But You Don't Look Like a Muslim

by Rakhshanda Jalil

  The wounds of Partition were revived after every war with Pakistan. Each time, the poet cautioned against war. Here is Sahir Laudhianvi in a nazm called ‘Ai Sharif Insanon’ (O Civilised People):

  Jung to khud hi ek masla hai

  Jang kyon maslon ka hal degi?

  Aag aur khoon aaj bakhshegi

  Bhook aur ehtiyaj kal degi

  War itself is the problem

  How can it then provide the solution?

  Today it will give fire and blood

  Tomorrow it will bring hunger and beggary

  It is interesting how nationalism increasingly began to be evident in Urdu poetry. From Partition came the wars, and the subsequent need for dialogue and bhaichara. I will rest my case with two poems by Ali Sardar Jafri – ‘Guftagu’ and ‘Dushman Kaun Hai?’

  Guftagu

  Dialogue shouldn’t cease;

  let the talk go on,

  let the evening of [our] meet persist until the arrival of morn,

  let this starry night pass on joyfully.

  Let the stone of abuse be in the hands of words;

  let the cups of poison spill ridicule;

  let the sights be irate;

  let the eyebrows be raised;

  [yet, we must see] that our hearts, somehow, keep beating.

  The helplessness shouldn’t be allowed to chain the words;

  no killer but he should be permitted to murder the voice.

  Some vow of loyalty, fully moulded, will arrive by the morn;

  the love will arrive, albeit limping, yet it certainly will;

  the sights will elude meeting sights [out of modesty],

  the heartbeats will increase,

  the lips will tremble;

  the silence will turn into a kiss and go astray;

  only the sound of the blooming of buds will linger;

  and the need of words and voice won’t remain

  [for] the liaison of love will be carried on with [the help of] the signs of eyes and eyebrows;

  the hatred will vanish, the kindness will arrive.

  Holding hands in hands;

  in the company of the entire world,

  we’ll go across the deserts of repugnance;

  we’ll cross over the river of blood.

  Dialogue shouldn’t cease.

  Dushman Kaun Hai?

  You were slaves until yesterday, so were we.

  And then came the season of freedom bathed in showers of blood…

  Between you and us rage rivers of fire

  Tall frowning barriers of hate

  With a mere glance, however, we can tear them down;

  We can forget, forgive the cruel part;

  And again embrace you, yes we can.

  But first you will have to break your swords,

  And cleanse these bloodied garments;

  After that we shall become no more strangers.

  You bring us flowers from the gardens of Lahore,

  We bring you light from the dawns of Benares,

  Freshness of the Himalayan breeze;

  And thereafter we ask each other:

  Who is the enemy?

  8

  THOSE DAYS OF ‘JAI SIYA RAM’

  THERE WAS A TIME, UNTIL not very long ago, when a common greeting was ‘Jai Siya Ram’! Even in practising Muslim households such as mine, I recall Sita ‘Maiyya’ being held in the highest esteem; my father, in particular, insisted on greeting gardeners, postmen and assorted others with cheerful cries of ‘Jai Siya Ram’. When and how this greeting changed to the militant, and masculine, ‘Jai Shri Ram’ is another story; a story that is part of the larger narrative of ‘othering’. Here, let me concentrate on the effacement of Sita from the public domain and the valorization of the so-called womanly qualities of patience, fidelity, purity. While the charismatic figure of Ram the ‘mard-e-kaamil’ (perfect man), whom Allama Iqbal memorably described as ‘Imam-e-Hind’ (spiritual leader of Hindustan) remains the subject of a great deal of Urdu poetry, Sita is by no means absent. There exists a large corpus of Urdu poetry, including several versions of the manzum (verse) Ramayana, which paint evocative word pictures of the luminous beauty of this daughter of Janak, her willing embrace of banwas forsaking the luxuries of her palatial home, her heart-wrenching abduction and her pining for her Lord.

