Glowing tributes paid to Sobho Gianchandani

Karachi
Comrades, poets, writers, intellectuals, human rights activists and politicians paid rich tributes to the noted Communist leader, writer and intellectual Sobho Gianchandani at a reference on Sunday.
Urdu translation of Gianchandani’s Sindhi autobiography “Roshni Jo Safar” was also launched at the event jointly organised by the Comrade Sobho Gianchandani Memorial Committee in collaboration with the Arts Council at its auditorium.
The leader’s son, Nirmal Gianchandani, was also present on the occasion.
The secretary-general of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, IA Rehman, said Sindh was distinguished from other parts of the country because the land gave birth to several leaders who proved themselves through their struggles, just like Gianchandani.
“The land also has the credit of creating monumental educational institutions and its people playing key roles in a number of movements,” he said.
Shedding light on the revolutionary’s life, he further added that Gianchandani had spent a major portion of his life in jail because of being a communist and struggling for the rights of workers.
Talking about Comrade’s life, he recalled that the deceased had been disheartened at his son not being able to get a job because the family belonged to the Hindu community.
“Even though a large number of Muslims voted for him in Larkana, he lost the election,” said Rehman.
Noted historian Mubarak Ali while talking to the congregation via a video link said he had last met Comrade Gianchandani in May, 2014 when he had been in Karachi to attend a labours’ conference.
He said the Comrade had been cultured in socialism because he had been educated in Shantiniketan established by Rabindranath Tagore. “His decision to stay in Pakistan at the time of partition was actually his defiance of the two-nation theory,” he said.
In Pakistan, said Dr Ali, it felt that sometimes there was a perpetual struggle between secular or liberal forces and the fundamentalists. With time, the fundamentalist forces became stronger.
Ali said Comrade Gianchandani was like a glowing star who had attempted to remove the darkness from the society by becoming a symbol of hope.
“We need to move forward for creating a society where every person has liberty,” he said.
Director Pakistan Study Centre at Karachi University, Prof Dr Jaffar Ahmed, said the late Comrade had been a creative writer and thinker who had written copiously on various subjects.
He called for compiling and researching the late leader’s writings.
Ahmed said Gianchandani had wanted to setup an institution like the Shantiniketan in Sindh as well but his dream remained unfulfilled.
Writer and intellectual Amanullah Shaikh said he too hailed from Larkana and had spent a major portion of his life with the Comrade. “He (Gianchandani) used to have three pictures —one of Lenin, one of Tagore and one of Vivekananda — on the walls of his home. They represent his lifelong struggle,” he said.
“We need to study the reason why Sobho had refused to migrate at the time of partition. He loved his motherland and his decision proved to be right at the end.”
Pakistan Workers’ Party President Abid Hasan Manto said the most befitting recruit to the late Comrade’s life would be strengthening the workers’ movement in Pakistan.
He dispelled the notion that socialist movements in the world had been defeated. “Actually, it is the capitalist world which is decaying because of its exploitative nature and neoliberal economic policies,” he said.
“There is a lot of economic and social unrest among workers of the first world despite the fact that their economies thrive on capitalism.”
Manto believed that socialism could regain its strength once again. “But it can only be possible through unity,” he said.
“The trade union movement was quite strong in Karachi where workers launched quite a few successful movements in the past. But the movements were later divided on linguistic and sectarian lines, causing them to crumble.”
Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research Chief Executive Karamat Ali said though Gianchandani had been born in a Hindu family, his actual religion was humanity.
Messages from Communist Party India (CPI) and CPI-Marxist were also read out on the occasion. An audio message by peasants’ leader Jam Saqi was also played for the audience.