Personalities

3 Shaeer 3 Ghazlain

2017-10-21T04:25:00.001-07:00

*_تین شاعر، تین غزلیں
*احمد ندیم قاسمی*
شعور میں، کبھی احساس میں بساؤں اُسے
مگر میں چار طرف بے حجاب پاؤں اُسے
اگرچہ فرطِ حیا سے نظر نہ آؤں اُسے
وہ روٹھ جائے تو سو طرح سے مناؤں اُسے
طویل ہجر کا یہ جبر ہے کہ سوچتا ہوں
جو دل میں بستا ہے اب ہاتھ بھی لگاؤں اُسے
اُسے بُلا کے مِلا عمر بھر کا سنّاٹا
مگر یہ شوق کہ اِک بار پھر بلاؤں اُسے
اندھیری رات میں جب راستہ نہیں مِلتا
میں سوچتا ہوں کہاں جا کے ڈھونڈ لاؤں اُسے
ابھی تک اُس کا تصوّر تو میرے بس میں ہے
وہ دوست ہے تو خدا کس لیے بناؤں اُسے
ندیمؔ ترکِ محبت کو ایک عمر ہوئی
میں اب بھی سوچ رہا ہوں کہ بُھول جاؤں اُسے

*احمد فراز*
کروں نہ یاد مگر کس طرح بھلاؤں اُسے
غزل بہانہ کروں اور گنگناؤں اُسے
وہ خار خار ہے شاخِ گلاب کی مانند
میں زخم زخم ہوں پھر بھی گلے لگاؤں اُسے
یہ لوگ تذکرے کرتے ہیں اپنے لوگوں کے
میں کیسے بات کروں اور کہاں سے لاؤں اُسے
مگر وہ زود فراموش زود رنج بھی ہے
کہ روٹھ جائے اگر یاد کچھ دلاؤںاُسے
وہی جو دولتِ دل ہے وہی جو راحتِ جاں
تمہاری بات پہ اے ناصحو گنواؤں اُسے
جو ہم سفر سرِ منزل بچھڑ رہا ہے فرازؔ
عجب نہیں کہ اگر یاد بھی نہ آؤں اُسے

*حامد اقبال صدیقی*
جدائیوں کے تصوّر ہی سے رُلاؤں اُسے
میں جھوٹ موُٹ کا قصّہ کوئی سُناؤں اُسے
اُسے یقین ہے کتنا مِری وفاؤں کا
خلاف اپنے کسی روز ورغلاؤں اُسے
وہ تپتی دھوپ میں بھی ساتھ میرے آئے گا
مگر میں چاندنی راتوں میں آزماؤں اُسے
غموں کے صحرا میں پھِرتا رہوں اُسے لے کر
اُداسیوں کے سمندر میں ساتھ لاؤں اُسے
مزہ تو جب ہے اُسے بیڑ میں کہیں کھودوں
پھر اُس کے بعد کہیں سے میں دھونڈ لاؤں اُسے
یہ کیا کہ روز وہی سوچ پر مسلّط ہو
کبھی تو ایسا ہو، کچھ دیر بھول جاؤں اُسے
کچھ اور خواب بھی اُس سے چھُپا کے دیکھے ہیں
کچھ اور چہرے نگاہوں میں ہیں، دِکھاؤں اُسے
وہ گیلی مٹّی کی مانند ہے، مگر حامدؔ
ضروری کیا ہے کہ اپنا ہی سا بناؤں اُسے

Mirza Muhammad Hadi Ruswa 1857-1931

2017-10-21T01:07:00.001-07:00

مرزا محمد ہادی رسوا
(1857ء تا 21 اکتوبر، 1931ء)

ایک اردو شاعر اور فکشن کے مصنف (بنیادی طور پر مذہب، فلسفہ، اور فلکیات کے موضوعات پر) گرفت رکھتے تھے۔ انہیں اردو، فارسی، عربی، عبرانی، انگریزی، لاطینی اور یونانی زبانوں میں مہارت تھی۔ ان کا زمانہ ناول امراؤ جان ادا 1905ء میں شائع ہوا جو ان کا سب سے پہلا ناول مانا جاتا ہے۔ یہ ناول لکھنؤ کی ایک معروف طوائف اور شاعرہ امراؤ جان ادا کی زندگی کے گرد گھومتا ہے بعد ازاں ایک پاکستانی فلم امراؤ جان ادا (1972ء)، اور دو بھارتی فلموں، امراؤ جان (1981ء) اور امراؤ جان (2006ء) کے لیے بنیاد بنا۔ 2003ء میں نشر کئے جانے والے ایک رزا محمد ہادی رسوا کی زندگی کی درست تفصیلات دستیاب نہیں ہیں اور ان کے ہم عصروں کی طرف سے دی گئیں معلومات میں تضادات موجود ہیں البتہ رسوا نے خود تذکرہ کیا ہے کہ ان کے آباء و اجداد فارس سے ہندوستان میں آئے اور ان کے پردادا سلطنت اودھ کے نواب کی فوج میں ایک ایڈجوٹنٹ تھے۔ جس گلی میں رسوا کا گھر تھا اسے ایڈجوٹنٹ کی گلی کے طور پر جانا جاتا ہے۔ انہوں نے اپنے والد اور دادا کے بارے میں اس سے زیادہ کچھ نہیں بتایا کہ وہ دونوں ریاضی اور فلکیات میں خاصی دلچسپی رکھتے تھے۔ مرزا محمد ہادی رسوا 1857ء کو، ایک گھڑسوار، فوجی افسر، مرزا محمد تقی کے گھر لکھنؤ، اتر پردیش میں پیدا ہوئے۔انہوں نے گھر میں ابتدائی تعلیم حاصل کی۔ وہ سولہ سال کے تھے جب ان کے والدین دنیا سے کوچ کر گئے۔ نوجوانی میں وفات پانے والےان کے بڑے بھائی مرزا محمد ذکی، ایک علمی شخصیت کے مالک تھے۔ اس دور کے ایک مشہور خطاط حیدر بخش نے رُسوا صاحب کو خوش خطی سکھائی اور انہیں کام کرنے کے لئے کچھ رقم ادھار بھی دی۔ لیکن حیدر بخش کی آمدنی ڈاک کی جعلی ٹکٹ سازی سے آتی تھی لہٰذا اُسے گرفتار کر لیا گیا اور ایک طویل مدت کے لئے قید کی سزا سنائی گئی۔رُسوا کے لکھنے کے کیریئر میں اُن کی مدد کرنے والے بہت سے لوگوں میں سے ایک اردو شاعر، دبیر بھی تھے۔ رسوا نے گھر میں تعلیم حاصل کی اور میٹرک پاس کیا۔ اس کے بعد انہوں نے منشی فاضل کے کورس کا امتحان دیا اور منشی فاضل ہوگئے۔ پاکستانی ٹی وی سیریل کی بھی بنیاد یہی ناول تھا
مرزا محمد ہادی رسوا صاحب کا وصال یہیں حیدرآباد دکن میں 1931ء میں ہوا اور تدفین معظم جاہی مارکیٹ کے قریب واقع قبرستان مرلی دھر باغ میں انجام پائی۔ انگریزی سے ترجمہ

Milkha Singh & Abdul Khaliq

2013-12-05T01:48:00.001-08:00

The girl from Grantham - Margaret Thatcher

2013-04-13T15:26:00.001-07:00

It is sometimes difficult to separate people who have achieved great things from the terrible things they may also have done. OJ Simpson, Oscar Pistorious, Margaret Thatcher.

Margaret Thatcher was an iconic woman. Today, where women become icons for having plastic breasts and marrying footballers, Thatcher was an Icon for something substantial rather than ephemeral.
Thatcher showed that no matter where you came from, whatever your class or background, you could achieve what you wanted if you worked hard enough. Even if you didn’t look the part, speak the right way, have the right friends, you could still bypass all these obstacles and achieve the highest levels of success.

