LONDON, FEBRUARY 18: Pakistan's High Commissioner in London, Akbar Ahmed, is in a spot following confirmation of allegations that the 1998 film Jinnah was co-written by Indian-born Farrukh Dhondy. Ahmed, who conceived the film as Pakistan's answer to Sir Richard Attenborough's Gandhi and was its executive producer, has always claimed that he had co-written the script with director Jamil Dehlavi.Dehlavi, who is now suing the High Commissioner over unpaid bills and the films credits has been quoted in the British press as saying that Ahmed ``did not write a word'' of the script. Ahmed is also reported to have accepted that Dhondy was involved in the screenplay but only in a marginal way.Dhondy himself has, however, said emphatically: ``I wrote the script.'' He said he had been ``assisted'' by Dehlavi, as is customary for a director. He told The Indian Express that although he was paid just one pound for his copyright, the company formed by Ahmed to make the film ``contrived to pay me (12,000) in different ways''. He said they had paid ``expenses'' and for travel to India among other things.Dhondy said he had a ``verbal contract'' with Ahmed, whom he has known since they were undergraduate students at Cambridge. Ahmed, he said, asked him not to tell anyone that he had written the script. ``You are an Indian, not a Muslim, a socialist by reputation and some people in Pakistan think you are anti-Pakistani,'' Ahmed said to him, claimed Dhondy. ``I did not tell anyone, but yesterday I was confronted by The Guardian which said that Ahmed had conceded I had written part of it,'' he said.Dhondy said he had been reluctant to write the script. ``I didn't see why they should select an Indian.someone out of sympathy with Pakistan.I was brought up to believe that the division of the country was a tragedy,'' he said. Akbar persuaded him to write the script as a ``drama'', which he did after reading Wolpert's Jinnah and Andrew Roberts.Ahmed, normally more than willing to speak to the Press, was ``very busy with VIPs'' today. However, he told The Guardian that the accusations against him were part of a conspiracy by the ``Indian lobby'' to discredit him and, by extension, the new military regime. Dhondy said this was laughable.``Musharraf should not have made Akbar Ahmed High Commissioner. He should have made me High Commissioner for writing a good script,'' he said with his tongue in his cheek. ``The film was shown to the (Pakistani) military brass.they all clapped.they were clapping for me and not for Akbar Ahmed.''The controversy does not end here. Ahmed has been accused of misappropriating funds from the film. Jamil Dehlavi has accused him of paying himself a sum of more than - 50,000 for the script. Apart from questions about his contributions if any to the script, Ahmed repeatedly said in public that he was going to pay himself only one pound for his involvement in the project.He is also alleged to have paid - 35,000 to his son Babar and an equal amount to his son-in-law, Arsallah Khan Hoti, as co-producer and associate producer, respectively. The money was paid into a family bank account in Jersey in the name of Ahmed's wife, Zeenat Ahmed. Ahmed told The Guardian that his son and son-in-law were paid for helping raise funds for the film from their family.Dehlavi says that neither men had anything to do with the film. Two other men who worked on the film, production accountant Peter Winstanley and production supervisor Andrew Wood, also told The Guardian that neither of the men was involved in any way.For Ahmed, a Pakistani civil servant who has assiduously cultivated the image of the moderate spokesperson for Islam and Pakistan in the West, becoming High Commissioner - albeit under a military regime - was the crowning achievement of his career. For the military regime in Pakistan, the appointment of a supposed ``liberal'' academic was seen as something of a public relations coup at a time of imminent international isolation.But the controversy over Dhondy's involvement in a film about the founding father of Pakistan and allegation of misuse of funds will raise questions about the appropriateness of the choice of Ahmed as High Commissioner.
