The cross-border solidarity of Amrita Pritam and Fahmida Riaz, the student movement, and peacemongering today

Posted on January 28, 2024 by beenasarwar
Poster for the event honouring Amrita Pritam and Fahmida Riaz. Courtesy PIPFPD

The latest Southasia Peace Action Network (Sapan) newsletter we put out highlighted a commemoration in Delhi for two iconic feminist poets of Pakistan and India: How the friendship of two cross-border feminist poets symbolises our work; upcoming events, and more

Radical love, epitomised by the late Amrita Pritam and Fahmida Riaz is ‘one of the seeds of the revolutionary thought process’, to quote the Pakistan India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) stalwarts who organised the event – Vijayan MJ, Tapan Bose, and Dr Syeda Hameed. Their consistent work over the decades for peace and justice is truly inspirational, and I feel privileged to know them personally.

I was also privileged to know one of the late poets personally, Fahmida ‘Khala’ (aunt) to me, who was close to my father Dr. M. Sarwar. He led the Democratic Students Federation (DSF), Pakistan’s first student movement while at Dow Medical College in Karachi, 1949-54.

I’ve uploaded archives about the movement here: drsarwar.wordpress.com. Principles of that struggle continue to show the way, like the importance of coming together across divides for a minimum common agenda. For DSF, it was student rights. For Sapan, it’s Southasia Peace. We need it now, for the sake of the people of the region, and beyond. 

The Videos section of the Dr Sarwar blog includes a playlist of video clips from the event held at the Karachi Arts Council in January 2010 to commemorate DSF and the student movement, a few months after my father passed on.

Compered by the actor Rahat Kazmi, the event featured speeches from young activists, students, and academics like Amar Sindhu, Alia Amirali, Ali Cheema, and Varda Nisar, as well as veterans like I.A. Rehman, besides the singer Tina Sani, Taimur Rahman and his band Laal, and Fahmida Riaz.

Fahmida Khala recited her poem ‘Palwashey Muskurao’ (Palvasha, smile), dedicated to daughter of late Afzal Bangash of the Mazdoor Kissan Party (Workers’ and Peasants’ Party), and the followers of other late leftist leaders. They may no longer be on this earth, but their principles and aspirations for human rights and dignity continue to show the way.

Fahmida Riaz reciting her poem ‘Palwashey Muskurao’ (Palvasha, smile), Jan. 2010, Karachi.

(ends)

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A social worker, an economist, and the legacy of Pakistan’s student movement of the 1950s

Posted on July 3, 2023 by beenasarwar

OBITUARY: The legacy of a decades-old connection between social worker Shahida Haroon (1937-2023) and economist Eric Rahim (1928-2023) endures through the ongoing struggle for student rights, economic justice and democracy in Pakistan

Demands Day at D.H. Science College, 07 Jan. 1953, Eric Rahim, Shahida Haroon Saad. Collage by Aekta Kapoor/Sapan News

PERSONAL POLITICAL

By Beena Sarwar / Sapan News

It was while trying to reach Eric Rahim in Glasgow this week to inform him of my aunt Shahida Haroon’s passing in Karachi that I learnt he too was no more.

A respected journalist and economist, Uncle Eric as I called him, had passed away peacefully at home on 2 May 2023, aged 94. He was a mentor to my father Dr M. Sarwar (1929-2009), and Shahida, who departed this earth on 25 June, at 87.

Shahida did her Master’s in economics from Karachi University in 1958, a subject she didn’t enjoy or do well in. When she went to Punjab University for a second Master’s in social work, encouraged by her brothers Akhtar, 11 years older, and Sarwar, eight years older, Akhtar asked his friend Eric Rahim to look after her. It was Eric, then a columnist at The Pakistan Times, who met Shahida at the train station after her overnight journey.

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Filed under: Dr M Sarwar, Pakistan, Progressive politics, Student politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Farewell Saleem Asmi: A quiet warrior slips into the night

Posted on November 12, 2020 by beenasarwar

Saleem Asmi, Nov. 29, 1934 – Oct. 30, 2020

First published in The News on Sunday, Nov. 8, 2020. Reposted here with more photos.

Saleem Asmi: Portrait by Sharjil Baloch, 2014-2015.

By Beena Sarwar

His old friend S. M. Shahid termed Saleem Asmi a ‘Marxist Sufi’ in his compilation of biographical essays, ‘Living Souls: Memories’. Asmi Sahib would typically brush aside the accolades that came his way, not because he didn’t appreciate himself but because he had no false pride, false humility, or a shred of hypocrisy.

I can imagine his chuckle at the couplet by his favourite poet initially chosen by family and friends to inscribe on his gravestone:

Ye masaail-e-tassawuf, ye tera byan Ghalib
Tujhey hum vali samajhtalay jo na baada khwar hota

The way you talk of philosophy Ghalib, the mystical way you explain it
You would have been considered a saint yourself, had your drinking been less.

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Filed under: Obituary, Progressive politics, Student politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

A beloved jurist passes on

Posted on January 21, 2020 by beenasarwar

Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim (12 February 1928-7 January 2020) gained respect early on in his career for refusing to take oath under the military dictatorship of Gen. Ziaul Haq. Through his life he wore many hats — founder member Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Pakistan Supreme Court judge, Governor Sindh, Chief Election Commissioner, to name some. But a little-known feather in his cap is his pro bono work for the imprisoned leftist and student activists of the 1950s, that he credited for his politicisation. Those, he would say, were “the best days” of his life. Here’s that story as I heard it from him and from my father Dr. M. Sarwar, published in The News on Sunday and The Wire a few days after Fakhru Uncle passed on.

Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim: A fine legacy (online photo)

By Beena Sarwar

As the debate on the much-delayed restoration of student unions in Pakistan gathers momentum, we celebrate and commemorate a beloved jurist who cut his teeth by taking on cases of detained student activists pro bono in the 1950s.

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Filed under: Dr M Sarwar, Human rights, Pakistan-India, Progressive politics, Student politics | Tagged: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

PERSONAL POLITICAL: Rest in peace, comrade Kutty. The struggle continues

Posted on August 30, 2019 by beenasarwar

I wrote this piece a few days back – the second of my occasional syndicated columns. Published in The Wire, Naya Daur, Mainstream, The Citizen among others.

kutty-smiling.jpg

Early Sunday morning in Karachi, a little over a month after his 89th birthday on 18 July 2019, B. M. Kutty slipped into the ever after. Lifelong activist, trade unionist, political worker, peacemonger, humanist. I like to remember him as I last saw him in Karachi – his big smile, deep voice with its powerful timbre, intense gaze behind the glasses, dapper as usual in bush-shirt and trousers.

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Filed under: Obituary, Pakistan, Pakistan-India, Progressive politics, Resistance | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Remembering Doc: The importance of civil discourse and the art of listening

Posted on June 13, 2019 by beenasarwar

At a small gathering last year, our friend S. Ali Jafari read his essay in Urdu about my father, whom he called “Doc”. His son Salman videotaped the reading, which forms the basis of this 14-minute video I edited for 26 May 2019, ten years after Dr M. Sarwar passed away peacefully at home in Karachi, at age 79.

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Filed under: Dr M Sarwar, History, Human rights, Pakistan, Progressive politics, Resistance, Student politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

‘Blood on the streets’

Posted on January 9, 2016 by beenasarwar

Part one of a series I am working on. NOTE: Post later updated to add the other parts below.

Student mtg 1951 or 52

M. Sarwar addressing a meeting in Karachi, early 1950s, Khaliqdina Hall. Seated left: Rehman Ali Hashmi.

Looking back to look forward: The DSF-led movement of the 1950s eschewed party politics, was inclusive, and focused on student unity. Besides students from medical, engineering and and law colleges, it involved students from girls’ and boys’ high schools, and women’s colleges. 

Below, an extract from my forthcoming memoir on the struggle for democratic spaces in Pakistan. This is from the chapter about the student movement of 1953 that shook the country and laid the foundations for the University of Karachi, published in The Friday Times, Jan. 8, 2016. Thanks to Raza Rumi for pushing me to share this Continue reading →

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Commemorating Jan 8, 1953: 2013 events, Jan 6 and 8, by DSF and NSF

Posted on January 3, 2013 by beenasarwar

2012 Jan 8-NSF Demands Day

Re-blogged from Dr M. Sarwar:

As we remember Jan 8, 1953 Demands Day and those who gave their lives for the cause of students’ rights, it is good to see that progressive young people in Pakistan are organising and work for students’ rights, with the revival of Democratic Students Federation and the National Students Federation. In keeping with the rallying cry of the original movement – ‘Student Unity’ – activists of DSF and NSF must put up a united front, and attend and support each others’ events even if they don’t merge into one organisation. Demands should include lifting the ongoing ban on student unions. Below, information about several events being organised this year, some on Jan 6, in different cities of Sindh and Punjab by DSF, and NSF event on Jan 8:

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Dr. Ghalib Khan Lodhi: A personal memoir, by Eric Rahim

Posted on August 17, 2012 by beenasarwar

Former journalist Eric Rahim’s thoughtful obituary of Dr Ghalib Khan Lodhi (1930-2012), one of the founding members of DSF, who passed away in Karachi recently… Solas Educational Trust, supporting schools in Chitral, remains Ghalib’s most important legacy

“Goodbye, generous friend, earnest and upright, seeker of knowledge”

Dr Ghalib Lodhi, London, 2001. Still from video footage by Beena Sarwar

Ghalib, who has recently died of cancer, was a founding member of the Democratic Students Federation and, along with Mohammad Sarwar, Hashmi, Haroon, Ayub Mirza, Yousaf Ali, SM Naseem and others, a leading activist in the early 1950s student movement in Karachi. I remember him as one of the most serious minded among his cohort. While a medical student, in his early twenties, he was trying to grapple with Das Kapital.

Along with so many others – students, journalists, writers, and trade unionists – he was arrested in the general round-up that took place in West Pakistan in the wake of the triumph of the United Front in East Pakistan elections of 1954 and Pakistan government’s decision to sign military pacts with the United States. Before his arrest he was acting as general manager of the organ of the Democratic Student Federation, the Students’ Herald. Naseem, who was the editor of the Herald, in a recent communication described to me the occasion of the arrest in the following words..…

Read more at: Dr. Ghalib Khan Lodhi (1930-2012) – A personal memoir by Eric Rahim.

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Former DSF activist Dr Ghalib Lodhi makes a quiet exit

Posted on August 6, 2012 by beenasarwar

Dr Ghalib Lodhi (left) with Dr M. Sarwar, London, 2001.

Karachi, Aug 3, 2012: Tahir Wasti in London emailed recently that Dr Ghalib Lodhi expired in Karachi. I contacted some of Dr Ghalib’s old comrades. None of them had heard of his demise…

Former DSF activist Dr Ghalib Lodhi makes a quiet exit.

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