Khaled Ahmed was the only Pakistani I knew who didn’t say ‘but what about Kashmir?’

Khaled Ahmed was an editor, author, linguist, newsroom mentor, and a rare genuinely secular agnostic, probably atheist—definitely the only such I have met among my many Muslim friends. And he was no Leftist either.

Khaled Ahmed was a Pakistani editor, author, linguist, and newsroom mentor | Photo: Khaled Ahmed/Facebook

Khaled Ahmed’s death from cancer, at 81, is a loss not just for Pakistan but for the entire subcontinent. He was that rare editor, author, linguist, newsroom mentor, and no-pretences, no-qualifications secular liberal that our region’s public debate finds only a couple of times in a generation. If you argued, or disagreed with him as an Indian on an issue, for example, he will never try to close the argument with a dismissive ‘but what about Kashmir?’ or some version of it.

Khaled, as his colossal body of works—now immortalised on the worldwide web, in four books, and through thousands of columns in English and Urdu—prove, was beyond anything petty or divisive. Never the word ‘what about’ for him. Some of his most invaluable but much under-appreciated work lies in his columns where he traced the common origin of words in different languages. Check out his Word for Word: Stories Behind Everyday Words We Use, published by Oxford University Press.

Knowing him closely, as a friend and sometimes sparring partner, was an honour. He was the wisest Pakistani I knew, or probably existed, as his many fans would agree. That’s why this loss is also personal.

Getting to know Khaled was one of those coincidences you can write about in your memoirs, or occasional writings like this episode of my First Person/Second Draft. In early September 1984, I saw the swarthy, Pathan-ish looking man in a khaddar salwar-kameez in the elevator of what used to be the Boston Park Plaza Hotel. We introduced ourselves. He was the first Pakistani I had ever met. He was considerably older, having spent time in the foreign service—which he so detested that, later, when he wrote a column for us, he forbade us from mentioning the fact that he had served in the foreign service, including in the Pakistani embassy in Moscow.

Khaled Ahmed was that rare genuinely secular agnostic, probably atheist—definitely the only such I have met among my many Muslim friends. And he was no Leftist either, not even by a long shot.

When we met he was in a senior position with Pakistan Times. We were both fellows at a six-week programme run by American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE). We were together with the multinational group of fellows at Fletcher School for a week and then dispersed to the newspapers we were assigned to for four weeks. Khaled went to Christian Science Monitor. My destination was The New York Times.

A mind ahead of everyone

We had both arrived the previous evening from our respective countries, jet-lagged but wide awake at around 6 AM Boston time. I was a new running enthusiast and was headed for the big park. Khaled joined me for a walk, somewhat reluctantly. He’d rather lounge over coffee and read the morning’s Boston Globe.

He knew way more about the world than I did back then. We talked about corruption, misgovernance, and injustice in our countries. Instinctively, I said, “What to do…all our politicians are so corrupt.” That was when I figured how different a mind Khaled was.

“Galat keh rahe ho dost (you’ve got it wrong, my friend),” he said. ‘Hamare awam corrupt hain, hukmraan nahin (Our people are corrupt, not our leaders).” I found it cynical then, even ascribed it to the frustrations of a Pakistani living under dictatorships (it was Zia’s heyday). As I saw more in life, I understood what he had meant. A hundred times I saw something as a journalist—people voting for freebies, for being allowed to pay no tax (‘Occupy Toll Plaza’ is now a pastime in some regions), seeking favours for a fee, even cursing politicians who set up systems so you can no longer game or grease it—and I understood what he had meant. If the people are transactional, politicians are only responding to market forces.

Galat keh rahe ho dost (you’ve got it wrong, my friend). Hamare awam corrupt hain, hukmraan nahin (Our people are corrupt, not our leaders).

Khaled’s was the only contact number I had on my first visit to Pakistan the very next summer (1985). My visa had been granted primarily to cover the trial of Sikh hijackers of an Indian Airlines plane to Lahore. He and his then-wife, the brilliant psychoanalyst Dr Durre Samin Ahmed, came to see me in the evening at what was then called the Avari Hilton. “You pack up your bag, dost, and move to our home,” Khaled said, warning me that just the hotel room will eat up most of my per diem. Plus, they’d love to have me with them. Their marriage was already fraying but enduring friendships grew with both in the following decades.

My visits as a reporter to Pakistan then became frequent, as did Khalid’s to India, mostly for conferences. How sharp was his eye? On his first visit to India, he noted Durga Puja processions and some pandals. “Watch this Sheran waali Mata (Goddess who rides a tiger) phenomenon closely,” he said. “Your Hinduism is changing. It will become more political. Not exactly militant like our Islam, but more nationalistic, angrier, less forgiving.” This was Khaled’s reading of India’s evolving politics—in 1986.

In a subsequent conversation several years later, he asked me if I was aware of the phenomenon of Dr Zakir Naik in India. He was surprised that I had zero idea. “Galati kar rahe ho, jaake dekho us ke video. (You are erring in not knowing about him, go watch his videos).

