureaucracy tried to persuade Mir Sahib to
pen a letter of apology to the Field Marshal. Mir Sahib refused to
do so.
Mir Sahib and a row with President Ziaul Haq in Islamabad when I was
serving as Minister for Information at the Pakistan Embassy in London.
Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman's stand was principled and in line with high
traditions of press freedom. When Z.A. Bhutto was hanged, the bureaucracy
in Islamabad wanted the Jang not to publish the news or a photograph
of the execution. Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman refused to accept the Government
fiat.
Mir Sahib fostered friendly relations with his staff members. Every
morning he had an editorial meeting with the news staff when every
column of the latest Jang would be matched with other leading morning
newspapers to find out whether the Jang had missed an important news
story. Corrective action was immediately taken.
Mir Saheb's philosophy was that his newspapers should not miss a story
available in other newspapers.
Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman introduced interesting features with good photographs
in the Sunday editions of his newspapers. This encouraged investigative
journalism and quick press photography. Some feature writers of the
Jang are now big names in feature writing for the press. Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman
gave the Jang a Radio monitoring desk so that the Jang's readers get
the latest news in time. The Jang subscribed to all the leading news
services and had a network of its own correspondents in all important
towns and district headquarters in Pakistan. It had correspondents
in many countries abroad. Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman defended his correspondents
if any of his reporters was ever victimised by an officer for his
journalistic enterprises. He paid for lawyers to defend his reporters
in courts provided he was convinced that the reporter was right and
correct according to journalistic ethics and the press code framed
by newspaper editors' bodies.
He fought for press freedom but respected journalistic ethics and
the dictates of morality in journalism and public life. He hated any
deviation from the path of honest journalism and truthfulness in press
reporting.
Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman was kind and generous to his staff members. I
learnt from an old employee of the Jang in Karachi how Mir Sahib helped
him generously in making suitable arrangements for the marriages of
his two daughters.
The employee had sought a loan from Mir Sahib, deductible from his
monthly salary. Realising  that
the employee was advanced in age and a deduction of from his salary
every month would cause a recurring hardship to him, Mir Sahib made
the financial help to the aged employee an outright grant, and made
it a point to attend the weddings of the employee's two daughters
and bestowed gift on the newlyweds. Such humane gestures of kindness
to his employees won Mir Sahib their enduring loyalty to the Jang.
Mir Sahib showed extraordinary care and concern even for the Jang's
newspaper hawkers. One of the leading newspaper agents in Karachi,
Tahir who dominated the sale of newspapers in the populous Saddar
locality of Karachi, told me how Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman skipped an official
dinner party in order to attend his (Tahir's) daughter's wedding.
Another newspaper agent who had been selling copies of the Jang since
the 1950s fell ill and was hospitalised. Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman visited
him in the hospital and assured his relatives that he would help in
meeting the cost of his medical treatment. Similarly, he was helpful
to his staff members which bound them in abiding fidelity to the Daily
Jang. Under the Journalist Wage Board Awards, Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman
not only enhanced the pay scales of his employees but gave them medical
benefits and pensions to cover old age. Jang's example encouraged
other newspapers to follow suit. Jang's practice of making payments
to contributors for their writings published in the Jang encouraged
other affluent newspapers to make payments to the contributors.
The lead given by the Jang Group of newspapers in adopting computerised
typesetting was a revolutionary enterprise for the Urdu press industry
and in the course of time it proved a great boon for the mass circulation
newspapers such as the Jang Group of Newspapers. Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman
retained the services of the old calligraphists who had served his
newspapers for years.
When he introduced computerised typesetting in his newspapers he had
assured the calligraphists that they would not be made the victims
of redundancy in his newspapers and he kept his word. With remarkable
entrepreneurial ingenuity, he created new jobs for them in his own
group of newspapers. Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman gave scholarships for the
education of the children of his employees and encouraged them to
send their children to good schools. In recruiting employees for his
newspapers he gave preference to suitable children of his old employees.
One of his old employees once told me that for him Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman
was more like a caring father and this is what bound him to the Jang
with hooks of steel.
Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman was a perfectionist in newspapers management.
He exercised rigid contro l
on spending in all departments and gave immense importance to advertising
revenue. In his daily staff meetings he kept a watchful eye on the
advertisements published in his newspapers and the advertising in
other daily newspapers. If the Jang missed a good advertisement he
would spot it and instruct his advertisement staff to go after it
and get it for the Jang Group of Newspapers. He laid great stress
on the prompt collection of bills published in his newspapers and
gave special incentives to his advertisements staff to secure payment
of the published bills very promptly. He paid particular attention
to the prompt collection of upcountry advertisement bills. For securing
Government advertisements, Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman stuck to fair and
ethical practices and he forbade his staff not to pay bribes to get
advertisements. He refused to let the Government officers to dictate
to his newspaper editors in regard to publication of news in his newspapers.
He honestly believed that newspapers dependent on Government largesse
cannot survive for long and usually wither away once the crutch of
Government's financial support is withdrawn. Governments often use
advertisements to influence and pressurise newspapers to toe the official
line in news purveyance and Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman was too independent-minded
to allow the Government of the day to put a leash on any of his newspapers.
He hated unsolicited advice from Government functionaries to black
out news or follow Government diktat to the newspapers' editorial
policy. Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman loved Pakistan and he did not ever follow
a policy that was against the national interest. In safe-guarding
Pakistan's national interests and its territorial integrity, Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman
and his newspapers were beacons of the highest patriotism.
Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman showed courageous enterprise by publishing editions
of the Jang newspapers in countries having sizeable  Pakistani
populations. He selected the United Kingdom for the extension of his
newspaper empire and published an Urdu edition of the Jang from London.
