Stop Press by Inam Aziz: book review

Stop Press: A Life in Journalism (1991 in Urdu, English translation 2008) is the memoir of renowned Pakistan journalist, Inam Aziz, from 1947 to 1990. It includes 17 black-and-white photographs and newspaper clippings.

Inam Aziz (1928-1993) calls his memoir Stop Press, which indicates that a story has arisen when the newspaper is about to go to the printing press and all the editor can do is to stop the press machines and include any important information in a small space designated for late news. It also refers to attempts made ‘to prevent a journalist from expressing an opinion’ – both interpretations are covered in his personal accounts of the process of journalism, from story to print.

Aziz became known as ‘Surkhiyoon ka Badshah’ – the King of Headlines. He was a well-respected print and radio journalist, first in Pakistan, then in London for BBC radio, and from London he established Millat (Nation), the best-selling Urdu newspaper in Europe.

He begins his book – which he calls a ‘long reportage’ – with the Partition in 1947 – the creation of Pakistan as a new nation after its separation from India. He was living in New Delhi, India, when at 18 years of age he met the Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. Months later Partition brought about the largest mass movement of people in history, and Aziz took the harrowing train ride to Karachi.

The meeting with Jinnah, who became the first elected President of Pakistan, and the Partition, had a lasting impact on Aziz. Jinnah’s first speech on 11 August 1947 declared that people in the new Pakistan were free and were to be treated as equals irrespective of religion, caste or sex. Critics of Jinnah’s speech wanted it stricken from the records and it was forbidden to publish passages of it during Ziaul Haq’s decade-long regime from 1978-1988. ‘The words of the Quaid are like a milestone in our life as journalists and as free people,’ Aziz wrote. But they were not the first experiences with his battle for free speech.

Aziz writes of his experiences working for local newspapers in Pakistan from 1947 to 1964, rising to news editor of Jang. From March 1965 he moved to London to join BBC Radio and the Newsreel program for five years. In his witty anecdotes he recalls when an interviewee, live on air, spoke only four words in a scheduled five-minute interview.

In 1974 he started his own Urdu-language newspaper, Millat, from London, with a handful of colleagues in Pakistan. The seven years are recalled with honesty and humour about the financial challenges and libel cases. ‘Whereas, on occasion, we showed extreme cowardice in the publication of news, on other occasions we displayed equally exemplary journalistic courage. It was only financial vulnerability that forced us to act in a cowardly manner, but when we felt that the national interest demanded the publication of a story, we never hesitated to run it’ without caring about the impact.

He also writes of the several libel cases in the 1970s. ‘Our defiant and independent editorial and news policy gained the newspaper both fame and following.’ Even though only 16 copies of Millat went to Pakistan, it was cited for its courage and independence.

In 1977 Aziz travelled back to Pakistan to interview prominent leaders before an announced election. He details his interviews with General Ziaul Haq, before he became President in 1978, and with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan (1973-1977) in August 1977, before his arrest in September, imprisonment, and eventual hanging in April 1979. Aziz also returned to Pakistan in 1988 to interview Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s daughter, Benazir Bhutto, who became Pakistan’s first female Prime Minister (1988-1990 and 1993-1996).

The lack in the memoir is that he doesn’t mention the closure of Millat, probably due to ill health. He omits his personal life, but as the title states, it is about the life in journalism.

I have lived and worked in Pakistan intermittently since 2002, so I am familiar with Aziz and his work, and also the country’s politics and newspapers. For me this was an interesting book that doesn’t embellish the facts – he tells it as he experienced it.

It is a memoir full of wit, humour, politics, and passion – his impressions, inspirations, challenges, and changes of fortune. The meeting with Quaid-i-Azam Jinnah is an amusing tale of serendipity. And the incident with the bees is one of the funny moments in the memoir. He clarifies rumours and innuendos, adds detailed pages about specific incidences, and above all, imbues the text with his passion for journalistic integrity.

Aziz is a master journalist and story-teller, and the translation by his friend and journalist, Khalid Hasan, is exceptional. This is not a dry account of the journalistic processes of the time, but a social and political commentary on a critical time in the nation of Pakistan.

MARTINA NICOLLS is the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).