“We were ambushed in dark alleys” a line from a poem by Faiz Ahmad Faiz, unarguably the leading progressive muse of Urdu in the twentieth century
History of January 1953 student movement in Pakistan
During their two hundred years rule over India, the British colonizers had, among other self-serving measures introduced an education system, which would cater to their administration. In spite of that movement for liberty and social justice grew among the Indians.
In the last five decades of foreign rule students emerged as a credible force for change. In August 1936 an all India Students conference was held in Lucknow (UP). Pandit Nehru inaugurated the moot, and M.A.Jinnah presided over it. Nine hundred eighty six delegates chosen by two hundred local and eleven provincial student bodies participated in the deliberations and formed All India Students Federation (ASIF).
Three months after the initial conference, another meeting was held in Lahore, (Punjab). Sarat Bose in his presidential address dwelt at length on analysis of the political upheaval in the country and what he thought the role of students was.
AISF held its sixth session in Nagpur (CP, now MP) on December 25, 1940. The agenda of this conference was to chart a line of action and policy against the colonial rule. Majority of delegates advocated a more militant stance against British rule than favored by Indian National Congress (INC) under Gandhi. Dr Ashraf, a revolutionary leader branded “Satya Graha”-passive resistance offered by Gandhi a week reed response to the aggressive control of the colonial power. Disagreeing with the prevalent opinion and after failure to evolve a common platform, the section which favored INC, seceded from the main body.
Led by Dr Ashraf and M.Mukerjee AISF emerged as a credible player in the struggle for independence and remained active in post independence days. In 1947 its membership was 74,000.
At the 1937 All India Muslim league (AIML) held a session in Lucknow. All India Muslim Students Federation was launched in this session. It held its first conference in December 1938 at Calcutta (Bengal). M.A.Jinnah presided over the session and Raja Amir Muhammad of Mahmoodabad was elected the President.
Students played a vital and historic role in the movement for establishment of Pakistan.
Before partition Hindu and Sikh students dominated the educational institutions in the Punjab. They left behind a vacuum filled by immigrants from India. Sindh on the other hand did not experience whole scale exodus of non-Muslims. Refugees inundated Karachi; its population quickly swelled from about hundred and fifty thousand to twelve hundred thousand. Educational institutions could not hope to cope with the influx. Private institutions lacking physical structure, libraries, laboratories, or playgrounds mushroomed.
In October 1947 Jinnah, inaugurating an educational conference convened in Karachi by the government of Pakistan (GOP), declared that during foreign domination for over a century adequate attention was not paid to public education. If we are to really develop at a fast pace we will have to give prime importance to education in our national agenda. Our education should not only reflect our history and culture but also pay due heed to progressive thought and economic and scientific progress. We must not forget that the World is moving ahead very fast. An educational research center with a mandate to advise and guide the government was established after the conference.
Muslim league had degenerated into internecine conflict over distribution of government ministries. Students could not escape the miasma. Muslim Students federation (MSF) split into factions. All the groups became an appendage of league leaders who used the students unscrupulously.
At the end of 1948, responding to the indifference of powers that be, a few progressive students founded a small group in Lahore called Democratic Students Federation (DSF). DSF participated in Union elections in different colleges. Prominent among its leaders were Abid Manto in Rawalpindi and Zuhair Naqvi in Lahore.
In Karachi DSF was formed first in Dow Medical College in 1950.
Post establishment of Pakistan feudal lords obtained control of the government, which became total after Liaquat, Jinnah’s designated heir apparent who was assassinated in October 1951.
Islami Jamiat e Talaba, the student wing of Jamaat e Islami formed in 1948, confined itself to proselytization and convened small gatherings in mosques.
Struggle of Bengali students
Students in undivided Bengal were also in the forefront of the struggle for independence. If anything, 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.
East Pakistan had two popular student organizations-East Pakistan Students Federation and East Pakistan Students League. Educationists were mostly from the western wing and wanted to impose a system based on Urdu as the sole medium of instruction.
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. But Urdu was spoken at home only less than five percent of the total population. Bengali was spoken by 55% of the country’s population.
Dhaka University Central Students Federation and East Pakistan Students Union led the campaign. The movement had the support of middle and lower economic class activists.
On February 22 1952, police opened fire on a group of Dhaka Medical College. Twenty-five students were killed and injured.
Such a storm of protest, indignation and condemnation followed that the government surrendered and accepted the legitimate demand of Bengali as a state language. It was the first time that a struggle against a repressive regime was spearheaded by a joint front of students and the public.
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 had only two Muslims out of a class of fifty.
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, then 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 student’s 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. They left for India in 1947, leaving a vacuum among student activist ranks.
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. 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. 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
Initially the youth wing of Maulana Maududi’s Jamaat e-Islam provided the only semblance of organized student life in the Punjab. The Student wing eschewed electoral politics.