The odds were stacked against her. She was the greengrocer’s daughter from Grantham that made it to the highest position in our country. She had gone where no woman had gone before. Or after.
There was no nepotism. No friends from Eton, no family descendants of a King or Queen, nobody to give her a leg up. It was just one woman and her determination.

One of the reasons I most admire Margaret Thatcher the woman, is that she never used her sexuality to get where she did. She never slept her way to the top, she never wore short skirts, low cut tops, talked in a seductive manner or flirted with fellow cabinet ministers, and she could have if she wanted to, there were enough sleazy repressed Tory men that would have agreed to a good spanking from Thatcher, even if it was just to say it happened.

She just worked hard and had tremendous self-belief, even though no one could see her in the role.
What made her such a great woman is that she transcended being a woman. She said what she meant and meant what she said; she didn’t just chat about things as women supposedly do, she actually did things. She became so enduring and so powerful that you forgot this was a woman. She just became Thatcher.

Thatcher, who didn’t just lead Great Britain for 11 years, gather enemies everywhere she went, survive an assassination attempt by the IRA and then turn up for work at 9.30 on the dot, the following morning – I can’t make it to work at 9.30 even when no one’s tried to blow me up the night before – but also a wife and a mother who ran the country on four hours of sleep a night. She was married to Sir Dennis Thatcher for 52 years, longevity unheard of these days. Women that say, “I haven’t got time to work, I have to look after my children, my marriage didn’t work out I was working too much, I can’t do everything!” I say to those women, “Look at Thatcher. She did it, we can all do it”
I NEVER voted for Thatcher. EVER. I have NEVER voted Conservative. I hated her politics and had an impoverished childhood because of her. The anger I feel towards her politics is too unbearable to talk about. But if we look at her just as Margaret Thatcher and where she came from and what she achieved, it is incredible. The girl from Grantham that eventually died at The Ritz Hotel. It’s a long, long way, but she made it and is an inspiration.

I am a woman working in a man’s world. I don’t look the part, have always been underestimated, have constantly been told that I’m never going to get anywhere, that I should give up and do something more ‘respectable’. The men I work with are predominantly, white, middle class, often Oxbridge educated and are all friends with each other. I am an outsider, but of all the things that make me feel like an outsider, being a woman has never been one of them. I have never been aware of being a woman. I have always just got on with the job. That must be one of the positive effects of growing up under Thatcher.

She didn’t really care what people thought of her, another unwomanly characteristic. If everyone loves you – it’s boring, if everyone hates you – it’s boring. When people are divided that’s when you know you’ve made it.

If there’s one thing worse than being hated, it’s being forgotten. Thatcher will never be forgotten.
All women must learn something from Margaret Thatcher. You don’t have to be the best at what you do, but with determination, single-mindedness, hard work, and discipline, you can make a huge impact and be the most memorable.

Nayyara Noor

2012-12-01T13:27:00.002-08:00

It was sometime in the early 1970s, when PTV enjoyed monopoly and presented some fine programmes, that we saw a girl-next-door type, looking somewhat emaciated, regaling music lovers with lovely ditties in programmes like Akkar Bakkar, Such Gup and Tal Matol. As she crooned numbers like Miraji’s geet“Barkha ke lakhon teer dil per kaise sahoon mein”, with full-throated ease, one was struck by the limpid flow and mellifluousness in her renditions.

The singer, no prizes for guessing, was none other than Nayyara Noor. It was the period when her favourite singers Noor Jehan and Farida Khanum reigned supreme. This youngster didn’t offer visual treats like nakhras or nirad and yet won admiration.

But it was not until the launch of the Nayyara sings Faiz album, jointly produced by the poet’s talented son-in-law Shoaib Hashmi and EMI, the recording company, as a birthday gift for the great poet in 1976, that she earned recognition as a singer. The lovely compositions by Shahid Toosy and Arshad Mahmood, featuring in the album, were sung with intensity of emotions by Noor. Also included in the LP was a duet“Barkha barse chat per”, a rare Hindi poem by Faiz, which she rendered with her husband Sheharyar Zaidi.

Noor was born in Guwahati (Assam) in 1950 in a family which had migrated from Amritsar. She is still haunted by the lush greenery outside her home and on the nearby hills that seemed like sentinels guarding the landscape. As night fell, glow worms wafted in the air by the dozens. The menacing snakes that lurked around were the only spoilt sports.

It was in 1957 (or 1958, she is not sure) that Noor migrated to Pakistan with her mother and her siblings and settled down in Lahore. Her father had to stay back until 1993 because of their immovable properties. He was a confirmed Muslim Leaguer and had played host to the Quaid-e-Azam on his trip to Assam before Partition.

“Education was the be-all and end-all of our existence but music was the main source of entertainment,” she says and goes on to add that Kanan Bala and Begum Akhtar, were their all time favourites. Lata Mangeshkar was, of course, a passion with everyone.

It was once at a musical evening at her alma mater, National College of Arts, that while singing the immortal Lata bhajan “Jo tum todo piya” from Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje that she attracted the attention of Prof Asrar of Islamia College whose knowledge of music was phenomenal. He spotted talents in Noor and became the main source of encouragement in her formative years. “He was a very fine singer himself and was steeped in classical music,” says Noor, who hastens to add that he also composed songs. “I was lucky to have had the opportunity of singing some of his numbers in my early days.”

It was music that was responsible for her tying the nuptial knot with Sheharyar Zaidi. They had been keen competitors in inter-collegiate music contests where Noor invariably bagged the first prize, while he, representing Hailey College of Commerce, had to settle for the second. A more film-like situation arose when the two met for the first time in a gramophone record shop. They were both hunting for Begum Akhar’s discs. The rest, as they say, is history.

Noor can be classified as a gifted singer, she doesn’t lose the track of the surs (musical notes) even though she has not had her groundings in classical music. When asked if she regrets the fact, she replies “Music has been a passion with me but never been my top priority. I was a student and a daughter first and a singer later. After my marriage my primary roles have been those of a wife and a mother.” Making money has been of a secondary consideration for her. She seldom went on musical tours and was very choosey about live performances. In her salad days she could have minted money but that would have meant not paying due attention to her children. I remember in the evenings she used to religiously monitor her children’s homework, whenever I paid her a visit. This was after the family had shifted to Karachi.

While on classical music, she feels that the Ustads and Pandits who indulge in guttural gymnastics are doing our rich heritage a great disservice. “They should bring out the subtleties and nuances of the ragas by singing them softly instead of using long drawn non-aesthetic taans.”

Noor’s finest work has been for television and the composers who got the best out of her included Arshad Mehmood and Javed Allahditta. She is in her element on the small screen, whether recording for serials like Tansen or title songs such as “Chalo us koh per” or “Mujhe wida kar” or singing ghazals like “Aei jazba-e-dil gar mein chahoon” or geets like “Phir sawan rut ki pawan chali”.

We tend to forget a priceless album of hers, which was titled Yadon Ke Saye. It featured songs from the New Theatres’ movies, which were originally recorded in the voice of Kanan Bala in the late 1930s and early 1940s. They were available once only on the antiquated 78RPM records. Her husband spent a lot of time unearthing the original numbers. Since the records were scratchy some words could not be deciphered so they had to approach people with sound knowledge of Hindi, since they were all geets and not ghazals. A violinist cum arranger, Javed Iqbal did a very fine job. He made it a point to use only actual musical instruments instead of taking a short cut by employing a synthesiser.

