LAHORE: A day-long festival was held at the Railway Headquarters on Thursday to commemorate Mirza Muhammad Ibrahim’s life and struggle for workers rights in the country.
The event – titled Mirza Ibrahim Mazdoor Tuleba Mela – was organized jointly by the Railway Workers’ Union (CBA), the Progressive Students Collective (PSC) and the Peoples Solidarity Forum (PSF).
Speakers at the event recalled that Mirza Ibrahim had been among the founders of the trade union movement in British India and, subsequently, he played a central role in consolidating the movement in Pakistan.
The event had started with a welcome address delivered by Ashiq Jahangiri, a member of the Railways Workers Union’s central committee. He congratulated PSC members for taking the initiative on the May Day to honour Ibrahim’s legacy.
Rana Saleem, general secretary of the Railways Workers Union, said that the jubilant environment at the festival had refreshed his memories of the historic country-wide movement led jointly by students and labourers against General Ayub Khan’s regime. He said anti-Ayub movement had marked the heyday of progressive politics in the country. Mirza Ibrahim had been instrumental in organizing Railway workers and in coordinating with trade unions in other public-sector enterprises during the movement, he said. “Seeing students from different colleges voluntarily organize this festival, I Aam reminded of Baba-e-Mehnatkashan’s [Mirza Ibrahim] commitment to the cause of workers’ solidarity. He used to work for building workers’ organizations with the same zeal and commitment,” he said. Saleem said the event marked a historic moment as through it Railway workers and progressive students and activists had taken a step forward for revival of a joint struggle of labourers and students for promotion of a truly democratic society and a socialist economy in the country. He said despite state’s attempts to crackdown on the workers’ movement and fragment it by using religious political parties progressive forces had always stood up to resist state’s draconian and anti-worker policies. He recalled how activists like Asma Jahangir, Farooq Tariq, and Mubashar Hassan had prevented the Armed Forces from demolishing a Kachi Abadi at Baja Lines – where grade four employees of the Railways used to reside. Saleem condemned the government’s recent move of importing flimsy railway carriages from China. He said lack of representation of workers in decision making structures of the Railways was unacceptable.
Left activist Farooq Tariq criticised the government’s skewed priorities and said that neither the federal nor the provincial governments were bothering to integrate people’s concerns into their budget making process. For example, he said, issues like lack of safe drinking water, air pollution, shortage of affordable housing for working classes, and high unemployment rates were nowhere on the government’s list of priorities.
Tariq said the working classes, students and progressive activists needed to come together to launch a collective movement. The movement was needed to put social welfare of the people back on top of the agenda of Pakistani state that was currently obsessed with national security concerns. He said this would be the best way to honour the legacy of Mirza Ibrahim.
Ashiq Jahangiri said that 40 years ago under the leadership of Ibrahim railway workers had raised the slogan of communism in the country. He said the slogan remains as relevant to envisioning a progressive politics today as it was back then. However, he said during these 40 years mainstream political parties had time and again betrayed workers and harmed their cause. “It is time the workers end reliance on mainstream parties and organize themselves to take their destiny in their own hands,” he said.
Sakhi Khan, central president of the union, thanked the students who had put together the event and said that workers could never forget Mirza Ibrahim’s efforts for their cause.
Poet Dr Khalid Javed Jan called upon progressive forces to forge unity among their ranks. He said workers needed to also build solidarity with women’s movement since they were both struggling for the establishment of a society where there would be no exploitation of humans along class and gender lines.
Rubina Jamil of the APTUF said the condition of laboring classes was far from perfect and a lot of work was needed to end their strife. “If we remain united in our struggle, the day won’t be far when we could see fields belonging to farmers who till them and factories to labourers,” she hoped.
The event also featured a theatre performance by the PSC theatre troupe led by Takreema Arooj. The play was titled Bairyaan (fetters). The play performed at the occasion was Diva Mundri by Sangat.
Representatives from All Pakistan Trade Union Federation, the All Pakistan WAPDA Hydro Electric Workers Union, the Progressive Labour Federation, and the Pakistan Federation Union of Journalists were present on the occasion.