Watch this Sheran waali Mata (Goddess who rides a tiger) phenomenon closely. Your Hinduism is changing. It will become more political. Not exactly militant like our Islam, but more nationalistic, angrier, less forgiving.

Naik, he said, had already risen as the most powerful and popular Islamic tele-evangelist not just in the subcontinent but in all of Asia. It was a matter of time, he said, that he will be a global phenomenon—and a dangerous one. Even more dangerous, he said, because he spoke in English and was masterful in sugar-coating his most toxic ideas, always delivered with a smile.

We saw that in Naik’s recent visit to Pakistan as well, when the only time he frowned was while complaining about PIA charging him for his fifty or whatever number of suitcases. I was curious and found Zakir Naik on my Walk The Talk in the course of time, and must admit that he was too smooth to pin down. He tailored his message depending on the audience: one version for the faithful, another for the rest.

“Keep close track of him,” Khaled had said. “He will only bring more conservatism and misery to Muslims across the world, especially in the subcontinent, and unleash many dangerous forces we can’t imagine today.” This, when no one in India had seen Naik that way. This is how sharp Khaled was.

Keep close track of Zakir Naik. He will only bring more conservatism and misery to Muslims across the world, especially in the subcontinent, and unleash many dangerous forces we can’t imagine today.

Khaled and his problem with money 

Of course, the one thing Khaled didn’t understand was money. As one of Pakistan’s three illustrious cousins—with Majid Khan (former cricket captain) and Imran Khan—Khaled owned one of three large houses in Lahore’s leafy Zaman Park. But the only notable thing about his home was its size, the books, and the chaos. And money?

When I persuaded him to start writing a column for us at The Indian Express, he said he will do it, but only if I offered him Rs 25,000 (Pakistani) per column. He thought that will make me scoot as he never wanted more work of any kind. I told him he was nuts—that Pakistani currency was declining rapidly, and that he should insist on being signed in dollars instead, $300 per column, then about equivalent to PKR 25,000, of course RBI permitting. If he was still writing at PKR 25,000, it would be worth less than a hundred dollars now.

The Pakistani Establishment was always confused about him. Forget being abusive, controversial or rebellious, he was hardly ever even a little bit risqué. Even when at a higher than usual ‘spiritual’ level. If you check out his archive, he was the master of that rapidly dying art of subtlety. He’d deliver the toughest message in language even nobody in Pakistan could launch an FIR on. He left the Establishment bemused. They detested his views, but would still invite him to speak at their most prestigious academies.

Khaled would deliver the toughest message in language even nobody in Pakistan could launch an FIR on. He left the Pakistani Establishment bemused. They detested his views, but would still invite him to speak at their most prestigious academies.

Khaled helmed many newspapers. After Pakistan Times, he held key positions at The Nation, The Frontier Post, and then Newsweek-Pakistan, which is where we last met in the summer of 2014 when I was speaking at the Lahore Literary Festival. I could already see that he was mentoring a new young crop of Pakistani journalists: modern, professional, curious and proud to be working for him. Khaled always had a youthful fan club follow him.

Khaled never wrote a news story or gave you one. But he always had a nugget. Like, for example, the fact that the 1993 Bombay blasts were organised (through Dawood Ibrahim) by an ISI brigadier (he gave me the name), and while it wasn’t a rogue operation, it was done in a way to create deniability. Much of the money, he said, had been raised by holding fashion and film star nights in Dubai using Indian stars through the D-Gang.

Khaled Ahmed was a Pakistani editor, author, linguist, and newsroom mentor | Photo: Khaled Ahmed/Facebook

Khaled saw the rise of the Lashkars, the Kalashnikov culture, and Jihadism much earlier than most. He nudged me to go and meet Qazi Hussain Ahmed, then Jamaat-e-Islami chief, and a very (then) militant-sounding Maulana called Tahirul Qadri. “See the Kalashnikovs around them, hear the slogans, the speeches, you’d know what this phenomenon is,” he would say.

On two occasions, India Today Editor-in-Chief Aroon Purie and I travelled together to Pakistan. The first time, Aroon joined me in August 1988 when I was covering Zia-ul-Haq’s death. The second was during the 2013 Pakistan general elections when we decided to travel together, though we worked in different publications. In 1988, Khaled told us Zia is gone, but Ziaism will endure. This is what morphed into the ISI as a state within the state, with the Lashkars and all carrying forward the torch of Ziaism.

The second time, in 2013 at the Newsweek Pakistan office, Khaled told us the scary story of how Lashkar-e-Taiba had become furious over his writings. A ‘common friend and well-wisher’ approached him, urging him to meet Hafiz Muhammad Saeed (LeT chief) and make it up to him. Which Khaled said he did. The LeT chief told him he respected him for his intellect but some of his writings and sayings weren’t acceptable. Khaled recounted, deadpan, that he touched Saeed’s feet in apology and came back chastened—and alive. He was honest about it too. Aroon Purie mentioned this in the article he wrote in India Today upon his return.

