Published by Daily Morning Star London on June 5, 2020

Chaudhary Fateh Mohammad, May 1923 – May 2020

Zamir Butt salutes a silent hero of the revolutionary movement, founder of the peasants’ movement in Pakistan and a real son of the soil

COMRADE CHAUDARY FATEH MOHAMMAD, an icon of the communist movement in Pakistan, founder of the peasants’ movement and lifelong campaigner for the rights of oppressed people, passed away on Monday, 25 May 2020 at 4.45am.

At 97, he had given 72 years of his life to the Marxist movement. He was arrested by every government of Pakistan between 1951 and 2009 and he spent over 18 years in jails and torture centres.

Comrade Mohammad was born in May 1923 in a lower middle-class family in the small village of Chaharke near Jalandhar. After his BA exam, he joined the British Army and travelled to to fight fascism in WW2. In the wake of Partition in 1947, he migrated to Pakistan and settled in a village in Toba Tek Singh. Within two months of his migration, he joined the migrant-rights movement for the settlement of migrants from India and was elected its regional head.

Mohammad joined the Communist Party of Pakistan in 1948 and became a member of its district committee with the special task of reorganising the Kissan (peasant) movement. He started full-time work for the party and played an instrumental role in organising the Kissan conferences.

He also started the trade union movement in Lyallpur in 1949 and was elected as a member of the Central Committee of the Pakistan Trade Union Federation at the 1950 congress. Jailed for his political activities during the time of all Pakistani governments (except that of Benazir Bhutto), Mohammad had his first arrest warrant issued against him in 1951, prompting him to go underground, during which period he contested elections for a Punjab Assembly seat.

His campaign team included Mazhar Ali Khan (the father of Tariq Ali) and Professor Safdar Mir and was supported by mass organisations including the Pakistan Kissan Committee, the Pakistan Trade Union Federation, the Democratic Students Federation, the Progressive Writers Association and the Democratic Women’s Association.

With the outlawing of the Communist Party, upon his release Mohammad and his fellow comrades followed party instructions and joined Mian Iftikhar-Ul to form the Azad Pakistan Party. Azad Pakistan was later merged with National Party and formed theNational Awami Party (NAP), a broad-based progressive democratic party.

His second major stint in jail came in the late 1950s during the first martial law regime of General Ayub Khan when he was kept in the torture cell of Lahore Fort for 36 days, then moved into Lahore jail and Lyallpur jail (before being out under house arrest for another two years and three months), during which time he developed a strong bond with fellow prisoner Faiz Ahmed Faiz.

Upon being released in 1962, Mohammad threw himself into organising a series of peasants’-rights conferences for the abolition of large feudal land holdings in Pakistan.

Almost a decade of work by him and his comrades culminated in March 23, 1970 in Toba Tek Singh with the famous as Bhashani Kissan Conference.

Organised and supported by the major progressive and left figures of the day and attended by over 300,000 people, this conference, the biggest in its history to date, played a significant role in initiating land reform and in the future politics of Pakistan. After the conference, Mohammad and Masih-Ul-Rehman (of East Pakistan) were arrested

The conference had a massive impact on the politics of Pakistan and all political parties, including Jamaat-e-Islami, included land reform in their manifestos.

After the separation of the East Wing of Pakistan, Mohammad and his fellow comrades of NAP Bhashani formed the Pakistan Socialist Party. He was elected its Federal Secretary for Agriculture.

The left movement was divided in Pakistan, especially after the ban on the Communist Party in 1953. But during Zia’s martial law regime mass political arrests were made in the early 1980s and comrade C.R. Aslam, Abid Hassan Minto, Mohammad, Major Ishaq Mohammad and many other comrades of left wing parties were detained at the Faisalabad Central Jail, where they decided to form a united revolutionary party.

Despite of a split in the Pakistan Socialist Party, the process of mergers started in 1986. Mohammad again initiated mass Kissan Conferences throughout the country. These conferences motivated left workers and involved them in building a revolutionary movement and further enhanced the merger process. As a result, they formed the Workers’ Party, the Awami Jamhoori Party, and then the National Workers’ Party in 1999, when both factions of the Pakistan Socialist Party and Pakistan Nation Party merged together.

Convinced in his belief that a united and operational political party of the left is vital for any social change in Pakistan, in 2010 Mohammad was instrumental in helping to bring about the merger of five more left parties to form the Workers’ Party of Pakistan. Mohammad was elected president of Punjab Province party. In November 2012, the Workers’ party merged with the Awami Party and Labour Party of Pakistan, forming the Awami Workers Party.

Mohammad visited Britain in 2011 to spend time with his son Pervez Fateh and his family, and where he was awarded the Faiz Peace Award by the Faiz Award Committee, in recognition of his lifelong struggle against feudalism, militarism and imperialism.

The award committee stated that Mohammad’s leadership in organizing the March 1970 Toba Tek Singh Kissan Conference will continue to illuminate the conscience of the nation about the dignity of labour.

With the passage of time, this conference has only increased in its ability to inspire the younger generations. To date, this conference remains the apex moment in the history of class struggle in Pakistan. The award was presented by Salima Hashmi, daughter of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, at a public meeting in London.

During his visit, party comrades, particularly Mohsin Zulfiqar, Masood Punjabi, Abbas Malik and Ijaz Sayyed convinced him to write a history of the left movement in Pakistan. Due to his age and travel limitations, he agreed to write his autobiography instead, which was published in 2016.

Mohammad worked with thousands of progressive activists and leaders, but he was closely associated with Dada Feroz-ud-Din Mansoor, Prof Eric Cyprian, C.R. Aslam, Abid Hassan Minto, Mian Iftikhar Uddin, Maulana Abdul Hameed Khan Bhashani, Syed Mutlabi Faridabadi, Sardar Shaokat Ali, Mira Mohammad Ibrahim, Rao Mehroz Akhtar Khan, Major Ishaq Mohammad, Dr Mohammad Abdullah, Kaneez Fatima, Anis Hashmi, Syed Qaswar Gardezi, Malik Mohammad Ali Bhara, Ghulam Nabi Kaloo, Hassan Askri, Akhtar Hussain, Yousaf Mustikhan, Chacha Mohammad Din, Shaheen Shah, Ch. Bashir Ahmed, Noor Mohammad Chohan, Ch Naeem Shakir, Mian Mahmood Ahmed, Ch Bashir Javed and many others.

Nationally respected for his political principles, internationalism, boundless energy and infectious optimism and his belief in a brighter and egalitarian future, Mohammad has remained an inspirational and committed activist for progressive causes and peasants’ rights over 72 years, through the decades of ravages that progressive movements have suffered in Pakistan.

Author, Zamir Butt is a British Pakistani socio-political activist. He is from Rochdale (Greater Manchester) and belongs to Marxist school of thought. He is a member of executive committee Awami Workers Party North England and is president of Rochdale district.

Comrade Zamir is a prominent athlete in the UK and finished 13 international marathons in 13 different countries which was a challenge to raise £50000 for various British and Pakistani charities and good causes.

Published by Daily Morning Star, London, Friday June 5, 2020

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/chaudhary-fateh-mohammad-may-1923-may-2020