THE agitation led by the student community against the government hadn’t lost steam. If anything, it was gaining momentum because some other groups, such as lecturers at Karachi’s private colleges, had also joined them in their struggle. Mind you, it wasn’t only the National Students Federation (NSF) spearheading the struggle.

On Feb 25, 1969 over 500 students in the city took out a torchlight procession after Maghrib prayers. Carrying torches, they started to move from Liaquatabad No 10 after sunset, went to the Quaid-i-Azam’s mausoleum, offered fateha at the mazaar of Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah and then marched to the Jama Masjid Arambagh. At the centre of the spirited procession was a float bearing a life-size plywood cutout of Ms Jinnah — and the ‘torch of democracy’. And at the head of the procession was Shahinshah Hussain, President of the Muslim Students Federation (MSF). As the group of the original 200 torch-bearing students moved forward, the number got bigger. At Abbas Market in Liaquatabad, the procession observed a minute’s silence and offered fateha for those who died in the neighbourhood in riots. They also offered prayers for the success of the aims for which the people lost their lives in Liaquatabad. By the time they reached the Quaid-i-Azam’s mausoleum, the number of participants had swelled to 1,000.

The next day, on Feb 26, workers of the Baloch, Sindhi and Pakhtun student organisations staged a demonstration to press their demand for the dismemberment of One Unit. The demonstrators gathered in Banaras and Pathan colonies. In the meantime, the Sindhi Students Federation (STF), Karachi, decided to distribute badges in connection with the ‘Anti-One Unit Week’ on Eidul Azha which was on Feb 27. Syed Zafar Ali Shah and Syed Murad Shah, two MPAs from Sindh, also demanded disintegration of One Unit. In a joint statement, they said, the situation had created frustration and resentment among the people of smaller units. It was high time that provincial autonomy be restored as guaranteed in the 1940 Resolution. They urged the government to release G.M. Syed and G.M. Leghari from detention.

This was the time, and we have established that, when the teachers of the city too were unhappy with the authorities and had placed quite a few demands before the government. On Feb 24, the West Pakistan College Teachers Association (WPCTA), Karachi region, again staged a silent demonstration in Saddar to bring to the notice of the people what it called the ‘callous attitude of the authorities’ towards the legitimate demands of the teachers of non-government colleges. Over 100 college teachers, including women teachers, took part in the hour-long demonstration.

On Feb 26, the teachers were all praise for their students. The general body meeting of the WPCTA held at the Quaid-i-Azam’s mausoleum recorded ‘with pride and admiration’ the fact that the students had spearheaded the movement for democracy in the country. A resolution passed at the meeting stated that the ‘teachers salute the students who put up brave and determined fight against dictatorships’.

By the way, the government did try to calm the teachers down by releasing an amount as special grant. But in a statement the WPCTA termed the release of the Rs1,054,510 grant to the private colleges as a mere ‘eyewash’ because they believed that the total requirement was about Rs4 million, equivalent of four months’ salary of the teaching staff. It made clear that the partial grant should not be mixed up with the normal grant-in-aid, which was a wholly different matter.

Feb 27 was Eidul Azha. Karachi celebrated the day and the festivities climaxed on Feb 28 with the traditional mela at Clifton where thousands of people had fun. Children running about in colourful clothes since early morning on Eid set the pace of the celebrations.

As soon as the thee-day festivities of Eid ended, on March 2, four college teachers and a principal went on a 48-hour hunger strike in front of Sir Syed Girls College in Nazimabad at 10:30am. It climaxed the programme of ‘drastic action’ launched by the WPCTA to protest against the non-acceptance of their ‘five immediate demands’. The four college teachers on strike were: Dr Alia Imam of Premier College, Zakia Sarwar of Sir Syed Girls College, Mustafa Hasnain and Mahmoodul Hasan Nayyar of Allama Iqbal College.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2019

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