Ibrahim Joyo

For over most of the century that he lived, writer, scholar, teacher and political activist Muhammad Ibrahim Joyo raised a call for the renaissance of Sindh literature, the uplift of people in the province, and for secularism and socialist change. His dream for a more egalitarian, less divided Sindh did not transform into reality in his lifetime of over a hundred years. Perhaps there will be others who can take his vision further until that happens. Joyo passed away in Hyderabad on Thursday after suffering respiratory complications. He has been laid to rest in Jamshoro. His life tells many stories folded into the extraordinary personality of a single man. Educated first at Dadu, then in Karachi and later in Bombay, Joyo, during his stay in that city adopted M N Roy, a Marxist leader, as his ideal. He also admired G M Saeed, whom he saw as a spiritual mentor. For the rest of his life, he advocated secularism, socialism and the rights of Sindh’s people, initially taking this forward by joining the radical Democratic Party and taking charge of its magazine ‘A Freedom Calling’.

Joyo is perhaps best known for his first book, ‘Save Sindh, Save the Continent: From Feudal Lords, Capitalists and their Communalisms’, which was published in 1947. He also wrote over 50 other books, translating the works of Tagore, Voltaire, Rousseau, Shelley and Paulo Freire into Sindhi. His interest in safeguarding Sindhi literature grew over his lifetime and he played an instrumental role in encouraging poet Ayyaz Sheikh to write primarily in Sindhi rather than Urdu and in promoting his work. Joyo argued consistently that Sindh’s problems lay not in communalism but in socioeconomic discrimination and the failure to distribute assets in a more egalitarian manner. For these reasons, he angered some. But as a gentle, simple man almost invariably dressed in white shalwar kameez and a Sindhi cap, he was also admired by thousands, many of whom turned out at his funeral to pay their last respects to the veteran leader and carry his ideas forward into the future.