Daily Dawn
6th October 1962
FULL TEXT OF SUHRAWARDY’S STATEMENT
Names of N.D.F. signitories
The following is the full text of the statement issued on Thursday by Mr. H.S. Suhrawardy (briefly covered in yesterday’s (“Dawn”) announcing the formation of the National Democratic Front:
After having consulted influential leaders and workers in East Pakistan, who came from all parts of the province | considered it advisable to promote consultations between some of them and significant representatives and workers of West Pakistan and found by the grace of God that all were anxious that Pakistan should be governed by a democratic Constitution. I also had consultations with the district leaders of West Pakistan and representatives of the intelligentsia, and was happy and greatly encouraged to find that several leaders of the bar and bar libraries and associations enthusiastically supported the idea. Our conferences at Karachi with leaders from former Sind, NWFP and Baluchistan also yielded happy results.
These discussions have left no doubt in my mind that people as a whole, whether in East Pakistan or in West Pakistan, have realised that national unity and political stability, and the mobilisation of the resources of the country, human and material, can not possibly be achieved except through the medium of a democratic Constitution in which the will of the people will be paramount.
PEOPLE’S SUPREMACY
It must, therefore, be a matter of supreme gratification to all those elements who believe in the principle that Pakistan belongs to its people and not to any person, group or party, and that no one has the authority to deprive the people of their inalienable rights of freedom and democratic exercise of the supreme authority of the State and that a democratic Constitution wherein the supremacy of the will of the people will be guaranteed should be achieved as soon as possible, to find that all significant and important elements in our society, support the desirability of educating and mobilising public opinion by means of a platform which some of us have designated as the “National Democratic Front”, and that individuals as well as parties already formed or in the making have given unequivocal support to the above general principles. At the same time there are programmes to be given effect to, bitter controversies to be settled urgently, myriad problems to be resolved, many of which have been accentuated by the martial law regime, but which cannot be solved satisfactorily unless and until the nation, declaring its will through a suprme legislature, is in a position to make these solutions and programmes effective; hence we have refrained from mentioning these and have invited the people to press for democratisation of the Constitution as early as possible.
The following are the signitories to the N.D.F. statement:
Maulana Abul Ala Maudoodi; Maulana Tufail Mohammad; Mr. Mahmud Ali Qasuri; Mr. C. R. Aslam; Col. Abid Husain; Mr. Ataur Rahman Khan; Sheikh Mujibur Rahman; Mr. Abdus Salam Khan; Shah Azizur Rahman; Khwaja Khairuddin; Nawab Mustaq Ahmad Gurmani; Maulvi Ghulam Mohammad; Maj Ishaq Mohammad; Chowdhury Fazal Ellahi; Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan; Mr. Mahmud Ali; Mr. Mohammad Solaiman; Syed Azizul Haque; Mr. Yusuf Ali Chowdhury; Sardar Mahmud Khan; Raja Ghulam Nabi Maharvi; Mr. Mahmudul Huq Usmani; Mr. Zainuddin; Mr. Akhtar Ali Khan; Mr. Manzoorul Huq; Mr. Hyder Bux Jatoi; Sheikh Abdul Majid Sindhi; Mir Ali Bux Khan Talpur; Mr. Yusuf Khattak; Mr. Ghulam Mustafa Bhurghari; Sardar Bahadur Khan; Mr. Fazlur Rahman; Mr. Abul Quasem; Mian Mumtaz Daultana; Mr. Ghulam Jilani Khan, M.N.A; Mr. Mohamhad Husain Chatha, M.N.A; Mr. Mohammad Yusuf Khattak, MNA; Sardar M. Ayub, MPA; Mr. Ahmad Saeed Kirmani, MPA; Sardar Mohammad Zafrullah; Mr. Z.H. Lari; Mr. Zain Noorani; Syed Ibn Hasan Jarchvi; Mr. M. H. Gazdar; Agha Ghulam Nabi Pathan; Kazi Fazullah; Haji Mowla Bux Soomro; Mr. Ghulam Mohammad Khan Vasan; Mir Ghulam Ali Talpur, MNA; Mr. Amir Hyder Shah, MNA; Kazi Faiz Mohammad; Mir Rasul Bux Talpur; Mr. Mohammad Hanif Siddiqui; Mr. M. A. Khuhro and Mr. Ali Goha Khuhro. -PPA.
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