COMRADE Syed Jamaluddin Bukhari was a much-loved and respected Marxist whose contribution to the cause of peasants, industrial workers and the downtrodden left a lasting imprint on the lives of the people and influenced mainstream politics of the time.

Hailing from Ahmedabad in Indian Gujarat, Bukhari was born on March 14, 1900, exactly 17 years after the death of Karl Marx. He was 19 when he went to Moscow after the 1917 October Revolution, and stayed there for about a couple of years to observe the working of the Bolshevik administration in its early days.

In his student life, Bukhari was inspired by Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar and it was on the latter’s advice that he moved to Karachi in late 1921 to join the daily Al-Waheed, an organ of the Khilafat Movement, where he worked for about six years during which he also faced the wrath of the British machinery.

One of the founding members of the Communist Party of India (CPI), Bukhari also attended the inaugural meeting of the Progressive Writers Association. He was also the first and the only secretary of the Sindh Communist Party appointed by the CPI. In July 1948, Bukhari was arrested under Safety Act along with eight other comrades. His wife Shanta Bukhari, who was running the commune, also had to leave the party office as it was sealed by the authorities.

On the instructions of Bukhari from Jail, Shanta handed over Rs28,000 in cash, keys of the office, the printing press and of a flat located in Burns Road area as well as bank account details to Sajjad Zaheer while walking on what was then the Elphinstone Street in Karachi’s Saddar area. This ‘transfer’ took place in late 1948 in the presence of Hasan Nasir.

After release from jail about eight months later, Bukhari faced externment, and had to settle in Larkana along with his wife and two sons. He died aged 85 on Dec 17, 1984, and is buried in Larkana.

Syed Mukarram Sultan Bukhari
Karachi

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2022