My life and struggle – VII

Gomal University

Fayyaz Baqir

In September 1974 I said goodbye to the Institute of South Asian Studies to join Gomal University in Dera Ismail Khan (DIK). By this time Hamid Qizilbash had taken over as the Director of the Institute, and I had started some meaningful research work while under his guidance, as well as having started a weekly seminar series. I had picked “Peasant Rebellions in Punjab during the British period” as my research topic, and Hamid had started teaching me the basics of research work, which I remember to this day. In our seminar series, I proposed the first seminar to be on Thinking. We had a very interesting discussion, and Hamid aptly concluded the discussion by saying, “Thinking is linking between the two.” I and a big contingent of fresh graduates from Punjab University moved to DIK to be part of the newly established university.

It would be appropriate here to say a few words about the city and the university. In the 1970 elections, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (ZAB) contested the election for the National Assembly (NA) from six constituencies, including DIK. DIK was the only constituency where he lost the election against Mufti Mahmood. Mufti Sahib was a Pashtun settler and won the election due to the strong hold of his Madrassas in a predominantly Baloch/Saraiki area. Saraikis resented the domination of the Pashtuns to such an extent that many of them opposed the break up of One Unit. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) also suffered the death of one of its shining leaders, Haq Nawaz Gandapur, during the 1970 elections. Haq Nawaz was killed in mysterious circumstances, and soon after the elections ZAB flew into DIK to condole with the aggrieved family. ZAB wanted to break the domination of the Pashtuns and Mullahs in DIK and saw the establishment of a university as a good entry point for this purpose.

ZAB picked Nawab Allah Nawaz Khan as the first Vice Chancellor (VC) due to his influence in the area. Nawab Sahib was a very shrewd and seasoned politician and had retired from politics by then. He lived in Lahore and made sure to recruit the majority of the faculty from Lahore to neutralise Pashtun and Mullah power. Nawab Sahib was so fond of Lahore that he used to carry drinking water from Lahore whenever he visited DIK. He was scared of flying by air and always travelled by road. Nawab Sahib provided full support to newcomers so that they could amicably settle down in their new home.

For most of the Lahore-educated fellows, coming to DIK was a big cultural shock. Aurangzeb used to call DIK the Fourth World to express his surprise and shock at the poverty, conservatism and arrested development of the area. But it seems we also descended as a source of shock to the people of this small, sleepy, rural border town. We had a sizeable group of progressive lecturers. We introduced some radical courses as part of the graduate studies programme in Economics. We also engaged in activities considered to be unbecoming of university professors, like pulling cycle rickshaws and hand driven carts, eating at roadside joints and sporting informal attire and hairstyles. Our appearance, language and gestures were completely alien to the locals. In the neighbourhood where I lived, the kids thought that we worked for Pakistan Television (PTV). They would look at my glasses, beard and long hair and shout: “Uncle Urfi” – thinking I resembled the famous TV play character. Travelling to DIK was nothing less than an adventure. It was cut off from other major towns due to long distances, a 14-mile span of the bed of the River Indus, and dirt and stone roads where a vehicle could only travel at 15 miles per hour. It was an isolated town with a strong parochial culture. Natives of DIK considered Saraiki spoken in other parts of the Saraiki region as a ‘foreign’ language. Whenever I talked to a shopkeeper in Saraiki, he would respond in Urdu. One day I asked one shopkeeper: “Why don’t you speak to us in your own language?” He said, “You speak a different language, so it is better to respond in Urdu.”

We very quickly made contacts with local progressive groups and parties. We had decided that we shall hold joint study circles, joint meetings and political activities while keeping our distinct identities. We made initial contacts with the National Students Federation (NSF) led by Mohammad Daud, Buland Iqbal and Salahuddin Gandapur; with the Pakistan Socialist Party, which was headed at that time by its supposedly ‘lifelong president’ Umar Farooq Miankhel, who later on joined the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and won the seat for the NA with the help of our common friend Pir Moeen ul Haq Gilani of Golra Sharif; with the Mazdoor Kissan Party (MKP) that was led earlier by a barber Khadim Hussain and later by a Para dentist Mahmood Bukhari; with Mazhar Nawaz Baloch who had actively participated in trade union activity in Multan’s Fertilizer Factory and was now a banker and worked closely with us; with activists of the Pakhtun Students Federation (PSF) and with Mohammad Yunus and Riwayat Khan of the Pakistan Students Federation; with the National Democratic Party led by Shahnawaz Khan from a Khudai Khidmatgar family; with Behram Sahil, editor of a local daily, and with local Saraiki poets Tasleem Feroz, Naseer Sarmad and others. We also developed close contacts with the sole trade union in DIK, the Tribal Textile Mill Union, as well as with Abba Pandi (his name Abba was short for Abdur Rahim, and the word Pandi in Saraiki means porter), who was the leader of the porters’ union in the local fruit and vegetable market. We started organising a sweepers’ union with the help of Mazhar Nawaz.

