THE issue of Urdu as the official language of the province of Sindh alongside Sindhi was not going away any time soon. There were arguments and counter-arguments from the group who wanted only Sindhi to be the official language and from those who were in favour of both languages to be officially used side by side — keeping the media on their toes.

On July 5, 1972 Dawn reported that Mohammad Khan Soomro, Provincial Minister for Planning and Development, called upon the people of Sindh, especially the Urdu-Speaking people, to completely disassociate from leaders such as Mahmudul Haq Usmani and Nawab Muzaffar Husain who were not their real friends. In a rejoinder to a speech made by Mr Usmani in Hyderabad in which he threatened to start a movement for separating Karachi from Sindh and the creation of ‘Muhajiristan’, Mr Soomro said that it was a challenge to the great people of the province and Pakistan as a whole.

On July 7, various pro-Urdu bodies in Karachi took part in Protest Day by pledging that whatever the sacrifices may be, they would not let the legitimate claims of Urdu go. The Karachi Citizens Committee — which was one of the groups apart from the Karachi Suba Conference, the Karachi University Students Union and the Sindh Mohajir Punjabi Pathan Mahaz — said that by declaring Sindhi to be the provincial language, the Peoples Party had backed out of the solemn commitment made by the Quaid-i-Azam in respect of Urdu.

In a hectic behind-the-scenes activity and a series of meetings between Chief Minister Mumtaz Ali Bhutto and the Opposition leader Shah Faridul Haq and his followers on one hand and Mr Bhutto and the rest of the MPAs — including the opposition MPAs supporting the language bill — on the other, delayed by three hours the start of the eventful budget session of the Sindh Assembly which passed the controversial bill on July 7.

All the while the atmosphere in the assembly building was one of uncertainty and full of suspense. The leader of the opposition accompanied by supporters of co-existence of Sindhi and Urdu languages went into a conference with the chief minister and his principal aides. The meeting began at 8:15am and lasted for exactly two hours.

As a result of the political tussle, demonstrations took place in different parts of the city resulting in the loss of lives and property. On July 8, the members of the Opposition in the Provincial and National Assemblies from Karachi and some prominent citizens in a joint statement condemned the police action against the demonstrators. The statement read that not only people had been killed but those arrested had been tortured brutally at police stations.

“It is also shocking that when these representatives went to the Liaquatabad Police Station to complain about the brutal attitude of the police, the members of the police force in the presence of the SDM pointed their bayonets at the representatives of the people and threatened to kill them,” they added.

On July 9, the police firing on pro-Urdu demonstrators and killings of a number of innocent people in the city was condemned by other sections of society as well. Secretary-General of the National Awami Party, Mahmoodul Haq Usmani strongly criticised police action and acts of arson and looting in Liaquatabad in which poor shopkeepers had become victims. Maualana Ihteshamul Haq Thanvi also reprehended the incident as did Syed Saeed Hasan and Abdul Waheed Arshi, MPAs belonging to the Pakistan Peoples Party from Karachi.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2022