HARKING BACK: The tale of the ‘other’ Iqbal of Sialkot

But then why do we know so little about the ‘other’ Iqbal of Sialkot. The reason is that his story is quite the opposite of the poet, who was knighted by the British, while the ‘other’ Iqbal did his two doctorates from the Turin in Italy and the Sorbonne in Paris, France, but was repeatedly incarcerated, restricted and expelled by the British. So the colonial way of thinking persists in all of us … still.

One of the inspiring teachers of Allama Iqbal was Chaudhary Ghulam Ali Bhutta, who taught science, mathematics and English at the Scotch Mission School of Sialkot. Mr. Bhutta had a son named Iqbal, who like Allama Iqbal was also a pupil of Maulvi Mir Hassan. The Allama was born in November 1877 to a Kashmiri Sheikh family. The other Iqbal was born in 1888 in Pura Hairanwala, Sialkot, to a Rajput Bhutta family, with land at Kotli Bhutta.

But the similarities of the two lie in the manner in which they both approached the fight for freedom against colonial rule. Unlike the poet, the ‘other’ Iqbal’ spent a life in self-exile in Asian and European countries as a ‘revolutionary’. He was tutored in politics by Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar and Maulana Shaukat Ali and joined the Anjuman-e-Khuddam-e-Kaaba and hence carried the surname ‘Shedai’, just one of nine in the subcontinent. His full name, therefore, was Dr. Muhammad Iqbal Shedai.

After graduating from Murray College, Sialkot, Iqbal Shedai tried to get admission in Lahore’s Law College, but the principal refused as he was considered just too dangerous for British rule in India. So from 1914 onwards his political struggle began. Maybe his rejection by British rule embittered him. So began a life of constant revolutionary struggle and self-exile.

In 1914, he moved to Hoti Mardan in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa where his elder brother Ali Akbar Bhutta was the headmaster. He started teaching there and soon the local intelligence informed the British authorities that he was instilling his pupils with revolutionary ideas. He was dismissed from the school and expelled from the province for his anti-British activities. So began a long life of a revolutionary who was to move to virtually every corner of the globe.

In August 1915, he was restricted to his village Pura Hairanwala in Sialkot and not allowed to leave it. But Iqbal still joined the politics of Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar and Maulana Shaukat Ali. He also joined the efforts to collect funds for the defence of the Holy Kaaba. In 1920 when British India was declared ‘Darul Harb’, he got an introductory letter from Maulana Jauhar and quietly moved to Waziristan staying at Chamarkand and with local assistance moved to Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, he joined the Khilafat Movement to assist the Turks as the British set about dismantling the Ottoman Empire. An off-shoot of this movement was the Hijrat Movement. In the month of August 1920 over 18,000 Indians had moved to Afghanistan. Being a poor country they were not able to absorb so many migrants and they sealed the border.

In 1920, Iqbal Shedai along with a friend Akbar Qureshi reached Kabul. There King Amanullah was impressed by the learning of Iqbal and appointed him ‘Minister for Refugee Affairs’. It was during this time that he joined the Hindustan Ghadr Party. Later on he was to be its representative in many European capitals.

This unique Ghadr effort started in San Francisco, USA, and almost 8,000 revolutionaries, mostly Punjabis, moved back to launch a guerrilla movement, with the Komagata Maru incident being its highlight. The British ruthlessly crushed them using superb intelligence and gunning them down wherever they were found. The collapse of the Ghadr Party saw Iqbal Shedai move to Moscow at the height of the Communist Revolution, where he studied the elements of socialism. Once well tutored he returned to Kabul and then moved to Turkey where he met Mustafa Kamal Pasha.

The meeting impressed the Turks and he went on to meet Mustafa Kamal Ataturk and his Prime Minister Ismet Inonu, who declared him a state guest. From there Iqbal Shedai moved to Italy and from there he moved to France, where he started organising Indian revolutionaries. His activities upset the French government who expelled him from France. So it was that he landed in Lausanne in Switzerland and planned to move towards Germany. But then the Germans smelling socialist trouble banned his entry. But in August 1938 an Afghan friend and a German minister got the ban withdrawn. In the same way the French ban was also withdrawn.

In 1928, Iqbal Shedai settled in Paris and moved to and fro Switzerland. There he met the younger brother of the Italian dictator Mussolini, with whose assistance he reached Rome and planned an Indian Freedom Army. He was the first person to organise the Azad Hind Government in Exile, which was later taken over by Subhas Chandra Bose. The reality is that Iqbal Shedai was the man who trained Bose, who later on became an Indian national hero. He organised the Radio Himala in Rome and recruited from Indian prisoners of war soldiers for his Azad Hindustan battalion.

The Azad Hindustan Government was established by Iqbal Shedai in 1941 in Rome by approval of Benito Mussolini, and he was declared the President of this Government, which worked till 1944, when the Allies captured Sicily and then Rome.

With the downfall of Mussolini, Shedai left Rome and took refuge in Milan with his Italian friends. Sardar Ajit Singh, a Sikh Revolutionary was Shedai’s Minister of Information and Broadcasting. In spite of the best efforts of the British, they could not capture Shedai.

After the Partition of 1947, Dr Iqbal Shedai returned to Pakistan and settled with his French wife in Lahore. Because of his diplomatic connections he was included in Pakistan’s Kashmir delegation to the United Nations. Sadly the Pakistani leaders like Iskander Mirza did not approve of his progressive ideas, and he quietly left for Italy in 1950 and became a professor of Urdu at Turin University.

Amazingly at this time the Indian government under Maulana Azad offered him Indian citizenship and a lucrative ministerial post. Dr Muhammad Iqbal Shedai refused the offer by stating that as a Pakistani he could not betray his soil.

In 1964, Iqbal Shedai returned to Lahore and spent the last 10 years of his life with his family. He passed away on the 13th of January, 1974, and was buried in Miani Sahib. His grave bears the plaque: “Here lies Muhammad Iqbal Shedai the Revolutionary”. At the other end of Lahore opposite the Badshahi Mosque rests Muhammad Iqbal. Two great men, two different ends. One lived and thrived on his poetic words, the ‘other’ silently worked away for our freedom.