HYDERABAD, May 22: The people of Sindh will never allow division of the province, speakers said at a meeting in memory of peasant leader Hyder Bakhsh Jatoi at Journalists Colony here on Monday to mark his 42nd death anniversary.

Writer Mohammad Ibrahim Joyo said Pakistan needed a new constitution that recognised it as a multi-nation state. He accused the government of doing nothing for the province’s have-nots.

Mr Joyo recalled the country’s dismemberment in 1971 and advised the ruling class to “at least learn from hindsight” so that the same mistakes were not repeated in tackling the situation in Sindh and Balochistan.

Azhar Jatoi, President of the Sindh Hari Committee, said Hyder Bakhsh Jatoi took on “dictators and tyrants” in his struggle for peasants’ rights.

He lashed out at elements which were behind graffiti calling for carving a province out of Sindh.

Mr Jatoi said “such elements should accept Sindh as a political entity as it was this province which “welcomed your elders with open arms in 1947”.

He said it was unfortunate that the Sindh Assembly had been unable to do anything for elevation of Sindhi to a “national language”.

“It is time for Sindhis to rise up for their rights. Otherwise it will be too late.” Syed Jalal Mehmood Shah, chief of the Sindh United Party (SUP), said history cannot erase Hyder Bakhsh Jatoi’s struggle for the poor from collective memory.

About the political situation in Sindh, Jalal Shah said he was confident that people living in the province would foil “all conspiracies”.

The SUP chief minced no words while talking about the People’s Party, saying it should give up its policy of “divide and rule”.

Habib Jatoi, Aslam Rahu, Akbar Jatoi, Azam Jehangiri and Qamar Bhatti also spoke on the occasion.

RESOLUTIONS: The gathering adopted five resolutions. One of them called upon those Urdu-speaking people who were behind the graffiti of “Muhajir province” to give-up their “anti-Sindh thinking and accept it as your homeland”.

Another resolution called upon the government to take action against those calling for division of Sindh while one said major languages of the country should be granted status of national language. .

Other resolutions called for accepting the “right of ownership of indigenous people on natural resources”, giving subsidy to small growers, distribution of land among landless peasants, steps for rehabilitation of the flood-affected and giving Sindh its quota of Indus water.