By Mahlia Lone

The Shah had three wives, but only one compelling love: power 

The Rise and Fall of the Twentieth Century Pahlavi Dynasty of Iran

Iran’s Pahlavi dynasty was not an ancient royal house; it was specifically created by Great Britain after World War I, to halt Bolshevik Russia’s influence in Iran and to safeguard British interests in India. In fact, Reza Shah Pahlavi, the first Shah of Persia (as it was then known), was born in a village in 1878. His mother was a Muslim from Georgia, and his father was a Major in the 7th-Savadkuh Regiment of the Persian Army and fought in the Anglo Prussian War in 1856. Reza too became a soldier, like his father, and in 1921 was promoted by British General Ironside to the rank of Brigadier General to lead the Persian Cossack Brigade, thus becoming the last and only Persian commander of the brigade. His mission was to march on Tehran to prevent the Red Army that had already penetrated the countryside from taking over the weak Qajar dynasty’s government in Tehran. Reza became the Commander-in-Chief of the Persian Army after he was successful in wresting control of Tehran. By 1923, the British wanted Reza Shah to create a centralized power base in the country. He was thereby appointed Prime Minister by Persia’s Constituent Assembly in 1925 after amending the country’s 1906 Constitution and became the de facto ruler. Ahmed Shah Qajar, the previous ruler, fled the country and eventually died in exile. Impressed with Kemal Ataturk, Reza Shah was tempted to emulate him and declare the country a republic, but being dictatorial, he decided to establish a constitutional monarchy with the help of Shia clerics. On 15th of December that year, at the age of 47, he took his oath and became Iran’s first Pahlavi Shah. His son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was proclaimed the Crown Prince at Reza Shah’s coronation on 25th April 1926.

At the age of 11, Mohammad Reza had been sent to Switzerland to study at the Institut Le Rosey boarding school, becoming the first Iranian prince to be sent abroad for education. However, he returned to Iran after four years to attain his high school diploma, after which he attended Tehran’s military academy, and qualified as a pilot. On Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s suggestion to the Shah on a visit to Turkey, a strategic marriage was arranged between Mohammad Reza and Princess Fawzia, daughter of King Fuad I of Egypt and Nazli Sabri, sister of King Farouk I of Egypt. The marriage took place by proxy in 1939 at the Abdeen Palace in Cairo. Reza Shah did not even participate in the ceremony. It was a brief marriage that ended in divorce after Mohammad Raza ascended the throne, though the couple had a daughter together, Princess Shahnaz Pahlavi.

Father, Reza Shah Pahlavi

Son, a young Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi

Reza Shah spent the next 16 years modernizing his country, including replacing the name Persia with Iran. At the advent of World War II, the Shah declared Iran’s neutrality and the Allied powers were not pleased. They needed Iran as a transport corridor to Russia. Its geographical significance is illustrated by the name “The Bridge of Victory” later given to Iran by British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill. The Shah felt that Britain and the Soviet Union had opportunistic and exploitative policies towards Iran. He cancelled the contract with the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) to extract, refine and export Iran’s oil. After much negotiation a new contract was signed in 1933 that was also heavily tipped in APOC’s favour, barring Iran to sign a more lucrative contract with another company. On top of that, Germany had become Iran’s largest trading partner prior to WWII. Germany had even consented to sell Iran a steel mill that the country urgently needed. For these reasons, Britain and Soviet Union that had fought over the country less than two decades ago, now joined together to invade it in 1941. Iran’s army barely put up any resistance, leaving Reza Shah no choice but to accept a forced abdication in favour of his son, Mohammad Reza. He was issued a politely worded command by the British stating, “Would His Highness kindly abdicate in favour of his son, the heir to the throne? We have a high opinion of him and will ensure his position. But His Highness should not think there is any other solution.” And just like that again one Shah was summarily dismissed and replaced by another.

Princess Fawzia bint Fuad of Egypt Princess Shahnaz Pahlavi, Fawzia & Mohammad Reza’s only child

Love struck the new and by now divorced Shah. Beautiful, emerald eyed Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiari was half German half Irani and the only daughter of Khalil Esfandiary, Iranian Ambassador to West Germany, and his wife, Eva Karl. Soraya had been brought up more as a German under the tutelage of her governess Frau Mantel, followed by a stint at a Swiss finishing school in Montreaux. While she was studying English in London at the age of 16 in 1948, she was befriended by the Shah’s younger sister Princess Shams. A relative of Soraya’s showed her picture to the Shah who became smitten with her. After his very first meeting with her, the Shah asked her father for her hand in marriage. Soon they were engaged and the Shah presented Soraya with a whopping 22.37 carat diamond ring. But his choice of a part Teutonic, liberal minded and Western educated bride was not popular with conservative Iranis. By her own admission in one of her two memoirs, she writes, “I was a dunce—I knew next to nothing of the geography, the legends of my country, nothing of its history, nothing of Muslim religion.”

As early as 1949, an assassination attempt was made on the new Shah that was attributed to the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party, resulting in the banning of that party. It is claimed that the attempt was actually made by a religious fundamentalist member of Fada’iyan-e Islam as the new Shah was considered too Western and too secular. The Shah’s reaction was to expand his constitutional powers and become even more powerful.

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran with his bride, Princess Soraya Esfandiary Bakhtiari

Princess Soraya wore an emerald and diamond parure and tiara to match her green eyes

The Shah married Soraya in 1951 at the Marble Palace that his father had had built. The wedding had been delayed because the bride had been ill from typhoid. She wore a Christian Dior Couture gown from his New Look collection. It had 37 yards of silver lamé studded all over with tens of thousands of pearls, 6,000 diamonds, and 20,000 marabou feathers. It weighed a staggering 44 pounds (20 kilograms). Because she was still weak, the bride had difficulty walking in the heavy dress. Seeing her totter, the thoughtful Shah ordered a lady-in-waiting to cut the petticoats and train to lighten her load. Additionally, the strapless dress had a fitted long sleeve waist length jacket and veil for the Nikkah ceremony. Because the wedding was in Februaury, a full-length white mink cape kept the bride warm in the non-heated palace and she secretly wore woolen socks on her feet, which were hidden by the voluminous skirt. In the evening, for the 2000 people reception, the jacket and veil came off and an emerald and diamond parure from the crown jewels that matched her green eyes added even more sparkle. 5 tonnes of orchids, tulips and carnations had been flown in from Netherlands to do up the palace and the entertainment included a Roman equestrian circus. The couple received such lavish wedding gifts as a mink coat and a desk set glittering with black diamonds sent by Soviet head Joseph Stalin, a Steuben glass Bowl of Legends sent by U.S. President and Mrs. Truman, and silver Georgian candlesticks from King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.

