KARACHI, Dec 5 Speakers at a seminar held here on Friday eulogised the role itinerant revolutionary Dada Amir Haider Khan played in spreading communist revolution across the globe, even though he and others like him have been blacked out from the history books of Pakistan.

The seminar, organized by the University of Karachi's Pakistan Studies Centre to discuss the memoirs of Dada, titled Chains to Lose Life and Struggles of a Revolutionary, which have been edited by Professor Hasan N. Gardezi and published by the centre, brought together scholars and thinkers, who recalled the life of a man who ran away from his village in the Potohar region to spread the creed of Marxism in different parts of the world.

Columnist and writer Zahida Hina, in an eloquent speech, said that were Dada alive today, he would have confronted the forces who were spreading hatred in the city, an obvious reference to the recent ethnic disturbances in Karachi. Saying that Amir Haider Khan had struggled for a class-less society, she added that though Dada, who passed away in the mid eighties, and his comrades wanted freedom from the British, little did they know that a new set of exploiters would reap the fruits of freedom.

She said that before independence, Dada had travelled across the world in pursuit of his revolutionary activities; yet after the creation of Pakistan he had to struggle for 14 years to obtain his passport. “The system tried to break him down. He was considered dangerous because he spoke of the rule of the people. This terrorised dictators.”

In his brief speech, Prof Gardezi said that even though Dada did not learn English from any college or university, his writing was remarkably fluid. “Dada tried to change the world and discovered new truths; truth you cannot find in any books.” A.R. Arif said that Dada never looked at life through an ethnic or communal perspective and even though he himself was a Punjabi, he worked for the uplift of others regardless of race. “Every ethnic group in Pakistan is worried about its own members. What happened to human values? This is one of the reasons we face problems in Pakistan.”

He added that Dada had warned about those who would desert ideological movements because of lack of patience and gave the example of how countless people deserted leftist parties in Pakistan after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Imdad Kazi appreciated the launch of the book, pointing out that there were very few publications on the “heroes” of the anti-imperialist movement in the subcontinent. Recalling a visit to India, he said he was pleased to see that in a publication, the Communist Party of India-Marxist had praised the role of Dada Amir Haider Khan and Dada Feroz-ud-Din Mansoor, another Pakistani leftist icon.

Describing Amir Haider Khan as a “citizen of the world”, Anwar Ahsan Siddiqui said that unfortunately, history was distorted in Pakistani society, which took people away from the truth. He claimed this was being done according to a “well thought-out plan” which began right after independence. He said the elite of the country were responsible for clouding history, and the question of when Pakistan's history began was meant to confuse people.

Delivering the welcome address, director of the Pakistan Studies Centre Dr Syed Jaffar Ahmed gave a background of his institute and of how the centre ended up publishing the book, which had earlier been published in an incomplete version. He said the Urdu translation of the two-volume work would be ready soon.

Poet Harris Khalique also spoke, while Wahid Bashir presided over the event.