  There are said to be over 300 versions of Ram Kathan in Urdu in the Awadh region alone; of these, a great many are in verse and some even in the daunting yak-qafiya which maintains the same rhyme scheme throughout the long poem with every verse ending in the same sound! All of these are replete with scenes from the life story of Ram and Sita; almost all speak in tones of hushed reverence of the pakeezgi (purity) and masumiyat (innocence) of the princess for whom even the fragrance of flowers weighed heavy (‘nikhat-e gul ka bojh bhi bhaari’) yet who willingly endured the hardships of exile. Agha Hashar Kashmiri, the prolific playwright and screenplay writer known as the Shakespeare of India, wrote an entire play called Sita Banwas, the fourteen-year exile in the forest written entirely from the point of view of Sita. In fact, the banwas of Ram and Sita has been viewed both in a political and metaphorical sense. There’s Kaifi Azmi’s poignant ‘Doosra Banwas’ referring to Ram leaving Ayodhya when the domes fell on 6 December 1992. There is also the banwas that is a spiritual exile that falls to the lot of Everyman, the one that Nasir Shahzad alludes to:

  Ek kaata Ram ne Sita ke saath

  Doosra ban-bas mere naam par

  There was the exile that Ram endured with Sita

  The second was the exile he endured in my name

  Like the banwas (also spelt ‘ban-bas’), the Urdu poet and creative writer has seized upon Ravan’s abduction of Sita for its allegorical import. In Qurratulain Hyder’s novella Sita Haran, Sita Mirchandani, a Hindu refugee from Sindh is traumatized by the forced separation from her homeland. Translated into English as Sita Betrayed, it speaks of the loss of home and family and links the post-Partition tragedy of Sita Mirchandani with the travails of Ram’s Sita in exile. Sita becomes Everywoman, never fully able to heal the wound of separation from her true home, the earth to which she belongs.

  Of the several depictions of Sita sighting the beautiful deer, crossing the Lakshman rekha, going out of the sanctuary of her home to give alms to Ravan disguised as a Brahmin and the terrible consequences of her innocence and kindness, one of the most evocative is Munshi Banwari Lal Shola’s long poem, ‘Sita-Haran’:

  Baahar jo kundli se chaliin to dhoka khaa gayiin

  Raavan ke chhal mein hai! Maharani aa gayiin

  Stepping out of the hut she was caught in an entrapment

  Alas, the maharani was caught in the deceit of Ravan

  While several poets take a simplistic position of Sita crossing the boundary that demarcates the safe haven of the marital home from the wicked world outside, some poets play on the notion of good versus evil, such as this verse by Wajid Chughtai:

  Kis se poochhun kho gai Sita kahan

  Ban ka har saaya hii Raavan ho gaya

  Who shall I ask where Sita has gone

  Every shadow in the forest has turned into Ravan

  Or this by Pratap Somvanshi:

  Lakshman-rekha bhi akhir kya kar legii

  Saare Ravan ghar ke andar nikleinge

  What will the Lakshman rekha achieve

  All the Ravans will be found inside the home

  Others take a more sanguine view of Sita’s longing for the golden enticing deer, such as this by Gauhar Hoshiarpuri:

  Ishq be-khabar guzre khair-o-shar ke uqdon se

  Aarzu ki Sita ko Ram kaun Ravan kaun

  Love is heedless of the mysteries of good and evil

  For the longing of Sita, who is Ram and who is Ravan

  Here’s a woman’s perspective on Sita crossing the line, holding the bowl of alms, signifying her heedless goodness that puts her in danger in Aziz Bano Darab Wafa’s retelling:

  Ab bhi kharhi hai soch mein doobi ujyalon ka daan liye
r />   Aaj bhi rekha paar hai Ravan Sita ko samjhai kaun

  Even today she stands lost in thought holding the alms of light

  Even today Ravan is across the line; who can make Sita understand

  Nasir Shahzad refers to the separation of Ram and Sita that creates a sterile, barren emotional landscape:

  Ravan ne phir juda kiya Sita ko Ram se

  Phir kalpana bujhaii gaii qayaas chhiin kar

  Once again Ravan has separated Sita from Ram

  Once again imagination has been stifled by snatching assumption

  Taking the suffering that Sita endured, after her abduction and then again when her purity was put to the test, Sahir Ludhianvi puts her ordeal at par with the ignominy and injustice of life:

  Zindagi ka naseeb kya kahiye

  Ek Sita thii jo sataii gayii

  What can one say of the fate of life

  It was a Sita who was tormented

  Kaifi Azmi too views Sita’s dilemma in much the same way:

