Hindu-Muslim Unity: Poets Must, Once Again, Work for it Right Now

When a militant muscular right wing forces jewellery brands to pull down advertisements showing inter-faith marriages, when the bogey of ‘love jihad’ acquires the status of gospel truth, when it is easier—and far more expeditious—to regurgitate hatred and lies than it is to talk of love and truth, it is time to peer into the mirror of poetry.For there comes a time in the history of nations when they need their poets most; not the politicians, nor the policy-makers and publicists but the poets who are true visionaries.For it is the poets who can remind people of the essential values that hold them together, or as the American writer Ursula K Le Guin put it so pithily, because poets are the “realists of a larger reality”. For us in India, that time is NOW lest the clamour of the strident illiberal drowns out the voices that have pointed towards the larger reality and the greater good, and the bloody tide of unreason sweeps away the India we knew and cherished.My Life is Like That Tanishq Advertisement: Richa Chadha Urdu Poetry on Hindu-Muslim TensionsIn Urdu, the poet has been the voice of optimism and hope, pointing towards a better future. When the country emerged from a bitter fratricidal war, licking the wounds inflicted by brother upon brother, neighbour upon neighbour, Majaz wrote:Hindu Muslim Sikh Eesai aman ke moti ro lengeyKhoon ki Holi khel chukey hain rang ke dhabbe dho lengeyHindu Muslim Sikh and Christian shall weep pearls of peaceHaving played Holi with blood they’ll wash off the stains of bloodOne would have thought, if nothing else, a nation so scarred by communal hatred, so battered by storms of communal frenzy, would have learnt its lesson.If nothing else, partition should have driven home the lesson for every Indian that hate begets hate.If nothing else, We The People should have resolved to never allow the evil within to resurface. Instead, we stoked the fire and kept its lambent flame alive while the poet kept cautioning, trying to show the way as in this sher by Anand Narain Mulla:Main faqat insaan huun, Hindu Musalmaan kuchh nahiinMere dil ke dard mein tafriiq-e-iimaa.n kuchh nahiinI am merely a human; not a Hindu or a MuslamanThe sorrow in my heart is not separated by dogmaOr, in this one by Qateel Shifai who is alluding to a force that benefits from keeping the two communities forever at loggerheads:Hum ko aapas mein mohabbat nahin karne deteyIk yahi aib hai iss shahr ke danaon meinThey don’t let us love each otherThat is the only defect in the wise‘War on Love’: Anti-Tanishq Hate Tells Us What We Need to Do ASAPHow Urdu Poets Tried to Bring Hindus and Muslims TogetherQaumi yak-jahti (national integration), insaan-dosti (love for humanity), watan-parasti (love for the nation) remained popular themes in the years following the partition. The Urdu poet bent backwards to keep the flag of secularism flying high as in this sher by Hafeez Banarsi:Sabhi ke deep sundar hain hamare kya tumhare kyaUjala har taraf hai iss kinare uss kinare kyaEveryone’s lamps are pretty; not just yours or oursThe light is everywhere; not just on this shore or thatSpecial songs and lyrics were written especially for children to instil the “right” values from an early age, such as this geet by Shafiuddin Nayyar:Pyaaraa Hindostan hamaaraa pyaaraa HindostaanJaan fidaa hai iss par apna dil is par qurbaanOur dear Hindustan, our dearly beloved HindustanWe lay down our life or it sacrifice our heart for itHowever, the relentless juggernaut of communalism began to drive a wedge between communities, reopening old wounds, the thread that bound diverse communities together began to unspool and the tapestry of shared living showed fresh tears despite constant darning. The poet became, by turns, hopeful and hectoring.A victim of communal violence himself, Basheer Badr whose home in Meerut was looted and set on fire, urged his fellow countrymen to bury hatred far, far out of sight.Saat sanduqon mein bhar kar dafn kar do nafrateinAaj insaan ko mohabbat ki zarurat hai bahutStuff all the hatred in seven boxes and bury it deepToday, humans need love more than anything elseAnd Nida Fazli spoke of the consequences of building the picket fences of religious identity:Koi Hindu, koi Muslim, koi Eisaai haiSabne insaan na hone ki qasam khayi haiThey are a Hindu, or a Muslim or a ChristianEveryone has taken an oath not to be a humanBollywood’s Contribution to Hindu-Muslim UnityHindi cinema, too, did its best to constantly hold up models of pluralism and multiculturalism be it art-house cinema or outright masala films. From the early days of Nehruvian India film lyricists like Sahir Ludhianvi were at pains to insist:Tu Hindu banega na Musalman banegaInsaan ki aulad hai insaan banegaYou will not grow up to be a Hindu or a MusalmanYou are the child of a human and you shall be a humanKaifi Azmi was showing the pitfalls of growing religiosity, pointing the potholes that would turn into craters and eventually eat up the entire road ahead:Basti mein apni Hindu Musalmaan jo bas gayeInsaan ki shakl dekhne ko hum taras gayeEver since Hindus and Muslims have come to live in my neighbourhoodIt has been an age since I saw the face of a humanWhenever the flames rose high—after an Ayodhya or a Gujarat, a Mumbai or a Moradabad—the poet wrote a dirge to a lost time, but the subtext was always that the clock can be turned back, still, there is time, yet, to set things right as in this poignant poem by Ajmal Sultanpuri:Musalman aur Hindu ki jaanKahan hai mera HindostanMain uss ko dhundh raha huunThe life of Hindus and Muslims alikeWhere is my Hindustan?I am searching for itThe German Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemoller wrote the confessional “First they came...” as atonement and acknowledgment of cowardice and the silence of the majority – after the fact, that is, after the silent majority in Nazi Germany had allowed unimaginable horrors to be perpetuated upon certain targeted sections of the community.In much the same way, Javed Akhtar is reminding poets and writers—NOT Urdu writers alone, certainly NOT Muslims only—of their responsibility and exhorting them to bear witness by the very act of writing and recording before it is too late.Jo baat kehte darte hain sab, tu woh baat likhItni andheri thhi na kabhi pehle raat, likhJin se qaseede likkhey thhay woh phenk de qalamPhir khoon-e-dil se sachche qalam ki sifaat likhJo roznamon mein kahin paati nahin jagahJo roz har jagah ki hai, woh waardaat likhJitne bhi tang daire hain saarey torh deAb aa khuli fizaon mein ab kainat likhJo waqeyaat ho gaye unka to zikr haiLekin jo hone chaahiye, woh waqeyaat likhIss bagh mein jo dekhni hai tujh ko phir bahaarTu daal-daal de sada, tu paat-paat likhTo speak of that which everyone is fearful, of that you must writeThe night was never so dark ever before, write!Throw away the pens with which you wrote the odesIn praise of the true pen dipped in the heart’s blood, write!The narrow circles that confine you, break all of themCome under the open skies now, of a new creation, write!That which finds no place in the daily newspapersThat incident which happens everywhere every day, write!That which has happened finds mentionsBut of those that should have happened, write!If you wish to see spring return to this gardenCall out from every branch and on every leaf, write!(Dr Rakhshanda Jalil is a writer, translator and literary historian. She writes on literature, culture and society. She runs Hindustani Awaaz, an organisation devoted to the popularisation of Urdu literature. She tweets @RakhshandaJalil. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

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Hindu-Muslim Unity: Poets Must, Once Again, Work for it Right Now

Scholar Rakhshanda Jalil wants Urdu poets to take the job of lowering Hindu-Muslim tensions in today’s charged world

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