Student Politics in Pakistan: A Profile

Re: # 41 Posted by IB on March 3, 2008 8:10:19 pm

And that is where his ass got kicked. If memory serves me right, Sardar Rahim got elected President as a Progressive Student candidate.

[a) All Pakistan Muttahida (initially Mohajir) Students Organization (APMSO) actually started from University of Karachi and National College Karachi in 1976-77.
b) Altaf Hussain initially started as an activist of Jamiat-e-Tulbai Islam when he enrolled into first year of B-Pharm, University of Karachi.]

[He later formed a progressive group – which later turned into APMSO.]

Progressive group? Created on hate mongering and dada geeri?
Are you some kind of a comedian? These people were from the lot of Al-Shams and Al-Badar, that wreacked havoc in East Pakistan. How can such people form a progressive group?


[The idea was to safe guard the interests of Mohajirs against non-mohajirs. The rationale given at that time was:
i) since all other ethinicities had student movements safeguarding there interests why not a students movement for the mohajirs]

That was the biggest lie. There were student's group on National aspiration and not based on ethnic superiority. This group of Mohajirs wanted ethnic supriority, and nothing else.

[ii) for the end of quota system]

This line was stolen from IJT and was used to create hate and the killing fields in Karachi.

[iii) end to religious forces in students politics]

Have you ever attended a Mohajir gathering. They almost always start their functions with a religious prayer. ANd you call these what? You consider yourselves as secular.


[...his leadership qualities (although he has completely lost it now) then.]

He never had any leadership qualities. Nowadays societies demand servant leadership and no one in Pakistan knows the meaning of this new characteristic of a leader. Gone are the days of total "goonda gurdi" and "badmaashi".

What a useless group of secular minded socialists they were? As one would say they did not have an inkling of secularism. They were just those who wanted to avail the best in which way the wind was blowing.

Just have a look at their leadership, and one can easily see that they never promoted the most downtrodden of the lot amongst them (regarding social power), the minorities.

Those secular idiots were after all students, and they should have been fair and invited amongst them the most enlightened amongst the population, the religious minorities, the ethnic minorities, the provincial minorities. They were a lost group of students who had no idea how to get these diverse group of students together.

The young ones in those days are the leaders today. These so-called leaders lost yesterday. They are losing today. No wonder we see a dilapidated Pakistani nationalism.

Re: # 47

Zee,

Whats the source of your data? Can I have the link?

#43/#44 Posted by vengatramanan,

...let us meet on DMji's board. Is that ok?

err ... I'm too lazy to click more times than is necessary ...

Re Majumdar's answer, I didn't say what you reproduced.

I had pointed to the base-year effect (i.e. the compounding of price change within the period since the base-year till current year) which renders the 'real' growth as rather 'unreal'.

Nadeem always reminds me of my rebel friends of college days in India. I know of ppl who left studies & joined Naxals.

This attraction to politics is one thing and attraction to left/right ideology is another thing. If leftists started it first (i.e. indoctrinating young ppl in college) then right wingers started it late. We have Hindu right wingers in India and they have Muslim right-wingers in Pakistan.

The political thoughts of Marx and his ilk are valid for their lifetimes but not for ours. We need to have another Marx in our times. Let Marx sleep in his grave in Highgate. The history of Polpot, Mao and others shud reminds us that politics san humanism is meaningless. Marxist tyranny is as bad as dictatorship, coz humans are not gods. Democratic ideology alone has this self-correcting mechanism of human frailties.

As it stands today, student politics in our midst is stuck in time warp. They need to concentrate more on studies than politics. Indian student politics are corrupted by the political parties. Spending crores of rupees for student elections is a norm. This MUST stop. What after all a student leader promises is a cycle/mobike stand, good canteen, neat toilets etc., but he spends crores of rupees for elections which doesn’t pay him a penny!!!!!!!!

It's the political parties who infuse funds into campus elections. It's the time the political parties call quits in campuses, else the outcome of that intrusion is the corrupt student leaders, criminals entering campuses, electoral malpractices and the whole process of replicating general election process into students' lives. This is pure bad.

Re: # 38

{All Pakistan Muttahida (initially Mohajir) Students Organization (APMSO) was actually formed in Hyderabad in 1975-76 when altaf pai lived in Hyderabad. He was a known informer for the local IB.}

HP Saeen

I know u r a honorable person therefore these comments would be based on some external source, such as the IB or someother intelligence agency. Since I was personally involved in APMSO formation, I know for a fact what u have stated is baselsss and fabricated. So we have a situation here, whether to believe stereotypical, self promoted prejuidices or someone who was there right from the begining. then again, we live in a world of perceptions built around beliefs closest to our heart.

Saeen, its time u woke up and smelt the coffee, stored prejuidices can never be a healthy recipe.

Re: # 43

Also, I felt you dodged Majumdar's answer by saying that even if the economic growth is inflation adjusted, it will just negate the inflation and still end in the negative. I thought Majumdar's was a right answer.

Anyways, please allow the interators on this board to do what they are interested in and let us meet on DMji's board. Is that ok?

Re: # 33

Zeemax,

Thanks Sir for the effort. Can we continue our discussion on the board we started. I, accidentally, clicked on the author's name and the link read ' Anarchist '. I have always been attracted by them. Apart from that I do not think much about student politics.

Please allow me some more time as I have to juggle between the work that I get paid for (have lots for a few more weeks) and the question that has interested me. I think I need to give you a honest and responsible answer.

