In order to get a clear idea of student movement in Pakistan, we have to look at the religious make up of the educational institutions in the regions, which became East and West Pakistan.
On the western side, student activism sustained a grievous setback at the time of partition. An overwhelming majority of students were non-Muslim. Dow Medical College, Karachi was started in 1945. Only two out of the class of fifty were Muslims. A Muslim Students Federation was formed at the N.E.D Engineering College Karachi in 1947. Ahmad Khan Barakzai was the first President. I interviewed an activist of the time, Mr. Nooruddin Sarki, now a leading attorney of Karachi. After a brief mention of the federation he went on to
enumerate the names of Karachi medical students of the time-M. Haroon, M Sarwar, and Rahman Hashmi-all immigrants, as the pioneers of the students movement.
Roughly the same proportion of Hindu-Muslim students obtained in the educational institutions in all provinces of West Pakistan- Sind, Baluchistan, NWFP and Punjab. Students in the region like elsewhere in India had participated in Independence movement and constituted the youth wing of INC (Indian National Congress). They left for India in 1947, leaving a vacuum among student activist ranks identical to that in all other socio-political fields.
Muslim refugees moved from East Punjab and elsewhere to the new country. Punjabis on both sides of the divide had borne the brunt of the worst excesses of partition. They had been robbed of all assets, dignity and honor and had barely escaped with life. Most had lost family members. They lived in refugee camps and other shelters, gradually settling down and occupying houses left by fleeing non-Muslims. The traumatic experience they had passed through was unprecedented in the annals of human history. All they wanted was to be left alone to pick up the pieces and live as normal a life as they could. They did not have the time, inclination or even the desire to indulge in movements, progressive or otherwise. It, therefore, took a long time for the young immigrants in the Punjab and the few among the locals to get together and plan for the future
In NWFP, the student wing of Khudai Khitmatgars (Servants of God) of Ghaffar Khan, a populist ascetic movement, popularly called red-shirts, because of the color of clothes they sported, had been discredited as they had sided with the losing side in the referendum held to decide if NWFP will join India or Pakistan. As the date of independence drew close pro-Pakistan sentiments took hold of people’s imagination here too. Khudai Khitmatgars had been for many years openly aligned with of INC. Ghaffar Khan echoed Gandhi in preaching non-violence and richly deserved the sobriquet; Frontier Gandhi
Baluchistan was the most feudal-tribal and least developed of the provinces in West Pakistan. As I have described else where, its only city Quetta, was totally dominated by non-Muslims in pre-independence days. In no walk of life- trade, business education, and government service could one find any Muslims. Except for a few Sardars who had houses in the city, Muslims lived in out of town mud houses. One such area was called Islamabad! In nineteen fifty-one there was only one indigenous teacher in the whole province. He was promoted to the ranks of Head Master, Inspector of Schools, Principal of the only college in the province and Director of Education with in a few years. All my teachers were immigrants.
Sind had had a vibrant body of student activists; its traditions went back to early twentieth century. The province was known for the cordial relations between its ethnic groups. It did not have any communal riots till nineteen forty-eight. In fact the Government is widely believed to have abetted disturbances in Karachi a year after partition to drive non-Muslims out, well after the early insanity had subsided. The conflict was between the immigrants and non-Muslims. Indigenous Sindhis did not take part in it. They in fact protected their non-Muslim compatriots when they could. A substantial percentage of Hindus actually stayed back in the interior of the province. The communist party of India, for some reason known only to them, “advised” the
Hindu members to leave for India. To their credit, many including the best known Sobho Ramchndrani, and Pahumal Gianchandrani flouted the advice.
Compared to their Punjabi counterparts, Muslim refugees from India descending on Sindh had arrived relatively unscathed. They had walked into a land of opportunity. Clerks were promoted to managers, supervisors into high officials. Given the relatively intact, though depleted, cadre of activists into which the new arrivals easily merged, student movement in the western wing in early years was, for all practical purposes, confined to Karachi to which city refugees from India had gravitated in their millions. Students, mostly left wing in their leanings-because of family connections, indoctrination or chaotic conditions-launched a movement for better educational facilities such as decent classrooms, libraries, laboratories and reduction in fees and provision of textbooks free or at subsidized rates and above all the right to organize.
Students in undivided Bengal were also in the forefront of the struggle for independence. If any thing, they were even more militant than their counter parts in the rest of the country. They were intellectually influenced by Tagore, Nazrul Islam and other progressive writers. In contrast to West Pakistan, a sizable number of Muslim students also participated in the campaigns and were to play a large role in the 1971 war of secession. And in contrast to the Western side, Hindus did not leave en-masse at the time of partition.
