Famous politician, diplomat, and intellectual par excellence, Pir Ali Mohammad Shah Rashdi, recalls in his autobiography Uhe Deenhan, Uhe Sheenhan that he was one of the principal drafters of the All India Muslim League resolution passed on March 23, 1940, in Lahore, the resolution that later came to be known as the Lahore Resolution, or Qaraardaad‑i‑Pakistan. The second paragraph of that historic resolution stated: “…that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority, as in the North‑Western and Eastern Zones of India, should be grouped to constitute ‘Independent States’ in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.” Relying on the promises embedded in this resolution, G. M. Syed, today condemned as a traitor by Pakistan’s self‑appointed guardians, but then a member of the Central Committee/Council of the All India Muslim League and President of its Sindh Chapter presented a resolution in the Sindh Legislative Assembly on March 3, 1943.

G. M. Syed’s resolution, which paved the way for Sindh to join the proposed Dominion of Pakistan, declared: “This House recommends to the government to forward to His Majesty’s Government for the adoption of His Majesty in Council that this province of Sindh, forming a separate dominion as an independent sovereign state, adopted in exercise of its inherent and inalienable right, has joined and been admitted as a sovereign state constituting the Dominion of Pakistan.” However, as soon as the country came into being, the intentions of the first Establishment changed. It began evicting and harassing the indigenous population of Sindh’s largest city, Karachi, a city it had borrowed from Sindh as the temporary capital of the newly formed state.

Sensing the predatory designs of the Establishment, the Sindh Legislative Assembly passed a historic private member’s resolution on February 10, 1948, strongly opposing the central government’s plan to detach Karachi from Sindh and convert it into a Federal Capital........

© The Friday Times