Another Forgotten Hero of Pakistan

HP...

I think you are confusing the NAP with the Pakistan National Party...

The rest of the info is correct.

Jay,

What blighted stars are you talking about?



HP,


In one of the footnotes in Ayesha Jalal`s famous book I found this information... Jinnah rejected the overtures of three groups to join up with the league in the struggle for Pakistan (whatever that meant)....

The first group was the Ahrars... Ironically they had been officially the part of the Congress Party since November 1940.... They told Jinnah that they would support Pakistan if it was based on Islamic principles .... Jinnah rejected them. The Ahrar then reaffirmed its ties with the Congress and declared Jinnah to be the Kafir-e-Azam. I think this episode is full of irony.

The second group was the Khaksars ... Led by Inayatullah Mashriqi this was a pro-Nazi group as its leader the self styled Allama Mashriqi had met Hitler in 1929. This same group tried to assassinate Jinnah in 1943. Jinnah rejected the Khaksars because he was personally averse to Mashriqi, and also because Mashriqi kept issuing statements and ultimatums to him to come to terms with Gandhi. Another Irony.


The third group was that of the Communists. Their help was rejected... no reason is given.

(Source: Page 91 footnotes 33, 34.... The sole spokesman)



In any event ... Mian Iftikharuddin came over to the League side around 1945 after meeting Jinnah at Simla. According to him, Jinnah`s arguments were most reasonable and convincing... and according to Iftikharuddin all arguments were political and economic and none were religious. What Jinnah might have said only Iftikharuddin knows, but whatever he said on that fateful day in Simla convinced Iftikhar of his cause. I am ready to admit however that Pakistan as it came into being on 15th August 1947 was not what Iftikhar was after... as we also know very clearly that this wasn`t what Jinnah was after either.


Politics has many different permutations...

-YLH

Wajahat,


I am presenting my point of view.


While Shahabnama is an interesting read.... but Shahab is obviously lying in the book. Some people actually quote his book as some sort of history... it really was the mixture of delusion and fantasy.

“Iftikharuddin was the only Muslim MP to speak out against it. Later he jumped off the League ship, and formed his ‘Azad Pakistan Party’ committed to liberal secularism in the country.”

A little note about the Azad Pakistan party-

This was the first political party of the former congress supporters in Pakistan. The left wing of this party was the communist party itself. The Communist Party of Pakistan was a quasi-legal party in Pakistan until I believe 1990. It operated under many covers. Later on Azad Pakistan party was merged with the left, liberal and congress followers parties in the East Pakistan to form the National Awami party. The National Awami Party or NAP as it was popularly known then, again consisted of communists from both wings of Pakistan plus former congress political workers. National Awami Party took lot of pounding from the army in 1971. Gen.Yahya Khan banned the party for opposing the Army action in East Pakistan. About 70% of the communists in west Pakistan were sent to jail in 1971.

In 1974, the National Awami Party was again banned By the Zulfiqar Bhutto and the Army for opposing the Army action, in Baluchistan. Most of the Baluch leaders were arrested along with Wali Khan and several Communists in another conspiracy case that was called “Hyderabad Conspiracy case”.

The Pakhtun section of the former National Awami Party is now in the Awami National Party(ANP) headed by Wali Khan’s son Asfandyar wali.

The history of Pakistan’s left is not well known but they are still fighting it out with the army in Pakistan.

YLH

I have a slight problem with your otherwise apt article. You tend to generically bemoan and admonish certain historic events and personalities without giving a proper explanation for your bandishments. It leaves those who have absolutely no idea about that particular issue or person confused as to the nature of the fallacy. I do beleive that you journalistic style therefore resonates the very biased tabloid style of writing rather than objective investigative style that should be adopted specially when reffering to or writing about history. (This is in reference to your castration of QA Shahab)

YLH,

You have once again dived deep into the cesspool of TNT geneology and come up with fossilised crap and is trying to palm it off as gem. It is people like you ho sustain the myths of TNT.
Time to accept the reality, it is because of TNT that pakistanis had to abandon all of their social history and create a new one based on the book. That is why the hoodood came to existance. That is why the jihadis are ruling the streets of karachi. That is why the arejun trees are being cut down and replaced by date palms.
Time to get out of the cess poll, look at the sky and see the stars.

