Pakistani revolutionary poet and left-wing activist, Habib Jalib died in 1993 but his family was surviving on the stipend that his wife received after his death. However, the sudden termination of the remittance forced the family to look for another way of income source, compelling his daughter Tahira Habib Jalib to run a taxi for the living.
As per the reports, Tahira started to serve as a captain of a private taxi service in Lahore after the remuneration was discontinued in 2014. Even the taxi that she runs was purchased with the help of the loan from a private bank.
Before 2014, Late Habib Jalib’s wife and Tahira’s mother received Rs 25,000 monthly stipend from the quota of the poets till the state government of Punjab Shahbaz Sharif stopped the remittance. Tahira Habib has also urged the government to resume the stipend and introduce a poor-friendly system so that the poor earn their livelihood without difficulty.
However, Tahira is not ashamed of running the taxi as she says, “I am the daughter of Habib Jalib, who never compromised on his principles tills his death. I vow to follow my father’s principles and would never compromise.”
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Habib Jalib was a Pakistani revolutionary poet, left-wing activist, and politician known for opposing Marital Law authoritarianism and state of oppression in Pakistan. He is popular as the poet of the masses. He was also sent to jail several times for speaking against military coups and administrators.