We worked very closely with the General Secretary of the PPP, Shaista Khan Baloch. One particular PPP worker, Munshi Faiz Mohammad, was very honest, sharp, and courageous. He was a gem of a person and had great communication skills. He and another PPP worker, Abdur Rashid, were our close allies. Abdur Rashid was a very enterprising man. He started his career as a used cloth vendor and ended up building a private hospital. He was perhaps a primary school dropout, yet hired his brother, who was a medical graduate, as the hospital’s Chief Medical Officer. In our informal study group Mohammad Ayub, General Secretary Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) and his close friend Suleman also used to participate. In this entire fraternity, Salahuddin Gandapur was the only person who was extremely sectarian, narrow-minded and rigid. He considered cooperating with other left groups as a betrayal of “correct politics”. To keep him in the circle I stopped going to some public events where he thought the NSF’s leadership was being undermined by the presence of a ‘bourgeois’ professor. We used to send Mahmood Bukhari as our representative. That worked out fine, and we managed to keep close interaction.

We had decided early on that in the name of ‘political correctness’ we shall not publicly oppose each other and collaborate on all issues of common concern. If there was a public event or press conference, then leaders of all groups were given representation. Whenever the leader of any progressive party visited DIK, we invited all of our contacts to attend his talk. In a couple of hours, we could gather around 40-50 people. I must mention here that the population of DIK was 60,000 at that time. All the progressive groups came together in the form of a close-knit family. It was quite the opposite of the way we used to work in Lahore.

Political leaders and intellectuals who visited DIK during my five-year stay included ZAB, Raja Anwar, C R Aslam, Ishaq Mohammad, Bacha Khan, Afrasiab Khattak, Pervez Salim, Inayat Baloch, Tahir Yasub and Akmal Hussain. ZAB made the first visit soon after the establishment of the university. He was accompanied by Abdul Hafeez Pirzada, Federal Minister of Education, and Raja Anwar, his advisor on student affairs. In the evening Umar Khan Miankhel drove to my house and said that Raja Anwar had asked him to take me to his guest house for a meeting. I refused to accompany him on the grounds that I do not support PPP politics and I don’t want to be seen as an associate of the PPP; had Raja come here in a personal capacity I would have loved to meet him. Umar was shocked and surprised, but he became a close friend after this event. After Raja’s departure, one of our students told us that he was part of a delegation sent by the VC to meet the Minister of Education. The Minister sent them to Raja Anwar. During the meeting, one or two planted students complained against the subversive activities of Professor Baqir (myself) and Professor Barkat. Raja snubbed them and said: “You are lucky that you have got such learned professors. You should learn from them instead of complaining about them.” I was touched by this gesture. Perhaps Raja wanted to alert me to the intrigues against us. In his visit to DIK a few years later he did not even mention it.

In the meanwhile, we started study circles for socialist education. A couple of years later when Tahir Yasoob arrived, we started a full blown counter culture movement inspired by him. We were seen singing, smoking, drinking and dancing in the streets along with our students. It raised alarm bells in the local community. We acted like the proverbial bull in a china shop, but due to our strong links in the community, we survived. The university administration and Mullahs could not do much against us. At this time the Registrar came up with a novel idea. He registered a complaint against our undesirable activities with the Deputy Commissioner (DC). The DC summoned me to his office to express his concern. At that time Hamid Qazilbash was General Secretary of the Federal Union of Academic Staff Association (ASA), and he sent a strong note of protest to Abdul Hafiz Pirzada against this harassment. The DC was soon transferred. This further built an aura of power around us. Later on, Afzal Bangash told me that he had pleaded a pro bono case for the DC, and I should have told him if there was any problem. Our opponents’ next move was to mobilise a local Mullah to speak against us during the Friday sermon. We got wind of this plan. Our supporters in the JUI assured us that they will retaliate to any remarks made against us on the spot. The plan was cancelled.

