Deputy Secretary Information MNA NA-96 (Gujranwala-II)
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz
Engineer Khurram Dastgir Khan
Engineer Khurram Dastgir Khan, as people refer to him, is a Member of the National Assembly belonging to Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz); and carries with him an air of intellect which makes him shine out – loud and clear. Married and blessed with a son and a daughter, the man from Gujranwala surely qualifies to be called a ‘leader’.
John Milton’s words help him steer through the troubled waters of life, and he shares these thoughts of Milton with utmost conviction and commitment: “I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather; that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary. That virtue therefore which is but a youngling in the contemplation of evil, and knows not the utmost that vice promises to her followers, and rejects it, is but a blank virtue, not a pure; her whiteness is but an excremental whiteness.(John Milton)”
Khurram firmly believes that good is inherently supposed to come out, and only what comes out to confront the evil is actually good. John Milton makes him believe that ‘not being fugitive is the sole and actual form of being good’. Indifference is detrimental; it damages more than evil does. Khurram Dastgir feels good about John Milton’s words, for these words crystallize Khurram’s thinking. He regards Goodness as a public virtue rather than a private one. ‘Freedom of expression’ has become more of a cliché nowadays, but Khurram proclaims that expression will be forceful only of the person who has been an agent of change himself. It is the person who has been the change he wanted to see who will have a forceful and powerful opinion to share.
This bold thinking of Khurram Dastgir helped him to be one of the loudest voices against Musharraf’s coup. Khurram was serving as Special Assistant to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at the time of the army takeover in October 1999. While under military house arrest, he raised one of the first voices for democracy when he condemned the coup d'etat on BBC World Service Radio mere two days after Musharraf's imposed martial law. He contested unsuccessfully the 2002 general election on a PML-N ticket for reasons which are question marks and shall always remain. He was then appointed Central Joint Secretary and ex-officio member of Central Working Committee of PML-N in April 2006. He is also a member of PML-N's Policy Planning Committee that prepared the 2007 manifesto of the Party.
After getting elected as an MNA, it was on 24 March 2008, he moved the first-ever bill of the 13th National Assembly when he submitted the "Oath of Office (Judges) Order (Repeal) Act" which in itself is again, a bold step indeed.
Brought up in a learning environment throughout – a true son of the soil:
The young scrupulous mindset of Khurram Dastgir is not the result of any sudden spell; he is what his parents brought him up with. It is a long journey spread over years of hard work and comprises of painstaking initiatives by Khurram’s parents who have always been supportive of their intelligent child. Integrity is what he got from his father, a true dad Khurram has been blessed with. Khurram continues the legacy of his father ‘Ghulam Dastgir Khan’ who won elections to the National Assembly in 1977, 1990, 1993 and 1997; apart from serving twice in the federal cabinet as Minister for Labour, Manpower, and Overseas Pakistanis and later as Minister for Local Government and Rural Development. Khurram did not for any single moment find his father’s feet stagger. Ghulam Dastgir Khan was amongst the few who stood against the Military takeover of Musharraf in October 1999, and remained consistent thereafter. Khurram finds his father’s decision a reflexive one guided by strong principles. Ghulam Dastgir Khan instilled into his son that if one stands for nothing then he falls for everything. Khurram Dastgir knows how hard it was to stand against a despot throughout his tenure, but he proudly states how firm he found his father to be: living every day through the hard times.
Khurram refers to the American humorist who said ‘So it goes’, and the phrase occurring in a Jewish wisdom folktale involving King Solomon which says ‘this too shall pass’. To Khurram, both these were given to understand by his father when he preached him to ‘always keep your head above the water’. Ghulam Dastgir Khan taught his son to stand for the right thing, for nothing is permanent. What remains is the afterglow of scruples followed and self esteem held high.
