Poetry & politics, in love & war

Faiz’s work endures because its core is humanism

 It started like many love stories. An 18-year-old in Sialkot fell in love with a neighbour, most likely an Afghan woman. With no courage to express his feelings, he went on to Lahore for higher study, and she got married. A lecturer of English in Amritsar, haunted by his unfulfilled romance, Marxism drew him in. As a pioneer of the subcontinent’s political poetry, a towering figure in Urdu, winner of Lenin Peace Prize, implicated in a leftist conspiracy to overthrow Pakistan’s Liaquat Ali Khan administration, a supporter of Iran’s Islamic Revolution but not an Islamist and finally restless and self-exiled in Beirut after Zia executed Bhutto — Faiz would go on to say that it was the early two phases that shaped the poet in him, leaving behind a legacy that still gives voice and expression to the voiceless.

Aur bhi dukh hain zamane mein mohabbat ke siva, rahaten aur bhi hain vasl ki rahat ke siva, mujh se pahli si mohabbat mere mehboob na maang (The world has other problems and there are other comforts than a lover’s warm embrace. So, my love, don’t ask I love you like I once did). That’s how Faiz married romance and politics.

He became friendly with Mahmud-uz-Zafar and his wife, Rashid Jahan. In 1932, he with four Oxford-educated friends published a collection of short stories and a play in a collection named Angarey (Fire). The stories, mostly feminist, attacked conservatism and talked about equality and freedom. The book was banned immediately, but these stories led to the Progressive Writers Association in India, of which Faiz was an integral part.

There was a brief break in his poetic career when he joined the army during the Second World War. A decorated officer, he resigned in 1947 to become the editor of The Pakistan Times, a left-leaning, English-language newspaper. Disillusioned by the communal violence during Partition, on Pakistan’s Independence Day, he wrote, ye daagh daagh ujala ye shab-gazida sahar, vo intizar tha jis ka ye vo sahar to nahin (This light, stained by darkness, is like the dawn tainted by dusk. This is not the dawn we waited for).

In 1951, he, along with left-leaning army officers, was arrested for an officially termed ‘leftist conspiracy’ to overthrow the Liaquat Ali Khan govt. From jail, he published two books, Dast-e Saba (The Hand of the Breeze) and Zindan Namah (Prison Chronicles). Faiz refused to give up on hope and from the prison cell, wrote, qafas udaas hai yaaro saba se kuchh to kaho. kahin to bahr-e-ḳhuda aaj zikr-e-yar chale (The cage is sad and silent. Say something to the breeze. For god’s sake, let’s talk about my beloved).

Released after four years, his world had changed. Pakistan had signed SEATO and CENTO and moved away from the Soviets, a country he drew inspiration from, and joined America, which he despised. The next few years were relatively peaceful. Bhutto appointed him cultural advisor to the Ministry of Education and at his initiative folk stories and art from different parts of Pakistan were documented.

In 1974, he accompanied Bhutto to Bangladesh and on the request of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman composed, Ham ki thahre ajnabi itni mudaraton ke baad. phir banenge ashna kitni mulaqaton ke baad (Despite the hospitality, we remain strangers, and who knows how many meetings it will take to become friends again).

But the peace was short-lived as Zia arrested Bhutto, and Faiz self-exiled to Beirut to become the editor of Lotus – a magazine established to promote non-Eurocentric Asian and African writing. The Magazine’s Beirut office was inaugurated by Yasser Arafat. His friends have noted that he felt estranged and uprooted and longed for his people. The result was, Mere dil, mere musafir, hua phir se hukm sadir, ki vatan-badar hon hum tum (My heart, my traveller, the order is issued again and we are exiled again).

His most enduring work Hum Dekhenge is, at its core, a poem of dissent. If some critique it as anti-Hinduism, it is anti-Islam as well.  Hum Dekhenge was published in the book Mere Dil Mere Musafir and was inspired by the Islamic revolution in Iran, which Faiz supported. Experts are divided about the message of the poem. The theme is inspired from the Quran’s Surah al-Waqi’ah – the inevitability of Qayamat (doomsday), when the earth will tremble and the mountains will shake, and in the poem’s climax, the literal translation would state that idols are removed from the Kaaba to establish the rule of Allah.

But it’s been argued that these lines can also mean ‘When every idol – false gods and tyrants – will be removed from the house of God, which is earth.’ His support for Iran’s Islamic revolution didn’t make Faiz an Islamist – he was charmed by the people’s power to fight the army and depose the Shah.  

In the climax of the poem he says, Utthega anal haq ka nara, jo mai bhi hu or tum bhi ho. Bus raj karegi khalke khuda jo mai bhi hu or tum bhi ho. Anal- Haq means ‘I am the truth’ and Faiz imagines that this slogan will be raised by everyone. In Semitic religions like Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, there’s a strict duality between God and creation – God is separate and transcendent. In contrast, the Sufi anal haq resonates with the Advaita concept of Aham Brahmasmi or “I am one with God”. By this interpretation, the message of this poem is that human beings themselves are the ultimate truth – divinity is within humanity and hence the divine right to self-rule.

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