Though the new Queen headed Iran’s charity association, she was very much pampered and even had a pet seal, which she kept in the palace fountain. Just two years later, in 1953, the royal couple fled Tehran for Iraq and Italy after a failed revolution attempt in Iran, but they returned soon after.

The wedding ensemble consisted of a feathered and jewelled gown, fitted, long sleeved, waist length jacket and mink coat all by Christian Dior

Seven years into the marriage, the royal couple was faced with a dilemma. They had come to a crossroads due to Soraya’s inability to have children, a fact confirmed by American doctors. Even the famous American fertility expert Dr. William Masters wasn’t able to help them. Their joint consultation with him has been immortalized in an episode of the TV show Masters of Sex. Though he was very much in love with Soraya, the Shah desperately needed a male heir. Under the Persian constitution, if the Shah had no heir, then the royal line would end. He tried to convince her to let him take a second wife, but Soraya was adamant. In an interview to the New York Times Soraya said that she did not want “the sanctity of marriage” violated and decided that “she could not accept the idea of sharing her husband’s love with another woman.” She added it was with a heavy heart and because he had no choice that the Shah reluctantly divorced her.

At that time of their separation, Soraya issued a statement to the Iranian people from her parents’ home in Germany, stating, “Since His Imperial Majesty Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi has deemed it necessary that a successor to the throne must be of direct descent in the male line from generation to generation to generation, I will with my deepest regret in the interest of the future of the State and of the welfare of the people in accordance with the desire of His Majesty the Emperor sacrifice my own happiness, and I will declare my consent to a separation from His Imperial Majesty.”

Moments Photo courtesy LIFE magazine

On 21st March 1958, Iranian New Year’s Day, the Shah announced his divorce to the Iranian people in a TV and radio broadcasted speech that was broadcast, adding he would not remarry in haste. His voice shook with emotion, clearly he had been crying.

The Shah still loved his ex-wife; he granted Soraya the title Princess of Iran and made sure she received a monthly $7000 payment from the State of Iran. They continued to meet in Europe after their divorce, even though Sorarya had started a film career. She had always harboured a fantasy to be a film star. Despite taking acting lessons, she only managed to appear in two films. Through her new connections, she met the married Italian director Franco Indovina and they started a love affair. Unfortunately, this too ended prematurely with his tragic death in a plane crash only five years later.

Heart-broken Soraya relocated to Paris and bought an apartment on the posh and happening Avenue Montaigne, which sold at her death for $3 million. Soraya travelled, was fond of frequenting the Plaza Athenee Hotel near her home, attended parties thrown by the aristocratic feminist and woman of letters Edmee, Duchess de La Rochefoucauld, who kept a famous salon. She also made friends with her celebrity hair stylist Alexandre Zouari who introduced her to the young, glitzy crowd. But still lonely and depressed, she was called the “Princess with the sad eyes” by those who met her. In 1991, she wrote her second autobiography, Le Palais Des Solitudes (The Palace of Loneliness). She died in 2001 at the age of 69 in Paris. Her body was found by her cleaner.

Soraya appeared in two European films after her divorce from the Shah

Princess Soraya bequeathed her £50 million fortune, including her engagement ring, a 1958 Rolls Royce, countless furs and costly paintings that were all auctioned off to her younger brother and only sibling, Prince Bijan Esfandiary, but he too died only a week later at his home in Cologne. Since they had no living relatives and he had made no will, the entire fortune went to the German state government (and not Iran) where it was used to pay for street lighting, rubbish collection and other public amenities in North Rhine Westphalia where the Prince lived at the time of his death. Perhaps the Irani people were right when they claimed their Queen was more German than Irani.

Meanwhile in 1951, Mohammad Mosaddegh had been elected Prime Minister of Iran; in a bold move, he immediately nationalised the country’s petroleum industry after getting a unanimous vote authorising this from the country’s Parliament. The industry had been controlled by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), APOC’s new name, which had been an extremely lucrative venture for the British and also gave them a lot of regional clout. Together the American CIA and British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) funded and led the covert Operation Ajax to depose Mosaddegh with the help of the Irani military, led by General Fazlollah Zahedi, who the CIA bribed with $1 million in cash. The Shah was in on the conspiracy and had agreed to dismiss the patriotic Mosaddegh as Prime Minister and replace him with a candidate backed by the British and Americans. As with subsequent American involvements in the country, the coup d’etat failed. The Shah with Soraya fled Tehran first to Baghdad and then Rome. However, a second coup attempt was successful, Mosaddegh was deposed, arrested and tried and the ‘merciful’ Shah commuted his sentence to three years followed by life in exile. Zahedi became the new puppet PM.

Attracted to European women, the two times divorced Shah’s eye next lit on the blonde Princess Maria Gabriella of Savoy, daughter of the deposed Italian King Umberto II and Marie José of Belgium, known as the “May Queen” due to her brief month long tenure as Queen. But the Princess was a Roman Catholic. First meeting 19 year old Princess Maria during a skiing holiday in Switzerland in 1958, the Shah proposed shortly after. According to Dr. Abbas Milani and Amir Taheri, who wrote Mohammad Reza’s biography Majestic Failure, she accepted the proposal conditionally, depending on the consent of her father and the Pope. The Shah returned to Tehran to pave the way and clear any legal hurdles to the marriage, as the Iranian constitution at that time stated that King must take a Persian Muslim as wife. He hired a team of French genealogists to prove her distant Persian connection and asked the Princess to convert to Islam. First her father, though privately a homosexual but a conservative Roman Catholic where his daughter was concerned, withheld his consent. After the Shah offered to pay him handsomely for his consent, Umberto II left it up to the Pope who was asked to issue a special dispensation for the marriage. Pope John XXIII promptly vetoed the match. Horror of horrors, a marriage between a “Muslim sovereign and a Catholic princess,” was called “a grave danger” in an editorial in the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano. Under the 1917 Code of Canon Law, a Roman Catholic was barred from marrying a divorced person on pains of excommunication and this threat was conveyed to the Princess. The Shah himself went to the Vatican in 1959, and the Pope plainly told him that he would sanction the marriage on the condition that Mohammed Shah convert to Catholicism. The engagement was mutually called off. Princess Maria went on to become a published historian and married a fellow Italian after more than a decade.

Princess Maria Gabriella of Savoy

The Shah & Farah Diba on their wedding day Farah in a coat worn over a gown, designed by YSL for Dior

After this debacle, Princess Shahnaz stepped in to arrange a suitable marriage for her father, the Shah, so he could produce a male heir. In the Irani Embassy in Paris, a young Farah Diba was introduced to him in the summer of ‘59.

