In March 1971, a young, courageous poet composed and
recited a poem, which fuelled rebellious sentiments against the dictatorial
regime of Yahya Khan. He was immediately arrested and jailed by the military court
for the political crime and was even ordered to be flagellated with lashes.
Amongst many conservative circles, the poet was labelled as a traitor to the
national interests of Pakistan.
Yet,
as he mentions, he feels no regret for standing up against the killing of
Bengalis or the injustice perpetuated by the state.
The
energetic and daring poet today has aged, yet his courage is not lost — shown
by how audaciously he has been fighting liver cancer. His furrowed skin and
croaky voice carries with it a wisdom, which this distinguished scholar has
accumulated over his lifetime. The poet in question is of course the renowned
Ahmad Salim, whose life achievements echo a magnitude of intellectual and
literary milestones.
Few
of the many roles he has occupied include that of a multilingual (read Urdu and
Punjabi) poet, scholar, banker, researcher, political historian, author, writer
and a prominent leader in the NGO sector. He has authored well over 150 books
and owns possibly the largest archive library in Pakistan.
Born
as Muhammad Salim Khawaja in the village of Miana Gondal in district Mandi
Bahauddin, he was the fourth among seven siblings. He acquired his early
education there and then proceeded to Peshawar for his matriculation. It was
first in this city, when his lifelong friend, Shafqat Kakakhel, introduced him
to politics and poetry in local languages.
At
that time, he had a rather distasteful attitude towards Pakistani languages
other than Urdu, being a staunch supporter of the two-nation theory as the ideological
fibre of the nation. His best friend insisted that he should meet a prominent
Khudai Khidmatgar movement leader, Abdul Ghafar Khan, known as Bacha Khan. Upon
meeting him, he was immediately enchanted by his charismatic lure and it also
opened his mind to the problems faced by other nationalities in the federation
and the class question. This marked the beginning of his enduring relationship
with the leftist ideology and the pursuit for an egalitarian society.
He
moved to Karachi in 1962 and took admission in the Urdu College for his
intermediate studies. While at college, Salim participated in a competition by
a literary magazine, Afkar, and his poem on Faiz Ahmad Faiz won the first prize
in the competition. Consequently, Faiz Sahib, then the principal of Haji
Abdullah Haroon College, Khadda, Lyari, Karachi, asked young Salim to join the
college, where he was first introduced to Marxism by the vice principal of the
college, M.R. Hassan. Inspired to make a progressive change in society, he
joined the Communist Party of Pakistan and its political ally, the National
Awami Party. Increasingly active in student politics, he was arrested by Ayub
Khan’s police for voicing his support for parliamentary democracy.
Salim
has had a devotional relationship with books and literature, evident from his
illustrious career where he changed many jobs to fulfil his quest for knowledge
and played his part to end the exploitative system which is endangering the
interests of the downtrodden masses.
He
has been lucky in an important respect as from a very young age, many
celebrated personalities have taken him under their tutelage and groomed his
innate talent. Thus, from Faiz Sahib to Amrita Pritam to Ghani Khan and Sheikh
Ayaz, he has had multifarious opportunities to hone his talent and a chance to
learn from these giants.
While
flipping through his CV, I was really amazed by the amount of published work
Salim has done in his capacity as a writer, researcher, journalist, translator
and poet. Above all, the length and breadth of his writings encompasses diverse
topics and subjects while doing equal justice to them. He has written from
education to curricula, studies on children, labour, partition and minorities,
governance and democracy, culture, art and literature, history and politics as
well as political history, ethnicity, religion and development, the Bangladesh
crisis, PPP and the Bhuttos, and of course, an enormous body of translation.
The mere mention of the names of his books will entirely fill up the space of
this write-up. It is difficult to fathom how anyone could write so much in a
single life span.
Salim
has been attached with the Sustainable Development Policy Institute in various
capacities since 1996 and worked there till 2007 as a director of Urdu
publications. Since 2009, he has been working as a senior research advisor in
the same organisation.
The
researcher’s other passion is his archives, which he began gathering from 1988
when he was researching for his book on the political history of Pakistan. He
encountered considerable impediments in acquiring primary and secondary source
materials to complete his research for the book, as the government restricted
access of such data to the general public, hence began one of the most
Herculean endeavours of his life.
For
his own research and those of other people, he began to collect historical data
from wherever he could. He would buy old newspapers, magazines, periodicals,
and almost any document which reported events during the 20th century. Where
such data was unavailable, he would copy or buy off court transcripts and even
resort to taking interviews from the elderly who experienced historical events.
Eventually, what started off from a mere bookshelf became an archive centre
with almost eight rooms of data. After almost 30 years of data gathering, he
now owns one of the largest archive centres in Pakistan.
A
hurdle now facing Salim is that such a centre necessitates consumption of
resources for maintenance which are currently not at his disposal. He is
running from pillar to post to save his archives and has also appealed to the
government to give him a plot on subsidised rates to help him build a centre
where he can preserve his collection for the future generations.
Although
some western libraries have offered to purchase his archive centre, he feels
that the archives are his legacy and his gift to the people of Pakistan. As
such, he would not permit anyone to deprive his fellow countrymen of the knowledge
which is contained within these archives.
The
poet believes that his archives are really useful to people pursuing their
research on Pakistan, and hopes the archives will be helpful in providing an
objective historical narrative at a reasonable cost to people who dedicate
their lives to the quest for knowledge. To maintain integrity of his archives
and provide access to them, Salim created a trust named South Asian Research
and Resource Centre (SARRC).
The
archivist has been married once and has a daughter who lives in Lahore with her
two kids. He is a doting father and grandfather who loves to indulge his
grandchildren and travels frequently to the provincial capital to meet them.
Through
his research and writings, he has left a memorable footprint on the literary
and development sector of Pakistan. His immortal legacy will never fade away
and through his writings, poems, archives and causes, he would live on in the
hearts and minds of those whose lives he has touched. When asked if there is
anything more he wishes from his life at this age and health, he replies that
he wants to oversee the development of a facility to preserve archives for the
use of the people of Pakistan. It is dreadful that in such ailment, he has to
endure such worry, when all he desires is the goodwill and wellbeing of the
people who seek knowledge.
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