Following Yahyu Khan's invusion of East Pakistan on Murch 25th, a small wumber of West Pakistani intellectuals living in North America publicly condemned the brutal massucres. Prominent among them were Saghir and Egbal Ahmad (brothers), Feroz Ahmed. und Aijaz Ahmad, all university feachers and writers. These men wrote an open letter to their government and articles on Bangla Desh, braving powible reprisuls, Together with socialisi friends from East Pakistan, they tried to inform North Americans about the conditions of the people and the character of the contending forces in Bangla Desh.
Saghir Ahmad's accidental death by drowning in North Vancouver, British Columbia, on July 7th, is a serious loss to the Pakistani and Canadian socialist movements and the anti-war movement in North America. At 36, be was nearing the height of bis intellectual powers and his capacity for pulitical work. A sociologist and anthropologist, he wrote on class structure and class strugule in West Pakistan, on the Thuggee (guerrilla rebel) movement in North India in the nineleenth century, and on imperialism, underdevelopment und revolutionary struggle in South and South-Eust Asia. At the time of his death he was a co-editor of Pakistan Forun and was about to visit refugee camps in India and to co-author u book on Bangin Desh.
Sughir's intellectual work is the work of a man at war with a part of himself and with his colonial environment, yer u man who. kindly, tolerant und truthfud, is trying to distort nothing and to giv cuch fellow human his due. As a doctoral student in America in the carly 1960x, and for a short time in London, he necessarily became steeped in the various social science theories and methods being taught in the imperialist nations. Diligently, he tried to apply and test these concepts and some of his cartier work has a kind of dogged aridity. Yet his data, his carlier Marxist insights, his knowledge of his own society and his concern for human beings, tell him that the received doctrines are inadequate and that some of them are pernicions.
The talues that Saghir found among the peasants and received from his own family, guided him in the many settings through which he moved or into which he was hounded. Wherever he lived Saghir moved people by his passionate justice his own, Two recent examples illustrate conflicts induced in Saghir by struggles going on in his environment, and the honour with which be surmounted them. In September appointment, Saghir came to teach at the Simon Fraser University. On the wuy, he heard that a second elder brother had died suddenly in Pakistan. leuving to Saghir he reached Simon Fraser, Saghir found a majority of students and faculty in his department about to go on a democratic de portment concerned with critical and both sides of the conflict and "compromise paths" were with his brother, Sughir chose to strike, risking his salary and the chance to teach that he so much wanted. In the his colleagues, and went through two years of harassment years guiding and befriending students, rescarching on Pakistan, and busying himself with the struggles of British Columbian workers, unemployed people. Quebecois, the in British Columbia where a ruce-fight occurred between. gated the dispute for the Georgia Strighr, the Vancouver humanity. When happy among friends or engaged in collective struggle, he shed a joyous radiance: when provoked, a fiery anger. Although his main loyalty was always to Pakistun, he rooted himself in euch local situation, making the sufferings of its people bis suffering, and their struggles for loved him.
1969, after being compelled to leave the United States and after rescurching for a year in Canada without an teaching and Eghal the maintenance of a number of relatives. When strike against a purge of radical teachers and the abolition of experimental teaching. Some of his acquaintances were on being talked of. After a brief inner struggle and consultation event, he was suspended from teaching along with seven of and delayed dismissal proceedings. He was finally urbitrarily fired, without due process, on June 23rd, and looked forward to a new appointment af Trent University in Peterborough.
Although forbidden to teach, Saghir spent the last twe anti-war movement in Canada, and most recently, of Bangla Desh. His last "research" trip was to Quesnel. a small town white and Sikh workers. Along with friends, Saghir investiunderground newspaper, together with Anne Roberts, who shared his work and companionship for the past five years. Yer "investigate" is not the word, for Sughir entered at once into the joys and fears of the Sikh community, revelled in their affection, and with difficulty tore himself uway. In every city where he lived, he is mourned by dozens who A second and graver fest of Saghir's integrity was Bangla Desh. Saghir was a West Pakistani who had grown up in a period of intense nationalism, and he was living precariously in North America. Many of his kin had moved from Bihar to East Pakistan, As Urdu speakers of high status, they served the govemment in Islamabad. Saghir belle ved some of them to have heen killed in disturbances that followed Yahya Khan's refusal to implement the election results in East Pakistun. Saghir also deeply admired the government of China, which, however, was continuing its support of Islamabad. Yet when the invusion come, he immediately disregarded these complications, recognised fascism, and opposed it. Instead of abdicating into passive observation from a distance, he exerted himself in the midst of his own troubles, leatletting, speaking, writing, fund-raising, and travelling, for the people of BanglaDesh Saghir 's life was closely linked with that of his elder brother. Eghal, who, with seven other defendants in the Harrisburg Conspiracy Case, faces trial on inane charges of conspiracy against the government of the United States. It is obvious to all who know him that these charges are persecution for Egbul's legitimate but forthright opposition to the war in Vietnam. From their corrupting, co-optational situations in North American universities, both these brothers came forth and fulfilled the responsibilities of revolutionary intellectuals. Their conduct recalls a statement by a North Vietnamese delegate to a Vancouver conference which Saghir had recently helped sponsor. "Cadres must make the people love them. They must be the first to sacrifice, and the last to get rewards."
Now Saghir has depurted. Others must take his place - Kathleen Gough, Vancouver, B.C.
July 1971