While on Yadon Ke Saye, I may add that when Sultan Arshad, who is very much into film music, played the song “Unka ishara jaan se pyar” from the movie Pehli Nazar to the veteran composer Anil Biswas, he was swept off his feet. “I wish she had been around when I composed the song in the forties. I would have happily used her as a playback singer.” Anilda, as he was fondly called, autographed the inlay card of the cassette, featuring the number, for her and complimented her on the ‘lovely rendition’.

Noor sang for the radio initially but gave TV much more time and attention. Her film songs, though fewer in number, are no less memorable. She regrets that maestro Khurshid Anwar was in his twilight years when he got Noor to lend her voice to his compositions in Shirin Farhad, which clearly were not among his best. She was to sing for his last movie Tansen, but before he could have gone ahead, he passed away.

Composers Khaleel Ahmad and Nisar Bazmi used her talents effectively but the one who drew the best out of her was Robin Ghosh. Incidentally, the last movie that she sang for, Dooriyan (1984) had a scintillating score. Noor won the Best Singer’s Award for a song which she fails to recall.

This writer feels that her best film number was “Roothay ho tum, tumko kaise manaoon piya”, composed by Ghosh for Aaina. Based on a popular Bengali tune, the sweet-sounding number was rare in the sense that while most Noor numbers were poignant, this was a highly effervescent ditty.

“Had Robin sahib not migrated to Bangladesh I would have continued to sing for films,” she says.

While her husband has of late achieved much success as a supporting actor on TV as well as a model, Noor has distanced herself from recording songs. “There is a time for everyone to call it a day and do so gracefully, rather than be labelled a spent force,” says Noor.

She avoids interviews as she feels that she has been misquoted in the past. And as for TV interviews she laments that the interviewers don’t do their homework before entering the studios.

She remembers a number of people fondly. Some of them are unfortunately no more. The name on top of the list is Faiz Ahmed Faiz. When I was interviewing her last year for the centenary issue of Dawn dedicated to the greatest Urdu poet of the second half of the last century, I asked her “What is that one trait in Faiz as a person that you liked the most?”

“His silence. I think that sums up the great man’s personality. It was not what an Urdu poet, Nasir Kazmi perhaps, once said that he was lonely even in company. Faiz sahib was one person who was never alone even in his loneliness. He loved company and he also loved to listen to people. He was never there to approve or disapprove people. He liked to hear different points of view and gave his own opinion only when he was asked to do so. In fact I would go on to say all that he had to convey he did it so articulately through his pen, both as a poet and as a journalist. I can safely conclude that his silence measured the depth of his personality.

“In the mid-seventies his house in Block H of Model Town, Lahore, was open to one and all. It was there that as a member of a young team of singers and composers I got to spend some invaluable time and meet eminent men of letters such as Soofi Tabbassum, Muneer Niazi, Ahsan Danish, Ejaz Batalvi, Intizar Husain and Munnoo Bhai, all of whom came to meet him.

“We were in those days doing Shoaib Hashmi’s (Faiz’s son-in-law’s) TV programme, Such Gup for PTV. When I say we, I mean his daughter Salima Hashmi, Farooq Qaiser, composers Shahid Toosy and Arshad Mahmud, my husband to be – Sheharyar Zaidi, and, of course, yours truly.

I remember quite distinctly that Faiz sahib sat on the sofa smoking cigarette after cigarette, while Shahid and Arshad set his poems to music and the two singers, me and Sheharyar, sang them with gay abandon. While negotiating some difficult and even not so difficult notes I would steal a glance at him only to find him smiling affectionately and encouragingly. It seemed he was enjoying those moments no less. His was, I think, the world’s most disarming smile.”

If you know Noor well you will realise that she is a delightful company. Her sense of humour is sparkling and, what is more, she mimics people, well known and not so well known alike, leaving her audience in splits.

Her two sons, Ali, who does voice-overs, and Jaafer, the composer, are well settled in their professions. Her role as a mother has been overshadowed by her position as a grandmother. Of the two granddaughters, Inaya is five, while Azmina is six-months-old.

“Inaya is quite chirpy. The word ‘dadi’, when she utters, is music to my ears,” says the woman whose name has been synonymous with melody.

Fifty years on, everyone still wants a piece of Marilyn Monroe

2012-07-31T10:52:00.001-07:00

“They’re one of a number of pairs she had,” says curator Dwight Bowers, gently lifting them out of the beige steel cabinet they share with Christopher Reeves’ Superman costume and the 10-gallon hat that J.R. wore in “Dallas.” “They’re white kid. They’re very tiny and petite. And they show the decorousness of the 1950s,” he explained. “There’s a stain of ink on the left one … perhaps it came from giving an autograph to someone.” Donated by a private collector, the gloves make up the entire Marilyn Monroe collection at the publicly-funded Smithsonian Institution, the world’s largest network of museums and, in principle, repository of all things Americana.

Bowers, who plans to include the gloves in an forthcoming Smithsonian exhibition on American popular culture, said it’s “logical” for the museum to hold more Monroe memorabilia.
“But Hollywood material and Hollywood celebrities are big business in the auction world,” he told AFP in the windowless storeroom that’s packed floor to ceiling with show-business artifacts from vaudeville to today.

“Private collectors are part of our competition – and private collectors have a much bigger budget than we have.” Fifty years after her death, demand for anything related to Hollywood’s original blonde bombshell – from the dresses she wore to the magazine covers she graced – is stronger than ever. And it’s more global as well.

Many choice items can be seen at the Hollywood Museum in Los Angeles, where a handful of private collectors have pooled their most prized Monroe objects for a summer-long public exhibition.

Portrait taken in 1962 of American actress Marilyn Monroe during her last movie “Something’s got to give” directed by George Cukor, which remained unfinished.

It’s a wide-ranging show, from the mortgage paperwork on Monroe’s house to never-before-seen photographs and a host of garments like the black silk crepe dress she wore on her honeymoon with baseball legend Joe DiMaggio.

“It had been in storage for 35 years,” Hollywood Museum founder Donelle Dadigan said. “When we received it, you knew who it belonged to, because the Chanel Number Five perfume still lingered… It was almost magical.” The bulk of Monroe’s personal belongings went on the auction block at Christie’s in New York in October 1999 at a historic two-day estate sale that raked in $13.4 million.

“They literally had everything from pots and pans to her brassieres,” recalled Clark Kidder, a collector of Monroe-related magazines in Wisconsin and author of a 2001 guide to Monroe memorabilia who attended the sale.

The most expensive item then was a diamond-studded platinum eternity band, a gift from DiMaggio, her second husband, that Christie’s experts had estimated at $50,000 tops. It sold for $772,000 and it’s likely worth much more today.

Monroe’s baby grand piano went, too, for $662,500, along with everything else from a pair of bikinis and a set of gym equipment to her driver’s license – as well as the gloves that eventually wound up in the Smithsonian.

Such prices today would be considered bargains, due in part to the globalization of the memorabilia market and an influx of cash-rich and reclusive Asian and Gulf collectors for whom price is no object.
“Some of the top prices for Marilyn Monroe memorabilia, in the seven figures, you may end up finding in China, in Japan, in the Middle East … it’s just extraordinary,” Dadigan told AFP in a telephone interview.

Last year, in Macau, Los Angeles auctioneers Julien’s sold a gown that Monroe wore in the movie “River of No Return” for $516,600 and a signed nude from her “red velvet” session with photographer Tom Kelly for $16,250.

Earlier in 2011, the billowing dress that Monroe wore over that famously breezy subway grating in “The Seven-Year Itch” sold for a staggering $4.6 million – plus commission – in Los Angeles.
The seller was the actress Debbie Reynolds, who at 79 had no more room for her collection of 35,000 Hollywood movie costumes. The buyer, as is so often the case at auctions, opted for discretion and bid by telephone.