Farah was born in Tehran, the only child of Captain Sohrab Diba, of Irani-Azerbaijani descent, and his wife, Farideh Ghotbi. Captain Sohrab belonged to an affluent and noble family, his father had been the Persian Ambassador to the Russian Romanov Court. The Captain, a graduate of the prestigious French Military Academy at St. Cyr, served as an officer in the Imperial Iranian Armed Forces, but he died suddenly leaving his wife and daughter badly off financially, who were then forced to leave their large Tehran villa and move to the cramped apartment of Farideh’s brother. Farah Diba attended the Italian School in Tehran, then the French Jeanne d’Arc School and later the Lycée Razi. A sporty girl, she was the captain of her school’s basketball team. On a State scholarship, she went to Paris to studying architecture at the École Spéciale d’Architecture. The Shah frequently met State-sponsored students studying at Irani Embassies whenever he was travelling abroad. In February, at the Embassy in Paris, he met the pretty 21 year old Farah. Things moved fast. On her summer trip to Tehran, Farah was formally courted by the 40 year old Shah, as orchestrated by Princess Shahnaz, and within months an engagement was announced.

The marriage took place swiftly at the end of the year. The bride chose Yves Saint Laurent, then the designer for Dior, to make the all important wedding gown. The dress had a modest scoop neck, and matching coat. The ensemble had Persian motifs embellished in sequins, imitation pearls, and silver thread. The train had a fur-lined hem with blue sewn in the hem for good luck. Farah had her pick of the crown jewels. On her head rested the 2 kgs. (more than 4 lbs.) Noor-ol-Ain tiara that has the sixty carat pink Noor-ol-Ain (Eye of Light) diamond as the centrepiece. This had been cut from the Great Table Diamond, mined in Golcanda, India, and has a sister diamond, the 180 carat Darya-e-Noor (River of Light). The Golcanda diamond had been brought back to Persia by Nader Shah in1736 after he plundered Delhi as part of payment for him to return to Tehran. The Shah commissioned Harry Winston to design a tiara around the Noor-ol-Ain. The platinum tiara was set with 324 pink, yellow, and white diamonds, all larger than 14 carats. Today, this tiara and the Iranian crown jewels collection are on display at the National Treasury of Iran in the Central Bank in Tehran.

Within the year, Farah produced the much awaited male heir, Crown Prince Raza Pahlavi born in 1960, and the marriage was deemed a success, followed by Princess Farahnaz Pahlavi of Iran, Prince Ali Reza Pahlavi and Princess Leila Pahlavi of Iran. Initially, the Queen was engrossed in producing her children, but once that was accomplished she became much more actively involved in government affairs, particularly in women’s rights issues and cultural development.

Moments On a skiing holiday

Due to its massive oil production, Iran’s oil revenues soared during this time and the Shah became Middle East’s pre-eminent leader, referring to himself as the “Guardian” of the Persian Gulf. Autocratic, he famously said in 1961 “when Iranians learn to behave like Swedes, I will behave like the King of Sweden.”

A second assassination attempt was made on the Shah in 1965 when a soldier shot his way through the Marble Palace, but was killed before he could reach the royal quarters, after he had killed two civilian guards. According to former KGB officer Vladimir Kuzichkin, the Shah was also allegedly targeted for his pro-West stance by the Soviet Union, using a TV remote control detonated bomb hidden Volkswagen Beetle that failed to detonate.  Apparently, the Soviets made many failed assassination attempts on his life during the height of the Cold War. However, the Shah proved to be like the proverbial cat with nine lives.

26 years after his reign began, on 26th Ocotber 1967 the Shah, in an elaborate coronation ceremony,  took the ancient title of Shahnshah (Emperor), the Queen was crowned as the first Shahbano (the Empress) and Crown Prince Raza was designated as the successor officially. The reason the Shah gave for waiting so long for the coronation was because he said there was “no honour in being the Emperor of a poor country,” which in his opinion Iran had been up till that time. Rich heraldry was incorporated to symbolize the Pahlavi reign and ancient Persian heritage. The imperial crown image was included in every official state document and symbol, from the badges of the armed forces to paper money and coinage. The personal standards for the Shahnshah, Shahbanu and Crown Prince had a field of pale blue, the traditional colour of the Iranian Imperial Family, a central heraldic motif of the individual. The Imperial Iranian national flag was in the top left quadrant of each standard. The appropriate Imperial standard was flown beside the national flag when the individual was present in a building. All this pomp and circumstance was due to the fact that the Shah was very conscious of the fact that his father came up the ranks and was a “self made monarch.”

In the ‘60s, the Shah introduced a series of economic, social and political reforms, which were collectively known as the White Revolution. The goal was to transform Iran into a global power, modernize the country, nationalise certain industries, grant women suffrage, push for universal education and increase the national income. To win mass popularity and simultaneously curtail the power of ancient elite feudal families he expropriated large estates and gave them to more than four million small farmers. He also gave factory workers shares in the mills in which they worked. However, the wealthy land owners and middle income merchant class of the bazaars felt defrauded. Due to rampant corruption, much wealth found its way into the pockets of the extended royal family, their psychophants and government officials, not the poor.  The White Revolution was said to be “shoddily planned and haphazardly carried out,” its main aim to centralize power. The Shia clergy also resented Iran’s pro-Western stance and friendly relations with Israel.

A U.S. Embassy dispatch stated, “The Shah’s picture is everywhere. The beginning of all film showings in public theaters presents the Shah in various regal poses accompanied by the strains of the National Anthem….The monarch also actively extends his influence to all phases of social affairs…there is hardly any activity or vocation which the Shah or members of his family or his closest friends do not have a direct or at least a symbolic involvement.”

But the Shah still paid lip service to a two-party democratic process and said, “If I were a dictator rather than a constitutional monarch, then I might be tempted to sponsor a single dominant party such as Hitler organized.”

The Shah realized that to modernize his country, education was key. Starting from the ‘60s new elementary schools and literacy courses were set up in remote villages by the Imperial Iranian Armed Forces, which became known as the “Army of Knowledge.” By 1966 the school attendance of urban seven to fourteen year olds was estimated at 75 per cent and this further rose in the ‘70s. A government program provided free of charge meals to school children. Islamic theologians were formally established as clerics after passing special exams. A quarter of the scientists working in Iran’s nuclear program were women that had been sent abroad to study along with their male counterparts. The Armed Forces were also called on to build infrastructure projects throughout the country. Several steel, power and automobile plants, telecommunications and petrochemical facilities, as well as dams were established to expand the country’s industrial base. The Aryamehr University of Technology was founded to fuel the country’s technological prowess.