Manzur Ejaz had set up Punjab Adabi Markaz in Lahore and expressed the desire to establish a branch in DIK. We persuaded the local president of the MKP, Dr Mahmood Bukhari, to manage the shop. He agreed. When Afzal Bangash heard about this he was infuriated. He wrote a letter to Bukhari saying that it was a Punjabi conspiracy. Punjabis were setting up their posts in DIK like the East India Company had done in Bengal. Since Manzur moved to the US sometime later, the shop was closed and the issue resolved.

By this time, I had formally started working with the MKP in DIK, Bhakkar, Darya Khan, Wan Bhacharan and Mianwali. I was engaged in preparing educational material for MKP’s student wing, Inqilabi Mahaz-e-Talaba (IMT), and interacted closely with Taqi Nayab, Meeroo, Arshad Mir and other activists at NCA. The MKP in Bhakkar was led by Ustad Ijaz Khan, Head Master of Government School Khansar. Ijaz Khan was a very learned and wise man and had established a group of committed workers in the area. In Darya Khan the MKP was led by Ghulam Abbas Shakir, General Secretary of Darya Khan Sugar Mill Union. Malik Dost Mohammad Bhachar was president of the MKP in Mianwali district. It was a privilege working with all these people, and I learned a lot from them during my Gomal University years.

The best thing about this period was our very close cooperation and solidarity with all the groups of the Left. We arranged big meetings for C R Aslam and Ishaq Mohammad and arranged very informative interactive sessions for the exchange of ideas between them and local workers; they in turn were impressed by the quality of debate and democratic norms of our friends. When Bacha Khan visited DIK, Professors Baqir (myself) and Barkat were the only two non-Pashtuns invited to his session with the PSF. When Afrasiab Khattak visited DIK after being released from Hyderabad Jail, PSF activists brought him to our house. We had a very detailed and cordial meeting, and Afrasiab told us that he had heard our names while in Hyderabad Jail. We also had a similar meeting with Pervez Salim after his release from Hyderabad Jail. Pervez hailed from DIK and was a staunch Baloch nationalist. We had such a close bond with both Pashtun and Saraiki students that the Islami Jamiat-e-Tulaba (IJT) found it very hard to stigmatise us. Finally, a group of IJT lecturers begged us to start class politics and relinquish collaboration with the ‘nationalists’. While the Professors Group (PG) had seen our alliance with the nationalists as a source of our weakness, the IJT saw it as a source of our strength.

We used to receive a copy of Jabal, published by the Baloch guerillas of the Balochistan People’s Liberation Front (BPLF), through some unknown source. It was widely circulated and discussed in our circle. Decades later when I went to visit the Marri area with Asad Rahman, he told me that his brother Rashed Rahman was the Editor of this journal, and he (Asad) was known as Chakar Khan. Three very interesting events happened before I finally left DIK in December 1978, which I shall narrate next.

Pashtun politicians in Peshawar were not very happy with the way Gomal University was run. A few months after classes started at the university, a point of order was raised in the Provincial Assembly about the competence of the academic staff hired by the VC. The VC offered the Chief Minister (CM), Inayat Ullah Khan Gandapur, to personally visit the university and assess the situation himself. The CM first heard the lectures in the classes during daytime, and then called the remaining lecturers to deliver lectures in the Circuit House in the evening. The CM expressed satisfaction over the quality of presentations and approved all the appointments. One young lecturer who talked back to the CM was subsequently scared to hell by the VC and packed off to Lahore in the middle of the night. To keep his mouth shut, his younger brother who was enrolled as a graduate student was given a full fee waiver and scholarship for two years. Another senior Professor was also packed off the same way with the help of some right-wing henchmen of the VC. The VC accepted us as a necessary evil, but he had no complaints about our academic performance. After 2-3 years something led to a change of Prime Minister Bhutto’s mind, and Nawab Sahib was replaced by Ali Khan as the new VC. Perhaps he wanted to neutralise the Pashtun pressure.