Khurram finds himself greatly indebted to his mother who passed away in December 2008, but her memories form a beautiful rainbow to follow. For once, the habit of reading books is one of the many he relates to his mother. One of Khurram’s rules of thumb, short quotes he lives by is: “Children do not listen to their parents, they copy them.” He would not have been luckier, for she was born to a mother who read books without fail. Book Reading constituted a part of every day that she lived. Khurram vividly remembers the presence of ‘Kulyat e Iqbal’ in his home when he was not even very grown up. He has grown up with books and treats them as a gentle form of madness. He has written a lot of articles in ‘Dawn’ and ‘The Nation’; and he has also reviewed a lot more books for ‘Dawn’ which one can find in the book review tab at the dawn website.
Khurram Dastgir seldom argues with people, for he practices the idea that the best way to get the most out of an argument is to avoid it. However, he gets disturbed and is dragged into argument when someone negates and belittles the significance of books. He hates people say: “Theory is nothing; it is only the practical life that teaches. Books have nothing useful to offer.” Khurram believes that books are a means to learn from others’ experiences for the authors have written their own experiences to let the reader benefit, and that his mother gave him this gift of loving books for which he is gratefully thankful. He owes a bunch of thanks for instilling a love for books not only to his mother alone but also to ‘Bowdoin College’ - a leading institution of its kind in USA which has a tale to relate to Khurram Dastgir Khan. Khurram says that “at Bowdoin, learning was valued as good in itself, and it was not as a stepping stone to a job or anything of the sort.”
Academia: Started from Gujranwala, became an Abdalian and afterwards made it to ‘Bowdoin’ and later to ‘Caltech’
Khurram Dastgir Khan received his schooling from ‘Saint Joseph High School’ in Gujranwala. He then got selected for being at one of the most Prestigious Institutions of Pakistan: “Cadet College Hasanabdal”. He became a part of the 29th entry there, and spent his five years as part of ‘Iqbal Wing’ doing his Matriculation in 1985 and subsequently qualifying with his FSc (Pre Engineering) in 1987.
He shared a light moment about Saleemi Sahib: one of his biology instructors at Hasanabdal, who when asked by a bunch of students to give a guess about what can possibly come in the dress rehearsal examinations, responded: “Biology teachers never give hints on the paper, because tomorrow when you become a doctor you’ll say to your patient that you had left his illness in choice, and did not prepare.”
‘Cadet College Hasanabdal’ groomed Khurram into a thorough gentleman and he believes that his stay at HasanAbdal proved to be beneficial as it left lasting positive impacts on his personality. He, however, feels that hasanabdal did not provide with a faculty which cultivated and inspired learning rather the faculty there was more inclined towards preparing the students to qualify the examinations. This fact left Khurram wanting in his love for literature being tapped. No one bothered to look beyond the visible and into the hindsight where, in Khurram’s case, lied a great deal of intellect and acumen. Khurram believes that the crowning feature of HasanAbdal is the intense competition amongst the students there. The diabolically fierce competition is the source of the much needed motivation for Abdalians to excel in the board results. Khurram himself stood 5th in Rawalpindi Board in the matric exams, and the four position holders above him were abdalians as well, with the topper just 5 marks ahead of him; thus making every single point more-than-decisive.
His love for the soft subjects was more-than-equally dominating than that for physics or calculus. This very love made him to win the subject prize for ‘English’ at Hasanabdal. Despite all this he found himself to be utterly indecisive about what to do really.
Before joining UET, he spent some two months at Government College Lahore as well. At UET he did not find an environment conducive for learning. Khurram draws a nice analogy, he says that just as in ‘Communism’ the managers pretend to pay and the workers pretend to work; at UET the teachers pretended to teach us and we pretended to study. Khurram had parallel efforts running to secure admission in an undergraduate program in USA. He also qualified all the pre-applications for ‘Massachusetts Institute of Technology’ and was awarded the highest recommendations, but eventually couldn’t make it. The not-so-good environment forced Khurram to go to USA; his high SAT scores helped him.
He secured admission at the ‘Bowdoin College’; located at Brunswick, Maine, USA. Being a private liberal arts college it helped Khurram to explore his love for arts and crafts. It was there that he learnt French, studied English Literature and discovered Western Classic Music and found some exceptional professors of Economics who were very much a part of the learning process. He pursued his studies in ‘Physics’ and ‘Economics’. Being at Bowdoin was a great privilege for Khurram as it was a nurturing experience; and Khurram exclaimed while bringing back to memory Bowdoin College: “I have been extremely lucky.”
