G. M. Syed

Ghulam Murtaza Syed (Sindhi: غلام مرتضيٰ سيد‎, 17 January 1904 – 25 April 1995), known as G. M. Syed was a prominent Sindhi politician, who is known for his scholarly work, passing only constitutional resolution in favor of the establishment of Pakistan from British India's Sindh Assembly (which is now Sindh Assembly) in 1943. Later proposing ideological groundwork for separate Sindhi identity and laying the foundations of Sindhudesh movement. He is regarded as one of the founding fathers of modern Sindhi nationalism. He was known by the people of Sindh as "Saeen". G.M Syed started his political career at the age of 16, when he organised Khilafat Conference at his hometown, Sann, on 17 March 1920. Syed was one of the earliest Sindhi politician who sought the creation of Islamic Pakistan, and became a vocal supporter of the Two-Nation Theory, advocated by the Muslim League leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah; Syed Sindhi's religious zeal for a purely Islamic state is witnessed after the Manzilgah incident, where he wanted to cleanse Sindh of its Hindus, stating: "all Hindus shall be driven out of Sindh like the Jews from Germany". However, once the independent nation was formed, he became a political prisoner of the state in 1948, due to differences with the country's leadership. He restated the political implementation of Sufi ideologies which advocated for Islamic principles, secularism, Sindhi nationalism and laid the basis for Sindhudesh Movement. He spent approximately thirty years of his life in imprisonment and house arrests for his political views. He was entitled as the prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International in 1995. He died during his house arrest in Karachi on 26 April 1995.