Hum Dekhenge - In Support of Faiz

In late 2019, after the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act, when India was witnessing countrywide protests, with Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh as the most prominent centre, there were protests in several university campuses also. During this turmoil, in one of the campuses a group of students took out a procession chanting Faiz’s nazm hum dekhenge. All of a sudden, Faiz was in the line of fire of Facebook patriots. You were made to feel as if Faiz was instigating some jihad or war against India. Most of those crying hoarse would not have bothered to read the nazm or to understand the context. Why bother? Some whipping boy was needed and Faiz, being a Pakistani, was a readymade target. So what if he was dead long ago? So what if there was no evidence of Faiz having dished out anti India rhetoric? Let us not place Faiz in the narrow compartment. He had a universal appeal.

Here, I want to alert my readers to not get distracted into thinking about CAA and the protests, the Government and the protestors, who was right and who was wrong, and to please keep the focus on a great poet and this immortal piece of poetry.

Why I am writing in defence of Faiz, you may ask. Well, Faiz, like Dinkar in India, was the voice of conscience of the people. This nazm, ham dekhene, sounds to me so similar to Dinkar’s clarion call simhasan khali karo ki janta aati hai. The vilification of Faiz was neither necessary nor warranted. I do not rule out the possibility of some elements using the nazm as a provocative tool, fully knowing how those unaware of the underlying meaning and the context would react, in an attempt to give themselves publicity and to gain sympathy as the name of Faiz would be involved.  If you pull certain words out of the context you are bound to misinterpret. Even further, if someone deliberately chooses a few selected lines to misguide and instigate, the outcome would be disastrous. So, let me, first of all explain the context.

After staging a coup and seizing power in Pakistan, Zia Ul Haq was looking to consolidate his hold on power. He thought that the Mullahs, on the fringes of the Pakistani society till then, should be encouraged to wield more clout. And this started hardline islamisation of the, till then open and liberal, Pakistani society. It would be difficult to believe today but the current Pakistani society is a far cry from what it once used to be, progressive and enlightened. Faiz, an incorrigible rebel, revolted and faced incarceration – including terms in prison and long terms of exile. This powerful nazm is a call for revolt and arousal of optimism in an oppressed society.

In the year 1985, a decree of General Zia-ul-Haq prohibited women from wearing sarees. Pakistan’s world-renowned singer Iqbal Bano, clad in a black saree, protested against the decree singing this nazm of Faiz Ahmed Faiz in front of a crowd 50,000 strong in a Lahore stadium. The stadium echoed with chants of ‘Inqilaab Zindabad’.

Now let me come to the nazm itself.

hum dekheñge

Lāzim hai ki hum bhī dekheñge

Vo din ki jis kā va.ada hai

Jo lauh-e-azal meñ likhkhā hai

We long to see, obviously we would see

The day of eternal justice promised to man

The day that is scripted on the page of eternity

 

Jab zulm-o-sitam ke koh-e-girāñ

Ruuī kī tarah uḌ jā.eñge

Ham mahkūmoñ ke pāñv-tale

Jab dhartī dhaḌ-dhaḌ dhaḌkegī

Aur ahl-e-hakam ke sar-ūpar

Jab bijlī kaḌ-kaḌ kaḌkegī

When the gigantic mountains of oppression

Will, like heaps of cotton, evaporate

When, underneath the feet of us, the ruled subjects

The earth will intensely vibrate

And, over the heads of those in power

The thunder of lightning will cannonade

 

The beauty of poetry lies in perfect choice of words. Faiz has chosen ‘dhadkegi’ for the oppressed (mahkūmoñ). Dhadkana means throb – a state combining hope, excitement and anxiety. For the oppressor (ahl-e-hakam) it is kaḌkegī. Kadakana is the thunder of lightning – something that generates the fear. That is what a revolutionary expects.