Because of historical circumstances, which are dealt with elsewhere, Hindus were, by and large, more educated and politically conscious. They controlled business, commerce and industry as their Western provinces counterparts did. Hindus constituted 15% of the population in East Pakistan, but occupied over sixty percent of positions in the fields of Education, Health, Law, business and other professions. They played a significant role in keeping progressive thought alive in Muslim Bengal. If the province had been 98% Muslim, it might have fallen in the clutches of obscurantism as the Western wing was destined to do.
After partition Pakistani Bengalis had, in the spirit of nascent nationalism, accepted the over lordship of non-Bengalis in the government at the center and domination of their business, commerce and administration in the province. But they were not prepared to accept a subsidiary status for their language. Jinnah, no doubt, from motives of using one language to cement national solidarity, had declared Urdu the only official language of Pakistan, as had Nehru and Patel for Hindi in India. As noted earlier Urdu, though spoken at home only by the immigrants from India who constituted less than five percent of the total population, was understood in all provinces, East and West. Bengali a rich and highly developed language, with millennia old historical heritage and internationally acclaimed writers, poets and philosophers, was spoken by 55% of the country’s population but was confined to East Pakistan. Bengalis were restive. They demanded that their language be accorded the same status as Urdu.
Jinnah made his first and last post independence visit to Dhaka in March 1948 and at a huge public meeting in Paltan Maidan, declared that Urdu and only Urdu would be the official and national language of Pakistan. No body dare challenge him as he was revered. People resented the declaration but heard him in silence, clapping and shouting Quaid –e- Azam Zindabad on a cue from organizers. He spoke only English; few understood him any way. Sheikh Mujib, a student leader at the time, to be the future leader of independence movement and founder president of Bangladesh, later claimed that he had led a black flag waving group of students and had actually been able to disturb Jinnah’s speech. That is hardly credible. The
crowd would have lynched him. He did take out a small procession after Jinnah had flown back to Karachi.
Over all lead for the national students movement was, however, given by Karachi. Here the students had organized themselves into a party called Democratic students federation (DSF), a left leaning group, which was founded in 1950 in Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi and Faisalabad (then Lyallpur). Not to be outdone, Barkat, Shafi, Sibghat and other school students formed a High school student federation (HSSF). Sarwar, then a medical student was the first president of DSF. Kazim followed him. Its headquarter was in room 29, Mitha Ram Hostel. Curiously enough, core of the leadership came from Dow Medical college, Karachi, which had more than its fair share of leftist students and continued to do so. Medical students have such a load of textbooks, lectures, and laboratory and hospital work, that in the West, they hardly find time to have regular sleep or even meals. But a tranquil Island cannot survive in a chaotic sea. But for students assured of a successful and affluent future was remarkable. Dow medical college produced such leaders as Sarwar, Haroon and Hashmi. The college was also to produce arguably the most prominent of student leaders- Sher Afzal who figured prominently in student politics in late fifties to mid-sixties. Other colleges were not lagging far behind, though, bringing forth such stalwarts as Kazim, Adib Rizvi, Iqbal Naqvi, Wilayat, Rizwan Wasti, and Mazhar Saeed etc. They all spent time in jail, but went on to remarkable professional successes as well.
By late 1952, the movement had gathered sufficient strength to take on the government. Students took out processions, and led marches in Karachi on January 6,7,8/1953. National and International press gave them sympathetic coverage. Prime Minister Nazimuddin called the leaders to his official residence to meeting on January 7/1953 to discuss their demands. The education Minister Fazlur Rahman and senior officials of the ministry attended the moot. Students left the meeting with the impression that their demands had been accepted. In the official press release, however, agreement was denied. Enraged students went on a rampage and finding a car with an official flag on it parked in Saddar a posh commercial area, surrounded it. Its occupant turned out to be none other than the police minister Gurmani. The police panicked and attacked the students with tear gas. The minister succumbed to gas fumes and had to be carried away. By this time a mob had gathered. It put the car to torch and also looted some liquor shops and ammunition stores, brandishing captured guns to frighten the police. Police retaliated by opening fire on a group of students in front of Paradise Cinema in Saddar. (The building no longer houses a Cinema, most of the cinema houses in Karachi were converted/demolished to erect buildings, which were taken over mostly by electronic goods stores). Twenty-six students were killed Nainsuk Lal, a boy scout helping an injured striker, was the first fatal casualty. Several flags got soaked in blood. Public joined in the protest. Shopkeepers pulled the shutters down on places of business; buses were taken off the roads, offices unattended. The city was paralyzed and life came to a halt. Situation got out of the control of security agencies. The Government appealed to the students to help regain peace and calm. Kazim, the overall leader of the movement, generously and in national spirit, announced that the Government had accepted their demands. All leaders of opposition, trade unions, and even those of Jamaat e Islami condemned the police brutality. GOP, instead responding gratefully to Kazim’s gesture of good and considering student demand sympathetically, banned
DSF and put student leaders in jail.
