Sheikh Mohammad Rashid, one of the founding fathers of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) was regarded as an ideologue by thousands of PPP activists and was committed to a socialist cause. This had earned him a reputed nickname in Lahore as Baba-e-Socialism (Father of Socialism). But after the PPP's return to power, following long years of the military rule in the 1980s, Sheikh Rashid had gradually felt alienated within the party, despite being its one time Senior Vice Chairman. Early life and career Sheikh Mohammad Rashid was born in 1915 in Sheikhupura into a family of farmers and entered politics by joining the All India Muslim League in 1940. He was initially attracted by the Khaksar Tehrik but did not join it. Rashid also got involved in the Quit India Movement of the Ghadar Party led by Subhash Chandra Bose. Locally in British-ruled Punjab, he participated in the movement against the pro-British Unionist government of Khizar Hayat Khan Tiwana. In 1947 just before the independence of India and Pakistan, when religious and ethnic tensions arose and riots erupted, he formed a local "bombard group" against the Unionist government and was arrested while transporting some bombs in a tonga (a horse-driven vehicle commonly used at that time). After the independence of Pakistan in 1947, Sheikh Rashid started his career as a lawyer but soon his socialist leanings led him to join the Azad Pakistan Party headed by Pakistan Times newspaper owner Mian Iftikharuddin. This organization had a broadly progressive programme and he was appointed its first secretary-general. True to his socialist ideals, he also led many peasants movements in Pakistan. In 1967, he joined hands with the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the formation of the Pakistan Peoples Party. He was a founding member of the party's central executive committee and later a member of the first ever PPP cabinet, initially as Health Minister and then Chairman of the Land Reforms Commission. His efforts at land reforms were said to have made him unpopular with many including some of his own land-owning party colleagues because he confiscated, as Federal Land Reforms Commission chairman, thousands of acres of land of big landowners of Pakistan regardless of what political party they belonged to. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto himself was a big landowner in Sindh. Eventually, the land reforms saw only a half-hearted implementation by the Bhutto administration. Besides Bhutto, Pakistan has been a land