G. M. Syed

Ghulam Murtaza Syed (17 January 1904 – 25 April 1995), also known as G. M. Syed, was a Pakistani independence activist and politician from Sindh, who later laid the foundations of modern Sindhi nationalism in Pakistan. In colonial era, he was a proponent of the Pakistan Movement; and later proposed ideological groundwork for a separate Sindhi identity and laid the foundations of the Sindhudesh movement. 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's political propaganda for a purely 'Muslim-dominated state' is witnessed after the Manzilgah incident, 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 his political propaganda of 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. He was known to his supporters by the prefix "Saeen". After his father's death, he grew up with his father's best family friend Rais Faqir Bux Khan Kaachhi, whom at that time, was the chief of the Kaachhi tribe, Rais Faqir Bux Khan Kaachhi was GM Syed's Ustaad and a uncle like figure to him and protected him from the enemies of GM. Syed's father. Gm syed had also mentioned Rais Faqir Bux Khan Kaachhi in his books.