“A lot of these high-profile pieces, when they come up for auction, are going to the Asian countries,” Los Angeles collector Scott Fortner, whose own Monroe objects are part of the Hollywood Museum exhibition,

“I find it disappointing that some of these pieces literally just disappear and we have no idea where they go,” added Fortner, who has catalogued his entire collection – from a feather boa to make-up and eye drops – online.

Fortner sees himself not so much as a collector than as a custodian of the memory of a timeless motion picture icon. He’s especially proud of one item in his possession – Monroe’s humble Brownie snapshot camera.

“I have always found that piece very, very intriguing,” he said. “It’s the childhood camera of one of the most photographed women, if not the most photographed woman, in the world. There’s an interesting bit of irony there.”

Nathuram Godse - His Last Speech

2012-05-19T00:49:00.003-07:00

*** The pic is not real, taken from movie Gandhi

JANUARY 30th, 1949 - The Mahatma was assassinated by a man called Naturam Godse.
After he shot him, instead of running away, he stood his ground and surrounded. He said, "No one should think that Gandhi was killed by a madman"

One of the best speeches of All time, which is compared to Socrates's speech in his trial.
The Judge was astonished by his speech and commented that if India had followed the Jury system of giving judgments, Godse would have been adjudicated as "Not Guilty" by the Jury, cause after the speech, the whole audience was in tears.

This is the speech given by Nathuram Godse in the court in his last trial for the murder of Mahatma Gandhi

Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere Hindu religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had, therefore, been intensely proud of Hinduism as a whole. As I grew up I developed a tendency to free thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to any isms, political or religious. That is why I worked actively for the eradication of untouchability and the caste system based on birth alone. I openly joined anti-caste movements and maintained that all Hindus were of equal status as to rights, social and religious and should be considered high or low on merit alone and not through the accident of birth in a particular caste or profession. I used publicly to take part in organized anti-caste dinners in which thousands of Hindus, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Chamars and Bhangis participated. We broke the caste rules and dined in the company of each other.

I have read the speeches and writings of Dadabhai Nairoji, Vivekanand, Gokhale, Tilak, along with the books of ancient and modern history of India and some prominent countries like England, France, America and' Russia. Moreover I studied the tenets of Socialism and Marxism. But above all I studied very closely whatever Veer Savarkar and Gandhiji had written and spoken, as to my mind these two ideologies have contributed more to the moulding of the thought and action of the Indian people during the last thirty years or so, than any other single factor has done.

All this reading and thinking led me to believe it was my first duty to serve Hindudom and Hindus both as a patriot and as a world citizen. To secure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of some thirty crores (300 million) of Hindus would automatically constitute the freedom and the well being of all India, one fifth of human race. This conviction led me naturally to devote myself to the Hindu Sanghtanist ideology and programme, which alone, I came to believe, could win and preserve the national independence of Hindustan, my Motherland, and enable her to render true service to humanity as well.

Since the year 1920, that is, after the demise of Lokamanya Tilak, Gandhiji's influence in the Congress first increased and then became supreme. His activities for public awakening were phenomenal in their intensity and were reinforced by the slogan of truth and non-violence, which he paraded ostentatiously before the country. No sensible or enlightened person could object to those slogans. In fact there is nothing new or original in them. They are implicit in every constitutional public movement. But it is nothing but a mere dream if you imagine that the bulk of mankind is, or can ever become, capable of scrupulous adherence to these lofty principles in its normal life from day to day. In fact, honour, duty and love of one's own kith and kin and country might often compel us to disregard non-violence and to use force. I could never conceive that an armed resistance to an aggression is unjust. I would consider it a religious and moral duty to resist and, if possible, to overpower such an enemy by use of force. [In the Ramayana] Rama killed Ravana in a tumultuous fight and relieved Sita. [In the Mahabharata], Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness; and Arjuna had to fight and slay quite a number of his friends and relations including the revered Bhishma because the latter was on the side of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama, Krishna and Arjuna as guilty of violence, the Mahatma betrayed a total ignorance of the springs of human action.

In more recent history, it was the heroic fight put up by Chhatrapati Shivaji that first checked and eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny in India. It was absolutely essentially for Shivaji to overpower and kill an aggressive Afzal Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life. In condemning history's towering warriors like Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Guru Gobind Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely exposed his self-conceit. He was, paradoxical, as it may appear, a violent pacifist who brought untold calamities on the country in the name of truth and non-violence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji and the Guru will remain enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen forever for the freedom they brought to them.

The accumulating provocation of thirty-two years, culminating in his last pro-Muslim fast, at last goaded me to the conclusion that the existence of Gandhi should be brought to an end immediately. Gandhi had done very well in South Africa to uphold the rights and well being of the Indian community there. But when he finally returned to India he developed a subjective mentality under which he alone was to be the final judge of what was right or wrong. If the country wanted his leadership, it had to accept his infallibility; if it did not, he would stand aloof from the Congress and carry on his own way. Against such an attitude there can be no halfway house. Either Congress had to surrender its will to his and had to be content with playing second fiddle to all his eccentricity, whimsicality, metaphysics and primitive vision, or it had to carry on without him. He alone was the Judge of everyone and everything; he was the master brain guiding the civil disobedience movement; no other could know the technique of that movement. He alone knew when to begin and when to withdraw it. The movement might succeed or fail, it might bring untold disaster and political reverses but that could make no difference to the Mahatma's infallibility. 'A Satyagrahi can never fail' was his formula for declaring his own infallibility and nobody except himself knew what a Satyagrahi is.

Thus, the Mahatma became the judge and jury in his own cause. These childish insanities and obstinacies, coupled with a most severe austerity of life, ceaseless work and lofty character made Gandhi formidable and irresistible. Many people thought that his politics were irrational but they had either to withdraw from the Congress or place their intelligence at his feet to do with, as he liked. In a position of such absolute irresponsibility Gandhi was guilty of blunder after blunder, failure after failure, disaster after disaster.

Gandhi's pro-Muslim policy is blatantly in his perverse attitude on the question of the national language of India. It is quite obvious that Hindi has the most prior claim to be accepted as the premier language. In the beginning of his career in India, Gandhi gave a great impetus to Hindi but as he found that the Muslims did not like it, he became a champion of what is called Hindustani. Everybody in India knows that there is no language called Hindustani; it has no grammar; it has no vocabulary. It is a mere dialect; it is spoken, but not written. It is a bastard tongue and crossbreed between Hindi and Urdu, and not even the Mahatma's sophistry could make it popular. But in his desire to please the Muslims he insisted that Hindustani alone should be the national language of India. His blind followers, of course, supported him and the so-called hybrid language began to be used. The charm and purity of the Hindi language was to be prostituted to please the Muslims. All his experiments were at the expense of the Hindus.

From August 1946 onwards the private armies of the Muslim League began a massacre of the Hindus. The then Viceroy, Lord Wavell, though distressed at what was happening, would not use his powers under the Government of India Act of 1935 to prevent the rape, murder and arson. The Hindu blood began to flow from Bengal to Karachi with some retaliation by the Hindus. The Interim Government formed in September was sabotaged by its Muslim League members right from its inception, but the more they became disloyal and treasonable to the government of which they were a part, the greater was Gandhi's infatuation for them. Lord Wavell had to resign as he could not bring about a settlement and he was succeeded by Lord Mountbatten. King Log was followed by King Stork.

The Congress, which had boasted of its nationalism and socialism, secretly accepted Pakistan literally at the point of the bayonet and abjectly surrendered to Jinnah. India was vivisected and one-third of the Indian territory became foreign land to us from August 15, 1947. Lord Mountbatten came to be described in Congress circles as the greatest Viceroy and Governor-General this country ever had. The official date for handing over power was fixed for June 30, 1948, but Mountbatten with his ruthless surgery gave us a gift of vivisected India ten months in advance. This is what Gandhi had achieved after thirty years of undisputed dictatorship and this is what Congress party calls 'freedom' and 'peaceful transfer of power'. The Hindu-Muslim unity bubble was finally burst and a theocratic state was established with the consent of Nehru and his crowd and they have called 'freedom won by them with sacrifice' - whose sacrifice? When top leaders of Congress, with the consent of Gandhi, divided and tore the country - which we consider a deity of worship - my mind was filled with direful anger.