Ali Khan was Bacha Khan’s son, but a highly respected professional and an apolitical administrator. He was very accessible but had the reputation of a person who meant business. He strictly followed merit and carried an aura of authority and power. People were generally scared of him. He used to wear militia cotton Shalwar Kameez suits and drove around in a Willy’s jeep. One day he was sitting in his office when he heard some commotion outside. He rushed outside and saw someone attacking the university’s peon with a knife. He ran after the attacker, grabbed the knife, and gave him a good thrashing. Then he very gently brought back the peon and assured him not to worry about a thing. The attacker was handed over to the police. This sent a loud and clear message to anyone who was anyone to deal with the VC with extreme care.

In our first meeting with him, I behaved very rudely and started smoking without asking his permission. A senior professor signalled me to stop, but I ignored his advice. Ali Khan figured out that there is something wrong with this young lecturer. For face saving, he said to me, “Professor Sahib, I am allergic to smoking. Could you step out and return after you are finished?” As I stepped towards the door he said, “Just stay at the door and keep hearing what we speak.” The match ended in a draw. It was much later that I realised the gravity of my rude interactions with Nawab Allah Nawaz Khan and Ali Khan. Ali Khan, however, was not a rigid or biased person. He respected competence and merit and was a very courageous man.

He used to live at the university’s New Campus and passed by our department during his evening walk. The University’s Administrative Officer (AO) Jabbar, along with his dog, used to accompany him. One day in the late afternoon Jabbar knocked at my door and dropped in. He was very excited and said Khan Sahib sends his thanks to you and wants you to see him in his office this week. I asked him about the background. He said that the VC passes by your office regularly (my office was situated on the first floor) and he saw the light on in your office. He was very upset and asked me to check which professor did not switch off the lights before leaving. I came here twice and saw you studying. When the VC heard about this, he was very pleased. He did not expect that someone would be sitting in after-hours to quietly study. He, however, was not aware that I used to study Das Kapital, not any textbook, in my office those days, preferring to stay at the office as there was no privacy at home.

This was the beginning of a relationship of mutual trust and respect between me and Ali Khan. He was so protective of hard working and competent staff members that he protected them against any threat. Once, the Mullahs of DIK announced they would be leading a march to the university against me and Professor Barkat. Ali Khan announced: “If any procession is brought against my staff, I’ll meet them at the gate and see who dares to enter the university premises. I can deal with my staff, it is nobody else’s business.”

Meeting with Robin Hood

In the autumn of 1978, I was sitting in my office at Gomal University New Campus when a young man entered my office. He delivered a letter to me saying, “Your friend asked me to give this to you.” I asked him if he was a student, and he said no. He said that he worked with a contractor at the Campus and hailed from Khyber Agency. When my friend found out that he was heading to Gomal University he gave him the letter. The letter was sent by Robin Hood. The letter was brief. Robin Hood said, “I am living in Khyber Agency these days and miss you a lot. Come over some time to spend a few days.” It was a pleasant surprise. By the time I finished reading the letter the messenger had already left. However, Robin Hood had left directions for finding him after crossing the Jamrud Gate.

It is important to mention here that Khyber Agency, like many other tribal areas, was called ‘Ilaqa Ghair’ in those days. It meant ‘foreign land’. In practical terms, it meant that this area was out of the boundaries of Pakistani laws and police. These Agencies were governed by the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) and administered by a Political Agent who had the status of a demigod. According to Pashtun tradition, if anyone came under the protection of a tribal chief, the whole tribe would rise up in arms to protect that person from any invader. This rule was respected by all tribal people and Political Agents. Due to this special status, many criminals sought the protection of these chiefs when they absconded from Pakistan proper. Dacoits, murderers, car lifters, drug dealers and smugglers all came to seek protection here. The Malik (tribal chief) happily offered protection to many such outlaws in return for money.

After a few weeks, I boarded the bus to Peshawar, and changed buses there for an onward journey to Khyber Agency. Robin Hood lived there under the fictitious name of Sher Khan. He had given me the name of his Malik and had asked me to look for him at his Hujra (guest house). On arrival at Jamrud’s little bazaar, I inquired from a couple of people about the Malik and Sher Khan, but no one happened to know them. They asked me about the description of Sher Khan and promised to check if he lived in the area. Due to security reasons perhaps, no one would straight away divulge information to a stranger, even if he was giving the right names. The pace of life over there was even slower than in DIK; so ‘wait a minute’ could mean waiting for ages. After some time, I got restless and was thinking of heading back home when someone appeared from nowhere and took me to Sher Khan. We had a warm hug and ordered a cup of tea. It was like an endless conversation. I don’t know when we finished and went to sleep.

