APROPOS Hanif Samoon’s analysis ‘Romance of Sindhudesh fast fading away as workers desert nationalism’ (Aug 17).

Regretfully the writer has jumped to an abstract judgement saying that ‘the philosophy (of G.M Syed) has failed’, without knowing the basic facts of the story. For example, he says: “Iqbal Tareen and others preferred to quit politics for good immediately after Syed’s death”.The fact is that Iqbal Tareen left for America for better prospects in the early ‘80s much before Syed’s death.

Another important correction is that the Jeay Sindh Mahaz was never renamed Jeay Sindh Qoumi Mahaz. It was rather a new party created after Syed’s death with the merger of different factions. The JSM as a party remained intact and the (majority) workers, immediately after Syed’s death, held their regular biennial congress in which I was entrusted the job of the chairman. Astonishingly Mr Samoon has mentioned my name in the list of founders of the new party and that also, interestingly, as Dr Abdul Khalique Junejo, though by profession I am an engineer.

The most important is the writer’s questionable judgement that ‘the philosophy has failed’.He has leapt to this conclusion without explaining what the philosophy of G.M. Syed is.The only thing he has supplemented his opinion with is an interview of Dastagir Bhatti, known for his disagreements with G.M. Syed.

The basic point of Syed’s philosophy about Pakistan is that the ‘federation’ of Pakistan is dominated by one unit, that of Punjab. Not only nationalists of smaller provinces but almost all rational writers and intellectuals subscribe to this theory. In Dawn’s Aug 15 issue Ashraf Jahangir Qazi, in his lead article ‘Birthday reflections’,writes: “For Pakistan to survive and prosper it can no longer be ruled as ‘Punjabistan’”.

The second most important point of Syed’s thought is that ‘religion should be separated from the state affairs’. Syed had warned at the 1952 world peace moot in Vienna that if Pakistan was ruled on religious basis, there would emerge dangerous movements of extremism.

Abdul Khalique Junejo

Karachi

Published in Dawn, September 9th, 2017