Abdul Waheed Arisar. PHOTO: SHAHID ALI/EXPRESS
He died of renal failure at a hospital in Karachi from where his dead body was shifted for burial rites to his native village Unarabad in Chor taluka of Umerkot district on Sunday night. He will be laid to rest on Monday (today). He is survived by his wife and a daughter.
"He is remembered for spreading the Jeay Sindh Mahaz appeal from universities and colleges to the villages in Sindh in the late 1970s and also as the real heir to the late GM Syed’s legacy,” said Wahid Kandhro, Arisar’s biographer who published a compilation on him in April titled Thar Jo Marhoon [A Dweller of Thar].
Born on October 11, 1949, in Unarabad, Arisar completed his early education in local schools and graduated in 1968 as maulvi from Oriental College, Hyderabad. The same year, he was appointed as khateeb at Hanfia mosque on Doman Wah Road in Hyderabad.
Arisar joined Jamiat-i-Talaba-i-Islam in 1969, over a year before he met Syed and subsequently joined his party in 1972 at Jeay Sindh Mahaz’s (JSM) Hyder Manzil office in Karachi. In 1977, he was elevated to the important position of central organiser in the JSM, which he continued to hold till 1990.
Kandhro recalled that the JSM split into several factions immediately after Syed’s demise. Arisar succeeded in uniting some of them and formed a larger faction with late Bashir Khan Qureshi and named it JSQM in 1996. But that unity lasted only for a few years as he parted ways with Qureshi and, in 1999, formed his own faction, JSQM-Arisar, which he headed till his death.
At least 17 books, including political commentary, translations, biography, jail diaries and compilation of speeches and articles, are attributed to Arisar. His maiden work was Sindhi book Message of Beloved published in 1974. His last works appeared this year with the publication of Umeed Jo Katal [Death of Hope] and Raoodad Hik Raat Jee [The Story of a Night].
The nationalist leader served more than five years in incarcerations. His first arrest warrants were issued in 1973 when he wrote an article against the then Sindh chief minister Mumtaz Ali Bhutto. However, he escaped arrest. It was also the same year when he left the responsibility of khateeb in the mosque and dedicated his whole struggle to the nationalist politics.
His first imprisonment, which lasted for three months in Mirpurkhas central jail, came in April, 1975. The following stint behind the bars lasted a little longer from April 1976 to September 1977. Arisar was arrested again in August 1978 in reaction to his speech in favour of Shaikh Mujeebur Rehman of Bangladesh in the Sindh University and spent almost three years in prison. From October 1992 to early 1993 was the period of his last incarceration.
“He lived in the house of Allah [mosque] but raised the slogan of Jeay Sindh,” recalled Taj Joyo, the former secretary of Sindhi Language Authority. "He possessed exceptional oratory skills as he would talk for hours and the listeners remained glued to his talk," said Naseer Mirza, regional director of Radio Pakistan and a connoisseur of music and literature.
The Sindhi Adabi Sangat has announced a three-day mourning after his demise. Meanwhile, nationalist leaders Dr Qadir Magsi, Syed Jalal Mehmood Shah, Riaz Chandio and others have expressed condolence over his demise.
“I have felt the same pain on Arisar's demise which I did when Shaikh Ayaz and GM Syed passed away,” said Jam Saqi, communist party leader and a contemporary in political struggles with Arisar and other peers of their era.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