Eight of January was for many years commemorated as Martyrs day with meetings and a procession. One blood soaked flag was carried in the forefront.
Repressive measures of the GOP could not quite suppress the movement. Student leaders from East and West Pakistan got together and gave a call for All Pakistan Students convention in December 1953. M. Sarwar was elected the Chairman of the convening committee. Delegates from colleges all over the country participated. Mateen and Khaliquzzaman came from East Pakistan. Punjab delegation was led by Abid Manto then of Rawalpindi. Alia Imam represented Indian students. She paid a heavy price for it and ended up being deported from the country. Sind had the largest representation, reflective not just of contiguity, but of its politically conscious cadres alluded to earlier. It was led by Syed Mazhar Jamil, now a leading literary critic, art historian and attorney of Karachi. There was a delegation even from Government College Quetta, a veritable back waters.
To coincide with Martyr’s day, convention dates were fixed in January 1954. Venue was Katrak Hall in Saddar. (A relic of pre-partition days, now in sad disrepair, though has to date (2006) escaped the covetous clutches of rapacious builders). Messages of solidarity came from student bodies all over the world. Law minister AK Brohi agreed to be the Chief Guest. He came from a small Baluchi tribe and compared to other ministers, enlightened and progressive. He was an intellectual, and a bright star of the cabinet.
M.Sarwar, at the minister’s request, escorted him from his official residence to the meeting. The Chief Commissioner of Karachi had, in the meanwhile, imposed section 144 which proscribed gathering of more than four persons in public places. The pair arrived at the hall only to find the place in pandemonium. Gurmani, the police minister, (a big feudal lord, who was widely suspected of being involved in the assassination of the first PM Liaquat, along with Ghulam Muhammad and some of the top brass of the Army), was still smarting at the public humiliation of his car burnt to cinders and the ignominy of being carried away from the scene in less than edifying circumstances. His cabinet colleague Brohi, not withstanding, he had orchestrated disruption of the convention.
The administration had sent gangsters to subvert the proceedings. Police followed to “quell” the disorder. Both beat up the students, latter in more brutal fashion. School students were special targets, probably because they were smaller in size and could be punched and kicked with impurity. Prominent among the latter were Sibghat Kadri (now a Queens counsel in Britain), Wadood (Deputy Attorney General of Pakistan under Benazir in her first term of office), Saghir, Shafi and Barkat. Hamza Khatoon, and Zarina were outstanding among the girls. They were all to distinguish themselves in their chosen walk of life.
Student leaders, wise in the ways of the police, had taken the precaution of organizing a defense squad led by no other than Adeeb Rizvi, later to distinguish himself for his work in Kidney diseases and founding the Sind Institute of Urology and Transplant (SIUT). Sher Afzal Malik, a medical student of Punjabi origin, but brought up in Peshawar, was a sort of “Red Guard” Lieutenant Commander of the security detail. He turned out to be, as we shall see later, the most notable new find of the convention. The guards saved many a life and limb. A gangster, who was later to become a respectable small traders union leader, was blocked in the nick of time from throwing a girl from an upper floor balcony.
The student volunteers somehow managed to control the situation for long enough to enable Brohi to conclude his address to the convention, but rest of the proceedings had to be moved to Model school premises in Pakistan Chowk. The convention passed a resolution to form All Pakistan Students Organization (APSO), elected M.Sarwar as the General Secretary General and Iqbal a right-winger as the President. Numerous student organizations in small and large towns of all the provinces of West Pakistan decided to merge with it. Bengali delegates pledged that they would seek the approval of their groups to do the same. .
Reacting to police and gangster brutality enraged students spread all over the city. Press and public again supported them. Police dare not take overt action so bloodshed was avoided. But many students were arrested and spent months in jail. Student movement was, though, coerced into animated suspension. Pakistan joined Western Security organizations in 1954 and by a queer coincidence (or design) APSO was also banned about the same time.