  Chand rekhaon mein seemaon mein

  Zindagi qaid hai Sita ki tarah

  In a few lines and boundaries

  Life is imprisoned like Sita

  Giving Sita her rightful place beside Ram and Lakshman as the embodiment of the ‘culture of Hinduism’, Zafar Ali Khan declares:

  Naqsh-e tehzeeb-e hunood ab bhi numaaya hain agar

  To woh Sita se hain, Lachman se hain aur Ram se hain

  If there are still any visible signs of the culture of Hinduism

  Then they are because of Sita, and Lakshman, and Ram

  However, it was left to Bilquis Zafirul Hasan, a modern woman poet, to put an end to the valorization of sabr (patience):

  Khud pe ye zulm gavara nahiin hoga ham se

  Ham to sholon se na guzreinge; na Sita samjhein

  I shall not tolerate this cruelty upon myself

  I shall not pass through flames; don’t take me for Sita

  9

  CHHABBEES JANWARY: BRING BACK THE ANGERED SPRING

  THE POET’S JOB IS TO probe and question, to present new ways of seeing, to look at the world and look for meanings and feelings that lurk beneath the surface. Sometimes when those questions are awkward and the answers go against the grain, he is labelled subversive, but so be it. And the Urdu poet has always revelled in his time-honoured role as the questioner. Not content to talk of the shama-parwana-bulbul - popular tropes in conventional romantic poetry - he has constantly evolved new images and metaphors and, over decades, built what can only be called the political muscle of modern Urdu poetry.

  In the years immediately after Partition, several progressive Urdu poets spoke of the sense of inadequacy, the squandering of dreams that the dawn of freedom brought in. As early as the time India was celebrating her first Republic Day, Sahir Ludhianvi’s disenchantment with the new republic was already palpable. In a poem titled ‘Chhabbees Janwary’ (Twenty-Sixth January), Sahir invokes the beautiful dreams the nation had seen, dreams of a better tomorrow, and asks the nation to collectively pose some difficult questions:

  Aao ki aaj ghaur karen is saval par

  Dekhe the ham ne jo vo hasin khvab kya hue

  Daulat badhi to mulk men aflas kyuun badha

  Khush-hali-e-avam ke asbab kya hue

  Jo apne saath saath chale ku-e-dar tak

  Vo dost vo rafiq vo ahbab kya hue

  Kya mol lag raha hai shahidon ke khuun ka

  Marte the jin pe ham vo saza-yab kya hue

  Be-kas barahnagi ko kafan tak nahin nasib

  Vo vaada-ha-e-atlas-o-kim-khvab kya hue

  Jamhuriyat-navaz bashar-dost amn-khvah

  Khud ko jo khud diye the vo alqab kya hue

  Mazhab ka rog aaj bhi kyuun la-ilaj hai

  Vo nuskha-ha-e-nadir-o-nayab kya hue

  Har kucha shoala-zar hai har shahr qatl-gah

  Yak-jahti-e-hayat ke adab kya hue

  Sahra-e-tirgi men bhatakti hai zindagi

  Ubhre the jo ufuq pe vo mahtab kya hue

  Mujrim huun main agar to gunahgar tum bhi ho

  Ai rahbaran-e-qaum khata-kar tum bhi ho

  Come, and let us ponder over this question

  What happened to those beautiful dreams we had dreamt

  When wealth increased why did poverty also increase in the country

  What happened to the means of increasing the prosperity of the people

  Those who walked beside us on the street of the gallows

  What happened to those friends and comrades and fellow travellers

  What is the price being set for the blood of martyrs

  What happened to the punishable ones for whom we were ready to lay

  down our lives

  Helpless nakedness does not even merit a shroud

  What happened to those promises of silk and satin

  Cherisher of democracy, friend of humanity, wisher of peace

  What happened to all those titles we had conferred upon ourselves

  Why is the malady of religion still without a cure

  What happened to those rare and precious prescriptions

  Every street is a field of flames, every city a slaughterhouse

  What happened to the principles of the oneness of life

  Life wanders aimlessly in the wilderness of gloom

  What happened to the moons that had risen on the horizon

  If I am the culprit, you are no less a sinner

  O leaders of the nation you are guilty too

  Here’s Faiz Ahmad Faiz warning of the worse that lies in store, a warning that seems prophetic today:

  Haan talkhi-e-ayam abhi aur badhegi

  Haan ahl-e-sitam mashq-e-sitam karte raheinge.

