Tamasha Around Faiz’s Poem Is so Ridiculous, Says Vishal Bhardwaj

He reacts to reports of IIT-Kanpur setting up a panel to probe whether Faiz’s Hum Dekhenge is “anti-Hindu.

After Javed Akhtar, Vishal Bhardwaj has spoken out about the Indian Institute of Technology- Kanpur setting up a panel to investigate whether Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s iconic poem Hum Dekhenge is “anti-Hindu.” Vishal took to Twitter to say that the whole “tamasha” around this issue is ‘ridiculous’.

“Tamasha around Faiz’s poem is so ridiculous. To understand the poetry, you need to feel it first. You need a certain standard of emotional intelligence which seems to be completely lacking in those who are interpreting it as pro-Muslim and anti-Hindu. #FaizAhmadFaiz,” the filmmaker wrote.

Tamasha around Faiz’s poem is so ridiculous. To understand the poetry, you need to feel it first. You need a certain standard of emotional intelligence which seems to be completely lacking in those who are interpreting it as pro-Muslim and anti-Hindu. #FaizAhmadFaiz

— Vishal Bhardwaj (@VishalBhardwaj) January 3, 2020

Some time back, Javed Akhtar had told ANI, “It is so absurd and funny to call any poem of Faiz’s anti-Hindu that I find it hard to talk about it seriously. Faiz Ahmed Faiz was an eminent writer in undivided India.” He added, “ “How can you speak of a man in such a manner when he used his poetry to express his sorrow at the partition of India?”

On Wednesday, PTI reported that IIT-Kanpur has set up a panel to investigate whether Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s iconic poem Hum Dekhenge is “anti-Hindu.” According to reports, the complainant had objected to two lines from the poem that read “Jab arz-e-Khuda ke kaabe se/Sab but uthwaye jayenge” and “Bas naam rahega Allah ka”. These literally translate to “when all idols will be removed from God’s Kaaba” and “only Allah’s name will remain” respectively.

Akhtar went on to explain that Hum Dekhenge was written in protest against the regime of Pakistani dictator Zia Ul Haq, which began in September 1978. “The poem that you’re discussing now was written against the Zia Ul Haq government, which was a communal, regressive and fundamentalist government. A person asked the meaning of ‘anal haq’, and that meaning is ‘aham brahm’. This is not an Islamic thought; it was started by the Sufis. According to Vedic philosophy, creation and the creator are not separate – they are one.”

“Sufis used this term ‘anal haq’, which was against fundamentalism and traditional regressive religious interpretation. Aurangzeb was against this term because he thought it was an insult to Islam. A man lost his life because he dared raise this slogan. So what objections are being raised today are in keeping with Aurangzeb’s line of thought. How can one reason with such fools?”

Javed Akhtar, Filmmaker