LeT chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed told Khaled he respected him for his intellect but some of his writings and sayings weren’t acceptable. Khaled recounted, deadpan, that he touched Saeed’s feet in apology and came back chastened—and alive.

Prophetic—and a rare secular agnostic

Looking at Khaled, you’d never know how well-connected he was. He’d turn up to work in crumpled track-pants and t-shirt, which he had probably fallen asleep in the previous night. His owners sometimes stalked him and shooed visitors like me away so he could finish that one brilliant article or editorial.

At The Frontier Post, the owner’s brother actually sat on the peon’s stool outside Khaled’s office door to make sure he won’t be distracted. Beena Sarwar, who worked for him then and now runs Sapan, the Southasia Peace Action Network, seeking to heal wounds in the subcontinent, might remember some of this. And if Khaled was in a generous mood for a real meal and an expansive gupshup session, he would take me to Lahore’s Lakshmi Chowk with its endless street of ‘taka-tak’ kebab shops. Taka-tak because that’s the sound they make on the big skillet (tawa) while tossing brain, kidney and more exotic organs of the goat.

He was at The Frontier Post in the summer of 1990 when it looked like India and Pakistan were about to go to war any time. That’s when Benazir Bhutto had delivered her ‘jag-jag-mo-mo-han-han’ speech, making chopping motions from one arm on the other, threatening to cut then-Governor Jagmohan into pieces.

We wrote our customary cover story in India Today and just for a lark, I had military analyst Ravi Rikhye collaborate with me to calculate the cost of a thousand-hour war.

Khaled said that the powers that be employ “useful idiots” in the veterans’ community to fuel a certain mindset. And you, in India, should watch out for this growing there as well. It’s inevitable. Was he prophetic? He was just that wise. Very wise.

A thousand hours because Benazir had repeated her father’s boast of a thousand year war on India and VP Singh, then-prime minister, had dismissed it in Parliament, saying those who talk of thousand-year wars should see if they will last a thousand hours.

A quick calculation showed a thousand hours are about 42 days, and longer than both our wars together (1965, 22 days and 1971, 13 days). Our proposition was, what if we fight a thousand-hour war and win? What will be the cost? Of course, the editorial message was more complex. That wars don’t solve anything. theyre frightfully expensive and if anything, they worsen the problem even if you win one decisively. Evidence was India’s victory in 1971, and how, just two decades later, we were set for war again. It was, if anything, a pacifist argument and it was illustrated with that familiar picture of Lt Gen AAK Niazi signing the instrument of surrender in Dhaka.

I was carrying a copy of that India Today issue. Khaled liked the argument and The Frontier Post republished a facsimile of the article. And while the article may have underlined the futility of war, the picture lit a fire. The GHQ was on the line to Khaled and his owner with the direst threats. How could a Pakistani paper publish that picture? Khaled saying it was just the facsimile of India Today’s page didn’t cut. There were multiple apologies, including on the paper’s front page the next day.

Of course, a day later, the paper published a main edit page article by a retired air marshal gaming the coming war. On ‘D+1’ (first day of the war), the Indian Navy is sunk, by D+2, its Air Force is shot out of the skies, and by D+4, Pakistani armour has reached Jaipur, India has sued for peace and agreed to be divided in “manageable” units.

Khaled Ahmed detested the time he spent in the foreign service so much that when he wrote a column for us, he forbade us from mentioning it or the fact that he had served in the Pakistani embassy in Moscow.

I was astounded and shocked, if not a wee bit amused, and walked up to Khaled’s office again. “How can you publish such crap?” I asked. “Yeh sab oopar se aata hai (all this stuff comes from the top),” he said, and then explained with great irony and delight how the air marshal would’ve been getting calls from all and sundry saying, “Sir, aaj toh aap ne kamaal kar diya. India ko poori shikast, chaaron khaane chitt (How brilliantly you’ve totally vanquished and destroyed India).”

It’s a mindset, he said, that the powers that be employ the “useful idiots” in the veterans’ community to fuel. And you, in India, should watch out for this growing there as well. It’s inevitable. Was he prophetic? He was just that wise. Very wise.

And I’d say it with trepidation, for it might anger many people, including friends, and put their backs up. But Khaled was that rare genuinely secular agnostic, probably atheist—definitely the only such I have met among my many Muslim friends. And he was no Leftist either, not even by a long shot. If anything, his time in Moscow in the Soviet era had made him wise to communism’s fallacies and follies. One of the arguments he often made was that there was no word for secular in Urdu or Arabic. The conclusion was obvious.

It is said of generals that they don’t die, they just fade away. In Pakistan, that may not often apply. But journalists usually die unsung, the best being a memorial at the press club or some such. That’s why we must remember and celebrate Khaled Ahmed’s life and contribution. That’s why he’s such a loss to journalism and the public debate in the subcontinent. I feel blessed he was the first Pakistani I met and our friendship lasted four decades, until cancer took Khaled away.