One of the conditions imposed by Gandhi for his breaking of the fast unto death related to the mosques in Delhi occupied by the Hindu refugees. But when Hindus in Pakistan were subjected to violent attacks he did not so much as utter a single word to protest and censure the Pakistan Government or the Muslims concerned. Gandhi was shrewd enough to know that while undertaking a fast unto death, had he imposed for its break some condition on the Muslims in Pakistan, there would have been found hardly any Muslims who could have shown some grief if the fast had ended in his death. It was for this reason that he purposely avoided imposing any condition on the Muslims. He was fully aware of from the experience that Jinnah was not at all perturbed or influenced by his fast and the Muslim League hardly attached any value to the inner voice of Gandhi.

Gandhi is being referred to as the Father of the Nation. But if that is so, he had failed his paternal duty inasmuch as he has acted very treacherously to the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it. I stoutly maintain that Gandhi has failed in his duty. He has proved to be the Father of Pakistan. His inner-voice, his spiritual power and his doctrine of non-violence of which so much is made of, all crumbled before Jinnah's iron will and proved to be powerless.

Briefly speaking, I thought to myself and foresaw I shall be totally ruined, and the only thing I could expect from the people would be nothing but hatred and that I shall have lost all my honour, even more valuable than my life, if I were to kill Gandhiji. But at the same time I felt that the Indian politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely be proved practical, able to retaliate, and would be powerful with armed forces. No doubt, my own future would be totally ruined, but the nation would be saved from the inroads of Pakistan. People may even call me and dub me as devoid of any sense or foolish, but the nation would be free to follow the course founded on the reason which I consider to be necessary for sound nation-building. After having fully considered the question, I took the final decision in the matter, but I did not speak about it to anyone whatsoever. I took courage in both my hands and I did fire the shots at Gandhiji on 30th January 1948, on the prayer-grounds of Birla House.

I do say that my shots were fired at the person whose policy and action had brought rack and ruin and destruction to millions of Hindus. There was no legal machinery by which such an offender could be brought to book and for this reason I fired those fatal shots.

I bear no ill will towards anyone individually but I do say that I had no respect for the present government owing to their policy, which was unfairly favourable towards the Muslims. But at the same time I could clearly see that the policy was entirely due to the presence of Gandhi. I have to say with great regret that Prime Minister Nehru quite forgets that his preachings and deeds are at times at variances with each other when he talks about India as a secular state in season and out of season, because it is significant to note that Nehru has played a leading role in the establishment of the theocratic state of Pakistan, and his job was made easier by Gandhi's persistent policy of appeasement towards the Muslims.

I now stand before the court to accept the full share of my responsibility for what I have done and the judge would, of course, pass against me such orders of sentence as may be considered proper. But I would like to add that I do not desire any mercy to be shown to me, nor do I wish that anyone else should beg for mercy on my behalf. My confidence about the moral side of my action has not been shaken even by the criticism levelled against it on all sides. I have no doubt that honest writers of history will weigh my act and find the true value thereof some day in future.

-NATHURAM GODSE

—

FAIZ AHMED FAIZ

2011-02-17T01:56:00.000-08:00

Faiz Ahmed Faiz was born in Sialkot a hundred years ago, with official records showing February 13, 1911 as the date of birth. He shared his hometown with Pakistan’s national poet, Allama Muhammad Iqbal. Faiz’s father, Sultan Mohammad Khan, was a poor shepherd boy, the son of a landless peasant in Kala Kader, Sialkot, who taught himself Persian as well as Urdu and English and, by a fortuitous combination of hard work, intelligence and luck, eventually rose to become the then Afghan king’s personal interpreter and senior minister.

He later moved to England, where he acquired a law degree at Cambridge and became friends with Iqbal. He finally retired back to Sialkot as a practising lawyer and a gentleman of leisure. Sultan Mohammad Khan had acquired several wives during his travels, including some daughters of Afghan nobles. However, upon his return to Sialkot, he married Faiz’s mother, his last and youngest wife. Shortly thereafter Faiz was born, and received his early education under the tutelage of the renowned scholar Sayyid Mir Hasan, known as Shamsul Ulema at the Scotch Mission High School in 1921. Mir Saheb was the finest scholar in Sialkot.

Allama Iqbal had completed his studies from same school in 1893 but a few of his teachers were still working there, including Mir Hasan, whom the British government at the insistence of Iqbal had given the title of Shamsul Ulema. By Iqbal’s own account, Mir Hasan had influenced him immensely, and Faiz was to become one of his favourite students just as Iqbal once was.

Faiz showed a natural affinity for languages and excelled in Arabic, Persian, Urdu and English as subjects. He graduated from the Scotch Mission in 1927 with honours and remained in touch with Mir Hasan, continuing to learn Sunnah and literature. Faiz described how in school he was accepted as a leader by his peers in spite of his own perceived lack of any such qualities in himself. Of his well known and soft-tempered personality, he offered another explanation from his childhood. He described himself as growing up in a ‘horde of women’, aunts, cousins and other relatives; how his two brothers, Inayat and Tufail, were interested in outdoor pursuits and how he (Faiz) was the one whom ‘the women nabbed’. He described affectionately how they ‘forced’ him to become civilised and how this resulted in him becoming ever so soft-spoken and never wishing to utter a harsh word to anyone.

The Government College years

Na poocho ehd-i-ulfat ki, ek khwaab-i-parishan tha (Do not ask of the time of love, it was a bewildering dream) — Faiz

After graduating with the highest honours from Murray College, Sialkot, Faiz left for Lahore in the autumn of 1929. He was carrying an introductory letter to the principal of Government College, Qazi Fazl-e-Haq, written by Iqbal, who was a friend of Sultan Mohammad Khan and was by now familiar with the brilliant young son of Sultan Mohammad’s, having heard him recite his poetry in mushairas.

Faiz later said ruefully that the principal “snatched the letter from me. After the interview, I said, ‘let me have the letter back’ but he said, ‘no, it will remain with me’.” The letter was thus lost. Faiz became a student of Government College 30 years after Iqbal had graduated from there.

Government College at the time was the highest rated college in the region because of its academic excellence and also for its democratic environment which encouraged frequent interaction between students and teachers both on and off campus. Ahmad Shah Bukhari ‘Patras’, a towering literary figure, who later became Pakistan’s permanent representative to the United Nations, taught English language and literature at the college. Bukhari was to become one of Faiz’s closest friends and an early mentor. He had studied at Cambridge while Iqbal was also there, and he, like Faiz, admired Iqbal.

One time, during a debate on the philosophy of Bergson, Patras put forth some forceful arguments leading Iqbal to finally withdraw. However, Iqbal later wrote a poem about the incident (and Patras), and titled it Ek falsafe-zada syedzaade ke naam (To a philosophy-inspired Syed). Bukhari, and later, Sufi Ghulam Mustafa Tabassum, represented the best of the modern (post-19-century) intelligentsia of the subcontinent. Tabassum, an accomplished Urdu, Persian and Punjabi poet and teacher, was Faiz’s earliest ‘poetic’ mentor to whom he regularly turned for opinion and criticism of his poetry even after he had become a recognised poet himself.

In 1931 Faiz recited his poem Iqbal on the eve of the annual mushaira at Government College, with Iqbal present as the guest of honour. This poem was awarded the first prize and was published in the respected college literary journal, Ravi. His Government College years were also the time when Faiz first tasted grief of the death of his father in 1931. Sultan Mohammad Khan left behind a mountain of debt for his large family, and for a while, Faiz seriously considered leaving college and trying to find work. However, his older brother, Tufail, and his mother would have none of it.