The Pahlavi clan in their Greenwich, Connecticut home in happier times

Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi with his wife & 3 daughters

Unfortunately, Iran’s labour market could not keep pace with the new graduates swelling the ranks of the labour force. In 1966, high school graduates had “a higher rate of unemployment than the uneducated.” The number of educated but unemployed and frustrated youth kept growing, providing manpower for the coming Revolution. To be fair, national rose dramatically in this period, but this is in part due to the soaring oil price in the ‘70s.

In ’71, the celebration of the anniversary of 2,500 years of continuous monarchy since the founding of the Persian Empire by Cyrus the Great took place to further consolidate the monarchy’s power. Controversially, the Irani calendar was changed from the hegira to the beginning of the Persian Empire, measured from Cyrus the Great’s coronation. The New York Times reported that $100 million was spent on the celebrations. A tent city covering 160 acres was erected next to the ancient ruins of Persepolis (ceremonial capital of ancient Persia), including three huge royal tents and fifty nine smaller ones arranged in a star-shaped design. French chefs from Maxim’s of Paris prepared breast of peacock entrees for royalty and dignitaries who flew in from the world over, which the guests ate off Limoges porcelain, washing it down with champagne in Baccarat crystal glasses. Interior design firm Maison Jansen, which had been contracted by U.S. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy to redecorate the White House, redecorated the buildings that received the dignitaries.

Princess Leila Pahlavi of Iran was a Valentino model Prince Ali Reza & Queen Farah Pahlavi at Leila’s funeral Farah Pahlavi is still sophisticated, elegant & well maintained

Next to this ostentatious and flamboyant display, the poverty in nearby villages stood out in stark contrast. University students went on strike in protest. The Shah kept the exorbitant cost of this extravagant celebration under wraps, which he justified by claiming it would bring in new investments to Iran, establish its importance and give the country more regional clout.

The Empress had also kept herself busy by focussing on culture and the arts. Though historically a culturally rich country, Iran of the ‘60s was empty of much of its heritage. Many of its artistic treasures lay in foreign museums and private collections. The Empress decided it was high time they were brought back. She secured permission and funds to buy back a wide selection of Iranian artifacts and contracted brother antique dealers Houshang and Mehdi Mahboubian, who helped her locate and attain these treasures from ‘72-78. Following the model of Britain’s National Trust, several national museums were founded to house these repatriated acquisitions, including the Negarestan Cultural Center, the Reza Abbasi Museum, the Khorramabad Museum housing the Lorestan bronzes, the National Carpet Gallery and the Abgineh Museum for Ceramics and Glassware. The Empress had a staff of 40 to assist her in the patronage of 24 educational, health and cultural organizations in all. She also carried out humanitarian work, travelling to far flung poor areas of Iran where she gained popularity in the early ’70s.

One legacy of the Empress, the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art proved a conundrum for the anti-West Islamic Republic government that replaced the Shah’s regime. The Empress, using State funds, had shrewdly amassed a priceless Western Art collection during the depressed Art market of the ‘70s. Irani sculptor and Cultural Adviser to the Empress, Parviz Tanavoli said that the collection had been bought for “tens, not hundreds, of millions of dollars.” Approximately, 150 masterpieces of artists including works by Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, George Grosz, Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, and Roy Lichtenstein were bought and displayed at the Museum. It became one of the most significant collections of Modern Art in the world, excluding Europe and the U.S. Today, the value of this collection is estimated at US$2.8 billion. After the ’79 Revolution, the collection lay for nearly two decades in the Museum’s storage vaults. After much public speculation about the fate of the priceless masterpieces, the collection was briefly displayed in an exhibition in Tehran in ’05.

The family now lives in Washington D.C.

 Under the Empress’ patronage, the  Shiraz Arts Festival for the performing arts was held every summer from 1967 until 1977, featuring live performances by both Iranian and Western artists performing  music, dance, drama and poetry. The festival program also showed films held symposia and debates in Shiraz, Persepolis and many other locations. The avant garde festival became increasing controversial and unpopular amongst conservative, orthodox Muslim Iranis.

By 1975, the Shah abandoned all pretense of even a two-party system of government. Only the Rastakhiz (Resurrection) State-sponsored political party was recognized, while the Communist Tudeh party was banned.  Political dissidents were jailed by the thousands. The Shah said, “We must straighten out Iranians’ ranks. To do so, we divide them into two categories: those who believe in Monarchy, the Constitution and the Six Bahman Revolution and those who don’t….A person who does not enter the new political party and does not believe in the three cardinal principles will have only two choices. He is either an individual who belongs to an illegal organization… in other words a traitor. Such an individual belongs to an Iranian prison, or if he desires he can leave the country tomorrow, without even paying exit fees; he can go anywhere he likes, because he is not Iranian, he has no nation, and his activities are illegal and punishable according to the law.”

The Shah’s words, “he has no nation” held an ominous tone and those words ironically applied to him in just a couple of years. Was it Karma at play?!

As resentment seethed at home, the Shah’s regime also lost the favour of the American President Jimmy Carter’s administration due to the former’s role in jacking up the oil price through his leading role in the Organization of the Oil Producing Countries (OPEC). To keep the national income high, the Shah was instrumental in fixing the high price of OPEC oil in the ‘70s that daily poured millions of dollars into the government’s coffers. The American public blamed their own government for failure to take charge of the situation, which turned to Saudi Arabia, its new ally. The American government and media started publicly criticizing Iran’s human rights records. Sensing that the Shah was being abandoned just as his father was before him, street demonstrations increased in size and frequency and the political situation snowballed out the government’s control.

In ’77, the first militant anti-Shah demonstration numbered only a few hundred after the death of Shia cleric and political opponent Ayotollah Ruhoallah Khomeini’s son Mostafa. By next year, well organized national strikes paralyzed the country. Then, on 8th September 1978, a day that is remembered as “Black Friday,” though Martial Law had been imposed, thousands had gathered in Tehran’s Jaleh Square for a religious demonstration. The soldiers opened fire on the unarmed demonstrators. This marked “the point of no return” for the regime. To calm the situation, in early October, the Shah allowed exiled political dissidents to return, but it was too little too late. In December, 6 to 9 million strong demonstrators, more than 10 per cent of the citizens, were marching on the streets. Public statues of the Pahlavis were being defaced and “every sign of the Pahlavi dynasty” was destroyed by the angry demonstrators. In February, pro-Khomeini revolutionary guerrilla and rebel soldiers had taken over the street fighting. The military stepped to the side and, on the evening of 11th February 1977, the Shah’s reign was over. The revolutionaries had won. The Iranian monarchy was formally abolished, and Iran was declared an Islamic Republic led by Khomeini, who took over the reins of power.