. Karachi was a city of several million. Close to a million slept on footpaths. About two million lived in Jhuggis- straw and mud huts, which had sprouted all over the city. Luckier ones shared ten or more to a tiny apartment. Though there did exist colonies as far-flung as Malir and Landhi, going to the newly built Cricket stadium was an adventure. It stood in solitary splendor, in the middle of nowhere.
Most of the college and university students had full time jobs. The city gave an overall impression of a huge transient refugee camp, on a march to an uncertain destination. There was surprisingly little bitterness or depression, though people lacked all amenities. Water was scarce, and food limited. Even toilets were communal. But it had a vibrant intellectual life. Students, journalists, leftist, rightists, political activists and aspiring political leaders all congregated in numerous coffee houses and indulged in endless discussions on every topic under the son over a cup of tea which would last hours. Waiters, many of whom were students themselves, would ignore the owner’s orders to ask the customers to order more tea. Socio-political issues dominated. The city was peaceful. If one could not get a bus due to the late hour, walking was no hazard.
. National students federation (NSF) had been a parallel moderate/right wing student body. It had been totally eclipsed by DSF. Second-generation student leaders Wadood, Sibghat and others negotiated with NSF- Sher Afzal was still only a strong-arm man- and a merger meeting was convened in early 1955 in an apartment in a building in Moulvi Musafar Khana off Bunder road. Some 50-60 students attended, almost equally divided between left-wingers and moderates. A coalition was worked out. To my utter surprise I was offered joint Secretary ship. I was not quite ready for the commitment and declined the honor on the rather lame excuse that I could not possibly cope with the office, as I was quite busy with the chemical society of which as described earlier I was a joint secretary. But my star rose higher. Shunning office was a mark of high character.
The one activity of particular note I recall from those days was the procession we took out to protest the attack of Britain, France and Israel on Suez Canal. We went round to various colleges and schools and appealed to the students to come with us. In schools we would first approach the Headmasters to let the students go. They would generally comply. One, however, did not and I hit upon the idea of ringing the school bell. All students left their classes immediately! We made our way to the Egyptian Consulate. The consul thanked us. One of the
audience asked him about his country’s stand on Kashmir dispute. All the man would say was that he prayed that all the problems of Muslims would be resolved. (Few Arab countries ever supported Pakistan on any issue against India. Though Pakistan was always in the Arab corner, its participation in Western security pacts made its motives suspect. Nehru stoutly supported all the anti-colonial movements and had mesmerized the Arabs. On a visit he was hailed as “rasool as salaam” messenger of peace. I remember Pakistani public was incensed that a Kafir had been called Rasool, word sub-continental Muslims associate almost exclusively with messengers from god. It is only recently that some Pakistanis have started questioning their unconditional support of all Arab causes).
We went on to the PM’s residence. Suhrawardy came out and told us that the Government was cognizant of the issue and was doing whatever it could. Some one asked him why all the Muslim countries could not get together and defeat the aggressors. I cannot forget his response. He said zero plus zero plus zero was zero!!
One of the notable leaders this period threw up was Fatehyab Ali Khan, Vice-President of Islamia college students Union at the time. He was later elected President of Karachi university union and Chairman of ICB as well. A thorough gentleman, cultured and articulate, a good public speaker, he later joined Mazdoor Kisan party and rose to be its president. (For some little understood reason, ZA Bhutto’s widow Nusrat and daughter Benazir like him a lot. In fact, he has the dubious distinction of being about the only person for whom Benazir had kind words in her book, Daughter of the East). Another student leader to make his mark at the time was Mairaj Muhammad Khan, an emotional orator, and younger brother of a leftist luminary who was a well-known journalist. Mairaj was befriended by ZA Bhutto, and was once introduced by him to the public as one of his successors. (The other was Mustafa Khar). Meraj was never able to live down the association). He was a minister of state in Bhutto’s government. His power base was the industrial labor unions of Karachi. When Bhutto moved against organized labor, the latter implored him to resign. He did not, taking the plea that he could serve his constituency better from inside the cabinet. He pleaded for the workers with Bhutto, to no avail. As a token of solidarity he once joined a union procession and set some kind of record for being beaten up by the police in public, while a sitting minister. (In later days the Mayor of Karachi was hit on the head with a police baton. His blood soaked photograph was splashed all over the newspapers and foreign electronic media). Once Bhutto had crushed the unions he sacked Mairaj and put him in jail. Later Meraj was to launch his own party and join other parties too. His last fling was joining hands with Imran Khan, the cricketer, turned politician. It must have been unpleasant experience and a come down as well. Shafi, a brilliant debater was a spent force by the time I met him in 1955-56. Barkat, a party ideologue par ex”el.lance, had also been sidelined. He migrated to Britain and settled in Glasgow. Saghir joined Pakistan International Airlines and was the main force behind the Airline’s officers union.
