Islamabad/Mumbai: Pakistan has decided to confer its highest civilian honour – Nishan-e-Imtiaz – to two doctors from Mumbai’s Parsi community for keeping Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s terminal illness a secret in 1947.
The doctors – a physician and a radiologist – knew that Jinnah didn’t have much long to live at the time Partition was announced, but they kept it to themselves.
This was announced by Pakistan’s planning minister Ahsan Iqbal in a post on X after the nominations for the civilian and military honours were announced on August 14.
“I feel honoured to have had the privilege, as Chairman of the Awards Committee, of nominating for the Nishan-e-Imtiaz two remarkable doctors, a physician and a radiologist, both members of Bombay’s Parsi community, who faithfully guarded the secret of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s terminal illness,” he said.
Any revelation about the frail health of Jinnah could have impacted the creation of Pakistan in 1947, he explained.
“Many historians regard this as one of the most consequential secrets of the twentieth century. Lord Mountbatten later acknowledged that, had he known how seriously ill Jinnah was, he might have delayed Partition — potentially altering the course of history and perhaps even jeopardising the creation of Pakistan,” Iqbal said.
“By maintaining absolute professional confidentiality at such a critical moment, these doctors performed a quiet but extraordinary service. Their fidelity to their professional oath inadvertently became a significant contribution to the circumstances that made the creation of Pakistan possible,” he stated, as reported by PTI.
The minister didn’t reveal the names of the doctors or who on their part would receive the awards.
The national civil and military awards of Pakistan are traditionally announced on Independence Day (August 14) and are formally conferred at a presidential investiture ceremony on the following Pakistan Day (March 23).
Considered the father of the nation in Pakistan, Jinnah was suffering from tuberculosis, which was incurable in those days, and he died a year after the partition that resulted in the creation of Pakistan.
Actor Dilip Kumar was conferred the ‘Nishan-e-Imtiaz’ in 1998.