The Revolutionary government in Iran ordered the arrest (and later execution) of the Shah and the Shahbanu. The Shah and his family had already fled into exile to Egypt on 16th January 1979, as Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and First Lady Jehan Al Sadat were personal friends. However, Iran started pressing for extradition. Over the next 14 months, to keep trouble at bay, one by one countries around the world shut their doors on the royal family. After Egypt, the Pahlavis stayed briefly in Morocco as guests of King Hassan II. In the article Little pain expected in exile for Shah published in The Spokesman Review, it was estimated that the Shah had a personal fortune of $1 billion. Despite this wealth, the family had nowhere to go.

The Pahlavis headed to the Caribbean, where they were granted temporary refuge in the Bahamas on Paradise Island, which the Empress recalled as the “darkest days in her life.” The Shah tried to buy the island for $425 million, but his offer was rejected. Next stop was South America. Mexico issued them a short visa and they moved into a rented villa in Cuernavaca near Mexico City. The stress took a toll and the Shah’s long-term illness of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system, rapidly got worse. They got permission to seek medical treatment in the U.S. Iranis became incensed with the U.S. government for harbouring the Shah and they attacked the American Embassy in Tehran. The bungled attempt by the U.S. to rescue the  Americans Embassy staff and citizens that were held hostage for 444 days became known as the Iran hostage crisis. Again, the Shah and his family became a liability to the host nation and were asked to leave. This time, they headed to Contadora Island, Panama.

Learning that, succumbing to Irani pressure, the Panamanian Government wanted to arrest the Shah and extradite him to Iran, Farah pleaded with Jehan Al Sadat to let them return to Egypt. There three months later on 27th July 1980, the Shah mercifully died. In just over a year he went from being a powerful monarch to a beaten and tired, old, sick man with nowhere to call home. He was buried at Al-Rifa’i Mosque, Cairo.

With that chapter closed President Sadat gave the widow the use of Koubbeh Palace in Cairo, but he too was assassinated in October 1981. President Ronald Reagan stepped in to rescue the family and informed them that they were welcome to the U.S. where they finally settled in the upscale town of Greenwich, Connecticut. You would think that the disgraced royals family’s trouble were finally at an end, but this was not to be.

It turned out that the younger two children had been so traumatized by the upheaval in their lives that they grew up to suffer acute depression and both committed suicide, one after another. Princess Leila was a very pretty girl, full of promise; she was a graduate of Brown University and worked as a model for Valentino. But she also had a dark, tortured side, suffering from anorexia nervosa as well as a drug addiction. She flitted aimlessly between Paris and Greenwhich,  anorexia wasting away her good looks. In 2001, she was found dead in a London hotel room from an overdose of tranquilizers and cocaine. She is buried in the Cimetière de Passy, Paris. Members of the French royal family and the late French President François Mitterrand’s nephew, Fredric attended her funeral along with her family.

Ali Reza was extremely close to his sister and her death had a profound effect on him. He had gotten his Bachelors from Princeton and Masters from Columbia, as well as was studying for his Phd at Harvard and had been called “one of the world’s most eligible princes.” With everything to live for, in January 2011, handsome and dapper Ali shot himself to death in his Boston apartment at the age of 44.

Abbas Milani, director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University, and author of a biography of the Shah, said the Pahlavis have a record of depression, “Sadly, the Shah did have a propensity for depression. In nearly every major profile of him prepared by the CIA, or British and American embassies, there is some allusion to this brooding, melancholy tendency. One report calls him ‘Hamlet-like.’ The other side of this tendency was the Shah’s love of speed, fast cars, and flying. The sad young man (Ali Reza) who killed himself apparently shared both qualities.”

The Pahlavi family in a more politic message on Reza Pahlavi’s website, wrote that Ali was “deeply disturbed by all the ills fallen upon his beloved homeland and struggled for years to overcome his sorrow.”

Ali’s final wishes were to be cremated and his ashes scattered on the Caspian Sea. Posthumously, seven months after his death, his daughter Iryana Leila was born to his girlfriend. Farah recognized her as a full member of their family and a Princess of Iran.

Second born Princess Yasmin Farahnaz Pahlavi, armed with a Masters from Columbia tried to join UNICEF, but her mother said in a 2004 interview to the Los Angeles Times that she was rejected  because of her name. She lives in New York City. Half sister Princess Shahnaz is twice divorced, has three children and has lived in Switzerland ever since she left Iran.

The success story is the Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, a political science graduate and trained Air Force pilot, who is the founder and leader of the National Council of Iran, a government in exile of Iran. Happily married to a children’s rights advocate Yasmine, the couple have three daughters the Princesses Noor, Iman and Farah. The Prince is extremely popular with Iranian expatriates who left Iran at the time of the Revolution and even some Irani citizens living within the country.

Irani born lawyer, Afshin Ellian said, “In Iran, there are two names known to virtually all, even in the most remote villages. The first name is Khamenei (the current Supreme Leader of Iran) and the second one is Reza Pahlavi.”

In 2011, Radio Fardah named Reza Pahlavi Iran’s Person Of The Year in a 2011 online poll that was filled by expat and resident Iranis. In 2014, Reza Pahlavi founded his own television and radio network Ofogh Iran. He campaigns for human rights, democracy and Irani solidarity. He is a moderate, secular Muslim who has performed Hajj and calls for a separation of religion and state in Iran and for free and fair elections. The choice of government whether a constitutional monarchy or a republic he says should be left up to the Irani people to decide.

Inspired by the Arab Spring, the Irani youth in February 2011 took to the streets to demand a return to democracy. On that occasion, Reza Pahlavi said in an interview to the Daily Telegraph, “Fundamental and necessary change is long overdue for our region and we have a whole generation of young Egyptians and Iranians not willing to take no for an answer. Democratisation is now an imperative that cannot be denied. It is only a matter of time before the whole region can transform itself.”

The Pahlavis enduring legacy to Iran has been the universal education that Mohammad Raza Shah started in the formerly backward country. 91 per cent of Irani adults are literate, according to 2015 estimates. The Shah’s downfall proved to be his despotic nature and totalitarian rule that suffocated the Irani people and ultimately led to the Shia clergy led Revolution.

By Mahlia Lone

This is the story of Tahira and Mazhar Ali Khan, fellow idealists, humanists, activists and Communists who shunned a life of wealth to work for the betterment of the working class and for women’s rights

We are of course a product of our environment and our families. In order to understand the mindset of the rebellious heroine of our story Tahira, we must first delve into her antecedents.

Khan Bahadur Capt. (retd) Sardar Sir Sikandar Hyat Khan, KBE (Knight of the British Empire) was the younger son of Nawab Muhammad Hyat Khan of Wah (then a village), who had been awarded the title and lands for his unswerving service and loyalty to the British and the East India Company. Muhammad Hyat hid and tended to the mortally wounded British army office Brigadier-General John Nicholson, whose personal native orderly officer he served as, from further Sikh attacks during the War of Independence (1857). Nicholson on his deathbed recommended to Brigadier-General Sir Henry Montgomery Lawrence KCB (Knight Commander of the Bath) the Chief Commissioner of the Punjab at the time to reward and assist Muhammad Hyat in his career, which then took off.

