KARACHI, Nov 7: In a programme organised on Wednesday by the Marxist Leninist Forum Pakistan at the Karachi Press Club to commemorate the Russian Revolution, veteran leader Sobho Gianchandani called on his fellow comrades to join hands with him to set up an organisation to educate poor children.

“I have spent years in jail at different stages of my life for socialism,” he said. “I have fought for students, peasants and labourers. Now I fight for education.”

He said that children were the masters of future so education for them should be free. “Today I’m trying to save our children,” he said. “I request all of my comrades to join hands with me and set up an organisation for educating the children of the poor.

Save them from those who want to keep them ignorant.”

Comrade Gianchandani said that since the peasants were uneducated, they did not even know about their basic rights. “See how ignorance has caused our poor peasants and farmers to give away their lands for peanuts,” he said. “It is all due to lack of education. Change their lives by education so that the next generation isn’t fooled by powerful people.”

He said that he joined the Communist Party in 1941, but he learnt mostly from his teacher Rabindranath Tagore. “That’s how generations learn from each other. So teach your children,” he urged his fellow comrades, as they sat cross-legged on the floor listening intently to Comrade Gianchandani who spoke while sitting on the stage.

“We are all common workers. We sit on the floor,” said Comrade Saleem Akhtar, who hosted the programme. “This is not a political programme but an academic one.”

While referring to the events of 1917 in Russia, Comrade Habibur Rahman asked, “How could the blood of a few peasants and labourers bring about such a big revolution then, while the deaths of 300 workers in the Baldia factory blaze not evoke any response from the people?”

He asked how people could sleep at night knowing that no once cared for the working class in this country. “This democracy is all about looting and exploiting the people,” he said. “Sadly not even the leftists of today care about our poor labourers.”

Anwar Sathi of Pakistan Railways sang a revolutionary song, Manzoor Rafi read out Habib Jalib’s poetry and Sheema Kermani performed with her troupe on Faiz’s poetry.