Faiz devoted his later years at Government College to poetry probably because he was in love — love which remained unrequited. Some initial poems included Aik Rahguzar Par and Teen Manzar. However, Faiz was not very satisfied with this early poetry and included only a limited portion of it in his first collection, Naqsh-i-Faryadi. He remained at Government College till 1933, obtaining the degrees of B.A., B.A. honours (Arabic) and a Master’s in English. A year later he did a Master’s in Arabic from Oriental College, Lahore.

Launching pad: Amritsar

Tapesh mi konad zinde tar zindegi ra (The heat of struggle animates life) — Iqbal

Faiz accepted his first job offer to work as a lecturer of English at the Mohammadan Anglo Oriental College, Amritsar in 1935. At the time the entire world, including the subcontinent, was in the throes of the Great Depression which had started with the Wall Street crash in America in 1929 and spread rapidly to the rest of the world. Unemployment, poverty and fear stalked the land. Faiz wrote later how he was happy to accept any job offer that came his way in those difficult times.

He taught at the MAO College from 1935 to 1940, and in those years, according to his biographer, translator and friend, Dr Ludmilla Vassilyeva, “A new Faiz was born in this city who perceived the world entirely differently from before.” Faiz again found a distinguished circle of literary and intellectual friends in Amritsar, which included the principal of his college, Sahibzada Mahmooduz Zafar and his wife Dr Rasheed Jahan. The two, along with Sajjad Zaheer and Ahmad Ali, had authored and published in 1932 a collection of short stories titled Angare which achieved instant notoriety (and was banned by the British Government) for introducing an entirely novel and modern way of writing as well as attacking many of the entrenched religious and cultural prejudices at the time.

It was, in the words of Ahmad Ali, ‘a ferocious attack on society in modern literature’; ‘a declaration of war by the youth of the middle class on the prevailing social, political and religious institutions… we were filled with zeal to change the social order and right the wrongs done to man by man…” The book became the nucleus around which grew the idea of the All India Progressive Writers’ Association, which later developed into a literary movement.

That movement gave birth, in one form or another, to some of the best literary and poetic talent of the 20th century Urdu language, and included adherents like Krishen Chander, Ismat Chughtai, Upindranath Ashk, Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, Sahir Ludhianvi, Mirza Adeeb, Sibte Hassan, and many, many others.

Marriage and “Kulsoom”

Naseeb aazmaane ke din aa rahe hain (The days to test our fortune draw near) — Faiz

During his time in Amritsar, Faiz also met his future wife Alys in 1938 at the house of Mohammad Din Taseer, another colleague at the college. Taseer had helped draft the original manifesto of the Progressive Writers’ Association in England where he had married Alys’s older sister, Christobel. Alys had come to India to visit her sister. Later, with the outbreak of World War II in 1939, she was unable to return to England. She was also a committed progressive, a member of the British Communist Party since the age of 16, who had worked with the ‘Free India’ movement in England serving for a time as the secretary of Indian nationalist Krishna Menon, a close associate of Jawaharlal Nehru.

Faiz and Alys shared the ideals of freedom and love for humanity and justice, and even though in some ways they had the opposing temperaments, Alys was a strict disciplinarian while Faiz was a typical, at times rather disorganised artist, they eventually fell in love.

Faiz’s mother, a traditional Muslim, was not entirely happy that her favoured, brilliant son had chosen to marry outside his religion. However, she gave in when she saw how happy Faiz was. She chose the Muslim name ‘Kulsoom’ for her daughter-in-law to be. This fact was not widely known, and when Faiz dedicated his second collection of poetry Dast-i-Saba (The Breeze’s Hand), written in prison ‘to Kulsoom’, there were some raised eyebrows about the identity of the mystery woman.

Faiz and Alys were married at the house of M.D. Taseer in Srinagar in October 1941. Their nikah was performed by Sher-i-Kashmir, Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah, the leader of the National Conference. Shaikh Saheb was one of the most important political figures in the history of modern Jammu and Kashmir. It was a simple wedding ceremony, ending with an informal house party attended by the progressive poets, Josh and Majaaz among them, in addition to the family.

Faiz and Alys’s Nikahnama, the marriage contract, was modeled after that of Christobel (Bilqees) and Dr Taseer, which had been drafted by Iqbal along what he believed were truly Islamic lines. It was progressive and very modern for the time, granting the wife the full right of divorce as well as binding the husband to monogamy with all other conditions open to negotiation. Those conditions eventually trickled down to formulating later on the Muslim Family Ordinance (1961), now in force in Pakistan for all marriages.

Yeh dagh dagh ujala — 1947

Woh intezaar tha jiss kaa, yeh woh seher toe nahin (This is not the dawn we longed for, so long) — Faiz

Faiz never wrote much specifically about Partition. He may have believed that to make statements about such issues was the job of politicians. In the years leading up to 1947, Faiz and most intellectuals considered freedom from colonial rule as the most important matter. He wrote: ‘We all knew that we wanted independence from the British but what this would look like, what shape it would take, all of us had only a vague idea about that’. It would be safe to say that no one (including politicians) expected the human catastrophe that Partition eventually brought.

Alys was in Kashmir at the time of Partition along with her young daughters. They were lucky to avoid the bloodshed, and managed to reach home safely. During those horrible days Faiz never hesitated going to the most dangerous places as a correspondent and often amazed his foreign friends and counterparts from western news agencies with his courage and boldness.

Faiz at this time was the Editor of the daily The Pakistan Times, the flagship publication of Mian Iftikharuddin’s Progressive Papers Limited. Whatever Faiz expressed in his poems, he also wrote in his paper. He wrote several editorials and essays in those days filled with grief over the pointless massacres, the terrible killings of thousands of innocent people and appealed for sympathy and aid for the victims and for an end to the bloodshed.

His most famous poem from that era influenced a whole generation and is always quoted whenever Partition is discussed. Subh-i-Aazadi was Faiz’ first poem written after independence on August 14, 1947. Professor Fateh Mohammad Malik has written: “It is surprising that those who express anger at the dawn of independence being labeled a ‘blemished dawn’ and a ‘night-stung morning’ fail to see the aching love for Pakistan in those lines especially when the wounds inflicted by Radcliffe were still fresh and our political leaders were openly lamenting the deceit and treason of the British.”

Faiz had been to East (Indian) Punjab and had seen the devastation and bloodshed with his own eyes. Partition displaced up to an estimated 12.5 million people in the former British India, with estimates of loss of life varying from several hundred thousand to a million. The remnants of the violence and the mutual hostility and suspicion between India and Pakistan plague their relationship to this day.

The Pakistan Times and Progressive Papers days

Taraash az tishe-ye khod jaade-ye khweesh (Hew your own path with your own stone pick) — Iqbal

Mian Iftikharuddin was an old acquaintance of Faiz. He hailed from an affluent family of Punjab and had been a member of the Indian National Congress and President of its Punjab chapter till 1946 when he switched allegiance to the Muslim League. He was later to become Pakistan’s minister for refugee rehabilitation. He was the owner of Pakistan Times, a paper started by progressives in the Muslim League in Punjab as a counterpoint to the Hindu press. Mian Iftikhar offered Faiz the chief editorship of his new daily. The name Pakistan Times was chosen because six months before partition, ‘Pakistan’ was the most popular word in the areas later to become the new country. Faiz, who had been serving as a decorated Lieutenant Colonel in the British Indian army’s propaganda department, accepted the offer and resigned from the army.

