Abid Hassan Minto

Minto was born in Murree, British Raj, present-day Pakistan. He attended Islamia High School, Rawalpindi and Gordon College. He received his law degree (LL.B) from the Punjab University Law College in 1955. While at Law College, he was elected President of the Students Union and won and retained the title of "Best All Pakistan Debater" for four years.

Minto became a member of the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) in 1949 and remained with it until it was banned in 1954 after the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case along with the Democratic Students Federation (DSF) which was also co-founded by Minto in 1949 while at Gordon College. The DSF had been popular in all four provinces and was succeeded, after its ban, by the National Students Federation (NSF) which exists to date.

Abid Hassan Minto joined the Progressive Writers Association (PWA) in 1949. He has been active and associated with the Progressive Writers' Movement for many years. After the independence of Pakistan in 1947, he played a key role in establishing the first literary movement of Lahore, namely Halqa-e Arbab-e Zauq (Circle of the Men of Good Taste).[1]

His first essay "The Issue of Language in Pakistan" was published in 1951 in the literary journal Adb e Latif (Urdu: ادب لطیف‎). Other essays by him, later published as a collection "Nuqta e Nazarنقطہ نظر"[6](The Viewpoint: 1st Edition 1986 2nd Edition 2003) include: The Problem of Religious Literature (Shahrah شاہراہ 1954); Literary Criticism (Adb e Latif 1954ادب لطیف); The Issue of Ideologies in Literature (Adb e Latif 1955ادب لطیف); Progressive Ideology and Contemporary Literature (Adb e Latif 1960ادب لطیف); Problems of Modern Poetry (Nayee Shairi 1964نئ شاعری) and Eternal Values in Literature (Auraq 1967اوراق). His essay The Technique of the One Act Playایکانکی ڈرامہ (Adb e Latif 1957ادب لطیف) was part of the curriculum for graduate studies in Urdu literature. Abid Hassan Minto's favorite writers are Rajinder Singh Bedi and Saadat Hasan Manto.[1] Abid Hassan Minto also happens to be one of the grandnephews of Saadat Hasan Manto. He prefers to spell his family name as Minto rather than Manto.[7]

Minto began law practice in 1955 at Rawalpindi where his father and, before him, his grandfather had also practised. He moved to Lahore in 1958, was admitted, Advocate of the Lahore High Court in 1957 and of the Supreme Court of Pakistan in 1963. He remains a practising lawyer and is the Senior Consultant to "Minto and Mirza,[8][9] a Lahore based law firm.

Minto conducted several cases of constitutional, political and legal importance. These include:

• The Ganga Hijacking Case: Minto appeared for one of the accused, Hashim Qureshi, before a special tribunal set up to try Kashmiri freedom fighters who had hijacked an Indian aircraft into Pakistan.
• The Hyderabad Conspiracy Case: Minto appeared before the Hyderabad tribunal to defend political leaders Abdul Wali Khan, Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo, Ataullah Mengal, Mir Gul Khan Nasir, Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri, Syed Muhammad Kaswar Gardezi and others who had been charged with treason and for working against the Ideology of Pakistan.
• Farooq Ahmad Khan Leghari versus the Federation: Minto appeared as President, Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan to assist the Supreme Court of Pakistan on the question of the validity of imposition of Emergency and suspension of constitutional Fundamental Rights by the President of Pakistan.

Minto has appeared in a large number of cases involving issues such as:

• Section 295 C of the Pakistan Penal Code, aka "Blasphemy law in Pakistan", which prescribes the death penalty for defiling the name of the prophet Muhammad.
• The Islamic "Law of Evidence" or the "Qanun e Shahadat" which discriminated against women in that it considers their evidence as not at par with men in certain matters. This law was brought into being during the dictatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq.[10]
• The controversy attached to the Law of Evidence gave birth to a women's rights movement in Pakistan calling for equal rights and equal treatment for women in all matters. (For more on Women's Movement in Pakistan see Women's Action Forum)

Some of the other issues in Minto's legal battles include:

• Constitutional right of workers to form trade unions.[1]
• Electoral laws providing for a separate electoral college for minority religions.[10]
• Discrimination against women preventing them from competing with men for admission to certain educational institutions.[1]
• Dissolution of federal and provincial legislatures by the President of Pakistan and Governors of provinces.

In March 2012 Minto was appointed a member of the LJCP (Law & Justice Commission of Pakistan). The Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan is a Federal Government institution, established under an Ordinance (XIV) of 1979. The commission is headed by the Chief Justice of Pakistan and comprises 12 other members including the Chief Justices of the superior courts, Attorney General for Pakistan, Secretary, Ministry of Law, Justice & Human Rights and Chairperson, National Commission on the Status of Women and others. Each province is represented by one member.[11] Minto serves on the commission as the member from Punjab. His tenure will end in 2015.

Abid Hassan Minto is the president of the Awami Workers Party, formed in November 2012 by a merger of three left-wing parties in Pakistan. At the moment, he is serving his second term as the party's elected president.[12]

A collection of Minto's essays mostly written during the 1950s and 1960s on ideological issues in literature was published in 1986 titled 'Nuqta-e-Nazar نقطہ نظر' (The Viewpoint) with a second edition in 2003 containing some later writings also. He belongs to the Marxist school of literary criticism.

Apni Jang Rahay Gi[16] (Our Fight Will Continue) (published: 2016), is the most recent book by Minto. It is a compilation of articles, speeches, resolutions and interviews of Minto spanning over 65 years.[17]

The family name "Minto" was originally "Manto" or "Mantu" and is still used as such by most of the "Mantu" family. Minto's father Khawaja Ahmad Hassan (1896—1982), a well known civil lawyer in Rawalpindi was a leader of the Indian National Congress until 1943 later joining the Muslim League to play a role in its local politics during the Pakistan movement. Khawaja Ahmad Hassan Minto was a nephew of the Indian Nationalist Leader Saifuddin Kichlu who was also the paternal uncle of Minto's mother, Aziz Begum (1895—1981). The Urdu short story writer Saadat Hassan Manto (1912—1955) was Minto's great-grand uncle.[7] In 1961, Minto married Tasneem Minto née Kausar (1935--), herself a writer who has published a collection of short stories "Zara si Baat ذرا سی بات" ("A Small Matter").[18] They have three children, two daughters and a son (Bilal Minto), from their marriage.

• Habib Jalib Peace Award in 2017, presented at the Karachi Arts Council.[2]

• Washington Report On Middle East Affairs - The Americanization of Globalization: Reflections of a Third World Intellectual by Lisette Poole
• Minto & Mirza
• Translation of Speech, CDDPA Nepal (in Urdu)
• Editorial Awami Jamhooriat
• Distinguished Lecturers Series LUMS: Amendments to the Pakistani Constitution
• London 2009
• The Pakistani Crisis