Shahid Malik was the longest serving Pakistan High Commissioner to India ( from 2006 to 2012 )
https://thehinduimages.com/details-page.php?id=10655471
I came to know him well when I was a Judge of the Indian Supreme Court ( 2006-2011 ), and he was the Pakistan High Commissioner posted in Delhi. We are both fond of Urdu poetry, and I used to meet him often in mushairas in Delhi.
I gave a judgment in the Supreme Court in 2011 appealing to the Pakistan Govt to release Gopal Das, an Indian who had been arrested in Pakistan and given life sentence for spying. He had spent 27 years in Pakistani jails, and in my judgment I quoted the Urdu poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz’ sher :
” Qafas udaas hai yaaron saba se kuch to kaho
Kaheen to beher-e-khuda aaj zikr-e-yaar chale ”
After delivering the judgment when I reached home I telephoned Shahid saheb, and informed him of my judgment, and requested him to send a copy to his government in Islamabad. He said he will send it by the first diplomatic pouch, which he did, and within a few days the Pakistan Govt announced that it would honour the appeal of the Indian Supreme Court, and released Gopal Das. This was something unprecedented in world judicial history
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/satyam-bruyat/the-power-of-urdu-poetry
I had lost touch with Shahid Malik, until recently I was given his whatsapp number by Mr Shamshad Ahmad, former Pakistan Foreign Secretary ( who was much senior to Shahid Malik in Pakistan’s Foreign Service, and is many years elder to me ). Shamshad saheb and I had a spat a long time back, but have become friends again
https://www.nation.com.pk/02-Mar-2013/the-truth-about-pakistan
https://www.outlookindia.com/national/pakistan-is-a-fake-and-artificial-country-news-284178
So I messaged Shahid saheb recently, recalling our acquaintance in Delhi, and he gave polite replies, often interspersed with Urdu couplets.
I recently sent him this link of an article I wrote in connection with the Pahalgam inident and developments thereafter :
https://www.hastakshepnews.com/2025/05/one-month-since-pahalgam-killings.html
Yesterday I received from him this long message, which I thought was unusually strong :
Mr.Justice Katju,
Greetings !
One is put off , at the very outset, by your highly biased and self-serving analysis of the Pehlgam incident.
One can attribute any number of reasons as to why it happened or who was responsible for it. The fact however remains that your ‘Sarkar’ refuses to carry out an independent enquiry into the incident, as suggested by Pakistan and endorsed by other countries. A person of your background, having spent a lifetime attempting to unearth the ulterior motives behind a crime should have been supportive of it.
“Kaisa pardah hai ke chilman sey lagey baithay hain
Saaf chuptay bhi nahin saamnay aatey bhi nahin”
( Daagh)
Further, to call the Two-nation theory ‘ bogus’, as you have so repeatedly and unconvincingly stated in your articles, is a blatant distortion of history and the denial of the very genesis of Pakistan. Coming from an erudite person like you it is all the more dismaying and disappointing.
Pls remember 14 August every year is commemorated with gusto as the day for “Tajdeed e ehad e wafaa ” and will be so till eternity, Insha Allah.
Let’s move on as two sovereign independent countries. We have repeatedly sought a dialogue to sort out our differences. But there has been no response. it takes two to tango !:
I am an optimist and remain hopeful.
Reminded here of a couplet by Faiz :-
“Hum ke tehray ajnaabi itni mudaraton ke baad
Phir banein gey aashna kitni mulaqaaton ke baad “
And, Sir how can anyone, unless blinded by blinkers, even suggest or contemplate
‘reunification’, given the horrific and abysmal treatment of the Muslims in India. It is there for everyone to see. I’m sure a person of your discernment and judgement cannot be oblivious of it. No one dare raise a voice against it, for those who brave it and speak out are brutally silenced. Whom should they turn to for redressal and atonement ? I recall here a couplet which sums it up well :-
Mein kis key haath pey appna lahoo talaash karon
Tamaam shehr ney pehney huey hain dastaaney.
Regards.
So I sent Shahid Malik this reply :
Dear Shahid saheb,
We have been friends for very long, so even if we disagree on many issues I hope we can remain friends.Our common love for Urdu poetry should be a strong bond between us.
Now coming to your long message, here is my response :
1. You say I am biased. But if you notice my article carefully, you will see that I have not blamed Pakistan for the Pahalgam terror attack. Instead I have blamed some foreign power which wants India and Pakistan to fight each other. How can you call this bias ?
2. As regards the Pakistan Government’s statement that an independent enquiry should be held into the Pahalgam incident, I agree with it, and have said so many times e.g. in this interview from Brisbane, Australia by Sajida Amin ( see after 24 minutes of the video ) :
See also from 23 minutes onwards of this panel discussion :
https://www.facebook.com/justicekatju/videos/4055047868088797
3. As regards my view about the two nation theory, which I called bogus, and the Partition of India, which I regard as a British swindle, I have given my reasons several times, as in the links below, and hence need not repeat the same.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/satyam-bruyat/the-truth-about-partition
The real reason for Partition was: (a) the British did not want united India to emerge as a modern industrial giant, and thus a big rival to British industry; (b) they wanted India to remain a big market for the Western arms industry (India is perhaps the biggest purchaser of foreign arms in the world).
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/present-scenario-south-asia-markandey-katju
We are bound to reunite under a secular government, as we really one country, though that will take time
https://indicanews.com/justice-markandey-katju-how-will-history-look-back-at-events-in-pakistan
Some people say I am propagating the RSS idea of Akhand Bharat, but I am not. The RSS idea of reunified India as Akhand Bharat is of a reunified India under Hindu domination, which I am totally opposed to. The idea of reunified India of the Indian Reunification Assoction, of which I am the patron, is of a reunified India in which all communities will be equal, and none will dominate over others
https://indicanews.com/justice-markandey-katju-indian-reunification-is-an-idea-whose-time-has-come
https://indicanews.com/indo-pak-reunification
4. Many Pakistanis, including you, say that considering the developments in India since the BJP came to power in 2014 and the subsequent atrocities on Indian Muslims, Jinnah and the two-nation theory he propagated (that Hindus and Muslims are two separate nations) have been proven right, and Partition of India in 1947 was correct and was necessary to protect Muslims.
In this connection I wish to say that I have always condemned atrocities on Indian Muslims
https://www.siasat.pk/threads/muslim-rulers-deliberately-projected-as-intolerant-katju.198583
However, to say that the plight of Indian Muslims proves Jinnah correct, is a fallacious idea.
In fact it was Partition which is largely responsible for the plight of Indian Muslims, as well as the plight of minorities in Pakistan today. It is also responsible for the plight of the vast majority of people in India and Pakistan, most of whom are poor, unemployed and suffering from lack of proper nourishment, healthcare and good education.
It is because of Partition that Indians and Pakistanis spend much of their precious and scarce resources on animosity and fighting each other and buying foreign arms, instead of on fighting their common enemy viz massive poverty, massive unemployment, appalling level of child malnutrition ( every second child in India is malnourished, according to Global Hunger Index, and the situation in recent years has deteriorated ), skyrocketing prices of food and other essential commodities, almost total lack of proper healthcare and good education for the masses, etc.
It would not have been so had India been united under modern-minded, genuinely patriotic leaders, who would have transformed it into a modern industrial giant, like China, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty
