Life of babu Abdul Karim sorish Balochi

There is something to be learned from the life of Babu Abdul Karim Sorish

 IF you are an unemployed journalist and no newspaper accepts your contribution and your

own publication folds for want of resources, what do you do? Most such journalists might become clerks somewhere or start selling chholey. But a Baloch journalist found a different answer more than 40 years ago. He became an early incarna tion of the blogger

Since the day does not seem to be far awiay when the government will have rendered all Pakistani journalists jobless, except for some who will be clinging desperately to their unrewarding drudg ery, there is something to be learnt from this extraordinary Baloch journalist.

Babu Abdul Karim Shorish was born in a settle ment near Mastung and completed his studies up to middle school as there was no high school in the Kalat state in the 1920s He found a job as a patwari that he gave up in the 1930s when a number of state employees, including Abdullah Jan Jamaldini, the doyen of Baloch literary figures, who was a tehsil dar, resigned to work for their people's uplift (Balochistan earned the distinction of recording resignations by a whole group of state employees to take up public causes.)

Abdul Karm learnt his nationalist politics from his uncle, Malik Abdur Rahim Khwaja Khel, who served as president of the Kalat National State Party for many years and became the top leader in Kalat during its stormy days in 1947 And he became a labour leader under the guidance of the outstanding Baloch trade unionist, Qazi Dad Muhammad. One of the earliest socialists, he joined the world peace committee headed by Saifuddin Kitchlew.

By 1945, Abdul Karim had decided to bring out an Urdu weekly, Tamirt-Vau (Reconstruction) but the government of India denied him permussion.

In theearly 1950s, Babu Abdul Karim was instru mental in organising a Balochistan peace commit tee and was arrested, along with several other lead. ers, for organising a signature campaign. After

release from prison, he started devoting more attention to journalism. From 19s3 onwards, he contributed to different publications and finally joined weekly Zamana as editor of its Balochi page.

A few years later, he was promised a Balochi language weekly's declaration but he didn't have the Rs5,000 he was required to deposit in his bank account Once this problem was solved by a large hearted man, the first ever weekly in Balochi language, Naukin Danr (New Age) started publication on June 6,1962. The paper had a chequered existence and its publication was affected by lack of resources.

Abdul Karim enthusiastically hailed the grant of provincial status to Balochistan on Jan 1, 1970, as the first step towards the recognition of his homeland. Ie celebrated the victory of his favour ite party in the 1970 elections and the formation of the NAP government but his expectations of government support for his journalistic endeav ours were not realised.

By then, commitment to peace in the wo