 

Jab arz-e-ḳhudā ke ka.abe se

Sab but uThvā.e jā.eñge

Ham ahl-e-safā mardūd-e-haram

Masnad pe biThā.e jā.eñge

Sab taaj uchhāle jā.eñge

Sab taḳht girā.e jā.eñge

When from the Kaaba on this earth of God

All idols will be removed

When we, the pure of heart,

Denied the glimpse to the seat of power,

Will be seated on the same high seat

When the crowns will be disgorged

And thrones of power, to dust flattened

 

This is where the trouble starts. If you read only the first two lines, you would get an impression as if this is an Islamic call for destruction of idols. And Indian Hindus, perennially nursing wounds caused by the Islamic invaders having destroyed their places of worship, would certainly get agitated by these lines. However, if you read the lines together, it becomes clear that ‘kaaba’ and ‘but’ are metaphors for the seat of power and the occupants thereof. Why did Faiz use these metaphors, one may ask? There are two explanations. Firstly, the imagery and metaphors used by a poet are usually lifted from the immediate surroundings of his upbringing. Secondly, the target audience. You have to speak a language that your audience understands.

(Let us look how similar these lines are to the opening lines of the poem of Ramdhari Singh Dinkar:

सदियों की ठण्डी-बुझी राख सुगबुगा उठी,
मिट्टी सोने का ताज पहन इठलाती है;
दो राह, समय के रथ का घर्घर-नाद सुनो,
सिंहासन खाली करो कि जनता आती है ।)

Let me return to Faiz and his nazm:

Bas naam rahegā allāh kā

Jo ġhā.eb bhī hai hāzir bhī

Jo manzar bhī hai nāzir bhī

The world will be only the Almighty’s domain

The Almighty who is both, invisible and in attendance

The Almighty who is both the spectator and the spectacle

 

Anyone familiar with the basic tenets of Islam would not use terms like ‘hazir’ and ‘manzar’ for Allah. The Allah of Faiz was the Universal God, Omnipresent, Omniscient and all pervasive.   

uTThegā anal-haq kā na.ara

jo maiñ bhī huuñ aur tum bhī ho

Aur raaj karegī ḳhalq-e-ḳhudā

Jo maiñ bhī huuñ aur tum bhī ho

There will be a war cry of ‘I am the truth’ (Anal-Haq)

The Truth embodied in you and me

And only the creation of God will rule

The same creation, which are you and me

 

Let me explain ‘anal-haq’.  This phrase was coined by Hussain bin Mansoor Al-Hallaj (c. 858 – 26 March 922), a Sufi saint and mystique. Anal haq is a famous controversial statement which led to a painful execution of its first narrator. Anal al Haq means “I am the Truth.” This is similar to the sanatani concept of ‘aham brahmasmi, denoting the presence of Brahm in everyone. The orthodox Muslims interpreted this to mean that he was claiming to be God himself, an act of blasphemy, whereas he had proclaimed, in his sublime spiritual ecstasy, simply a total annihilation of ego. Mansoor Al-Hallaj climbed the gallows with his head held high, not the least daunted by his imminent death. So, there should not be no doubt left about the nazm being a ‘faith neutral’ rebellious war cry.

I am not going to delve into whether the nazm, hitherto not known to a large section of Indian masses, was deliberately chosen by the agitators to give the oppressor-oppressed feel to the agitation, but the anti-agitation crowd certainly got unnecessarily agitated. I wanted to put the record straight by explaining the nazm with a proper perspective. As I have said above, a poet invariably makes use of metaphors and images that come naturally to him. 

My conclusion: This nazm, like the rest of Faiz's poetry, is an absolutely faith neutral piece of poetry, the type that defined the great progressive poets of the era - Sahir Ludhianavi being another one. You could agree or disagree with Faiz's political leanings and ideology, but please don't read what he has not said.

 

(Looking forward to hearing from my friends and readers. If you are kind to leave a comment please leave your name - KV)