Sher Khan would offer homemade wine or a joint of marijuana to his visitors but would never drink or smoke himself. I have never seen a person more sharp, clear-headed and fearless than him in dealing with a threatening situation. There were many veteran criminals in that area, but he made sure to know their weaknesses, psychologically dominate them, and be extremely vigilant. He was also a tough negotiator, and never let his Malik make any undue financial demands on him. He offered me extreme hospitality and introduced me to some of his friends in the area. I stayed for a couple of days, learned about the exact location of his hideout, and got introduced to his Malik as well. Sher Khan told me that he had robbed many banks, but he had used his brains to evade the traps of the police. He also did not want his Malik to have even the faintest idea about this because it would be a violation of the contract with him, and the Malik would start making extra financial demands as well. He said that the day after a robbery he would read a news item in the newspaper that the police had narrowed their circle around the culprits, while sipping tea at a local tea stall, knowing that the police had no clue about where he was staying. I asked permission to leave, and we promised to keep in touch.

In January 1976, Sindhi Awami Tehreek (SAT) held a Hari (Peasant) Conference at Bathoro. I was invited as a member of the MKP delegation from Punjab. We were invited as special guests and seated at the podium – a long mud plastered platform – during one of the sessions. I travelled with Imtiaz Alam, Ramzan Jani, Sufi Sibghat Ullah and Waheed. Dr Feroz Ahmad and MKP’s Shamim Alam came from Karachi. Rasul Bakhsh Palijo was in jail, but his wife Zarina Baloch sang revolutionary songs and many poets recited revolutionary poetry in a highly charged manner.

Zarina Baloch in her melodious voice sang:

Jeevey Sindh bhai jeevey Sindh

Jam–e–Muhabbat peevey Sindh

Jeevay hari aan mazdoor

Jeevey hariani pur nor.

(Long live Sindh, Long Live Sindh; Let Sindh have a toast of love; Long live peasants and workers, long live peasant women blazing with light.)

A blind poet Hafiz in a melancholic and inspirational tone recited his poem:

Sir katay ya suriah charhio

Torey kario nazaband

Tub murd sir bhi chondo ranhdo

Jeay Sindh Jeay Sindh.

(It does not matter whether you behead me or hang me or you put me in confinement; even my chopped off head will keep reciting Long live Sindh after my death.)

A poet with a powerful and authoritative style, perhaps Abdul Majid Jatoi, in a rhythmic way recited his poem entitled: Kair vikano kair vikano (Who is on sale, who is on sale.)

It was a spiritually uplifting event. Ayyaz Palijo, who was perhaps in the eighth grade, also came to the podium to recite a poem. The conference was very well organised, and we got the opportunity to talk to many SAT leaders and workers. We came back very inspired. SAT had a superb organisational capacity and its workers were very well versed in delivering its well-articulated narrative. Since we made the trip by train, it provided me a unique opportunity to hear Sufi Sibghat Ullah’s amazing tales of struggle and survival in the treacherous world of the lumpen proletariat of Karachi, and in the life threatening and soul-wrecking feudal landscape of Rahim Yar Khan. I shall narrate some of his stories separately.

During this period the CM of NWFP, Inayat Ullah Gandapur, flew to DIK. At the airport, the PPP’s firebrand General Secretary led a protest march to receive him. Inayat Ullah was infuriated at this treatment and opened machine gun fire on the crowd, killing Farooq and many of his companions, and injuring many more. After this savage act, he made a round of the city in an open jeep brandishing a machine gun in his hand. It was a big shock for PPP workers, and it extremely demoralised them as they expected some retaliation from their leadership. To cool the tempers of the workers Inayat Ullah Khan was sent to jail. Umer, Farooq Miankhel’s father had applied for the PPP’s ticket for the Provincial Assembly seat. Inayat Ullah was also a candidate for the same seat. Umer was very confident of getting the ticket now. He asked for my opinion. I said Inayat Ullah will get the ticket. He was not sure if he heard me right. He asked me again and I said the same thing. Why? he said. “Inayat Ullah has brutally killed a renowned PPP leader and so many workers. Why do you think that Bhutto will give him the ticket?” I said, “Bhutto wants to consolidate his power, so he will make an alliance with the powerful, not the weak.” That is exactly what happened. Umer Khan now had full faith that I understood politics. He also realised that we had a strongly interdependent relationship in politics and we must support each other to play our roles effectively.