Khurram spent two years at Bowdoin and then moved to ‘California Institute of Technology’ (Caltech), a more nurturing place and an option worth exercised in a type of student exchange program offered at Bowdoin. Caltech was an old fashioned place, more humane, with a world class museum, a place you could call more august. Khurram feels that it was more humbling to be at Caltech. He graduated from Caltech as an Electrical Engineer, but he fondly mentioned how Caltech in its infinite wisdom awards a degree of ‘Engineering and Applied Sciences’. He mastered Applied Physics, as Khurram vividly remembered the two quarter lab course in the final year. He enjoyed unique projects, such as manufacturing his own microprocessor from scratch.
The Engineer’s return to Pakistan and involvement in active politics:
Being the only brother of five sisters, he immediately came back from USA after graduation. He still cherishes the immense learning he had at his leaning abodes in States. Over the years he has managed to build up his father’s business in a different way. Khurram is into the Real Estate business, being commercial developers. Apart from that he is also managing a couple of petrol pumps. His active involvement in politics has helped him develop a fine reputation in the political circles.
Problems abound; Pakistan calling for help:
Khurram Dastgir Khan feels that real problems must be identified and addressed. For instance, National Assembly has nothing to say when it comes to FATA because Article 247(3) of the constitution explicitly states that the parliament cannot legislate for FATA. This contradiction in the constitution is still there and we are busy in bloodshed, the need of the hour is to tackle it at the legislative front first, in fact it should had been done in the 70s. Khurram does recognize that the odds are daunting as all the contradictions have exploded at once. However, Khurram Dastgir Khan is optimistic that Pakistan will sustain and prevail – for sure.
Khurram says that Terrorism is the most challenging problem for Pakistan today, which relates to illiteracy deep down. He feels that there has been a long stretched battle in an attempt to justify Pakistan as Constitutional liberal democracy or as a military state or as a theocratic society. In all this, the military and theocracy joined hands and it all ended in this fiasco. Pakistani society was thus denied the option to grow on its own, resultantly it failed to evolve. Khurram disapproves of the rampant state terrorism which is playing havoc with Pakistan. Khurram agrees that Pakistan will have to adopt unpleasant strategies, but he does not agree with the strategy of War. War will not solve the issue, neither for America nor for Pakistan. It has to be small scale intelligence oriented targeted actions. The problem is that Food and Dignity remain the important needs. The need for justice is nothing but a requirement to look after dignity. Khurram believes that the ‘state’s legal monopoly on violence’ has to be restored. The insurgency has resulted in a spectrum of violence which runs between hardcore criminals and religious extremists; with people fighting for food and victims of drone attacks seeking revenge being somewhere in between. Khurram is of the confirmed opinion that we have smugglers fighting for their businesses and drone attacks survivors fighting for revenge, so we need to tackle all this systematically.
Khurram Dastgir Khan draws inspiration from ‘Lee Quan Yu’ of Singapore and ‘Mahatir Muhammad’ of Malaysia who really became the change they wanted to see. They brought in material development through change in attitudes, and Khurram opines that only change in attitudes can bring in development. Khurram wants Pakistan to prosper, and wishes that Khwaja Nazim ud Din’s government would not had been toppled in 1953 and the doctrine of necessity would have never sprung up. He believes that it was then that perpetuation started. He admires Akhtar Hameed Khan as a good social leader. He admires Dr Abdus Salam, but feels that Dr Salim Uz Zaman Siddiqui was a better scientist to be rewarded – for he struggled through the local environment to deliver and fought well with the operational odds prevalent in our set ups.
The personal front:
Khurram Dastgir Khan is a down to earth person, and feels extremely blessed to be a member of the alumni of one of the best institutions of the world. He loves listening to classical music, and is a great fan of the three Bs in western classical music: Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Johannes Brahms.
Among urdu poets he admires Faiz and Iqbal. English Literature has been his life long companion, and he is a great fan of Henry David Foro. Science oriented fiction interests Khurram a lot. Among creators of Urdu Literature he is an admirer of Mukhtar Masud.
