Aasim Sajjad Akhtar


Aasim Sajjad Akhtar is a professor, left wing politician and columnist based in Pakistan. He served as the president of the Awami Workers Party's Punjab Executive Committee till January 2020. Akhtar is associate professor of political economy at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan.

Early life and education

Akhtar did his bachelor of Arts in Economics with Honours in 1997 from Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA. He got his master's degree in economics in 1999 from Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA. Akhtar completed his PhD in 2008 from SOAS, University of London at the South Asia Institute, where his thesis was titled The Overdeveloping State: The Politics of Common Sense in Pakistan, 1971-2007.

Career

Akhtar is serving as associate professor of political economy at Quaid-i-Azam University's National Institute of Pakistan Studies, and has previously taught at the Lahore University of Management Sciences.

Political struggle

In November 2007, he was arrested in Lahore with seventy other civil society activists for participating in an anti-government meeting held at the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan during the Pakistani state of emergency, 2007.
Akhtar was a coordinator of the People's Rights Movement, a left-wing confederation of working-class movements in Pakistan. In February 2010, PRM merged with the National Workers Party and the Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party to form the Workers Party Pakistan. In 2012, the Workers Party Pakistan merged with other Left-wing parties to form the Awami Workers Party. Akhtar is a strong supporter of Okara's peasant movement.

Publications and Articles

Akhtar also writes a weekly column for the Dawn newspaper, he also wrote in Monthly Review, New Internationalist, Tanqeed, and The Straits Times. He has published many research articles as a researcher and academic. He has published a book named "The Politics of Common Sense" which describes the evolution of structure of power in Pakistan over the past four decades.