Initially an English journalist was appointed to assist the chief editor but Faiz soon mastered the art of journalism and publishing. Within a very short time, Pakistan Times gained the reputation of being one of the most distinguished dailies. Reading some of Faiz’s editorials from that time is an education about what fearless journalism ought to be. On April 21, 1948, he wrote: “We celebrate today the anniversary of the greatest name in our recent literary and cultural history. We have said a great deal in praise of that name and done correspondingly little. Iqbal has been acclaimed for three decades or more as one of our greatest national heroes and yet… there is hardly a monument to his name apart from an unfinished tomb. Petty officials, municipal councilors, political opportunists and distinguished millionaires have been treated better.”

Another editorial from January 25, 1949 states: “The West Punjab assembly has been dissolved. The selfish pack of men who have, for the last 18 months, revelled in the people’s misery and mocked at the nobility of freedom have been asked to quit…We demand that every adult citizen must be given the right to vote. We demand this in the name of Islamic equality that makes no distinction between rich and poor; we demand it in the name of freedom that is the common heritage of us all…we demand that no one should be given that privilege to arrogate exclusively to himself the past prestige of the Muslim League, a prestige that belongs to the Muslim Nation as a whole…We demand that political tricksters should not be allowed to load the dice for and against any citizen…” Reading these lines today, one can see how far ahead Faiz was of his time. It is also easy to see how he was to become such a thorn in the side of successive governments.

The Rawalpindi Conspiracy case

Woh baat saaray fasanaay mein jis kaa zikr na tha… (The words that were never mentioned…) — Faiz

Faiz was friends with several military men from the days he had served in the army during World War II. One of these was Major General Akbar Khan, a senior member of the Pakistan Army. Akbar Khan and many of his colleagues in the army had become frustrated and disillusioned with the civilian government of Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan over what they perceived as the lack of material and moral support that had been given to the Army during the fight over Kashmir that had broken out immediately after Partition.

The general and his friends wanted a political change specifically of a ‘leftist’ or progressive kind, including land reforms and eradication of corruption and nepotism. They sent a message to Sajjad Zaheer who was the Secretary General of the fledgling Communist Party of Pakistan. Akbar Khan requested Faiz to arrange a meeting with Zaheer who was in hiding since, as in the days of the British, all communists and any of their sympathisers were heavily monitored. Zaheer invited Faiz to go along with him and Faiz, blissfully unaware of what was being planned, agreed. In March 1951 Faiz and Zaheer had another meeting with Akbar Khan and his friends in Rawalpindi and after listening to suggestions about a military revolution, both, on behalf of progressives as well as the party, rejected the idea since it would likely have no popular support.

No ground work had been done to educate and inform the people and most ordinary people would likely have seen it (correctly) as another measure to impose change on them from the top without consulting them in any way. Faiz and Zaheer were also convinced that the situation was not bad enough to call for militant resistance and that in any case, given the circumstances, it was not practical. The meeting ended with a decision to avoid any such extreme measures. Unfortunately, one of the participants of the meeting got cold feet and informed his superiors who promptly informed the authorities. The next day Faiz was arrested from his house in Lahore and many of the other participants in the meeting were also rounded up. Incredibly, Faiz was treated as the ‘chief conspirator’, representing communists, since Zaheer could not be arrested for another three months.

For Faiz, this resulted in an imprisonment lasting four years, a time that was very painful for him as well as for his family. However, his poetry, which he had barely had time for while editing Pakistan Times, flourished and two collections were published during the four years of prison. Dast-i-Saba’ (The Breeze’s Hand) and Zindaan Nama (Prison Notebook) contain some of his most beloved poems. By the time Faiz was freed, he was known far and wide.

After the release

Husn larzeed ke saheb-i- nazar peyda shod (Beauty trembled at the birth of beholder) —Iqbal

By the time Faiz was released from prison in 1955, much water had flowed under the bridge. In his own words, the country had been ‘sold to the neo-imperialist block’. The government had signed the Seato and Cento pacts and had lodged itself squarely alongside western powers led by the United States. The Cold War had begun in earnest and the former ally of the West, the Soviet Union, was now its enemy number one. All left-leaning and progressive voices were heavily censored. The trade union movement, which Faiz had helped build had been destroyed.

By Faiz’s own account, any activity in the political arena had become impossible. Politically, there was famine in many parts of the country and industrial activity had stagnated or come to a standstill. Poverty had increased still further from the level it was at in 1947. Faiz rejoined Pakistan Times, again writing editorials critical of the government’s domestic and foreign policies. In addition, the paper voiced vocal opinions about normalising relations with the socialist bloc, by this time possible only through cultural and scientific exchanges.

Faiz wrote little poetry during this time but did attempt to enlarge his creative horizons. He wrote a screenplay and then helped turn it into a feature film, Jago Hua Savera based on the lives of fishermen in East Bengal. In 1956, Faiz was invited to India to the inaugural session of a conference on Asian writers organised by the Progressive Writers’ Association, giving Faiz a chance to meet and catch up with his old comrades, including Syed Sajjad Zaheer, Mulk Raj Anand, Krishen Chander and others. It was at this conference that the similarities between problems faced by former colonies in Asia and Africa were discussed and the idea of an Afro-Asian Writers’ movement was born.

In 1958, Faiz and Hafeez Jallundhri, the author of the Pakistan national anthem, went as Pakistani delegates to the second conference of Afro-Asian writers in Tashkent. Faiz’s long cherished desire to see the USSR was thus fulfilled and he became a leading proponent of the ‘Tashkent Declaration’, which pledged to “resist the cultural pressures of neo-colonialism and help the former colonies throw off the spiritual yoke of colonialism by uniting intellectuals on a new, higher plane.” It was during the conference that General Ayub Khan and the Pakistani army led a coup against the Government of Pakistan and implemented the “Social Security Act” by virtue of which they began widespread arrests.

Faiz was warned by progressive friends in the USSR not to return to Pakistan since arrest, or worse, was a near certainty. He chose to return anyway and was promptly arrested a few days later, eventually serving six months in jail. After his release, he decided on a change of scenery and moved to Karachi for a while and taught at a college for poor students. However, the weather in Karachi did not suit him. He began having frequent asthma attacks, and eventually Alys persuaded him to return to Lahore.

The Lenin Peace Prize

Khalal pazeer bovad har bina ke mi beeni (Every foundation you see is faulty) — Hafez

Upon his return from Karachi, Faiz had been ill and had been told by his doctor that he had suffered a mild heart attack. It was while he was recovering at home that he was informed of having won the Lenin Peace Prize, the Soviet equivalent of the Nobel Prize. The year was 1962. The prize ceremony was to be held in Moscow and since Faiz was still under surveillance by the military government, the only way he could travel to the USSR to accept the award was by the permission of the President of Pakistan.

Fortunately, the military government of Ayub Khan was, at this time, experimenting with a slightly more non-aligned foreign policy more in line with Pakistan’s national interest and becoming less subservient to the US. Faiz received the permission to travel to Moscow. His doctor was less sanguine and forbade him travelling by air.

Faiz went to Moscow by sea and train to receive his award. His colleagues at Pakistan Times tried to persuade him to not leave the paper which had by then been taken over by the government; however, Faiz had made up his mind. The prize ceremony was held in the grand Kremlin hall in Moscow. Faiz’s acceptance speech at the ceremony, which appears as a brief preface to his collection Dast-i-tah-i-Sang (Hand under the rock) is a great piece of humanist literature:

Human ingenuity, science and industry have made it possible to provide each one of us everything we need to be comfortable provided these boundless treasures of nature and production are not declared the property of a greedy few but are used for the benefit of all of humanity… However, this is only possible if the foundations of human society are based not on greed, exploitation and ownership but on justice, equality, freedom and the welfare of everyone… I believe that humanity which has never been defeated by its enemies will, after all, be successful; at long last, instead of wars, hatred and cruelty, the foundation of humankind will rest on the message of the great Persian poet Hafez Shiraz: ‘Every foundation you see is faulty, except that of Love, which is faultless’.

