‘Looking back to look forward’: event videos now online

A play list of 16 clips from ‘Looking back to look forward’, the three-hour long event held in Karachi on Jan 9, 2010 to commemorate Dr Sarwar and the 1953 student movement. Click this playlist link to see a list of all the clips. Clickable in chronological order below:

Was the Russian Revolution a Marxist revolution?

The background to the writing of this article is as follows. I was asked by the editor of the Left, Urdu language journal Awami Jamhori Forum if I would comment on a number of questions which were currently subject of discussion in Pakistani Marxist and left circles. I agreed. The first question asked provides the title of this article — Eric Rahim

Dr Ayub Mirza passes on

Sad to hear that Dr Ayub Mirza passed away this morning. His daughter Alina Mirza, writes from Glasgow: “He had another heart attack and collapsed. The doctors tried to resuscitate him but he had gone. He went peacefully and did not suffer. The last few days with him were a bonus for all of us.”

Dr Ayub Mirza update

Dr Ayub Mirza, a leading figure of the 1950s’ student movement and DSF, a life long friend of Faiz Ahmed Faiz and author of Faiz’s biography ‘Hum Keh Thehray Ajnabi’, has been seriously ill; good news is he’s better now.

Introduction to Event Book, Jan 9, 2010

In honouring these activists today two facts speak for themselves. First, the movement was really broad-based and took roots in almost all colleges. Secondly, as their brief thumbnail sketches clearly show, these activists were not professional politicos or troublemakers, but serious students who cared about their studies as much as about the environment they studied in

Jan 8, 2010 – ‘Students’ Day’; Nov 13, Hasan Nasir Day

Over the past month, following the references at Karachi and Lahore, a small informal group has come together in order to take forward the legacy of Dr M. Sarwar. Updates following our last discussion followed by notes from the meeting

Setting the record straight on DSF (2008 article by Dr Haroon & Saleem Asmi)

Spearheaded by Mohammad Sarwar, Mir Rehman Ali Hashmi, Asif Jaffery, Asif Hameed, Yousuf Ali and Haroon Ahmed, a group of students from Dow Medical College, feeling the need to address such issues, met in 1950 at Oudh restaurant on Mission Road. The Democratic Student Federation was launched with Mohammed Sarwar elected as convenor.

Barkat Alam – an old comrade passes on

Barkat joined the Karachi student movement of the early 50s (and the Party), along with Mohammad Shafi and Saghir Ahmad, while still at school. All three of them played an active role in the movement. Many friends from that time will remember him with affection, a quiet, unassuming, serious-minded young man.

Karachi communists in the early 1950s: a contribution to the ‘Sarwar Reference’ by Eric Rahim

Eric Rahim re-visits the 1950, as a contribution to the Sarwar Reference. Broadly speaking, his recollections deal with two related issues that have received only marginal attention in the contributions made so far – the presence of the Communist Party in Karachi, and the causes of the inability of the student movement to sustain itself beyond the early 50s

Sarwar, DSF and the ‘Students’ Herald’ – S.M. Naseem

Our resources were extremely limited – the paper sold for two annas per copy, slightly more than the cost of a cup of tea in those days. Our editorial office moved from one Irani tea shop to another between Burns Road and Bunder Road where most of the colleges were clustered and we were constantly shadowed by the CID inspector who was assigned to find out what we were bringing out in the next issue.