Some years later, during Ziaul Haq’s time, when workers in the Colony Textile Mills Multan were massacred due to his tacit support of the mill owner’s family, we decided to carry out a mass protest rally in DIK. The local administration had clamped down using section 144 and banned any public gatherings or processions. We decided to defy section 144 and court arrest. Our allies from all coalition groups came out with banners to Bhakri Bazar and started raising slogans while marching to the police station. The police took the main leaders into custody and dispersed the rest. I was among the ones who were rounded up. When Umer heard this, he came to the police station and said to me, “Your job is to stay behind the scenes and guide. It is our job to court arrest. We want you to keep your job and stay here.” I argued but he took my place and sent me out. This collaboration continued. We worked under the organisational discipline of different parties, yet held joint study circles and collaborated on public meetings and protest marches according to our party guidelines.

We also arranged joint social and cultural events, which included Dhanwni and Suhbat. Dhanwni and Suhbat are special forms of celebration in DIK. Dhanwni in Saraiki means ‘taking a bath’, but it is a term used for having a picnic by the riverside, which includes swimming, cooking and eating meat and halwa. Suhbat means cooking meat and then mixing pieces of thin bread called mana into it. It is served on big round trays and eaten together. It is very delicious. Everybody eats with their hands, and people from higher or lower status sit together to eat. Both are predominantly male activities. Women do make Suhbat at home for family gatherings, however, in male gatherings, males themselves make Suhbat, and many of our friends from the upper strata loved making Suhbat for a get together with friends. Another common pursuit was fishing in dhunds. A dhund is a pool of water formed after a river shrinks during winter, receding to a smaller size, and leaving behind lots of fish in the riverbed, in the Indus known as Katcha.

During my years in DIK an armed insurrection by Baloch tribes started against the government. We had no direct contact with the guerillas or their political supporters. In the meanwhile, many Baloch and Pakhtun leaders and workers were arrested under the Hyderabad Conspiracy Case. We came to know that a civil servant from DIK Pervez Salim was also serving a term at Hyderabad. He had been visited by some Baloch fighters who stayed with him overnight, and on their way out exploded a bomb at the Islamabad airport. He was arrested on charges of assisting and facilitating these guerillas. The case against him was perhaps quashed later, and he was released from jail. During his jail term we discovered another big time nationalist intellectual in DIK, Inayat Baloch. He used to study at Punjab University but kept a very low profile, keeping his focus on studies and research, so we never got to know him during our campus days. Inayat was a very staunch nationalist and believed that the Baloch are descendants of Nimrud. He considered Nimrud as a Baloch hero and named his son after him. We had very cordial meetings with him, and he informed us of some conspiracies cooking against us and helped counter the baseless accusations made against us in the local community. He later left for Heidelberg University, Germany, where he married again and stayed in self-exile in Germany for a long time.

We had another connection with the insurrection in Balochistan. We secretly used to receive a copy of Jabal. It was circulated in a close circle of our friends and we used to discuss the contents and kept ourselves apprised of the situation. The journal passed through many hands before reaching us, so we never found out where it originated and had no curiosity about knowing the circulation network. I met Asad Rahman two decades later in Meeroo’s (Tasneem Rizvi’s) Model Town House in Lahore. Soon afterwards Asad formed an NGO called Marri Environment Development Agency (MEDA). Asad wanted to do something for skill development of Baloch youth. I was the coordinator of the UNDP’s small grants programme, and he applied for a grant from my programme. He also visited my office with Wadera Hazar Khan Bijarani (Wadoo) and a group of Baloch elders. I felt very honoured and excited to have received them. After a big fight in my steering committee, I got a grant approved for MEDA, made possible mainly due to the unflinching support of our steering committee member, architect Arif Hasan. I made a monitoring visit to the settlement of Hazar Khan Bijarani along with Asad. On this visit Asad told me that he was the famous Chakar Khan. He also showed me the point where he took part in the last ambush.

