The Secular Agenda of Humourist Urdu Poetry

 
India is a secular country where religion commands the allegiance of millions. Indian secularism, as incorporated in the Constitution and the laws and as interpreted by courts, is not anti-religious or irreligious – for the bulk of our people are deeply religious. A thick streak of religiosity runs through our history, culture and society. Under the Indian law, secularism broadly means that the State shall not have a religion, shall let people practice and propagate religions of their choice and shall not discriminate on grounds of religion. However, in Urdu poetry secularism is not understood in the same way as it is understood in law or constitutionalism. Poetic secularism is a fight against hatred and illogic and Urdu poets, in every era, have made their presence felt in the common man’s fight against both. From Ghalib (d. 1869) audaciously renouncing rituals and calling for a merger of all communities into one faith:
 
            Hum muwahhid hain, hamaara kesh hai tark-e-rusoom
            Millatein jab mit gayin, ajza-e-imaa’n ho gayin
 
            We believe in Unity of God, rituals we renounce
            When communities wither away, they merge into a single faith
 
to Jigar Moradabadi (d. 1960) taking a dig at politicians who see nothing beyond politics, leaving the job of promoting love and communal fraternity to poets like him :
 

 
Urdu poetry has always advocated the cause of secularism and promoted our pluralistic traditions in various forms. Urdu poets have adopted peculiar symbols to
promote liberal humanism and abhor religious sectarianism. Irreligion, anti-religion, anti-formalism, equal respect for all religions, national unity, common brotherhood, mulla and pandit bashing – all these trajectories together constitute the secular and pluralistic landscape of Urdu poetry. And it is not just serious poetry that has used these trajectories to raise its voice against hate, humourists and satirists have shared the serious poet’s burden in equal measure – occasionally with far more impact and effect, and the phenomenon is not new. In fact, some of the classicists and masters of romance have used satire to bring home their issues with religion and its preachers. In the 18^th Century, Mir Taqi Mir (d. 1810), like Ghalib in the next, did not hesitate in audaciously announcing his incredulity to religion. In his well-known and oft-sung ghazal which begins with:
 

 
Mir derides religious symbolism, scorns and ridicules its self-appointed sentinels, and finally announces that his faith is beyond their typifications: 
 

 
 
Whose Ka’aba? What prayer-direction?  What Holy mosque? What pilgrim’s robes?
We, the inhabitants of her lane, abandoned all from here
 
The Sheikh who stands naked in the mosque today, was in the pub last night
Cloak, gown, shirt, cap – in inebriation he gave away as tips
 
What do you now want to know about Mir’s religion and faith, he in fact has
Tattooed his forehead, sat in a temple, abandoned Islam long ago
 
The modern satirist is as repulsed by the growing communal hatred today as the classist was with the overpowering influence of the clergy two centuries ago. One of the most gifted humourists of our times, the incomparable Saghar Khayyami (d. 2008) is flabbergasted with the purely personal interests that control communal politics:
 

 
            Has the world ever seen an example
            Of a Hindu home having been burnt down by the Muslim God
            A neighbourhood having been torched by Lord Rama
            Or Guru Nanak having only shown the right path to the Sikhs
 
            Ram, Raheem, Nanak and Christ didn’t teach these things
            It’s the self-appointed custodians of their teachings who corrupt us[i]
           
 
In another hilarious poem, characteristic of Saghar, he uses the example of meat-ban to assail the obviously communal typecasting of Muslims and Hindus on the basis of their perceived food habits:

           
          It’s been a month that Mutton is not available
          At feasts, poets are being fed with ladyfinger
 
          After having a meal of tarot root, what poetic skills will we be able to show?

           
Pakistani poet, Anwar Masood (b. 1935) is appalled at how, in a large part of South Asian societies, religious dogmatism overrides scientific education even in modern times. In an outstanding example of matchless satire, he takes a jibe at the absurd and impractical manner in which the clergy, rather than relying upon modern scientific methods, insists on physically sighting the Eid-moon every year, leaving the faithful wondering till late in the night if they are expected to celebrate the festival the next day :
 

 
Shauq Bahraichi (d. 1964) was a highly underrated poet who few have heard about, though one of his couplets remains high-up in the list of the most popular satirist poems ever:
 

           
A law-clerk (Munshi) to several district court lawyers in Eastern UP, his recent posthumously published collection dazzles with marvelous examples of satire and humour. Like many others, Shauq was convinced that the root-cause of all communal hatred was not religion, but the clergy. In one of his quadruplets, he pronounces the ever-preaching mullas as not only frivolous and foolish but also rude and ill-mannered:
 

 
A similar sentiment is echoed by another poet who renders a unique explanation unto God for having evaded religious instruction:
 

 
Following the same line of thought, Maachis Lucknowi (d. 1970) claims that on the day of judgement, the sinners’ queue will be full of clergymen:
 

 
Urdu satirists and humourists recognize that communalism is not just a phenomenon where followers of one religion are pitched against followers of another religion, but casteism and creating hatred between followers of the same religion inter se is also communalism and equally deplorable. Lucknow has witnessed some of the most despicable instances of Shia-Sunni wars, fought at various levels – political, social, economic, personal and, of course, religious. Some decades ago, when many a Shia intellectual announced their allegiance to the Communist Party, a Shia poet from Lucknow, in an unparalleled example of top-notch satire, ingeniously captured the abhorrence of both these communities against the other:
 

 
The types and kinds of communalism notwithstanding, the essence of communalism lies in hatred, and hatred increases when human values begin diminishing. Sadly, we are living in a world where human values are fading away by the minute; a world, where we must not only be concerned about communal politics but where we must also find a solution to the larger issue, from which stems the issue of communal politics – the issue of man losing his humane character and degenerating into a monster. Ghalib had voiced his concern on this more than 150 years ago, when he had said:
 
            Bas ki dushwaar hai har kaam ka aasaa’n hona
            Aadmi ko bhi mayassar nahin insaa’n hona
 
            Oh! it is so difficult even for random tasks to be rendered easy
            (just as) being humane is not a task easily attainable by man 
 
The global situation has only worsened and become more appalling in the century and a half that has followed. To quote the inimitable Rafiq Shadaani (d. 2008), a compulsive humorist whose biting satire in the Awadhi dialect would give many a stand-up comedian a good run for their money: