Mairaj Mohammad Khan also joins the great majority

Last week the dyed-in-the-wool trade unionist of this country Mairaj Mohammad Khan also joined the great majority. He was laid to rest in Karachi. He was 77.
Mairaj was a socialist , through and through. He held dear the model of socialist economy till his last breath. For diehard socialists like him Bhutto was once a role model, therefore, when he formed PPP towards the fag end of 1960 he became one of its pioneers. Bhutto had once named him as his successor by saying that in case he was arrested by Ayub Khan, Mairaj would lead the PPP.
Mairaj and many other staunch believers of socialism felt that Bhutto had deviated soon after coming into power from the PPP’s original manifesto drafted by J. A Rahim on account of which the common man of this country had voted his party into power. As a protest they distanced themselves from Bhutto.
It was a measure of the man like Mairaj that when Bhutto was deserted in his hour of crisis by many of his partymen, it was Mairaj who stood solidly behind him and faced excesses committed on him by the stooges of Zia with courage and fortitude.
Had Bhutto given his ear to persons like Mairaj Mohammad Khan there would have been a different story to tell today and the creator of the PPP would not have faced gallows. Many genuine socialists felt dismayed when Bhutto after coming into power, carried out reforms in various sectors of life rather half-heartedly which yielded no worthwhile benefits to the man in the street. The capitalists very cunningly hijacked the original manifesto of the PPP drafted with a lot of application of mind by J. A. Rahim taking into account the economic ground realities as well as the aspirations of the common man.
Lately, Mairaj had taken fancy to the PTI too also but could not adjust himself into it.
He died as a frustrated and disappointed man who, throughout his life, desperately searched for a system which should provide a panacea for the ills and problems of the teeming millions of this county who don’t know where their next meal would come from.