Asad told me that when the armed uprising started, Wadera Mir Hazar had 5,000 sheep, and when it ended, he was left with only 500. These fighters were abandoned by their leaders, and the youth did not know which way to go. There were no paramedics for women, and they suffered the most due to economic backwardness. Omar Asghar Khan agreed to arrange the training of Marri youth and sent Sangi’s bright social organizer Taj for their training and orientation. During the insurgency, we had no idea how to support the insurgents. The only thing we could do was to keep the discussion going. We were all very inspired by the Baloch. In Punjab, there were very few people who raised their voice for them. One among these dissenting voices was Mushtaq Soofi, who wrote the beautiful poem Baloch Sajnan dey Naan. I still remember the lines:

Baddal Kithon Aye Baddal Kithon Aye, Baddal Kalay Jehe Aswar Hawa Dey

Ja Arshaan De Kingrey Dhae, Neeli Ag Talwar Baddal Kithon Aye.

(Where did the clouds come from, where did the clouds come from; Clouds are black riders of the wind, they have (collided with) and erased the borders of heaven, Blue flame sword, where did the clouds come from.)

Raja Anwar’s two visits to DIK

Raja Anwar made two visits to DIK during my stint at Gomal University. I have earlier mentioned that he came first as part of Prime Minister Bhutto’s delegation. Bhutto Sahib addressed the conference of party workers during this visit. The PPP’s local president Shaista Khan Baloch and General Secretary Farooq made fiery speeches, and Bhutto, pointing to Shaista Khan’s long hair and mustaches said, “I know the Che Guevaras in Dera. I want them to understand the compulsions of politics.” Raja perhaps made friends with Shaista Khan during that visit. When he came next, times had changed, and he decided to go straight to Shaista Khan.

During Bhutto’s trial, Raja had started a movement amongst the PPP’s most devoted and most vulnerable followers to protest against the death sentence to Bhutto via self-immolation. He was trying to copy the example of Buddhist Bhikshus in South Vietnam, who burnt themselves to death as a protest against the US occupation of their country. This self-immolation carried nuisance value, but I considered it very brutal and callous in Pakistan’s context. Ziaul Haq’s agencies were on their toes to grab Raja and stop his campaign.

One afternoon I received a call from Shaista Khan to visit him. I told my housemates that I will be returning after meeting Shaista Khan. When I entered Shaista Khan’s drawing room, I saw a clean-shaven man sitting next to him. Shaista told me that this guy was from Lahore and wanted to see me. We exchanged pleasantries, but I could not place him. Then this Lahori guy said, “Fayyaz Baqir, you have not recognized me.” The voice sounded familiar. I tried hard to recall him from my memory but failed. Then he extended his hand and both of us almost simultaneously shouted, “Raja Anwar!” That was a pleasant surprise. Raja and I had both lived in the same hostel, Sir Syed Hall, for almost two years, and had countless meetings, conversations and discussions together. We used to have tea, omelets and snacks at Mooda’s Khokha (tea stall), so it was not possible that I would not recognize his Potohari accent and jolly way of talking. We had to catch up on lots of things. The only time I met Raja after his previous visit to DIK was at Shuja ul Haq’s house in Rehmanpura where he came unannounced because he was hiding from the police and his movements were not known to anyone but himself. We promised to meet again and here he was. This visit was different from the previous one. I now fully supported Raja’s cause even if I had disagreements with his method. We had a very warm conversation, but when I asked for permission to be excused, Raja insisted that I should stay over for some more time.

From Shaista’s house, we moved to Omar Khan’s exclusive guest house, which was almost unknown to everyone except a few of his friends. I wanted to call my cousin Barkat to tell him that I will return next morning, but Raja, Shaista and Umar would not allow me to make a call. I later realised that it was due to a high level of security concern that they did not want anyone to have even the faintest idea that I was in the company of Raja Anwar. We spent the night together and talked in detail about national politics, resistance against Ziaul Haq, and Raja’s self-immolation movement. Raja was of the view that the idea of this movement originated with Bhutto’s devotees and he only rolled the ball forward.

In the morning we talked a bit more after breakfast. Raja’s hosts were willing to drop him at the bus stand, but he asked me to see him off. We went to the bus stand on a bicycle rickshaw. Raja boarded a Dera Ghazi Khan-bound GTS bus, and as a precaution told me: “If anybody asks you about my destination, tell them that I went to Peshawar.” I kept his words. Despite my harsh response to him during his first visit, he was sure that there was no personal hostility between us; he could fully trust me when he was up in arms against Ziaul Haq’s brutal rule. There was also no confusion amongst any of the progressive political workers in Dera that it was our common cause, not the cause of a single party, group or individual. That was the practice we followed throughout Ziaul Haq’s rule.

(To be continued)