Lately it has become fashionable for the affluent and the nouveau riche in metropolitan Pakistan to mock and denigrate the political workers, progressive ideologues, trade unionists and activist writers from the past who took part in various struggles waged across the country for both the democratic rights of Pakistani citizens and economic rights of the working people.

Those who were committed to the well-being of labour, peasants, miners, fishermen and-women, waiters, shop apprentices and print journalists, are projected as people who either could not keep pace with the modern world, or lacked both tact and talent in improving their lot.

For a host of political and historic reasons, many Pakistanis do not even have the faintest idea who these people were and what their struggles stood for. Most disappointing is that many who belittle our activists and campaigners from the recent past are those who have risen from among the same category of people, benefitting from the same social consciousness and political training to become wise in their lives and successful in their careers.

There is no denying that the world has changed, like it always does. Allama Muhammad Iqbal said, “Sabaat ek taghayyur ko hai zamaney mein” [change is the only constant across times]. Therefore, it is important to look afresh at the social, intellectual, economic and cultural challenges we are confronted with and the ways to overcome them in this day and age. But why should that entail dismissing our predecessors and undermining their struggle? What do their critics mean when they blame ideologues and activists from the past for not being able to keep pace with the modern times? Should they have reconciled with the monopolisation of capital, economic hitmen designing their new world, martial rulers muffling their voices, classist politicians constraining their organisations, obscurantist clerics imposing orthodoxy and the rise of neo-liberalism across the world? They decided against it, and paid a heavy price for doing so.

Acknowledging a few memoirs penned by political leaders and activists, some pioneering work done by academics such as Dr Kamran Asdar Ali and documentation by journalists such as Aslam Khwaja, the effort made in compiling, chronicling, archiving and analysing our social movements, political struggle, important events and the people who participated in them is still not enough.

It is understandable that not only do large cities play a major role in running campaigns and movements, they also provide the wherewithal to their residents to reflect, discuss, write and publish more conveniently than those living in secondary towns and villages. Therefore, it is possible to find material on the people and happenings in Karachi and Lahore, or Multan, Faisalabad and Hyderabad, although to a limited extent. But there are other cities, towns, districts and settlements in Pakistan where local people put their lives and livelihoods at risk, underwent trials and tribulations, faced the oppression of the state and the callousness of the rich and refused to give up their struggle for a just and equitable world. They remain anonymous and unsung.

Syed Sadiq Hussain Shah of Pakki Shah Mardan, Mianwali, has done us a huge favour and enriched our knowledge of the turbulent history of, and remarkable people belonging to, the district of Mianwali in Punjab. Mianwali Ki Mazahimati Tehreekein [The Resistance Movements of Mianwali], published in Urdu and spread over 500 pages, documents the context, causes, aims and activities of 10 different people’s movements run over the last 100 years in Mianwali.

Shah’s choice of language and idiom makes the narrative simple and accessible. He begins with the Kalabagh and Ahrar movements from before independence, then explains in detail the labour and civic rights movements of recent times. Besides other references, he even lists the police cases registered against people. The book is well-researched and adds substantially to the reader’s knowledge, but the greatest service Shah has done is to bring some of our heroes out of oblivion and celebrate their contribution.

The writer is a poet and essayist based in Islamabad

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, September 24th, 2017