This week 50 years ago: Sadequain's poetry and fishermen's protest.

Byline: Peerzada Salman

THE word autonomy is often associated with geographical boundaries. That's not entirely true. These days, colleges and universities are opting for online courses and exams; therefore one doesn't hear activities happening on their campuses. But the University of Karachi has been a pretty vocal institution in terms of knowing what it wants.

For example, on May 11, 1970 it was reported that the executive council of Karachi University Teachers Society had demanded immediate merger of the two categories of assistant lecturers and lecturers into a single cadre and a promulgation of a new university ordinance within two weeks. The ordinance would provide complete 'autonomy' to the institution and its reorganisation on democratic lines with full participation of teachers in all its affairs. The council at a meeting chaired by Dr M. Afzal Husain Qadri, dean of the faculty of science, noted with resentment that its various presentations to the university authorities and government on important issues had met with indifference.

Perhaps this was not as vociferous a demand as was taking place somewhere else in the city. On May 14, more than 1,000 fishermen of theKarachi Fish Harbour decided not to go for their, what was called, 'catch' in protest against the attitude of dealers of various fish industries. They alleged that due to the underhand dealing between auctioneers and dealers they had suffered great financial losses as a result of which they were offered very low bids for their effort.

The next day, over 2,500 fishermen working on 278 trawlers refused to go to work -- mostly to catch prawn -- in protest against the decision of certain factories to reduce the prices of prawn by almost 50 per cent. According to them, the...