  Yes, the bitterness among the people will increase, still more

  Yes, the perpetrators of cruelty will keep struggling against cruelty.

  However, this being Urdu poetry, there is no consistent, uniform, un-variegated response. For those who are disillusioned and disenchanted with the fruits of freedom and the sullying of dreams, here is the shiny optimism and idealism of Kanwal Dibaivi who is waxing eloquent on the coming of a new dawn, a new spring, a new life on 26 January:

  Gulshan mein rut nai hai

  Har samt be-khudi hai

  Har gul pe tazgi hai

  Masrur zindagi hai

  Sar-chashma-e-khushi hai

  Chhabbees Janwary hai

  There is a new spring in the garden

  There is intoxication in every direction

  There is a freshness in every bloom

  There is happiness in life

  The spring of delight is here

  It is the twenty-sixth of January

  Continuing the metaphor of spring in the garden, coinciding quite literally with the changing season across large parts of India, Nazeer Banarasi alludes to the coexistence of the thorns and the buds in the same garden:

  Kante hon chahe phuul hon fasl-e-bahar ke

  Paale hain donon ek hi parvardigar ke

  Ham Bharti shikar hain apne hi vaar ke

  Ai shanti ahinsa ki udti hui pari

  Dharti pe aa ki aa gai chhabbis Janwary

  Be it thorns or flowers in the harvest of spring

  Both are raised by the same Almighty God

  We Indians are the victims of our own arrows

  O flying fairy of peace and non-violence

  Come to the earth for the twenty-sixth of January has come.

  Others such as Tilok Chand Mahroom take a somewhat sanguine view of the first Republic Day:

  Bharat ka azm hai ye taufiq ai khuda de

  Duniya se in-o-an ki tafriq ko mita de

  Amn-o-aman se rehna har mulk ko sikha de

  Har qaum shukriye mein har saal ye sada de

  Roz-e-said aaya chhabbis janwary ka

  Daur-e-jadid laaya bharat ki bartari ka

  Such be the greatness of Bharat with God’s grace

  That we may remove discrimination from the world

  And we teach every nation
to live in peace and harmony

  And every nation give thanks on this day every year

  This auspicious day has come twenty-sixth of January

  The era of modernity has ushered in superiority of Bharat.

  But perhaps the greatest lesson is to be learnt from this verse by a traditionalist such as Jigar Moradabadi, who was seldom known to take up a political position yet here he is, refusing to shy away from voicing his disappointment with an independent but truncated India, where the heedless gardeners have done nothing to bring back the angered spring:

  Naya zamana banane chale thhey diwaney

  Nai zameen naya aasman banaa na sakey

  The foolish folk had set out to make a new world

  But they could not make a new earth and a new sky

  Come 26 January, let us resolve to bring back the angered spring.

  10

  BATWARA VS AZADI: TWO VERSIONS OF A CATACLYSM

  JUST AS THERE WAS NO uniform, un-variegated, one-dimensional reflection in contemporary Urdu literature to the Revolt of 1857, there is no generalized or undifferentiated response to the Partition among the Muslim intelligentsia. The Urdu literature of the Partition years – which, it must be stressed, was written by both Muslim and non-Muslim writers - reflects a bewildering and often contradictory array of opinions. Taken together, the Urdu literature of this period which comprised the novel and short story (which flowered rather spectacularly during this period), as well as poetry, reportage, autobiography, diary, journal writing and journalistic writings, presents a broad spectrum of opinion. Reactions vary from nostalgic lament for a lost age to attaching blame and apportioning responsibility for the terrible misfortunes that had befallen all those who had been affected, in some way or the other, by the Partition.

  While there is a general agreement that the murder and mayhem that accompanied the Partition was a human tragedy of epic proportions, there is far more ambivalence in the ways of dealing or accepting its consequences. A study of Urdu literature of this period also reveals a wide range of possible reasons why some chose to stay put while others migrated; often economic reasons predominate over religious ones and pragmatism supersedes ideology. While the majority of writers made a conscious effort to hold up the tattered fabric of secularism in the face of communalism, bitter and painful memories also find expression. This is especially evident in a range of first-person accounts, diaries, etc. where one is unable to discern a commonality of concerns nor any coherence and unity of thought, save the obvious assertion that countless innocent lives were lost due to the political decisions of a mere handful.