Khondkar Ghulam Mustafa, better known as KG or KG Bhai to Pakistani journalists in the 1960s and early 1970s, entered journalism in Kolkata before independence. Even before that he had distinguished himself as a radical student leader. After independence he worked for several newspapers (Sangbad, Ittefaq and Pakistan Observer) and was at the forefront of the people's struggle for an egalitarian order.

The language movement of the early 1950s confirmed KG's rise as a fiery speaker and mobiliser of people. His name was high among activists who were imprisoned for being communists. After his release under a Bhashani-Ayub understanding, KG devoted himself almost wholly to the mission of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), which had already established itself as a strong defender of not only the journalist's economic rights and their right to freedom of expression, but also of the people's right to democracy and social justice. Before the decade of the 50s ended, PFUJ had covered itself with glory by comprehensively rejecting military rule and denouncing the Ayub regime's seizure of newspapers (beginning with the take-over of The Pakistan Times and other publications of the Progressive Papers Ltd.).

The PFUJ was able to draw upon the services of a large crop of journalists produced by the struggle for democracy in the 1950s. They included in East Bengal, besides KG, Shaheedullah Qaiser, Siraj Husain and A. B. M. Moosa, and in West Pakistan Safdar Qureshi, Asrar Ahmad, Minhaj Barna came together to continue the good work started by Shakoor Sahib, Lewis, Ahmad Ali Khan and Hameed Hashmi. For a better part of the 1960s, KG functioned as the key figure in PFUJ.

Three things helped KG to assume command of the PFUJ even while he was its general-secretary and Asrar Ahmad was the president. First, he emphasised the union's proactive role. For instance, he was largely responsible for the PFUJ's unprecedented resolution to the effect that working journalists would not be a party to the publication of untruthful reports. Secondly, he had a remarkable capacity for developing a strategic consensus and preserving unity in the union. A fine example of this quality was the way he deferred to A. T. Chaudhri's wishes regarding the formation of newspaper workers' unions in which working journalists were joined by the more numerous proof readers, calligraphists and press workers.

Thirdly, he always kept an eye on political currents in the country. When the PFUJ meeting in Islamabad in 1969 coincided with the round-table conference called by Ayub Khan, journalists were quite a few steps ahead of politicians. In January 1970, KG was among the first political analysts to predict Awami League's landslide victory in the election that was at least 10 months away.

A few months later the PFUJ, with KG as its president, created history by organising Pakistan's first ever nationwide strike by labour. The union succeeded in getting its demands accepted but betrayal of the common cause by some journalists in Lahore helped the Yahya regime to sack more than a hundred journalists. KG's response again revealed the fighter in him. “We should challenge the dictator by bringing out our own newspaper,” he declared. That is how Azad (1970-71), the trendsetting Urdu daily, came into being and played its breezy innings.

Later in 1971 when KG came to Lahore to attend a meeting of the Journalists' Wage Board, he told his friends to be ready for the emergence of Bangladesh. He also warned Barna and Nisar Osmani, who were going to take over from him, of the crises the PFUJ was going to face once it lost the backing of the East Bengal journalists. KG had known Sheikh Mujib since their student days. He liked the Sheikh and also had the courage to comment on the chink in his armour. Sheikh Mujib acknowledged KG's services by appointing him as ambassador to Iraq and Lebanon.

Back in Bangladesh after Sheikh Mujib's assassination, KG tried to return to journalism but the world had changed far too radically to accommodate him. Quite a few of his old friends started complaining that he was not the same old KG. He did not complain because he never learnt to do that. He chose to fight through the columns he contributed to a few chosen publications.

But howsoever one may judge KG's last years, the image of the man that will survive in history is that of an intrepid fighter for the right to freedom of expression, who at the height of his career was without a peer in the land.