ISLAMABAD, May 29: Paying tributes to eminent scholar and political thinker Dr Feroz Ahmed (1940-1997) at a memorial meeting here on Sunday, veteran politician Air Marshal (retd) Asghar Khan said he fought for the rights of oppressed people of smaller provinces.

Referring to the scholastic work of Dr Ahmed on the national question, Asghar Khan regretted that the government was not paying attention to the grievances of small nationalities.

The programme was organised by the Sindh Graduates Association Islamabad chapter at the Shah Abdul Lateef Community Centre to pay homage to Dr Feroz Ahmad on his eighth death anniversary.

“We should have learnt a lesson from the debacle of East Pakistan, so that we do not repeat our mistakes”, observed the Air Marshal, referring to the ongoing crises in Balochistan and the tribal areas.

The scholar in his books and articles dwelt on the nature of state and unfair treatment of small nationalities.

“We are still not dealing with the issue wisely,” commented Air Marshal Asghar Khan.

A number of Dr Ahmed’s admirers, friends and family members, including his wife Dr Nadira Ahmed, elder sister and educationist Apa Afroz Begum, SGA president Yusuf Memon, Ibrahim Nizamani, Comsats consultant Dr Anwar Nasim, Saeed Shah Kazim, Fayyaz Baqir and Ashfaque Saleem Mirza were present on the occasion to refresh people’s memory of the great scholar.

Dr Ahmed’s wife has collected more than 600 articles written by the eminent intellectual which she donated to Dr Feroz Memorial Resource Centre set up at the Shah Lateef Centre, Islamabad. These materials would be transferred on CD and published, she said on this occasion.

She has continued her husband’s mission of uprooting societal injustices. Dr Ahmed was doing many things to unite progressive parties, though he was not a member of any political party. “That did not keep the Mazdoor Kisan Party from ascribing its membership to him, but he was not a member of MKP,” she said.

Dr Feroz’s association with the MKP was discussed by Fayaz Baqir. Saeed Shah Kazmi described Dr Feroz’s long association with the Pakistan Forum. He was trying through the magazine to harmonise intellectual challenges in search of true Pakistani identity.

Dr Anwar Nasim knew Dr Ahmad through the good association of a top class Pakistani microbiologist Dr Ahmad Iqbal Bukhari, and for his work in the Movement for Restoration of Democracy (MRD) in Pakistan. He added that outside Pakistan Dr Ahmad did enormous good work for Pakistanis.

Dr Ahmed’s comrade Ashfaque Saleem Mirza distinguished this social scientist from many others who in Mirza’s opinion were mere slogan mongerers.

The late scholar’s writings had more substance. He was the true friend of peasants and the working class.

Dr Ahmad was conscious of the fact that Pakistan cannot become independent and prosperous without eliminating the causes of dependence, disunity and poverty. Mr Mirza summed the gist of the literature written by Dr Ahmad.

Yusuf Memon said people like Dr Ahmad and others who were members of SGA truly believed in the unity of the federation and the supremacy of the Constitution.

This was the reason they have constructed the Shah Latif Centre in Islamabad - a place from where the agonies of Sindh could be voiced and also heard.

The late Feroz Ahmed was a professor in the school of social Work at Howard University, Washington D.C. He received his doctorate in demography in a record time of two years in 1968 from the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health and did his post-doctoral research at Harvard University’s Centre for Population Studies in 1966. Dr Ahmed taught at several universities in the US, Canada and Pakistan and lectured worldwide during the last 28 years.

With a sound background in natural sciences and his keen and growing concern for human sufferings, it was natural that Dr Ahmed began applying the scientific method to social problems. For his post-doctoral fellowship, he joined the faculty of Sociology Department at East Carolina University, Greenville, N.C. Two years later he made another move to Algoma University College, Ontario, Canada. In 1974 he finally returned home and joined the Sociology Department at Sindh University as a professor.

Subsequently, he established the Institute for Third World Studies at Karachi and started publishing critical magazine Pakistan Forum in Urdu in early 1970s, which was a sequel to the Pakistan Forum, which Dr Ahmed brought out from North America during 1970-77. In 1980, the dictatorial regime of Ziaul Haq forced him into exile.

Back in the US, he worked as senior researcher with the Economic Development Bureau in New Haven, CT: taught at New School of Social Research in New York, and finally, set out for Washington, D.C. in 1985.

Dr Ahmed wrote 20 books and monographs, published over 30 scientific papers in peer review journals, and nearly 300 articles in daily newspapers and popular magazines.

In addition, he was a regular contributor to Africasia (Paris) and weekly Viewpoint, Lahore, and daily Dawn. The broad range of subjects on which Dr Ahmed has written include sociology, political economy, politics, demography epidemiology.

He received grants, awards and prizes from government and non-government agencies for his research projects.

Dr Ahmed was associated with a large number of learned bodies and was on the editorial boards of many prominent magazines.

He advocated true democratic and an egalitarian society in Pakistan and opposed exploitation of the oppressed people.