Time to recapture the spirit of protest poetry

IN 1906, Dadabhai Naoroji, addressing a gathering of around 20,000 as the Congress president, introduced Swaraj (self-governance) to the political lexicon. People were exhorted to mobilise for gaining independence through nationalism. But nationalism has many faces; it can be progressive, but also deeply destructive; it unifies but also divides. This became apparent from the violence that followed the Partition of Bengal in 1905.

Shortly thereafter, India was caught in a cleft stick between competitive nationalisms. The cosmopolitan Rabindranath Tagore memorably reminded Indians, “To worship my country like a God is to bring a curse upon it.”

His was a voice of sanity in the hysteria that divided India. This sanity was reinforced when in 1936, a group of progressive writers formed the All-India Progressive Writers’ Association (PWA). The PWA was dominated by some of the most gifted poets. It drew upon oppositional trends in Urdu poetry to mount a double challenge to colonialism as well as to class discrimination and patriarchy within Hinduism and Islam.

The PWA redefined the task of the literary genius and the poet. Munshi Premchand delivered the presidential address in Urdu, with a dash of Persian. He suggested that the role of literature was to chart a new ethics. The poet must enlighten and empower fellow human beings by bearing the message of humanism and respectability. Premchand drew inspiration from Iqbal, and quoted Persian poetry profusely to argue that the era of poetry which pines for the beloved was over. “Now we are in need of art in which there is a message of action (amal ka paigham),” he said; like Iqbal, he remarked, “I am not satisfied by simply resting between the boughs, far from the pleasures of flight.” The times demanded that adab or literature takes the risk of stepping into the new. This was social realism.

The founder of the PWA, noted writer Sajjad Zaheer, reiterated that the fight was against ignorance in whatever form it manifests itself in society. Mulk Raj Anand was of the opinion that the goal of the PWA was to liberate Indian society from maligning imperialist archaeology on the one hand, and from its misuse by reactionary elements such as nationalist revivalists, priestdom and orthodoxy on the other.

The PWA manifesto read: “We believe that the new literature of India must deal with the basic problems of existence today — the problems of hunger and poverty, social backwardness and political subjection. All that drags us down to passivity, inaction and un-reason, we reject as reactionary. All that arouses in us the critical spirit, which examines institutions and customs in the light of reason, which helps us to act, to organise ourselves, to transform, we accept as progressive.” India’s foremost poet Sahir Ludhianvi validated this insight, “Fann jo naadaar tak nahin pahuncha/abhi meyaar tak nahin pahuncha (Poetry which has not reached the poor, has not fulfilled its mission).”

The charms of ghazal were brought under the critical gaze. Zaheer remarked that though ghazal was still attractive, fervour was created in a mushaira only when the poet attacked the oppressor, exposed hypocrisy, described the real condition of the masses, delivered a message of unity, action and struggle and predicted a future of freedom and justice.

Renowned poets such as Majaz, Kaifi Azmi, Sahir, Faiz, Makhdoom Mohiuddin, Amrita Pritam and Ali Sardar Jafri began to write gham-e-dauran or the material world, instead of gham-e-jana.

Kaifi Azmi famously wrote, “Uth meri jaan. Mere saath hi chalna hai tujeh.” And Majrooh Sultanpuri used the ghazal to transform the idea of beauty. Beauty was in the body of the toiler, the mehnat-kash insaan — ‘surkh inquilab aaya, daur-e-aftaab aaya/Muntazir thi yeh aankhen jis ki ek zamane se/Ab zameen gayegi, hal ke saaz pe nagme… Ab sanwar ke niklega, husn kaarkhane se (Now that Independence has come heralding a new dawn, beauty will come out of the factory).”

These poets who had dreamed dreams of a just India sans poverty and misery were fated to disappointment when Independence came. For, a number of poets opted for Pakistan. The nation took precedence over solidarity. Yet, there were exceptions. In Pakistan, Ahmad Faraz wrote: “Ab kis ka jashn manaate ho/Us desh ka jo taqseem hua/Us desh ka geet sunaate ho/Jo toot ke hi tasleem hua. (What are you celebrating — a country which was realised through Partition?)”

Today, we need to recapture the spirit of protest poetry. When we see pain around us, how can we be abstracted from our society, its wounds, its injustices, its violence? We will be unduly solipsistic, living in a world which does not exist, lost in our private dreams and nightmares. We will not realise that there is no artificial distinction between ‘me’ and ‘them’, I am a part of ‘them’ and they are a part of ‘me’. Without an ‘us’, I will be without substance.

Can there be poetry after Auschwitz, asked critical theorist Adorno. Perhaps yes, for a poet will be wanting in his passion if he does not tell us in his own powerful way that there must be no more Auschwitzes, no more Partitions and no more violence. People will listen, for poets are special; they touch the soul, and they turn our gaze outwards.