A memorable picture taken 30 years ago with Hanif Ramay.

A memorable picture taken 30 years ago with Hanif Ramay.

A memorable picture with Hanif Ramay, taken 30 years ago in 1995, at Alhamra Arts Council Lahore.

Muhammad Hanif Ramay was the Speaker of the Punjab Assembly / Acting Governor of Punjab. I was the Advisor To Chief Minister of Sindh.

Hanif Ramay was to preside at a function, and I was invited to attend the function at Alhamra Arts Council Lahore. We were meeting before the function.

We were in interaction from 1987 and I learned a lot from Hanif Ramay about the history and politics of Punjab.

Hanif Ramay was a politician and an internationally renowned intellectual and journalist.

He was the author of many best-selling Urdu and English books in Pakistan and abroad; the most famous book he ever wrote was titled Punjab ka Muqadma (Punjab’s Trial) which left deep impacts on the political fabric of the country.

Hanif Ramay did his Master in Economics from Government College Lahore, and in 1960, he brought out a monthly journal, ‘Nusrat’, which was later turned into a weekly.

In the ‘Nusrat’, he, along with other scholars and thinkers of his age, opened a debate on Islamic Socialism, which later became the basic ideology of the Pakistan People’s Party.

He was also the first Chief Editor of the daily ‘Musawat’ launched in 1970.

He was among the founding fathers of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

He was elected a Member of the Provincial Assembly on the PPP ticket in 1970.

He was the Punjab Finance Minister from 1972 to 1973.

He was Punjab Governor from February 1973 to March 1974.

He was Chief Minister of Punjab from 15 March 1974 to 15 July 1975.

In 1975, he developed differences with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and left PPP, as a result, he was imprisoned.

He underwent sixteen-month imprisonment in Shahi Fort, Kot Lakhpat Jail and Attock Fort and was set free when General Ziaul Haq took over in 1977.

After his release, Hanif Ramay formed the Pakistan Musawat Party (PMP), which remained dissociated from the opposition’s eleven-party alliance of the Movement for Restoration of Democracy (MRD).

Later on, in a self-imposed exile to evade prosecution from the military dictatorship, he left for the U.S. in the late 1970s.

He was associated with the University of California, Berkeley, in Northern California, from 1980 to 1983.

After deciding to re-enter politics in Pakistan, he merged the Pakistan Musawat Party (PMP) with the National People’s Party (NPP) founded in 1986, with former Prime Minister Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi elected as its President and Hanif Ramay as General Secretary.

In 1990, Hanif Ramay rejoined his original party, the PPP and was made General Secretary of PPP’s Policy and Planning Committee.

In the 1993 elections, he was elected as MPA from Lahore on the PPP ticket. He enjoyed the distinction of being the only MPA from PPP in Lahore as all nine MNAs and 17 MPAs contesting on PPP tickets lost their seats.

He was elected as the Speaker of the Punjab Assembly in 1993, and he remained in that position until 1996 when the President of Pakistan, Farooque Laghari dissolved the Government of Benazir Bhutto.

He died at the age of 75 on 1 January 2006 in Lahore after a prolonged illness, suffering from pneumonia and respiratory problems.