Thanks,

Re: # 41 bhai mitarway , u get lost . talking all BS . You seem to have benefitted a lot from the facist MQM.

HP your fascist ideology of ‘Jaey Sind’ is rotten.

a) All Pakistan Muttahida (initially Mohajir) Students Organization (APMSO) actually started from University of Karachi and National College Karachi in 1976-77.
b) Altaf Hussain initially started as an activist of Jamiat-e-Tulbai Islam when he enrolled into first year of B-Pharm, University of Karachi. He later formed a progressive group – which later turned into APMSO. The idea was to safe guard the interests of Mohajirs against non-mohajirs. The rationale given at that time was:
i) since all other ethinicities had student movements safeguarding there interests why not a students movement for the mohajirs
ii) for the end of quota system
iii) end to religious forces in students politics


Yes agreed Altaf Hussain was helped by the government to organize but that was because the government realized his leadership qualities (although he has completely lost it now) then.

Are these slogans still around?


Galay Saray Nizam Ko

Aik Dhakka Aur Do

In Sadiyon Kay Beemaron Ko

Aik Dhakka Aur Do

In Girti Huwi Deewaron Ko

Aik Dhakka Aur Do

*NangaPir/HP
Hello. I was associated with NSF (Kazmi) at the Punjab University in the early and mid seventies. This article has been a wonderful way to find out what happened to student politics especially regarding union elections after I left the country in 1977. I have already written to Mr. Paracha asking for more detail of the state of student politics in the 1980s, since he was with NSF in this era. However, I would love it if you two can add a bit more to what you have already written here. Thanks.

Remarkable effort! However, there are many gaps.
Some more ancient history!

Perhaps either in 1963 or 64, there was a major student effort against the Ayub regime. I just don’t know what caused it & what the issues were. But 5 or 6 student leaders emerged out of that. Mairaj M. Khan, Fatahyab ali Khan, Dr. Rashid Hassan, Nawaz Butt and one or two more whose names I can’t recall now(One Dr. Afzal something). They were all progressive and were NSF. I believe there was no IJT in Karachi at that time. While the Sino-Soviet split came in the progressive movement, NSF completely went pro china in Karachi & split in two factions: Mairaj group and Dr. Rashid Hassan Khan group. Someone told me that Dr. Rashid Hassan ended up having his own communist Party or a leftist group. He was active in student politics for a long time but disappeared sometime in the late 70s. The Mairaj group later split in two groups in the late sixties and they were Bari group (I don’t recall his first name). The other group was Amir Haider Kazmi Group. So Amir Haider Kazmi was not in the first group of leaders as you have mentioned.

For couple of years these two groups (Bari and Kazmi) fought against each other in Karachi colleges. After 1972 or 73 IJT emerged on the scene.

The situation in the interior Sindh was different. There were initially two groups Jiay Sindh and the other which you did not mention at all, was SNSF(Sindh NSF). The University of Sindh saw some epic battles between these two groups from 1967 to 1972.
Nawab Yousuf Talpur(now a PPP MNA and sometime minister) was the President of JSSF and Jam Saqi was the president of SNSF( he too is in PPP now and a likely Senator from Sindh)
Some other presidents for both groups were Mehar H. Shah and Iqbal Tareen.

People’s student Federation of PPP later became popular but was never popular in the Uni of Sindh, Mehran Engineering College and Liaquat Medical College all in Jamshoro! Or even in Agri-University in Tando Jam.

DSF Democratic Student Federation reemerged as an umbrella group for four student organizations. Sindh NSF(Jam saqi), BSO-Baloch Student Organization (Dr.Abdul Hai Baloch was the First President), Pushtoon Students Federation( Afrasiab Khattak, now ANP provincial president was the first President and remained that until he left for Afghanistan with Asfandyar Wali when they were implicated in Hayat Sherpao’s murder(Aftab Sherpao’s older brother) Mukhtar Bacha was the Secretary or President for one time. Later he joined Mazdoor Kissan Party.
Punjab student federation. Don’t know much about it!

DSF and other mentioned above organizations were owned and operated by the Communist Party Pro-Soviet union and were under the NAP umbrella. When NAP was banned and later split in Baloch and Pushtoon Groups these students’ organizations lost their support too. NAP was as you perhaps know also provided cover for the Communist Party though Wali Khan hated the communists. Baloch favored the communists!

All Pakistan Muttahida (initially Mohajir) Students Organization (APMSO) was actually formed in Hyderabad in 1975-76 when altaf pai lived in Hyderabad. He was a known informer for the local IB.

One error:
“Famous former members: Dr. Muhammad Sarwar (Writer); Hassan Naqi (Writer); Nazish Amrohvi (Poet); Adeeb-ul-Hasan Rizvi (Urologist).”

Nazish Amrohvi was too old to be a student. He was actually General Secretary of the Communist Party and used to conduct study groups in Marxist ideology in secret for students. He died in the late 80s or early 90s.
Hassan Naqi was an editor of some magazine. Never heard of Adeeb Rizvi.

it takes a special kind of mediocrity to tout student politics as worth celebration

Re: # 34 NangaPir, you make fiction sound 'reality'...
get a life.

Sorry. To complete the story. Soon after election Zafar Arif used USM as a stepping stone and shed all others except PSF. This PSF was different from neighboring NED's PSF where Sifwan Shah was busy in sloganeering "NED for NEDians" on pirated books. So the myopic left wing organizations and especially their leaders are partially to be blamed for current situation in Pakistan.