In NWFP, the student wing of Khudai Khitmatgars (Servants of God) of Ghaffar Khan, had been discredited as they had sided with the INC.
Baluchistan was the most feudal-tribal and least developed of the provinces in West Pakistan. As Its only city Quetta, was totally dominated by non-Muslims in pre-independence days.
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. The conflict was between the immigrants and non-Muslims. A substantial percentage of Hindus actually stayed back in the interior of the province.
Muslim refugees from India descending on Sindh had arrived relatively unscathed. 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. 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.
Overall lead for the National Students movement was given by DSF leaders in Karachi. Curiously enough, core of the leadership came from Dow Medical College, Karachi which 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. Sarwar was the first president of DSF. Its headquarters was in room 29, Mitha Ram Hostel, Karachi.
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 6,7and 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, then a posh commercial area in Karachi, 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. 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. The city was paralyzed and life came to a halt.
All leaders of opposition, trade unions, and even those of Jamaat e Islami condemned the police brutality.
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. GOP, instead of responding gratefully to Kazim’s gesture of good will 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 in December 1953 and gave a call for All Pakistan Students convention. 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 as an observer. She 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 even a delegation even from Government College Quetta, a veritable back waters led by Kamil Qadri, a leftist student leader who had ended up in the College and had been able to concoct a delegation. .
To coincide with Martyr’s day, convention dates were fixed in January 1954. Venue was Katrak Hall in Saddar. Messages of solidarity came from student bodies all over the world. Law minister AK Brohi agreed to be the Chief Guest. He was an intellectual, and a bright star of the cabinet.
Sarwar, at the minister’s request, escorted him from his official residence to the meeting. The pair arrived at the hall only to find the place in pandemonium. Gurmani, the police minister, was still smarting at the public humiliation of his car burnt to cinders. His cabinet colleague Brohi, notwithstanding, he had orchestrated disruption of the convention.
The City 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.
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 founder of the Sind Institute of Urology and Transplant (SIUT). Sher Afzal Malik was a sort of “Red Guard” Lieutenant Commander of the security detail. A gangster, who was later to become a respectable small trade 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 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.
Pakistan joined Western Security organizations in 1954 and by a queer coincidence (or design) APSO was also banned about the same time.
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, Karachi. Some 50-60 students attended, almost equally divided between left-wingers and moderates. A coalition was worked out.
Life as a day scholar in those long-gone days was very chaotic. Some of us attended classes. Others spent time in the cafeteria or in jobs. Teachers fully cognizant of the parlous state of our finances, and worse living conditions at home gave us wide latitude. But we had a vibrant social, intellectual and political life. Karachi debaters were known for their oratorical prowess and won trophies from Lahore, the only other city of note in West Pakistan, as a matter of course.
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.
One of the notable leaders this period threw up was Fatehyab Ali Khan. 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, a semiliterate feudal debauch mentioned in the chapter on Bhutto. Mairaj was never able to live down the association. Once Bhutto had crushed the unions he sacked Mairaj and put him in jail.
Shafi, a brilliant debator was a spent force by the time I met him in 1955-56. Barkaat, a party ideologue par exellance, 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. Wadood became a barrister and went to serve as a Deputy Attorney General of Pakistan. Sibghat also passed the Bar examination and was elevated to the rank of QC (Queens Counsel, the first Pakistani to do so.
All these undoubtedly talented young men had had to play a second fiddle to and resented Sher Afzal. He was molded by Hasan Nasir, the Secretary General of the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) who indoctrinated him in communist theology and imposed him on leaders senior to him in hierarchy. 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.
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 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.
Syed Akhtar Ehtisham
Notes:
1: Document is compiled by National Students Federation (Pakistan) and dedicated to January 8, 1953 martyrs.
2. The above is based on the text drafted by Asim Ali Shah Secretary General of National Students Federation from mid-nineteen eighties to mid-nineteen nineties. Asim has maintained his activism and lives in London, UK. Asim would like to acknowledge the assistance of advocate Zainuddin Khan Lodhi, one time Secretary General of NSF.
I have edited, revised and added to the text. My contribution is based, in addition to my own experiences, on interviews with Messers Nooruddin Sarki, S Mazhar Jamil and Fatehyab Ali Khan advocates and Drs Muhammad Sarwar, Syed Haroon Ahmad, Muhammad Khurshid and Rasheed Hasan Khan of Karachi and Dr Hasan Raza Rizvi and Barrister Abid Hasan Manto of Lahore. Barkat Alam, of Glasgow, UK and S.U.Kadri QC of London, pioneers of the movement, have been of invaluable help.
3: All the above named are stalwarts of students movement of Pakistan. The list is by no means complete and reflects the contacts we made in this regard.