#28 by fuzair

Thanks fuzair. You saved me the trouble.

That exactly was Communist Part’s contention that they never supported General Akber and there was no conspiracy. Though, Poshni did suggest that there was something going on within the army. The whole thing was a major set back to the left in Pakistan.

Hello Yasser . . . sorry for the deviation . . . but on Omar Quraishi`s board on Bollywood, he claims that your significant halff endorses the neo-Nazi Baker`s views on Kashmir? Is that right, just want to know?

rgds/Veeresh

manto...
qurratulain hyder is dead? that is news to me. she was hounded out of pakistan during ayub era after completing her magnum opus..`aag ka darya` whose central character was named gautam nilamber which caused a flutter amongst the keepers of the faith. altaf gauhar and qudratullah shahab were also partly responsible for her second migration. she went off to london in early sixtys and approached indian government through their british high commissioner, used her influence in the government circles in delhi and was granted indian nationality. i have not heard of nehru`s involvement in this case, however, nehru did his utmost to stop josh malihabadi from migrating.

Here is an interesting account of the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case, apparently by one of the conspirators himself!

http://dawn.com/report/islamabad/north13.htm

optimum:

...the boss yells at the husband...who barks at the eldest child...down to the dog barking at the cat....

...the feudals cornering the legislature...and ultimately…the tanks and planes supporting them and other usurpers...

...in short for any meaningful and far reaching reforms the occupying army has to be tackled...

:)

rgds

t

Dost Mittar:

I agree. It is not this actual feeling of superiority. It is more a feeling of being rather inward looking. I also observed this in undergrad when a Canadian friend accused us Indians of being snobs.

I was taken aback since we were all middle class kids with some sort of aid. Hardly rich people to look down upon others. But then I understood when he pointed out that few Iindians made the effort of making conversation with non Indians. We had our own sports, songs, movies, popular culture and were simply too self absorbed to care much beyind the comfort zone about the American culture around us.

HP,

Jam Saqi another Communist party Gen. Sec is still alive and lives in Hyderabad Sindh<<

I guess he was the one long incarcereted during Zia era. When he came out of jail, we, in communist party`s students wing, sincerely thought he would lead the progressive movement in late 80s. The drunken b@stard married a very young girl, and then joined tableeghi jamaat !

Manto sahib,
You might be right about what made qurat-ul-ain hyder leave pakistan but I don`t know from where you got the news of her death. She is alhamdulillah alive and living in india but is not doing too well due to health related reasons.

Regards,
Aasif

Ferozk,

Rawalpind Conspiracy case was no coup d` etat. It was lie like many others by Pakistan establishment. It was an attack by the Pak Army and Bureaucracy against the liberals and leftwing in Pakistan.
Please bear with me. I will hopefully write about it this evening.

Yasser,
My sources are some high level people in the Pakistan left movement. Including Faiz and Mazhar Ali Khan (Tariq Ali’s Father). If you know Mrs. Tahira Mazhar Ali Khan (I hope she is still alive) and can get in touch with her you will hear some stories. You can argue with communists in Pakistan but they were not liars and opportunists.
I have these stories corroborated by many other sources too including Imam Ali Nazish the last Communist Party Gen. Sec. In Pakistan, Sobho Gianchandani, another Communist party organizer alongwith Sajjad Zaheer in 1949 is alive. He lives in Larkana(must be really old though). Sobho was not part of the pindi conspiracy but he spent 5 years(approx) in jail about the same time.

Jam Saqi another Communist party Gen. Sec is still alive and lives in Hyderabad Sindh. Dr. Mubashir Hassan and His Wife Dr. Zeenat Hassan may have some info on this.

Manto:
``It comes down to basically you pakis don`t hold a candle to us Indians right...``

..no, it just means that we are too self-absorbed.:)