Col. Amjad Sayed: Pakistan Movement Stalwart
By Mowahid Hussain Shah
1930’s Islamia College, Lahore: Amjad Sayed
On the evening of June 19, 2017, the long life of Colonel Amjad Hussain Sayed came to an end at Lahore. Orphaned during his toddler years, he never saw his mother and barely saw his father. Yet, he spurned victimhood. Instead, he saw the Hand of Providence in that, perforce, he was sent away from a remote, isolated village to live amidst joint family environs of his newly family-founded colony of Muslim Town, Lahore, established as a counter-balance to the elite Hindu colony of Model Town, Lahore.
Those who met Shahji (as we called our father) were touched by his honesty, humility, and humanity. Never to nurse a grudge, he was generous to a fault and would display spontaneous hospitality beyond his capacity. He would offer to help someone in distress at the drop of a hat. He was bereft of material temptations and worldly fears. Never in my life did I see Shahji shop and buy anything for himself. Nor did he ever ask me to get something for him. He abhorred sycophancy and the sending of anonymous letters.
Shahji’s core values were earning an honest livelihood (rizq-e-halal) and speaking truth to tyrants (kalma-e-haq). These two and his unrelenting gratitude to Mohammed Ali Jinnah and being an Ashiq-e-Rasul (pbuh) were the bedrock inspirations of his life.
Having to fend for himself throughout his youth, his personal growth accelerated. He developed daring and initiative at an early age and was at the fulcrum of the youth awakening for the Pakistan Movement, within family and in his Islamia College years, during which he encountered Allama Iqbal and the Quaid.
Sent by Allama Iqbal, he was the last surviving delegate to the landmark October 1937 Lucknow session of the Muslim League, wherein the Quaid reorganized the Muslim League; and also the pivotal March 23, 1940 Pakistan Resolution session, where his nephew Khalid Sayed, who accompanied Shahji, made the sole film recording of the watershed event, where Shahji is prominently visible.
In August 1997, to mark the Golden Jubilee of Pakistan’s independence, the Prime Minister decorated Shahji with a gold medal for his services in the Pakistan Movement.
Imbued with honor and self-respect, Shahji strove for uprightness. Such was his ferocity of moral indignation that he would never shirk nor be intimidated from a fight with powerful quarters, whenever he saw wrongdoing and pharaonic arrogance. Through thick and thin, he cherished and sustained friendships, and had a disdain for transactional-driven relationships.
At Islamia College, Railway Road, Lahore – then the hub of Muslim nationhood – he formed a close bond with Hameed Nizami, founding editor of Nawa-i-Waqt in 1940. His indomitable younger brother, Majid Nizami, who was editor-in-chief of Nawa-i-Waqt for 52 years, often narrated in a choked voice that when Shahji joined the Army, during the peak of World War II, Hameed Nizami didn’t eat for a week.
During my boyhood days in Jakarta, where Shahji served as Pakistan’s Military Attaché, I personally witnessed how his genuineness swayed luminaries like Indonesian Army Chief General HarisNasution and General GatotSoebroto, an Indonesian independence hero who resisted the Dutch. For his path-breaking endeavors, legendary Indonesian leader President Sukarno decorated him with Indonesia’s highest award. The citation from Sukarno read: “Col. Sayed has blazed a trail of light which will long serve as a beacon … he made some very important contributions in further promoting the mutual understanding, friendship, and cooperation between the two countries, Indonesia and Pakistan.”
Shahji left us with simple life lessons: not to usurp, stand by those in trouble and needing help, keep a promise, be punctual, return telephone calls, answer letters, shun Munafqat (hypocrisy), and follow the straight path. He had no guile. His simple living was matched by high thinking.
When my sister Tazeen lay on her deathbed, Shahji would sit beside her for hours.
Dr Abdus Salam Khurshid (later, Head of Punjab University Dept of Journalism)
He refused to let his future be dictated by fear. Shahji was neither a schemer nor much of a planner, believing that the Ultimate Planner is the Almighty. With his departure, a chapter closed.
On July 28, 2017, the Pakistan community in the greater Washington area organized a massive memorial tribute to him.
A special commemorative issue of the Nazaria-i-Pakistan Trust magazine dated November 2017 was entirely devoted to him, cataloguing his contributions, with various writers paying tribute to his services.
In April 2018, a road was named after him in Lahore’s strategically located Muslim Town neighborhood.
In the family cemetery at Shah Jamal, Lahore, a simple black granite tombstone marks the final resting place of Shahji.
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