With the death on Sunday of veteran politician and renowned Pushto writer Ajmal Khattak, the country has lost one of its most committed political workers and prolific Pushto writers. A vocal advocate of the rights of the Pakhtun people, Khattak told this newspaper last year: “I am deeply concerned about the political situation in South Asia; what is being done against the Pakhtuns troubles me more than my illness.”

He had, indeed, spent a lifetime working for his people through both politics and literature. Influenced by the Khudai Khidmatgars, he worked for the Quit India movement and joined the Awami National Party after partition, of which he was president twice. He was the stage secretary at the 1973 Liaquat Bagh rally of the United Democratic Front, when UDF leaders were fired upon.

As a prominent figure of what was then the National Awami Party, Khattak was wanted by the Federal Security Force and went into self-imposed exile in Afghanistan in 1973. He returned to Pakistan in 1989 when the Awami National Party, the successor of the NAP, entered into an electoral alliance with the IJI. He was elected to the National Assembly in 1990, and became a senator in 1994.

Khattak’s written work reflects the principles of a committed Marxist-Leninist. He is widely considered to have brought Pushto poetry in line with modern poetic trends. There, too, his subject matter was the exploitation and oppression of his people; his first collection of poetry, Da Ghairat Chagha, published in 1958, was banned in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The continued relevance of Khattak’s work is evident in the fact that his poems continue to be sung at progressive parties’ meetings. Khattak’s politics were characterised by an amalgam of reason and dedication to principles. With his passing, we have lost an important voice of sanity in these turbulent times.