Dada Amir Haider Khan

Dada Amir Haider Khan was born in 1900 in a remote village called Saaliyah Umar Khan union Council, Samote, Tehsil, Kallar Syedan in Rawalpindi district. He was orphaned at an early age then put in a madrassah. In 1914, he joined British merchant navy in Bombay and transferred to the United States Merchant Marine in 1918. At this time, he met Joseph Mulkane, an Irish nationalist who introduced him to anti-British political ideas.

In 1920, he met Indian nationalists and Ghadar Party members in New York City. He started distributing ‘Ghadar ki Goonj’ to Indians in sea ports around the world.

He was dismissed from ship after the great post war strike and worked and traveled inside the USA. He then became a political activist, worked with Anti-Imperialist League and the Workers (Communist) Party of the USA, who sent him to the Soviet Union to study at the University of the Toilers of the East. In 1928, he completed the University course in Moscow and arrived in Bombay. He established contact with G.V. Ghate, S.A. Dange, P.C. Joshi, B.T. Randive Bradley, senior communists in Bombay.

In March 1929, he escaped arrest in the Meerut Conspiracy Case and made his way to Moscow to inform the Communist International (Comintern) on the situation in India and seek their assistance.

Dada attended the International Trade Union (Profintern) Congress as member of the presidium and also attended the 16th Congress of the CPSU in 1930. After his return to Bombay, he was sent to Madras to avoid arrest as still he was wanted in the Meerut Conspiracy case. He carried on the political work all over South India under the pseudonym of Shankar. He also set up the Young Workers League.

In 1932, he was arrested by the British for bringing out a pamphlet praising the Bhagat Singh Trio and sent to Muzzafargarh jail, then transferred to Ambala jail. When he was released in 1938, he started open public political activity in Bombay. The left wing of Congress elected him to the Indian National Congress (INC)'s Bombay Provincial Committee. He also attended the INC Annual General meeting in Ramgarh, Bihar.

He was re-arrested in 1939 as Second World War broke out. Later interned in Nashik jail where Dada wrote the first part of his memoirs. In 1942, he was the last of the Communists to be released after People’s War thesis. He worked for the Trade Union in Mumbai. He also attended the Natrakona (Mymansingh) All India Kissan Sabah in 1944.

Dada arrived in Rawalpindi on the eve of Pakistan to look after local party work. He organized a network all over Pakistan to hide when wanted by the Government. Lahore was the nucleus of his activities. In Lahore, he used to take refuge in the house of a Sufi saint named Hussain Baksh Malang. He safely repatriated Hindu families during the independence riots.

In 1949, Dada was arrested from the Party office Rawalpindi under the Communal Act and released after 15 months. He got re-arrested after a few months from Rawalpindi Kutchery for organizing the defense of Hassan Nasir and Ali Imam. When the Pakistani government launched operation as a result of the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case, Dada was moved to Lahore Fort and imprisoned with Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Fazal Din Qurban, Dada Feroz ud Din Mansur, Syed Kaswar Gardezi, Hyder Bux Jatoi, Sobo Gayan Chandani, Chaudhry Muhammad Afzal, Zaheer Kashmiri, Hameed Akhtar etc. He was released after campaign in The Pakistan Times and Imroze, but restricted to his village. He shifted to Rawalpindi when seen influencing the military soldiers from his area.

In 1958 when Ayub imposed martial law, Dada was arrested and interned in Rawalpindi jail with Afzal Bangash, Kaka Sanober and other comrades.

Dada spent his twilight years in the 1970s and 1980s in Rawalpindi, but whenever founds the time, he used to visit Lahore to meet his intimate friend Hussain Baksh Malang. He donated his land and with his own labour built a boys' high school in his village, then built a girls school together with a science laboratory. These schools were later approved by the government and placed under it.

Dada died on 26 December 1989 in Rawalpindi.

• Chains to Lose: Life and Struggles of a Revolutionary : Memoirs of Dada Amir Haider Khan, Hassan Gardezi, Patriot Publishers, 1989. ISBN 81-7050-097-4.
• Chains to Lose: Dada Amir Haider. Edited by Hasan.N.Gardezi. Pakistan Study Centre, Karachi University, 2007. (Two Volumes).[2]

• Indo-Pakistani revolutionary
• Grand revolutionary, By Khalid Hasan. Kashmir Times
• Article of Dada Amir, 30 November 1989. VlEWPOINT, Lahore