a tribute by Javed jabbar
With the passing away of Nikhil Chakravarty and Mahbub ul Haq less than three weeks apart, on 27 June and 16 July, South Asia has lost two outstanding individuals who belonged to different countries yet shared a deep commitment to the region.
While the fact that Nikhil Chakravarty was Indian and Mahbub ul Haq was Pakistani underlines their distinct national identities within South Asia, their personal attributes were so universal and humanistic that they rose above the variances to define the large, singular vision of which they, and all of us, are intrinsic parts.
The two were born in territories (Nikhil Chakravarty in Bengal and Mahbub ul Haq in Jammu) which at one time or another experienced the pain of Partition and the emergence of a new identity. This experience perhaps accentuated their struggle for a unifying conceptual approach that respects national individuality while promoting a fraternal consensus on fundamental issues of social justice.
Though they shared high values and ideals, the two personalities evolved their perspectives through sharply contrasting institutional processes. Nikhil Chakravarty initially worked in the political sphere on the specific ideological basis of communism and of the Left, to eventually concentrate on journalism and the media. Mahbub ul Haq began by working in the Planning Commission in the Government of Pakistan and then went to work in the World Bank in Washington DC and at UNDP in New York. In the 1980s, Mahbub ul Haq participated directly in the political process of Pakistan by becoming a member of the Senate and of the Cabinet.