Not long afterwards, he published a London edition of his English
daily, The News. Because of the high cost of newspaper production
in London, there were many risks involved in this daring enterprise.
He lost no time in buying a spacious building for the Jang in London.
Arab newspaper barons from the Middle East were publishing the Sharqul
Ausat in Arabic from London when Jang made its entry in the United
Kingdom, as an Urdu daily and a spokesman of the demographically expanding
Pakistani community in the United Kingdom. Its publication from London
gave the voice of Pakistan strength in the United Kingdom. Mir Sahib
raised funds in London to construct a new building on the old war-battered
premises. He did it in a remarkably short span of time. Due to his
expertise in cost cutting and utmost frugality in corporate spending
on the Jang in London, what he accomplished for the Jang in London
was barely a quarter of what the Arab press barons had spent on building
a home for the Sharqul Ausat in London. Credit should also be given
to the staff Mir Khail-ur-Rahman recruited from the UK and Pakistan
to bring out the Jang from London. He was the first Pakistani newspaper
entrepreneur to publish a full-fledged morning Urdu daily newspaper
from London. A prayer room for the Muslim staff and a couple of rooms
to accommodate the staff members imported from Pakistan for the Jang,
London, were included in the new premises Mir Sahib built for the
Jang in London. He initiated and perfected the practice of sending
through dedicated telephonic lines some pages composed and typeset
in the Karachi Jang office to the Jang's printing unit in London.
This clipped the overall expenditure on publishing the Urdu Jang in
London. Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman took the maximum advantage from the new
print technology of the West. He used the latest print machinery for
the Jang in London and the Jang group of newspapers in Pakistan reaped
the harvest of spin-off benefits from the technological advances with
which Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman invested the Daily Jang in London. Under
his dynamic command the Jang in London and The News became models
for newspaper entrepreneurs in Pakistan to follow for newspaper ventures
abroad.
Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman's constructive interest in promoting the unity
of the CPNE and the APNS stemmed from his impassioned belief that
the unity of the newspaper and their owners and editors is essential
for safeguarding the freedom of the press. He had seen the efficacy
of that unit in the forum of the All India Muslim Newspapers and Muslim
Editor's Conventions in India in past years. He played a prominent
role in these Conferences and the APNS and the CPNE benefited from
his experiences in forging the unity of the Muslim Press in India
under alien rule. In Pakistan, Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman maintained close
relations with his peers in the Press world. In Karachi, the Jang's
rival was Daily Anjam owned by Usman Azad and edited by Umer Farooqi.
Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman maintained fraternal relations with both and
gave them his cooperation whenever they sought it. In the Editor's
fraternity in Pakistan, Mir Sahib showed respect to those who were
senior to him in age and experience.
During a tour of China in 1955, I was a witness to this virtue of
Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman when he showed high respect to the aged Maulana
Zafar Ali Khan, Editor of Lahore's Urdu Daily, the Zamindar, who was
a co-member in Pakistan's first high-level Press delegation that toured
the People's Republic of China on the invitation of the Chinese Government.
Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman's copious reportage from China in the Jang's
columns laid the foundation of Sino-Pakistan friendship. If any member
of the APNS or CPNE fell ill or was hospitalised, Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman
made it a point to send him Get Well Soon messages or visited him
in hospital. He never missed attending social functions held by his
peers and lavished gifts on them as social gestures of friendship.
Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman had the knack of selecting the right person for
the right job in his newspapers. In his inner circle of staffers in
Karachi were Syed Mohammad Taqi, Yusuf Siddiqi, Majid Lahori, Nazish
Hyderi, Manzarul Hasan and their loyalty to the Jang was imperishable.
It was a united cohesive team, with Mir Khalid-ur-Rahman as their
most trusted skipper. This team spirit was an important factor in
making the Jang Group of newspapers the backbone of the Fourth estate
in Pakistan. Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman is now a legend in the history of
Pakistani journalism and with each passing year, the hallow of greatness
around his immortal name keeps expanding. 
The services of Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman in the development of the press
in Pakistan and his manifold achievements in building up one of the
most economically-sound newspaper empires in Asia should be the subject
of research and academic dissertations in the departments of Journalism
and Mass Media in all universities in Pakistan. Kudos must go to the
Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman Memorial Society under the aegis of the Jang
Group of Newspapers in whose periodic meetings on the lives and history
of the builders and makers of Pakistan, light is also shed on the
sterling services of Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman to Pakistan and its Press.
The Society's Chairperson Arshad Sabri whose venerable father the
late Sardar Ali Sabri was a well known activist in the Pakistan Movement
and a writer in the Jang in New Delhi ably recalls in these meetings
Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman's unforgettable services to Pakistan. These need
to be documented and books should be written about them and studied
in Pakistan's universities and colleges. In the USA, well documented
books about the development of the US press and the life stories of
the creators of newspapers, the New York Times and the Sulzberger
the Life & Time Group are text books in many universities for
studies in and communications. I expect the academic establishments
in Pakistan to do their duty to our history and education. For example,
there is not a single book in Pakistan on how a great Muslim journalist,
Maulana Mohammad Ali Jouhar promoted Advocacy Journalism through his
publication, the Comrade. As the Chairman of the National Press Trust
in 1982, I had arranged the re-publication of his powerful book, My
life a fragment which had been out of print since it first appeared
on the book stalls in India in 1924. A book of more than 240 pages,
I priced it low to ensure heavy circulation (Rs 20 per copy) It was
sold out within three months of its publication. Books about the life
and times of the pioneers of journalism in Pakistan will command good
sales and will also enrich the literature about the history of Pakistan,
much to the benefit of academic and research institutions in Pakistan
and abroad. |
