THIS is apropos of the anthology that appeared in the supplement on Pakistan Day ‘All India Muslim League and the creation of Pakistan —a chronology 1906-1947’ (March 23) wherein events were highlighted in chronological order in respect of the All India Muslim League (AIML).While compiling the important events the compiler has ignored a very significant year, i.e. 1938, when the Muslim League (ML) first got a foothold in Sindh. This was the year when a convention of the Muslim League was organised at Karachi.

In the convention, presided over by the Quaid-i-Azam, it was Syed Ghulam Murtaza Shah (G.M. Syed) who had read the ‘sipasnama’. It was in this convention that Sir Haji Abdullah Haroon was elected as the president of the Sindh Muslim League, the post which he held till death.

I would also like to correct the complier of chronology: in 1937 elections Shaikh Abdul Majid, who defeated Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto in his home seat of Larkana, was not the leader of the ML (not yet organised in Sindh) but was leader of his own Sindh Azad Party.

Moreover, Sardar Allah Bux Gabol, who also belonged to his party, won the Lyari seat against Sir Haji Abdullah Haroon. In the election held inFebruary 1937, the first ever conducted after the separation of Sindh from Bombay, the partywise position of members who were declared successful was as under:

Sindh United Party Muslim seats: 22, Sindh Muslim Political Party: four, Sindh Azad Party: three, Congress: eight, Sindh Hindu Mahasabha:11, Independent Muslim: nine, Independent Hindus: three and Independent Labour Party: one.

After the election the Governor of Sindh asked Sir Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah, the leader of the Sindh Muslim Political Party, to form a cabinet. Large-scale defections took place from the ranks of the Sindh United Party and the Sindh Azad Party in the assembly.

After winning support of the defectors Sir Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah remained premier of the province from April 1937 to March 1938.

ISHA KURESHIKarachi