Dada Amir Haider (1900-1986)
was a communist activist in India and Pakistan.
He was born around 1900 in a remote village called, Siahlian Umar Khan, in
Rawalpindi district and orphaned at an early age. He was then put in a madrasah.
In 1914 he joined British Merchant Navy in Bombay (Mumbai) transferring to the
United States Merchant Marine in 1918. At this time he met Joesph Mulkane, an
Irish nationalist, who introduced him to anti-British political ideas.
In 1920, he meets Indian nationalists and Ghadar Party members in New York. 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, works with
Anti-Imperialist League and the Workers (Communist) Party of the USA who send
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.
Establishes contact with Ghate, Dange Bradley, senior communists in Bombay.
He escaped arrest in the Meerut Conspiracy Case and makes 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 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 INC Bombay Provincial
Committee. He also attended the INC Annual General meeting in Ramgarh, Bihar.
He was rearrested in 1939 as Second World War breaks out. Later interned in
Nasik jail where Dada writes 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 use to take
refuge in the house of a Sufi saint named Hussein Baksh Malang (Baba Malang
Sahib). He safely repatriated Hindu families during the partition riots.
In 1949, Dada was arrested from the Party office Rawalpindi under the Communal
Act and released after 15 months. He got rearrested after a few months from
Rawalpindi Kutchery for organizing the defense of Hassan Nasir and Ali Imam.
When the Liaqat Ali Khan’s government launched operation as a result of the
Rawalpindi Conspiracy case, Dada moved to Lahore fort and imprisoned with Faiz
Ahmad Faiz, Fazal Din Qurban, Dada Feroz ud Din Mansur, Kaswar Gardezi, Hyder
Baksh Jatoi, Sobo Gayan Chandani, Chaudhry Muhammad Afzal, Zaheer Kashmiri etc.
He was released after campaign in 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 imposes martial law, Dada was arrested and interned in
Rawalpindi jail with Afzal Bangash, Kaka Sanober and other comrades.
Dada was an international revolutionary - a Che Guevara of another age and on a
bigger stage. He met and worked closely with some of the greatest socialist
leaders of the twentieth century, which included besides others Thomas Mann (Engles’
student), Rosa Luxemburg (German revolutionary), Clara Zetkin (German women
rights activist), Karl Radek (leader of Communist International), Liu Shao Chi
(later president of China), Agnes Smedley (American anti-imperialist), Ralph Fox
(historian who died resisting Franco’s march to Madrid), Piatniski (secretary to
Comintern and Stalin) and nearly all the leaders of the Indian freedom movement.
Dada’s steadfast struggle for freedom earned him the respect of Indian
nationalists from the Andaman Islands to Peshawar, from gentlemen members of the
parliament to Naujawan Bharat Sabah revolutionaries.
In Pakistan, his team comprises of the pioneer revolutionaries like Comrade
Ilyas, Iqbal Behri-Bairra, Baba Pakistan (a pseudonym), Comrade Rafiq, Dr.
Aziz-ul-Rehman Shaheed, Comrade Shafiq, Hassan Nasir Shaheed, Faiz Ahmed Faiz,
Mir Ghaus Baksh Bezenjo, Masood Khadarposh, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Baba Malang Sahib
many others.
Dada spends his twilight years in the 70s and 80s in Rawalpindi but, whenever
founds time, use to visit Lahore to meet his intimate friend Baba Malang Sahib.
In his personal life, he always remained a fakir, a ‘homeless wanderer’, as he
used to call himself. Neither did he own any valuable possessions. He had
donated the share of his inherited land for building a school in his ancestral
village, a poor and deprived area of small farmers.
Dada Amir Haider Khan passed away on 26 December 1986 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.