Tahira Mazhar Ali (née ''Hayat''; 5 January 1924 – 23 March 2005) was a Pakistani women's rights campaigner and a political activist, and mentor to

Benazir Bhutto Benazir Bhutto (21 June 1953 – 27 December 2007) was a Pakistani politician who served as the 11th prime minister of Pakistan from 1988 to 1990, and again from 1993 to 1996. She was also the first woman elected to head a democratic governmen ...

. Her children include British Pakistani political activist

Tariq Ali Tariq Ali (;; born 21 October 1943) is a Pakistani-British political activist, writer, journalist, historian, filmmaker, and public intellectual. He is a member of the editorial committee of the ''New Left Review'' and ''Sin Permiso'', and co ...

, Tauseef Hyat, and Australian journalist Mahir Ali.

Early life

She was born on 5 January 1924 in

Lahore Lahore ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab. It is the List of cities in Pakistan by population, second-largest city in Pakistan, after Karachi, and ...

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

to Sikandar Hayat Khan (1892 – 1942), a politician and former Chief Minister of Punjab, during the British Raj. She was the younger sister of Sardar Shaukat Hayat Khan (1915 – 1998) and Begum Mahmooda Salim Khan (1913 – 2007). Ali finished her basic education at Queen Mary School in Lahore. She married at the age of 17 to her cousin, Mazhar Ali Khan (1917 – 1993) who was a journalist and editor of '' The Pakistan Times'' newspaper who had socialist leanings.

Career

She was one of the founding members of the

Communist Party of Pakistan The Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP; Urdu: ) is a communist party in Pakistan founded in 1948 by Sajjad Zaheer. History The Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) was founded in Calcutta, India, soon after the establishment of Pakistan on 6 March ...

(CPP) and with her husband was also part of the Progressive Papers Ltd (PPL). Ali was jailed for vigorously opposing General

Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (12 August 192417 August 1988) was a Pakistani military officer and statesman who served as the sixth president of Pakistan from 1978 until Death of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, his death in an airplane crash in 1988. He also se ...

's dictatorship. She was the first person in Pakistan to pair the fight for workers' rights with the fight for women's rights, resisting Zia's assault on the rights of women. Although she was born in an affluent family, she remained an activist for labour and women's rights for over 60 years. In 1950, she was one of the founders of the '' Democratic Women's Association'' (DWA), considered the country's first independent women's rights organisation. For the first time in Pakistan,

International Women's Day International Women's Day (IWD) is celebrated on 8 March, commemorating women's fight for equality and liberation along with the women's rights movement. International Women's Day gives focus to issues such as gender equality, reproductive righ ...

was observed under her leadership where it was openly demanded that women be given equal status and rights. In 1971, she was amongst a small group of people who protested against the war in

East Pakistan East Pakistan was the eastern province of Pakistan between 1955 and 1971, restructured and renamed from the province of East Bengal and covering the territory of the modern country of Bangladesh. Its land borders were with India and Burma, wit ...

(now Bangladesh). In her later years, before she suffered a series of debilitating

stroke Stroke is a medical condition in which poor cerebral circulation, blood flow to a part of the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: brain ischemia, ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and intracranial hemorrhage, hemor ...

s that left her partially paralysed, she served as a mentor to many prominent Pakistani women.

Death and legacy

Ali died on 23 March 2005 in

. Veteran Pakistani journalist and human rights activist I. A. Rehman paid tribute to her in the ''

Dawn Dawn is the time that marks the beginning of twilight before sunrise. It is recognized by the diffuse sky radiation, appearance of indirect sunlight being Rayleigh scattering, scattered in Earth's atmosphere, when the centre of the Sun's disc ha ...

'' newspaper, saying that she was "a true activist" and mentioned her work for women's rights and peace-making efforts between India and Pakistan.

Early life

Career

Death and legacy

References

Further reading