The Lenin Peace Prize helped lift Faiz’s image even higher in the international community. He was invited to speak in many countries and was especially feted in the socialist countries or those allied to the Soviet bloc. His poetry was being translated into dozens of languages. He traveled widely in the Arab world as well and developed a special fondness for Lebanon, especially Beirut, which would become his home in later years.

Beyond Hum Keh Thehre Ajnabi

Hum keh thehre ajnabi kitni madaraaton ke baad (We who became strangers, after so many graces) — Faiz

The year 1971 saw the culmination of what was then termed the ‘Bengali problem’ in the shape of the trauma of Pakistan’s second partition and the secession of East Pakistan to become the independent state of Bangladesh. While the problems had been simmering since independence in 1947, they had come to a head during the latter part of General Ayub Khan’s rule. The bloodshed in Dhaka and all of East Pakistan in 1970 and 1971 saddened many people reminding them of the trauma of 1947.

After the creation of Bangladesh, the new civilian government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto offered Faiz a position as Cultural Advisor to the Ministry of Education, and after some deliberation, Faiz accepted. He had always considered culture an integral part of society, imperative to the development and uplift of a nation. In this position, he created the Pakistan National Council of the Arts as well as the Lok Virsa, the Institute of Folk Heritage. He assembled a group of volunteers and performed some essential, long neglected tasks. The local folk tales and stories of different regions were documented, folk songs were recorded and folk dramas were studied in detail. In addition, folk art and craft were collected from all over the country for the museum in Islamabad.

Faiz was of the opinion that folk art was an inexhaustible source of inspiration for writers and poets. His own work shows clear signs of this influence, especially his ‘geets’ (songs). He continued his activities with the Afro-Asian Writers’ Association as well. In 1973 at Alma Ata, the capital of Kazakhstan, Faiz was reunited with his long separated and dear friend, Sajjad Zaheer. Their happiness remained short lived though, as Zaheer suffered a severe heart attack and died there. A grief stricken Faiz accompanied the body to Delhi and later composed Sajjad Zaheer Ke Naam (In memory of Sajjad Zaheer). In 1974, he was part of a delegation that accompanied Prime Minister Bhutto to the new state of Bangladesh, to repair relations the dismemberment of Pakistan. While the official visit did not accomplish much, Faiz, at the request of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, an old friend, composed his famous Dhake say waapsi par (Return from Dhaka) to express his sadness:

Mere Dil, mere musafir

Hua phir say hukm saadir/ keh watan badar hon hum tum (My heart, my traveler, the order has gone forth again/that we be exiled) — Faiz

August 1977 saw the end of the Bhutto government through another military coup, thus ending a relatively calm period in Faiz’s life. Once again, the government and all civil institutions were suspended, all political and trade union activity was banned, arrests began and, for Faiz, it was déjà vu all over again. He was again put under constant police surveillance, his every move watched. He could be arrested at any time, and finally decided to leave the country on his own. Faiz later described his flight out of the country.

One day, cigarette in hand, he strolled out of his house. The policeman on duty thought he was going for his regular morning stroll and paid him no attention. Faiz went straight to the airport and flew out of the country. In his own words, this was ‘self-exile’. He had not been forced to leave, he just did not want to stay and risk imprisonment again. He later said, “It is not that one has no fight left. It is only that I am not as young as I once was and it is difficult to take physical punishment when you are older. The soul is willing but the body is not”.

He went first to Delhi where he had a large circle of friends and well wishers. Many universities there offered him a professorship in literature; he considered accepting a position at Calcutta University before he was told in no uncertain terms by the Pakistan embassy that such a move would be inadvisable. He then flew on to Moscow and later made several visits to London, before landing in Beirut.

The Beirut sojourn

Des pardes kay yaaran-i-qadah khwaar ke naam (To fellow drinkers in at home and in foreign lands) — Faiz

During the sixth congress of Afro-Asian writers in Lusaka, Angola, Faiz was unanimously chosen as the Editor of the journal of the Afro-Asian writer’s association, Lotus. Upon his return to Moscow, the question of an office location for Lotus came up and after some debate, Beirut was selected. Alys was appointed as his secretary and they both went to Beirut in 1979.

Beirut was then the headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) headed by Yasser Arafat with whom Faiz developed a close friendship. In his eyes, the Palestinians’ struggle for their rights was synonymous with liberation struggles elsewhere. His poem ‘A Song for the warriors of Palestine’ was immediately translated into Arabic and became a Palestinian ‘national song’:

We will win
One day, in truth, we will win
At last, one day we will win
What do we fear the onslaught of enemies?
Every warrior stands straight and tall”

Faiz traveled extensively while based in Beirut, mostly to his two favourite cities, London and Moscow. His stay in Beirut did not prove very peaceful. In 1982, the Israeli Army began a full scale assault on Lebanon and especially Beirut. The bombardment eventually became too dangerous, and Faiz and Alys decided to leave on the advice of Palestinian friends. Alys, with her British passport, had no trouble getting out but Faiz had to be smuggled out of the blockade of Beirut by friends in a car bearing a UN flag. He eventually headed back to Moscow where he resumed his editorial work.

However, he was increasingly frustrated. His work at Lotus included a lot of paper work, official documentation, reports as well as letters. He also edited the submissions of the young Asian and African writers, most of which he rewrote from scratch due to their poor quality. He also became increasingly aware of the growing resentment among Afro-Asian writers who wanted to chart an independent course free of the dictates of the Moscow bureaucracy. This did not sit well with the Kremlin which was providing the funds for the Association as well as Lotus.

For the first time, Faiz also experienced firsthand the corruption and incompetence of the Soviet establishment, now in terminal decline and less than a decade away from its dissolution. Lotus and the Afro-Asian Writers’ Association reached their end with the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, only years after Faiz’s passing.

Back Home in Lahore

Bohat mila, na mila zindagi se gham kyaa hai (What we received from life, whether more or less, fret not) — Faiz

With the passage of time, in Moscow, Faiz was more and more restless for home. Many times, Pakistan’s military dictator, General Ziaul Haq had stated publicly that he had no enmity with Faiz who was free to return to Pakistan any time he wished and would face no danger here. Faiz missed his family, especially his grandchildren terribly. He returned to Lahore briefly in 1982 and fell sick. He was in hospital for a few days and composed his haunting Iss waqt toe yun lagtaa hai:

It seems at this moment there is nothing
Not the moon, the sun, darkness or light
A film of beauty on the shades of the eyes
Or the repose of pain in the havens of the heart

Finally, in 1983, he decided to end his ‘self-exile’ and return to his home in Lahore. He continued travelling though, to London for a book launch, then to Moscow to participate in the plans for his 75th birthday and the launch of his collected works of poetry. He was eager to get home though and said he would continue the work later in February when he returned for his birthday.

In the autumn that year he planned a trip to his ancestral village to meet old relatives and friends and also to say his prayers in the village mosque he had helped build. There, in a final act of defiance to his detractors – which by that time included writers, government officials, bureaucrats and even some erstwhile ‘progressive friends’, who had vacuously branded him an atheist, communist and Russian agent – he led the prayers at the mosque. Today, outside that building is a stone on which is inscribed his one and only Persian naat, or ode to the Prophet:

Khwaje be takht bande-ye-tashveesh-i-mulk-o-maal
Bar khaak rashk-i-khusraw-i-dauraan, gadaa-ye to

(The rulers on their thrones are slaves to anxieties of land and wealth
Upon the dusty earth, Oh envy of the rulers of the age is thy mendicant)

He fell ill immediately upon return from his village, was taken to hospital in Lahore. He passed away the next day on 20 November 1984. He was laid to rest in the Model Town graveyard, where Alys joined him on March 13, 2003.