Hassan Nasir

Hassan Nasir
حسن ناصر
Personal details
Born (1928-01-01)1 January 1928
Died 13 November 1960(1960-11-13) (aged 32)
Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
Nationality Pakistan
Occupation Proletariat Leader

Hassan Nasir (1928[1] - 13 November 1960[1]) was a Pakistani proletariat leader, Secretary General of the banned Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) and Office Secretary in the National Awami Party. Hasan Nasir was born in Hyderabad (Deccan)[2] and had fought, along with Makhdoom Mohiuddin and others, in the Telangana armed struggle.

Early life

Nasir was a maternal grandson of Nawab Mohsin-ul-Mulk. After complition of college got admission in University of Cambridge of UK where he came into contact with various young British and Indian Marxist ideologues. On his return to India he joined in Telangana peasant and anti colonial uprising against his family’s wishes.[3] After the independence of Pakistan in 1947, he migrated to Pakistan and soon became, to the new ruling classes of the country, one of the most feared communists in Pakistan. Thus, despite being the scion of an aristocratic family of Hyderabad, Deccan,[1] he had taken up the cause of the oppressed. He was a popular communist activist among students, peasants and labours. In 1954 he was arrested by the government, imprisoned, tortured and then forcibly flown back to India but in 1955, he again returned to Pakistan and became a full-fledged political activist as well as the office secretary of National Awami Party (NAP).[3]

Death

He was arrested from Karachi in 1960, put in a cell in the Lahore Fort and brutally tortured till he died.[4] He died while under interrogation in Lahore Fort,[5] a detention centre used by the British during The Raj in India. After his murder his mangled body was hastily buried by the police. The reports of torture were frightening and succeeded in halting the protests for several months. There was such a fervor over his martyrdom that the President Ayub Khan government had to exhume his body to try to prove the prosecution point that he had committed suicide and was not killed.[1] The reason was that the government did not want to let remain anything reminding the people of Hassan Nasir.[6] Today, there remains nothing of that cell, where he was killed, except a wall containing a small window.[6]

Hassan Nasir was brought to Lahore Fort's cell on 13 September 1952. On 13 November, at 12:40 pm, the Assistant Deputy Inspector General of the Criminal Investigation Department received a call from the line officer at the Lahore Fort that Hassan Nasir was found hanging in cell number 13 at 11:00 am that morning.[7][5]

On 4 December 1960, Hasan Nasir’s mother, Zahra Alamdar Hussein, arrived in Lahore from her home city Hyderabad, India.[7] She witnessed the exhumation of the body in the Miani Sahib Graveyard on 12 December 1960 for the possession. She made a speech at his graveside "He died for a good cause", she had said as the tears poured down her face, "but I know I have many more sons who will carry on the fight for which Hassan Nasir gave up his life."[8]

The body suffered an advanced stage of decomposition and thus not identifiable. Mrs. Hussein issued a statement at the court that she did not think the body was that of Hasan Nasir’s and refused to take the possession. The Anarkali Police later reburied the body into an unknown grave.[9]

  • Sibte Hassan in his book Sher-e-Nigaran briefly discussed Hasan Nasir
  • Maj. Ishaq Muhammad in his book Hassan Nasir Ki Shahdat

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Saeed, Shahid (10 February 2011). "Hasan Nasir, 1928-1960". The Friday Times. Retrieved 26 September 2013.
  2. ↑ Paracha, Nadeem F. (2015-11-08). "Hassan Nasir: The man who wasn't there". Retrieved 2016-08-24.
  3. 1 2 Nadeem F. Paracha. "Hassan Nasir: The man who wasn't there". dawn.com. Retrieved 29 May 2017.
  4. ↑ Saeed, Shahid (10 February 2011). "Hasan Nasir, 1928-1960". The Friday Times. Retrieved 26 September 2013.
  5. 1 2 Nadeem, Naresh (13 March 2005). "Pakistan Diary". People's Democracy. 29 (11). Archived from the original on 28 September 2013. Retrieved 26 September 2013.
  6. 1 2 ASDAR ALI, KAMRAN (2014-01-07). "A century of war, 1914-2014: Pakistan and the Cold War". Dawn. Retrieved 8 January 2014.
  7. ↑ Ali, Tariq (2005). Street Fighting Years: An Autobiography of the Sixties. Verso. ISBN 1844670295.
  8. ↑ Moini, Qasim A. "KARACHI: 'Bhagat Singh was a Pakistani martyr'". Dawn. Retrieved 26 September 2013.
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