Biography
Former president of the Karachi Press Club, Abdul Hameed Chhapra was a Pakistani journalist and activist. He passed away in Karachi on December 23, 2020. He has consistently advocated for and defended the rights of newspaper vendors and workers, and has fought for press freedom and the rights of working journalists.
Early life and career
Mr. Chhapra served the KPC five times as president and once as secretary. He spent a significant amount of time working for the Jang Group, which helped him establish his reputation as a trade unionist. He served as the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists’ (PFUJ) president twice . Mr. Chhapra, a well-known supporter of press and speech freedoms, also wrote three books on similar topics.
Tribute to Abdul Hameed Chappra
The Karachi Press Club in March 2015 organised programs to honour living media persons who have achieved notable feats in their careers. In that regard, a very interesting event was held to pay tribute to senior journalist Abdul Hameed Chhapra.
In his distinctive animated manner, Mr. Chhapra remembered the persons who had shaped his career and advanced his development as a pen-pusher. He highlighted that a true journalist learned from cradle to death and that a true reporter was someone who reported “on the spot” while showing no fear.
According to him, the Karachi Press Club is an institution; people come and go, but institutions stay. He explained to his media contacts that the Sindh Madressah College was directly across from the chamber where the KPC was first founded.
Dr. Abdus Salam, Josh Malihabadi, and Faiz Ahmed Faiz, according to Mr. Chhapra, received club memberships throughout the period and the tenures during which he participated actively in KPC events.
He narrated that when Kausar Niazi had gone against the poet Habib Jalib, he and his team awarded the poet the lifetime membership of the club. They also celebrated Faiz’s 70th birthday at the club, for which the poet’s wife, Alys, who was taller than Mr Chhapra, hugged him. Faiz was in Beirut those days.
Mr Chhapra’s piece of advice for young journalists was: “Always write the truth, because truth floats and lies drown” (sach tairta hai, jhoot gharq hota hai).
Death
Abdul Hameed Chapra died on 22 December 2020 after a brief illness. Among his survivors are his wife, three daughters and a son
Sad news of the loss of one of its oldest stalwarts and former president Abdul Hameed Chhapra on Tuesday afternoon arrived as members of the Karachi Press Club were announcing rival panels for the KPC’s upcoming annual elections. He was 81.
In expressing their sorrow over the loss of a fine senior member they all looked up to, several KPC members recalled how Mr. Chhapra made it a point to attend every event, including press conferences conducted at the KPC, up till his health permitted him to. He had a favourite corner chair in the Ibrahim Jalees Hall where he liked to slouch, and no one dared take it or risk angering him.
Mr. Chhapra was renowned for having a strong recall, according to former KPC president, author, and poet A.H. Khanzada, who spoke with Dawn about some of his pleasant recollections of him.
Fazil Jamili, a writer and poet who was also a former president of the KPC, claimed that Mr. Chhapra had taught him both activism and journalism. “I owe my entire grooming to him. He was the one who also first brought this junior colleague to the KPC and then also to the PFUJ,” he said.
Sumaira Jajja, a member of the Dawn crew, claimed that when she was a teenage journalist working for the weekly magazine Mag, she first encountered Mr. Chhapra. “When he started giving out Eidi envelopes to all of us around the time of Eid, I was still a student. I initially hesitated to take it, but after hearing from others that he enjoys giving Eidi to the employees and that refusing would hurt him, I gave in. A clean Rs. 50 note was in the envelope. In actuality, he was giving out the same amount in every envelope”, she stated.
PFUJ President Shehzada Zulfikar and Secretary General Nasir Zaidi recalled Mr. Chhapra’s contributions to the cause of press freedom and journalist community rights in a statement. They stated that Mr. Chhapra was a well-known supporter of press freedom and the right of speech and expression.
They said that the late journalist remained imprisoned during the 1978 fight for press freedom under the rule of General Ziaul Haq.
They claimed that Mr. Chhapra’s life served as an inspiration for today’s journalists, especially the younger generation who were struggling because of the media crisis.