KARACHI – Yusuf Haroon, former chief minister of Sindh and governor of West Pakistan, who died in the US on Sunday at the age of 94, would always be remembered for his services as a politician and as a social worker. Senior politicians say that Haroon played a role in shaping the new society that emerged in Pakistan after its creation in 1947 and represented the pre-partition political culture.
Yusuf Haroon was the eldest son of one of the pioneers of the All India Muslim League, Sir Abdullah Haroon. After death of his father in 1942, he became a close associate of Quaid-e-Azam uhammad Ali Jinnah. He entered politics through the local bodies system and remained the mayor of Karachi from 1944 to 45. He was the youngest mayor in the sub-continent’s history. Haroon also became the youngest chief minister of Sindh and stayed in power from 1949 to 1950.
After Moosa Khan, Haroon became the governor of West Pakistan in 1969. He was governor for only three or four days when Yahya Khan took over in March 1969. He later moved abroad and stayed there for the last five decades, but remained engaged in various events in the country. He also served as the country’s high commissioner to Australia. This prominent scion of the Memon clan remained a strong believer that General Ziaul Haq had launched systematic discrimination against the business circles in Karachi and forced Memons to take their businesses abroad.
He also appointed the great poet and intellectual Faiz Ahmed Faiz as principal of the Haji Abdullah Haroon Association’s Educational Complex in the Lyari area of Karachi in 1967. His younger brother, Mahmood A Haroon served as the Sindh governor. Sir Abdullah Haroon, father of Yusaf and Mahmood, died in 1942, but before his demise, he devoted his residence for the Pakistan movement.
Yusuf Haroon – a chapter closed
