(This video was originally published on 27 December 2019. It has been republished from The Quint’s archives in the wake of the Nagpur police registering a case against three, including late social activist Vira Sathidar's wife Pushpa, over the recital of the song 'Hum Dekhenge' at a memorial organised by them recently.)
As citizens rose in protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act CAA) in 2019, they sang poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s iconic song Hum Dekhenge, in both hope and defiance. Faiz's poem became a universal anthem of protest in 1986 after ghazal singer Iqbal Bano's renderings were smuggled from Pakistan.
The Quint reimagines the poem:
We shall witness
Inevitably, we shall witness
the day that has been promised
that has been etched on the pages of eternity
When mountains of tyranny
shall be blown away like cotton
when beneath our worn feet
the earth's heart shall beat
And upon the heads of our tormentors
lightning shall crackle and crash
Only His name will remain
He, who is both invisible and ever-present
who is both the spectacle and the beholder
And the clarion call 'I Am the Truth' shall ring
The truth that is I and that is You
And all of God's creatures shall rule
Those who are I, and those who are you.
We shall witness, Oh We Shall witness