Abid Hassan Minto also known as Abid Minto () (born 3 February 1932) is a constitutional expert and senior lawyer of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, and former president of the Awami Workers Party. He is also a literary critic and a leftwing civic and political leader. His legal career spans over 50 years during which he was elected member of the Pakistan Bar Council from 1966 up to 1983; President, Lahore High Court Bar Association (1982); Chairman, National Coordination Committee of Lawyers (1981 to 1985) and President, Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan (SCBA) (1997 to 1999).
Minto has also been affiliated with the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) in which he was elected vice-president at its Barcelona Congress (1990) and Bureau Member at its Cape Town Congress (1995).
He was professor of law at the Law College of the Punjab University (Punjab University Law College) 1963 to 1983.
Minto belongs to the Marxist school of thought in politics and in his writings.
Early life and education
Minto was born in Murree, British India, present-day Pakistan. He attended Islamia High School, Rawalpindi and Gordon College. He received his law degree (LL.B) from the Punjab University Law College in 1955. While at Law College, he was elected President of the Students Union and won and retained the title of "Best All Pakistan Debater" for four years. He served as the president of Law College's debating society and also worked as a writer in the college's official magazine "Al-Meezan"
Political beginning
Minto became a member of the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) in 1949 and remained with it until it was banned in 1954 after the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case along with the Democratic Students Federation (DSF) which was also co-founded by Minto in 1949 while at Gordon College. The DSF had been popular in all four provinces and was succeeded, after its ban, by the National Students Federation (NSF) which exists to date.
Trade unions
In his younger days Minto was an active trade unionist and organised the Military Engineering Service (MES) Workers Union. He worked for the Attock Oil Company Workers Union in Rawalpindi and the Railway Workers Union which was led by Mirza Muhammad Ibrahim, a veteran trade union leader of South Asia. Minto was a member of the Central Executive of the Pakistan Trade Union Federation (affiliated with the World Federation of Trade Unions) from 1967–1986.
Farmers/peasants
Minto's ties with local peasant movements are in place to date. Along with veteran peasant leader Chaudhry Fateh Muhammad, he has worked to organise Kissan (peasant) Committees (کسان کمیٹی) in rural Punjab. These committees provide local farmers with a platform for discussion and action in respect to the problems faced by them in Pakistan's agrarian society where ownership of land vests predominantly in big landowners.
Literature
Abid Hassan Minto joined the Progressive Writers Association (PWA) in 1949. He has been active and associated with the Progressive Writers' Movement for many years. After the independence of Pakistan in 1947, he played a key role in establishing the first literary movement of Lahore, namely Halqa-e Arbab-e Zauq (Circle of the Men of Good Taste).
His first essay "The Issue of Language in Pakistan" was published in 1951 in the literary journal Adb e Latif (). Other essays by him, later published as a collection "Nuqta e Nazarنقطہ نظر"(The Viewpoint: 1st Edition 1986 2nd Edition 2003) include: The Problem of Religious Literature (Shahrah شاہراہ 1954); Literary Criticism (Adb e Latif 1954ادب لطیف); The Issue of Ideologies in Literature (Adb e Latif 1955ادب لطیف); Progressive Ideology and Contemporary Literature (Adb e Latif 1960ادب لطیف); Problems of Modern Poetry (Nayee Shairi 1964نئ شاعری) and Eternal Values in Literature (Auraq 1967اوراق). His essay The Technique of the One Act Playایکانکی ڈرامہ (Adb e Latif 1957ادب لطیف) was part of the curriculum for graduate studies in Urdu literature. Abid Hassan Minto's favorite writers are Rajinder Singh Bedi and Saadat Hasan Manto. Abid Hassan Minto also happens to be one of the grandnephews of Saadat Hasan Manto. He prefers to spell his family name as Minto rather than Manto.
Legal career (1955–) Minto began law practice in 1955 at Rawalpindi where his father and, before him, his grandfather had also practised. He moved to Lahore in 1958, was admitted, Advocate of the Lahore High Court in 1957 and of the Supreme Court of Pakistan in 1963. He remains a practising lawyer and is the Senior Consultant to "Minto and Mirza, a Lahore based law firm.