Born as Indira Salma Hussain in an elite family in pre-Partition India, here is a woman who surmounted  odds to achieve  success in business and politics in a patriarchal society in Pakistan.

Winner of the  Priyadarshini award for being Pakistan’s most successful woman entrepreneur since 1947 Salma is an active member of  Pakistan Muslim League.

Author of Cutting Free; The Extraordinary Memoir of a Pakistani Woman published by the Roli Books, Salma speaks on her political and business career, her interaction with Indira and Rajiv Gandhi and reveals what it takes it to be successful in Pakistan.

You share your name with Indira Gandhi. What are your reminiscences about her? Why does your book cover has only Salma Ahmad on it?

It is a singular honour for me that I am named after Indira Gandhi. I do not think there is anyone else in Pakistan who had been named after her, as my circumstances have been different to others since my maternal granduncle was Education Minister in Panditji’s first Cabinet.

I find myself lucky that I was able to meet Indira Gandhi when she was the Prime Minister of India and the photograph taken with me signed by her is a prized memento for me.

How can I compare myself to Indira Gandhi? She was a towering personality and a childhood heroine of mine. But I tried to emulate her by aiming for the stars in my own field.

My name Begum Salma Ahmed is an ‘adopted’ one, in as much as ‘Ahmed’ is not my surname, nor my maiden name – it is my ‘political’ name and I am known by this name in India, Pakistan and abroad.

Being Pakistan’s first woman industrialist and perhaps the only lady ship-breaker in the world, makes me feel grateful to God.

Would you attribute your successful political career to your family lineage? Has it helped ‘being your father’s daughter’?

No I would not even start to say that I have been my ‘father’s daughter’ of course, I have benefited only from my upbringing, diplomatic background, my education & exposure, and my family background.

I was not ‘my father’s daughter’ setting up business I was not ‘my father’s daughter’ in choosing to have a political career. I have always tried to be my own person. I am ‘self-made’. Throughout your book the common refrain is ‘I am alone’.

For example, when you were asked why do you use chador, your reply was ‘I do not have a husband and that is why I use chador’. I think I have been ‘alone’ for much of my life. I did not realize how apparent it is in my book. But it is the truth.

Cutting Free means cutting free from taboos, traditions and seeking one’s own identity without a man, which I think I partially succeeded in doing. I do not consider that marriage is indispensable for women, especially at a later stage. I have developed solely as an individual without support systems.

One must acknowledge, that women and men go together and complement each other. It need not be marriage alone, it can be sustainable relationship of a companion, friend, father, brother or son.

You survived tribulations as you had good education, which many women do not have. How do you wish to help them?

I am grateful for my education and upbringing. However, my mission is to help the less fortunate women by mentoring them, giving them courage and the confidence to shape their lives in such a manner that they do not constantly stand in need of economic assistance, with a ‘beggar’s bowl’ in their hands.

You have chosen your last resting place in Delhi. Why?

I have chosen my last resting place in Delhi in the precincts of Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia’s tomb. This is the happiest thought.

I did not choose my birthplacebut I can choose where I want my remains to be, in the world of qawali, in the mystic sufi surroundings of the mazaar and let the rest of the world go by.