The Hyat family belonged to the Khattar tribe of Attock, North Punjab. A friend of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, Muhammad Hyat helped him set up the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh that later became the Aligarh Muslim University. Accordingly, Sikander was educated at school in Aligarh, then at Aligarh Muslim University and briefly studied in England as well, till he was recalled home in 1915 due to World War I. During the war, he served as one of the first Indian officers to receive the King’s Commission with the Punjab Regiment. For his valour during that war as well as the Third Afghan War in 1919, he was awarded a knighthood.

In 1920, Sir Sikandar turned his financial and managerial talents to business and soon became a director of several successful companies, including the Wah Tea Estate, Amritsar-Kasur Railway Company, People’s Bank of Northern India, Sialkot-Narowal Railway, ACC Wah Portland Cement Company, Wah Stone and Lime Company, Punjab Sugar Corporation Ltd, Lahore Electricity Supply Co. etc. In this way, he added to his father’s agricultural estate with cash from lucrative businesses helped by his British contacts. In addition, Sir Sikander became an honorary magistrate, Chairman of the Attock District Board and briefly acting Deputy-Governor of the newly established Reserve Bank of India in 1935.

All this time, Sir Sikander, not one to sit on his laurels, was also simultaneously consolidating his position as a Punjabi Unionist (pro-British) politician. This was an all-Punjab political party representing the interests of the landlords of Punjab, whether Muslims, Sikhs or Hindus. Secular minded Sikandar Hyat Khan would say, “I am a Punjabi first then a Muslim.”

Leading his party the Unionist Muslim League to victory in the 1937 elections, held under the Government of India Act 1935, Sir Sikander became the Premier of Punjab in coalition with the Sikh Akali Dal and the Indian National Congress and carried out many reforms that benefitted the Punjabi zamindar (feudal landlord).

In October 1937, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Sir Sikander signed the Jinnah-Sikandar pact at Lucknow, merging the Muslims of his Unionist party with the All India Muslim League to pursue a united front safeguarding Muslim rights and interests. Sir Sikander was also one of the chief supporters and architects of the Lahore Resolution, March 1940, which at that time called for an autonomous or semi-independent Muslim majority region within the larger Indian confederation and only later led to the demand for an independent Pakistan. Being a part of the British establishment, not surprisingly Sir Sikander opposed the Quit India Movement of 1942. Believing that by politically co-operating with the British was the best way to gain independence of India and maintain the unity of Punjab, he supported the British during World War II. But maintaining the balance of power between the different religious communities in Punjab proved to be an onerous task and life draining for him.

This is the affluent and politically powerful family that Tahira was born into in 1924. A younger sister to Sardar Shaukat Hyat Khan and Begum Mahmooda Salim Khan, she was educated at Queen Mary College in Lahore.

Shehar Bano Khan writes in an article on Tahira, “As a schoolgirl at Queen Mary’s in Lahore, Tahira Hyat Khan was the only one in her class to stand up to make an unusual request to the principal, Ms. Cox. She asked her if Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, leader of the Indian National Congress, could be invited to the school. She was instantly rebuked for forgetting that Queen Mary’s was a purdah school, where men were not allowed. When the young girl stood up for the second time to say how unfair it was that an important leader could not come to the school, the principal had to discipline her by expelling her for an entire term.

‘I had met Nehru at my father’s house and had written to him several times asking why I needed to sit for exams. He always replied saying that exams were necessary for education,’ she said amusedly.

“A little older and displaying the same fervour for politics, the daughter of Sir Sikandar Hyat Khan, leader of the Unionist Party and Prime Minister of the Punjab in 1937, decided to pay a visit to M. A. Jinnah at Mamdot Villa. By that time, Tahira had developed a keen interest in the Communist Party of India. One of the reasons was her fascination for a young man who often visited her father’s house, and was a member of the Communist Party.

‘Mazhar was a good friend of my elder sister (and a second cousin). He would come and discuss politics, but I must confess he never noticed me. He was a great debater and more of a hero for me,’ her face softened as she remembered,” according to Khan’s article. “But it was quite difficult not to notice Tahira Hayat Khan for too long.”

“Bicycling her way to Mamdot Villa, the 14-year-old Tahira told the chowkidar to inform Mr Jinnah that Tahira had come. ‘He knew my father and I’d already met him when he came to our house. He was very nice to me and told me that he knew the stance of the Communist Party. I showed him a pamphlet I was carrying in which the Communist Party had declared its support for an independent country.’”

“I had given away my entire trousseau, including the family jewels, to the Communist Party. We were penniless but content. We lived off just Rs 300 a month for an entire year, and often ate spinach and daal. I had no regrets, no complaints and no second thoughts about leaving the luxury of my home. My life with Mazhar was meaningful and complete. Our home may have been empty of material things, but life was full in every way that mattered,” Tahira told Jugnu Mohsin

“In 1941 Muhammad Ali Jinnah went to see her father Sir Sikandar Hyat Khan, Prime Minister of the then undivided Punjab, at his office on the Upper Mall in Lahore,” Omar Waraich writes in an article for The Independent. “‘I know all about you,’ Jinnah said reproachfully when introduced to her. ‘You prefer Jawaharlal to me.’ Tahira secretly maintained a correspondence with Nehru. He would write back, discussing the freedom struggle against the British Raj and offering reading suggestions. Tahira’s letters are preserved in the Nehru Museum in Delhi but Nehru’s letters were destroyed after reading. Tahira was fearful that her father, a noted opponent of the Congress, might discover them.”

This was the idealistic, willful girl who had a crush on her older cousin Mazhar Ali Khan, son of Nawab Muzaffar Khan belonging to the senior branch of the family. On paper, it was an ideal match, but in reality Mazhar lacked a profession and means to support a wife. On top of that, as a committed Communist, he publicly spoke out against Sir Sikander. At a public rally Mazhar accused Sikandar of “getting up on his hind legs to plead with the British.” Tahira’s brother, who was present, quickly reported it back to his family and they were livid at the public diatribe.

