Mera Safar
By Qazi Faiz Muhammad
Institute of Historical and Social Research
ISBN: 978-969-7985-52-4
398+XXIVpp.
Political memoirs generally fall into two categories. Some are little more than exercises in self-congratulation, settling old scores while polishing reputations. Others become valuable because, intentionally or otherwise, they illuminate an era rather than merely the individual who lived through it. Mera Safar [My Journey] by Qazi Faiz Muhammad belongs firmly to the latter tradition.
Qazi Faiz Muhammad (1908–1982) was among Pakistan’s foremost progressive politicians, a distinguished lawyer, novelist and social thinker, whose life was dedicated to democracy, social justice and the rights of peasants. A leader of the Awami League and National Awami Party from Sindh, he opposed every form of authoritarianism, whether military or civilian, and endured repeated imprisonment for his convictions.
Mera Safar is less of an autobiography than an intellectual and political history of 20th-century Sindh and Pakistan, narrated by one of its most principled, if underappreciated, protagonists.
Qazi Faiz Muhammad never occupied the highest offices of the state. He was neither prime minister nor governor nor chief minister. Yet, by the time one reaches the final pages of this remarkable memoir, it becomes clear that history is often better understood through the eyes of those who remained outside the corridors of power than through the memoirs of those who occupied them. The victors may write official history, but dissenters frequently preserve its conscience.
Written in 1975 in Sindhi, when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s government had begun tightening the screws on many of Pakistan’s progressive politicians and left-wing activists, Mera Safar (first published in Sindhi in 1999 as Muhunjo Safar) was itself an act of quiet defiance. Unlike many political autobiographies written after retirement, imprisonment or exile, it appeared while many of its protagonists remained active and while the ideological battles it describes were still raging. That lends the narrative an immediacy rarely found in memoirs.
Rather than a catalogue of events, the late politician Qazi Faiz Muhammad’s memoirs — recently translated from Sindhi to Urdu — are a chronicle of the intellectual and political evolution of 20th-century Sindh and Pakistan
The book opens unexpectedly. Rather than plunging into politics, Qazi embarks upon a lengthy philosophical meditation on existence itself. He reflects on the relationship between God and His creation, the mysteries of the human brain and mind, the distinction between intellect and wisdom and the vastness of the universe.
These reflections are neither ornamental nor eccentric. They reveal the author’s conviction that politics divorced from philosophy inevitably degenerates into the pursuit of power. This intellectual temperament, already evident in the introductory essay by his son Javed Qazi in the volume, distinguishes Qazi Faiz from the overwhelmingly pragmatic politicians of his generation. Readers expecting an uninterrupted political chronicle may initially find these chapters surprisingly abstract.
Yet, they serve an important purpose. They establish that Qazi considered politics merely one dimension of a much larger search for truth. His admiration for science, philosophy, literature, music and art recurs throughout the memoir and prevents the book from becoming another catalogue of meetings, elections and arrests.
The autobiographical narrative begins conventionally enough, with childhood and adolescence, but quickly becomes an account of intellectual formation. His years at NED Engineering College and Aligarh illustrate how education shaped his worldview, even though he ultimately abandoned engineering in favour of law.
His recollections of Hindu teachers rank among the memoir’s most moving passages. At a time when communal narratives increasingly dominate public memory, Qazi recalls teachers whose devotion to learning transcended religious identity. They judged students by ability rather than faith. Such recollections quietly challenge contemporary attempts to rewrite the Subcontinent’s shared educational and cultural heritage.
His youthful attraction to Allama Inayatullah Khan Mashriqi’s Khaksar Movement similarly receives a nuanced treatment. Like many politically conscious young Muslims before Partition, Qazi was drawn to its discipline, idealism and emphasis on self-improvement. Yet, the memoir demonstrates an intellectual honesty uncommon among veteran politicians. Rather than romanticising his youthful enthusiasms, he explains why he eventually outgrew them. This willingness to acknowledge ideological evolution gives the narrative unusual credibility.
As the story moves into the Second World War and the tumultuous years surrounding Partition, the memoir acquires increasing historical importance. Qazi offers a devastating critique of the Muslim League, arguing that it betrayed many of the ideals with which it had mobilised ordinary Muslims before Independence. His disappointment never descends into bitterness, however. Instead, it becomes the starting point for his lifelong search for a genuinely democratic and socially just political alternative.
That search eventually led him into the National Party in 1956, when he left the Awami League, and later made him one of the architects of the National Awami Party in 1957. Particularly revealing is his explanation of the circumstances surrounding its formation.
For Qazi, the decisive break came when Awami League leader and then Prime Minister of Pakistan Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy aligned Pakistan with Western strategic interests during the Suez Crisis, instead of supporting the Arab cause. In Qazi’s telling, foreign policy and domestic justice were inseparable. A state willing to compromise its principles abroad would eventually compromise democracy at home.
One of the memoir’s greatest strengths is its refusal to divide Pakistani politics into saints and villains. Friends receive criticism while opponents occasionally receive credit. His portrait of Hyder Bux Jatoi — whose Sindh Hari Committee he became part of at one point — illustrates this admirable balance. Qazi’s admiration for the legendary peasant leader is unmistakable. He acknowledges Jatoi’s immense sacrifices and his historic role in organising Sindh’s peasants.
Yet, he also criticises what he regards as a serious strategic mistake: preventing members of the Sindh Hari Committee from joining other political parties. In Qazi’s view, this organisational rigidity weakened the peasant movement instead of strengthening it. Such observations elevate the memoir above mere hagiography.
His treatment of Sindhi nationalist G.M. Syed is equally measured. Qazi recognises Syed’s enormous intellectual contribution and his role in articulating Sindhi identity. Yet, he firmly rejects Sindhi separatism. Having witnessed the catastrophic violence accompanying both the Partition of 1947 and the dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971, he concludes that political struggles should be conducted within existing national frameworks rather than through further territorial fragmentation.
It is a position that distinguishes him from many contemporaries within Sindh’s nationalist politics. Indeed, one of the memoir’s most striking characteristics is its independence of judgement. Qazi criticises Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan and Bhutto with equal consistency.
The book benefits enormously from the painstaking work of those who brought it to publication. Dr Karan Singh’s translation from Sindhi into Urdu is elegant and accomplished, capturing the cadence and literary flavour of the original rather than merely transferring words from one language to another. The Urdu is polished, graceful and often more literary than prosaic, making the memoir a pleasure to read.
The volume is further enriched by Javed Qazi’s perceptive foreword and Dr Syed Jaffar Ahmed’s thoughtful introduction. As director of the Institute of Historical and Social Research at Sohail University in Karachi, Dr Ahmed has long distinguished himself by publishing works that illuminate the neglected corners of Pakistan’s intellectual and political history. Equally deserving of recognition is Naaz Sanai, whose painstaking efforts in compiling the manuscript from the papers entrusted to him by Qazi Faiz Muhammad before his death rescued an invaluable historical document from possible oblivion.
Sobho Gianchandani’s reflective essay provides a fitting coda, adding yet another layer of historical and intellectual richness to a volume that deserves to be read, not merely as a memoir but as an indispensable source for understanding the evolution of progressive politics in Pakistan.
The reviewer is a columnist and educator. He can be reached at mnazir1964@yahoo.co.uk
Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, August 2nd, 2026