During the last days of 1964, when the electoral battle was about to set off between Gen Ayub Khan and Fatima Jinnah, Chaudhry Mohammad Azad Advocate, a staunch liberal-democrat, a silent philanthropist, political reformer, social worker and an honest lawyer, led a group of seven lawyers and launched a campaign for Fatima Jinnah.

Being the Jhelum district general secretary of the then Council Muslim League, his efforts bore fruit.

When the ballot boxes were opened and votes counted, the officials managing the elections were shocked to see that 72 Basic Democracy (BD) members cast their votes against the dictator.

Chakwal,, which was a tehsil of Jhelum district then, was the second largest tehsil in West Pakistan where Ayub Khan faced an unexpected opposition of the BD members who preferred democracy over dictatorship.

The more stunning aspect of this bewildering opposition was that all the influential feudal lords of Chakwal were with Ayub Khan.

“To campaign against a military dictator and at a time when the mode of transportation was not as advance as it is today was really hard which we, under the leadership of Azad Sahib, accomplished,” recalls senior advocate and a long-time friend and colleague Syed Ziaul Hassan Zaidi, whose association with Chaudhry Mohammad Azad Advocate began in 1958 and lasted till his death on August 9 this year at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) where he remained admitted for more than two months.

Born on January 15, 1934 in Rabal village of Chakwal, Chaudhry Mohammad Azad was named Ghulam Dastageer.

After passing matriculation from the historic Sehgal Model High School in the neighbouring village of Sehgalabad, he landed at Sindh Muslim College Karachi from where he did his intermediate. Then he returned to Chakwal and passed his graduation exams from the newly established Government College Chakwal. After doing BA, Chaudhry Azad again went to Karachi and got degree in LLB from Sindh Muslim Law College.

The grown-up Ghulam Dastageer leaned to the Left Wing and emerged as a staunch liberal. He changed his original name whose first part ‘Ghulam’ meant ‘slave’ into ‘Azad’ which meant ‘free’.

Chaudhry Azad started his practice as a lawyer in 1958 at District Courts Chakwal and continued it till the very end of his life. In the same year Pakistan was smacked by the first military coup and bureaucracy particularly police were so strong that it was even difficult to think about defying the brutalities perpetrated by the police. But Chauhdry Azad was the man who at the very initial stage of his career as a lawyer stood against police’s brutalities.

Chaudhry Azad’s active politics began in 1961 when he was elected as the general secretary of the Council Muslim League’s Chakwal chapter.

Besides holding the office of Council Muslim League he also remained the secretary general of Combined Opposition Parties, president of Pakistan Democratic Movement and president of Democratic Action Committee of tehsil Chakwal in the same period.

But when Mumtaz Doltana opened the doors of Council Muslim League for those feudal lords of Chakwal who supported Ayub Khan, Chauhdry Azad left the party and joined Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in 1971.

Besides holding the top slots of PPP in Chakwal including president, vice president, general secretary and assistant secretary, Chauhdry Azad was also elected as president and general secretary of Chakwal Bar Association.

However, Chaudhry Azad’s greatest contribution to Chakwal was that despite being a Chaudhry (a landowner and a rich person), he defied feudalism and hereditary politics of powerful families of the Sardars of Chakwal.

He founded Awami Group which turned the political course in Chakwal as under the umbrella of Awami Group, retired Lt-Gen Abdul Majeed Malik was fielded against the powerful Sardars of Chakwal in 1985.

Mr. Majeed was elected as MNA but after a year due to political and ideological differences, Chaudhry Azad parted ways with Mr. Malik.

Professor Naeem Shahid, the head of Urdu Department at Government Postgraduate College, Chakwal, said he always stood for the political and social superiority of a farmer and labourer.

“Being a staunch supporter and an active worker of the PPP, Chaudhry Azad had close links in the cabinets of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto, Hanif Ramay and with other top PPP leaders but he never misused his links for his personal gains. No one can point a finger at his character,” says Prof Naeem Shahid.

Retired Lt-Gen Abdul Majeed Malik, who was elected MNA for five consecutive times and also served as federal minister twice and once as an ambassador, said Chaudhry Azad was a political worker committed to his mission. “His opinion mattered the most to me. He never let political differences come in the way of our personal relations,” maintains Mr Malik.

Sardar Ghulam Abbas, former provincial minister and district nazim, said with the death of Chauhdry Azad, the downtrodden of the district would find themselves alone. “Chaudhry Sahib was a man of principles. I have learnt a lot from him. His death is a great loss,” he said.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2015

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