Jugnu Mohsin, who personally knew Tahira, quotes her in her obituary in The Friday Times, “‘Mazhar was born with the Revolution in 1917. His father, Nawab Muzaffar Khan, was my father’s cousin. Our family lived in Wah, the elders thought the tribe came to India from Ghazni with Sultan Mahmud. They also believed that (the Mughal emperor) Jehangir stopped by the springs on their land en route to Kashmir and exclaimed, ‘Wah!’ We were brought up in Lahore, we were a large brood, ten children off three mothers. Abaji (Sir Sikander) was very keen that we be constructively employed in after-school hours. He encouraged an interest in the arts and culture. I went to Queen Mary’s College with my sisters and had a passion for sport. We spent the weekends at our family home in Lahore where the other cousins also gathered.

‘Mazhar was 8 years older than me. I must have been 14 or 15 when I first noticed him. He was tall and quiet. He was already a well-known debater and student leader. I remember I tried several antics to attract his attention. He ignored me. I think he began to notice me a year or so later. We married when I was a little over 17 and he 25. Abaji would’ve been happier had I married Mumtaz Daultana. It was an unspoken understanding between his father Chacha Ahmedyar and Abaji. Don’t forget, Mazhar was unemployed. But I made my preference known to Abaji and he agreed. We went to live in Wah after we married.’”

Sikandar finally gave his conditional consent that Mazhar could marry his daughter if he joined the Allied Forces in the Second World War. As luck would have it, the Soviet Union was invaded shortly after and the Communist Party of India asked all its members to join the war effort. This way neither father-in law nor son-in-law needed to back down from his stance. The couple was duly married before Lieutenant Mazhar Ali was sent to Italy to fight.

“‘The first thing I did after getting married was to go to my mother and tell her that I was going to the cinema. Marriage meant independence and not asking parents for permission,’ Tahira laughed” Shehar Bano writes, “After three days of marital bliss, she was hit by an immense tragedy. In 1942, en route to Delhi, she received news of her father’s death. ‘I can’t explain what a shock it was. I felt a part of me had died with my father,’ said the activist.”

Sir Sikandar’s final days as Punjab’s Premier were mired in controversy. He was desperately trying to keep together an increasingly fractious province during an incendiary, volatile time. Literally exhausted, his heart gave out on him in December 1942. To commemorate the restoration of Lahore’s Badshahi Masjid, he is buried within footsteps of it. He had been the Premier of Punjab for five years till his death. While a supporter of Independence, he wanted it granted with the support of the British, as they had  rewarded him for his loyalty. His daughter and new son-in-law, on the other hand, remained staunchly anti-establishment, shunning an easy life of affluence to achieve their idealistic utopia through Communism.

Tahira told Jugnu Mohsin, “Mazhar was a Communist sympathizer although he never joined the party. In Wah, he worked with the peasants and workers at Khaur. Of course the family was distinctly uncomfortable with this line of activity but they didn’t object openly. Those were happy days. We lived on virtually nothing. I remember the time Ghaffar Khan was externed from the Frontier. He came to live with us in Wah for two months. Shortly after that, Mazhar left for the Middle East on military service. I was very pregnant by then. We didn’t see each other for two years. I started working for the Women’s Defence League. Our son Tariq was born (in 1942) while Mazhar was away. By the time he returned, I had joined the Communist Party. I had given away my entire trousseau, including the family jewels, to the Party. We were penniless but content. We were living off just Rs. 300 a month for an entire year, and often ate spinach and daal. I must tell you here that I had no regrets, no complaints and no second thoughts about leaving the luxury of my home. My life with Mazhar was meaningful and complete. Our home may have been empty of material things, but my life was full in every way that mattered.

“One day Mian Iftikharuddin came to Wah to see Mazhar. He said he wanted to launch a daily newspaper, The Pakistan Times. He and Mazhar discussed it for days and eventually agreed to put an organization together. It was called Progressive Papers Ltd (PPL). This was the year before the Partition. Mazhar became editor of PT and then went to the news desk when Faiz (Ahmed Faiz) took over the editorship. We moved to Lahore; we had another child, a daughter, Tausif. I worked with women and trade unionists. I used to cycle all over Lahore. Our children were raised by Mazhar’s wetnurse, Jan Amma. I don’t think I could have managed without her. The children called their father Majo and me Maa.”

After the Partition, Tahira worked for displaced and working women. “Unlike the activism of nowadays, ours was very strong and touched the base of the social structure,” she said.

In 1950, supported by the Communist Party and led by Tahira, Fahmida Butt and Naseem Shamim Ashraf Malik, the Democratic Women’s Association, the country’s first women’s rights organization, was formed. It was Tahira who for the first time in Pakistan observed International Women’s Day publicly, openly demanding that women be given equal status and their rights be established.  “Our members were women workers. There was Hajra Masood, Khadija Omar, Amatul Rehman, Alys Faiz and so many countless others whose names I can’t remember now. It was not an elitist organization. We were not getting funds from international donor agencies like the NGOs of today,” Tahira said. “Our work was in the mohallas; there was a perpetual fight against the establishment for people’s rights.” Remembering when railway workers were ejected from their mud huts to give residential space to officers in 1950, she said. “For one whole week, we formed a circle by holding each other’s hands in front of the huts to stop the police from entering them. Eventually, we got the land back for the workers.”

Tahira and Mazhar’s home became a salon for writers, poets, activists and foreign visiting socialist leaders and was also the birthplace of the Progressive Writers’ Association. Tahira said, “Our apartment on Nicholson Road overflowed with life. The Progressives were constantly in and out of our home — Sajjad Zaheer, Sibte Hassan, Mirza Ibrahim, Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Ahmed Nadeem Qasimi. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was friends with Mazhar and visited him in Lahore to warn him that the military dictatorship of General Ayub Khan was poised to snatch control of the newspaper he edited, The Pakistan Times.

“In 1959, General Ayub Khan nationalized PPL and Mazhar resigned immediately. We were lucky to have had our own house but the going got tougher and tougher, so we rented out our house and moved to an apartment on Nicholson Road. Ayub sent messages through General Sheikh who was his interior minister and Mazhar’s brother-in-law for him to return to PT. But Mazhar declined, saying he couldn’t collaborate with a martial law regime. By then I was expecting our third child, Mahir.

“Mazhar remained unemployed for years together. He kept his sanity by observing a strict regime of exercise. We swam regularly in the summer and played tennis in the winter. He also read voraciously. It wasn’t possible to write anywhere in those days. It was much later that Mazhar began to write for The Bengali Weekly Forum. His great pride and joy was Tariq, our elder son, who at 12 had led a demonstration of schoolboys to protest the murder of Patrice Lumumba (Congolese independence leader and first PM). He was also a keen debater, another thing he had in common with his father,” she said.

“During Ayub’s regime, we (DWA) invited women from Vietnam to visit Pakistan. Led by Mirza Ibrahim, the trade union leader, a huge number of women came to greet them. When we made a call, people would come out on the streets,” Tahira said. But soon after in the ‘60s, Ayub Khan banned the DWA because it opposed his rule.

