Abid Hassan
Minto: A Tale of Consistent Political Struggle
By G Mujtaba
Canada
Abid Hassan Minto is currently on a private tour
of the United States. During the last leg of his
tour, he plans to hold parleys with the like-minded
US political groups, preside over a roundtable
organized by the Pakistan American Democratic
Forum, address the local community in San Francisco
Bay Area, and join leaders of more than a dozen
Pakistani-American groups for a teleconference
to spotlight issues of poverty, illiteracy and
democracy.
Minto’s political struggle covers almost
the entire history of Pakistan. During the 1940s,
he was associated with the movement to secure
rights of the people as they were envisaged by
the people of Pakistan while dreaming for independence
from the British colonial rule. He emerged as
a leader in his own right with his election as
the President of the Punjab University Law College
Student Union in 1954. A legendary orator, Minto,
thereafter, emerged as one of the most articulate
voices of his generation.
As a leader of the National Awami Party, he struggled
during Ayub Khan’s regime for the democratic
rights of the people and nationalities constituting
the federation.
It was during Yahya Khan’s rule when some
political activity was allowed leading to one
of the fairest elections in the history of Pakistan
that his party struggled for a fair formula of
a viable federation. As a leader of a progressive
and forward-looking party, he along with Mr. C.
R. Aslam played a pivotal role in placing issues
of poverty, hunger, unemployment, oppression and
exploitation on the national agenda.
Many political observers and analysts have noted,
rightly so, that Z. A. Bhutto appropriated issues
like Roti, Kapra and Makan from Pakistani progressives
like Maulana Bhashani, C. R. Aslam and Abid Minto,
and then popularized these under his own name
by turning them into the central motif of his
party politics.
It was during 1970s that the farmers and workers
movement were also at their best. The workers
achieved many of the favorable labor laws and
the peasants demanded meaningful land reforms
limiting the ownership of land. The Awami National
Party held in 1970 a landmark Kissan Conference
at Toba Tek Singh that catapulted demands of Pakistan’s
seventy percent population, its peasants and farm
workers, on the national agenda and forced political
parties to offer various solutions. Thereafter
the demand for aborting the decadent feudal system
became the common slogan of farmers everywhere
in Pakistan.
Both C. R. Aslam and Abid Minto have remained
as my mentors and teachers of ideological and
social struggle throughout these years. Their
party suffered jolts for opposing the military
action in Balochistan and for supporting the cause
of peasants and workers. But it was during the
Zia regime that Minto was sent behind bars for
outright rejecting the authoritarian rule that
destroyed many of the achievements of the working
class and women, and imposed sectarian forces
undemocratically and brutally over the peace-loving
and forward-looking people of Pakistan.
During the 1990s when the globalization drive
engulfed Pakistan as a neo-colonial influence,
Minto kept struggling for the rights of the people
whenever it became a matter of the political and
economic sovereignty of the people of Pakistan.
He opposed imprudent privatization and the consequent
mass job curtailment. He demanded rights and wages
for the working class equal to that at the other
end of the globe. He demanded fair distribution
of wealth and incomes in the Pakistan society.
After the Musharraf government was inducted, Minto’s
party, the National Workers Party, stood for the
restoration of a constitutional rule. His party
is not satisfied with the economic policies of
the present Pakistan government that is causing
a rise in the levels of poverty and where the
working class is being deprived of their genuine
rights. It was during last March that the National
Workers Party held a mammoth Kissan Conference
at Toba Tek Singh to articulate the problems being
faced by the farmers’ community of Pakistan
today.
Abid Hassan Minto still believes that the feudalist
structure is haunting the real social and political
potential of Pakistan. He thinks that without
providing relief to the working class, the overall
progress being claimed by the present government
is meaningless. He welcomes the peace process
with neighbors that should lead to the reduction
of military expenditures in future. For offsetting
the pressure of globalization forces, he favors
promoting the idea of regional economic cooperation
in the fields of trade and investment among countries
facing the same problems.
As a Kashmiri himself, Minto has always favored
a solution of the Kashmir problem that satisfies
the wishes of the Kashmiri people. His party has
developed liaison with the left parties of India
to promote the current peace process between the
two neighbors according to the best interests
of the people of south Asia.
Abid Hassan Minto is known as one of the leading
lawyers and constitutional experts of Pakistan.
He has been involved in many probono publico petitions
in the higher courts to protect and secure the
rights of workers and women.
Minto’s greatest contribution has been in
areas of consciousness raising and national agenda
setting.
Minto has relentlessly struggled for over fifty
years for the cause of the people of Pakistan.
Despite his old age, he has yet not given up on
any front while pinning high hopes to see Pakistan
as a country that progresses for peace and prosperity
for its people. His lifelong endeavor is reflected
in the words of Hafeez Jalundhary:
Tashkeel-o-takmeel-e-fun mein, jo bhi Hafeez ka
hissa hey
Nisf sudee ka qissa hey, do-chaar baras ki baat
nahin
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