From Iqbal Tareens wall:January 16, 2003 Ghulam Murtaza Shah known as G.M. Syed My first ever meeting with GM Syed took place in 1968 at the home of Mama G.M. Bhurgri in Hirabad. I knew very little about G.M. Syed except what I heard and read about him from RB Palijo, Late Hafiz Qureshi, and Mama Ghulam Muhammad Laghari during our three and half months of incarceration in Hyderabad prison. The one thing that gravitate me toward Saeen G.M. Syed was his traditional hospitality and respect for everyone around him regardless of age or social status. During that brief meeting he inspired me with his conviction and principled stand on many issues of our time. Within a year, I founded Jeeay Sindh Students Federation by combining student wing of Jeeay Sindhi Naujawan Mahaz and splinter group from Sindh National Students Federation. As a President of Jeeay Sindh Students Federation, I had a rare opportunity of working under the leadership of G.M. Syed or Saeen G.M. Syed as most of us called him out of respect. G.M. Syed was a man of vision and unparalleled resolve. His philosophy and entire career was anchored with the national interests of Sindh and Sindhi people. Even his arch opponents remember G.M. Syed as a man of integrity and dedication to the cause of Sindh. G.M. Syed will always be remembered as a man who created awareness in Sindhis for their unique identity and rightful place in the world. He was first Sindhi leader who had successfully articulated a vision of his homeland and for his people. Nobody can take that away from him. Ignited by this drive, Syed tried major political parties and platforms to win Sindh’s rights. Although Syed was born in a very conservative orthodox Syed family but he defied many paradigms of his days. He constantly rode against the tidal waves of traditional religious faith and against the established rules of politics and statecraft. To a novice, Syed’s affiliations with the Khilafat Tehrik, Indian National Congress, and Muslim League will appear contradictory. When judging Syed in hindsight one should bear in mind that securing the rightful place for his people and Sindh in the subcontinent remained the dominant motive behind his multiple crusades. In 1920, as a young man, Syed joined the Khilafat Tehrik. In 1930, hoping to win a simultaneous freedom for India and Sindh, Syed joined the Indian National Congress. It was due to the duality of standards how Congress treated Sindh and rest of Indian provinces that forced Syed to quit congress. His differences with Congress came to surface when Congress decided to oppose his sponsored bills in 1938. These bills were aimed at curbing legacy of Sindh’s exploitation by Bombay presidency. These legislations were related to land transfers, abolition of the nomination system, tenancy act and host of other bills, which offered significant relief to Sindhi Muslims who formed the majority of the population and were adversely affected by these laws. Syed’s separation from Congress provided a gateway for the Muslim League. The Lahore Resolution, Jinnah’s public and private assurances for provincial sovereignty and his declared solidarity with cause of Sindhi Muslims offered a new hope for Syed to win the rights of his people. On March 1943 Sindh became the first province of India, which adopted the Pakistan Resolution in its provincial Assembly under the leadership of G.M. Syed. It was Syed who cast the first stone against the autocratic leadership of Jinnah. It was not the issue of awarding the tickets but the process, which posed new kind of top-down style of micromanagement by Jinnah. In Jinnah’s style of management, Syed saw the manifestation of faulted governance of the new state for the Muslims of India. Knowing his decision of quitting Muslim League would probably the most expensive of his political career, GM Syed decided to leave Jinnah’s Muslim League. By now, Jinnah had already established his roots in the masses and was calling most political shots in the region. The two most hard-to-defend decisions of Syed were his involvement in the incident of Masjid Manzilgah, which was a hoax to topple Allah Bux Soomro’s government in 1939 and his public praise for Pakistani military dictator Zia ul Haq who used Syed’s friendship against another son of Sindh Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Although ZA Bhutto was a chief architect of military crackdown on East Pakistan but he posed greater threat to the military establishment than the benign Sindhu Desh movement of Sindhi youth. Regardless of honest differences of opinion with GM Syed’s political expediencies, his vision of Sindh and Sindhi nation’s right to its sovereignty will triumph in the end. Through his wisdom and vision, GM Syed has rightfully earned a historic position of Socrates of Sindh. Iqbal Tareen
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 16:14:56 +0000
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