Family friend and rights activist, Neelam Hussain writes in a tribute, “My earliest memories are of Tausif and Tariq’s birthday parties at the Nicholson Road flat, where poetry recitation was part of the evening’s entertainment, and we — Nina, Kauchi, Chhammi, Shelly, Cheemi, Mizu and others quite literally had to ‘sing for our supper’ even as the seeds of future friendships were sown. Great ‘walkers’ – long before walking became trendy and branded attire a mandatory given – Tahira Chachi in khadar suit and ‘fleet’ shoes and Mazhar Chacha in baggy blue shorts and tee shirt were familiar figures of the canal and Jail Road landscape. They would often stop by at our house during these walks and we had come home once to find them quite comfortable on a charpai near the gate. Judging them on sartorial merit, the cook, a new man, had not let them into the house.”

While studying at the Punjab University, Tariq Ali organized demonstrations against General Ayub’s military dictatorship. A relative who worked in the ISI (Interservices Intelligence) warned Mazhar and Tahira that Tariq was in danger, so they decided to get him out of Pakistan. Tariq went to Oxford, where he studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. A clever, fiery young man sharing his parents’ convictions and oratory skills, he was elected President of the Oxford Union in 1965. Tariq’s stint at the Union included a famous meeting with Malcolm X in December 1964 during which the latter revealed that he was under threat of assassination. Quickly becoming famous and popular as a student leader, in 1967, Tariq Ali was one of 64 high profile personalities, including The Beatles, who signed a petition calling for the legalisation of marijuana. Tariq debated against the Vietnam War with such figures as President Richard Nixon’s National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and American author Michael Stewart. He became friends with influential political figures such as Stokely Carmichael, Trinidadian-American revolutionary who was a part of the Civil Rights Movement, and later, the global Pan-African movement and pop culture icons John Lennon, wife Yoko Ono and English actress Vanessa Redgrave.

“The 60s closed on an optimistic note. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto won a landslide victory. Sometime in the early 70s, newspaper Dawn’s management asked Mazhar to fill in for their editor Altaf Gauhar, who had been imprisoned by Bhutto. When he came back to Lahore, he launched a weekly called Viewpoint. We sold our house, retaining the patch with the annexe, to get Viewpoint going. It was a labour of love for Mazhar. The children were growing up; Tariq had been to Oxford and won his own recognition. I was busy with the Democratic Women’s Association. Viewpoint was a bottomless pit though; we ended up selling almost everything we had to keep it going. I did protest that we couldn’t carry on like that but I just couldn’t say no to Mazhar in the end. It was his life,” Tahira recalled in her interview with Jugnu Mohsin.

Neelam Hussain writes, “Tahira consistently upheld the workers’ cause to take a stand against her own class including personal friends and she was among the handful of people who had come out on Lahore’s Mall in 1971 to protest army action in East Pakistan and been spat upon for traitors by passersby. And there was WAF – women from her daughter’s generation – whom she had disagreed with, criticised, and stood with in common cause against military rule, Islamisation and unjust laws.”

Though Z.A. Bhutto had been a friend, he apparently was threatened by Tariq. When he became Prime Minister in 1972 he blocked him from landing in Lahore from the UK. Tahira wrote Bhutto an angry and bitter letter, accusing him of betraying the people’s cause, and he quickly lifted the travel ban.

Usman Khan, a family friend, said, “My grandmother and Tahira were friends since Queen Mary College. The relationship between Tahira and Mazhar was strained many times. Tariq was approached by Bhutto to join the PPP’s Youth Wing, which he refused to do. Bhutto never forgave and never forgot. Enormous pressure was put on the family, and due to that, Tariq decided to live in the UK for good. Something died inside Tahira on that day and she never recovered from Tariq’s departure.”

Then, during Z. A. Bhutto’s term as PM, he reinstated the DWA and it picked up where it had left off. Tahira was the DWA General Secretary and traveled to international conferences. On one occasion, she met the Turkish dissident poet, Nazim Hikmet, who kissed her hand and charmingly said she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen..

The General Zia era, starting with a coup in 1977, imposed restrictions on all political life, and the DWA was no exception. In reaction to Zia’s retrogressive laws against females, the Women’s Action Forum (WAF) was formed in 1981 as a new resistance movement. “Till the Zia era we managed to put our force to work, bringing change,” said Tahira. For her opposition to his oppressive military dictatorship, Tahira was jailed. “The pressures were enormous. Mazhar was arrested and imprisoned in 1978 and then again in 1981, following the hijacking of the PIA plane. He developed a heart problem and had to have bypass surgery the following year.”

Sharing the same birthday, 5th January, Tahira sent Bhutto a symbolic and conciliatory gift, a box of Cuban cigars, when he was in jail in Lahore awaiting his trial, following the General Zia’s 1977 military coup. It was a reminder of their common socialist convictions, the times they had shared and a gesture that meant she had forgiven him. Bhutto must surely have appreciated the kindness of an old friend.

Tahira said, “We kept Viewpoint going for as long as we could. Eventually, it became such a strain that we had to close it down in 1992. Mazhar went back to writing a weekly column for Dawn. On the afternoon of January 28, 1993, he complained of a feeling of ‘heaviness’. I took him to hospital. He asked me to call his editor at Dawn and tell him that he wouldn’t be able to send in his column on time. He died the same night. I wouldn’t say he was broken by the closure of Viewpoint. No, he’d come to terms with it. He had watched the Cold War thawing with great interest. Although he’d been a member of the Pakistan-Soviet Friendship Society for years, along with Faiz, he was not uncritical of what passed for Communism in the USSR. He was enormously heartened by Gorbachev’s appearance. When the Soviet Union broke up, he said it was the dialectic at work. Communism had had an enormously salutary effect on capitalism. The welfare state and ‘caring capitalism’ were the West’s response to the threat of Communism. No, we did not mourn the demise of the Soviet Union.”

Tahira remained a champion of workers’ rights and was an activist for 60 years, working for the Railway unions, Kissan Party and Labour Party. She also mentored Benazir Bhutto and even made it clear to her that she did not approve of Asif Zardari, warning her that he would be her ruin. Tahira was extremely proud of her son Tariq, a novelist, filmmaker, journalist and political activist who continues to live in London. While her younger children, daughter Tausif and son Mahir, sort of lived in Tariq’s shadow, their own quieter qualities of loyalty, consistency and stoical perseverance in their chosen professions made them no less successful and exceptional. To her dying day in March 2015, at the ripe old age of 91, Tahira was cared for by her daughter Tausif.

The couple’s partnership was exemplary, the tapestry of their lives rich and fulfilling. In Tahira’s own words, “Activism was not a profession for us. It was our life.”