All these undoubtedly talented young men had had to play a second fiddle to Sher Afzal, the man who dominated student politics of Karachi from 1955 to 1965. In late fifties and early sixties he was unarguably the most influential and by far the best-known student leader of the country, East and West. (Sher Afzal was the protégé of a dynamic young man, and larger than life Political figure Hasan Nasir, scion of an aristocratic family of Hyderabad Deccan, who had been recruited into the communist party while a student at Cambridge, England. He had
stopped over in Karachi in 1949 on the way to back to the university and friends had persuaded him to stay on. He was ostensibly office secretary of National Awami Party, a left wing political organization, but in actual fact was the top man of the communist party of Pakistan. He had been implicated in the 1951 Pindi conspiracy. He was briefly jailed and then exiled. Pandit Nehru is said to have made a personal appeal on his behalf to Liaquat. His mother came from India and took him to Switzerland for a holiday. He returned to Pakistan a few years later. Wadood once took me to meet him. He had great physical presence and greater intellectual powers and dominated the counsels of all left wing political leaders of the country.
Hasan Nasir went underground when Ayub Khan took over and suppressed all political activities and freedom of expression. He spent a part of his underground time in the home of the foreign secretary whose daughters were said to be in love with him. He had truly declassed himself. Wadood, in a rather mysterious fashion, asked me to accompany him to an out the way a locality in the town. We met Hasan Nasir who had spent the previous night sleeping on the footpath. I must say he did not look any worse for it. He was eventually arrested. It was widely believed at the time that he was betrayed to the police by a close and trusted associate, a journalist in the higher ranks of the party. (That reminds me of an anecdote. The Secretary General of the Communist Party of the USA, while addressing a secret session of the politburo, stared with the salutation. “Comrades and after a pregnant pause, members of the FBI”. A judicial luminary and erstwhile votary of Benazir’s PPP of told me recently that security agencies had their men in the highest councils of the party and were fully briefed on all discussions. Hasan Nasir had managed to exclude the agents from two or three meetings. Interrogators insistently asked him about them. His only response was “Bako Mat”, don’t talk rot. He was tortured to death in Lahore fort. He was only thirty-two. Faiz, arguably the most renowned Urdu poet and unarguably the leading progressive muse in the language in the twentieth century, wrote a beautiful elegy for him. I quote a verse
“ Kaun Hota Hai hareefe-e-mai mard afghane ishq
Hai mukarrar ye sila labe saqi pe mere baad”
(Roughly translated it means that who will carry the emblem of defiance after me).
As noted earlier, Sher Afzal had made his initial appearance in student politics as a strong-arm man. He was something of a hooligan in his early years in the medical school, and acted the buffoon in public and private. He was molded by Hasan Nasir who indoctrinated him in communist theology and imposed him on leaders senior to him in hierarchy. Wadood, Sibghat and even more senior ones like Hashmi resented him but couldn’t defy Hasan Nasir. Sher Afzal underwent complete transformation. He adapted a serious demeanor, gave up pranks, and studied political science and international relations. A man of great innate qualities he could converse at all levels- with intellectuals, students and industrial workers. Punjabi was his mother tongue, but he had gone to school in Peshawar, and spoke Pushto like a native. In Karachi he had learnt Gujarati and Sindhi as well. He was fluent in Urdu though it was hardly chaste and managed English well enough, though it was deficient in grammar and diction. He had great organizational skills and had a devoted circle of admirers from all linguistic groups, but was weak in political theory. In a sense he was a true believer in providence. When he got his monthly money order from his father he would spend it all on taking all of us in a Victoria (a
ceremonial Horse carriage named after the English Queen described fully elsewhere) to a restaurant and treat us to a lavish dinner and keep on going at it till he had run thorough the funds and subsequently subsisted on meals ungrudgingly bought for him by all his friends till his stipend came again.
He was elected president of Dow Medical students union in 1956. The union made some radical demands. The administration would not agree. A dozen or so activists, Sher Afzal among them and including a few girls went on hunger strike. It lasted many days and gathered sufficient public support to make no less a person than H.S. Suharwardy, the PM at the time to visit the college and give Sher Afzal a drink to break his fast. A natural populist, Suharwardy accepted all students’ demands. BBC, Tass and other international agencies flashed the news. Sher Afzal was lionized by the students, the public and party bosses and never looked back.
S.Ehtisham MD,
PO Box 469,
Bath NY 14810,
USA
