Sudeep Sen is the editorial director of Aark Arts and the editor of Atlas. Some of his works include Postmarked India: New and Selected Poems, Distracted Geographies, Rain and Aria.

This is an excerpt from Kaifi Azmi: Poems | Nazms edited by Sudeep Sen and published by Bloomsbury. Republished here with permission from the publisher.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum
 

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Mumbai: It is the year of Kaifi Azmi. His birth centenary was celebrated earlier this year and today is his 17^th death anniversary.
 
He was a gifted poet and lyricist. His first film as a lyricist in Hindi cinema was Buzdil followed by Kaagaz Ke Phool, Anupama, Hanste Zakhm and Arth. Azmi is also remembered for his screenplay – dialogues in M S Sathyu’s Garam Hawa and Chetan Anand’s Heer Ranjha in verse.
 
The celebrated poet-lyricist, who passed away on May 10, 2002, due to a prolonged illness, gave Bollywood some of its most stunning classics, tapping his Urdu prowess to celebrate emotions as diverse as romantic love and patriotism. ‘Waqt Ne Kiya Kya Haseen Sitam‘ (Kaagaz ke Phool, 1959) to ‘Tum Itna Jo Muskura Rahe Ho‘ (Arth, 1983), are some of his most celebrated works.
 
In 1975, he won the National Award and Filmfare Award for screenplay and dialogues in M.S. Sathyu’s Garm Hava.
 
Born Athar Husain Rizvi on January 14, 1919, in Mijwan, near Azamgarh, present-day UP, to a zamindar family, Azmi wrote his first ghazal when he was 11 years old:
 
“Itna to zindagi mein kisi ki khalal pade
Hansne sey ho sukoon na roney sey kal pade
Jis tarah hans raha hoon main pii pii ke ashk-e-gham
Yun doosra hanse to kaleja nikal pade”
 
It was later sung by legendary ghazal singer Begum Akhtar.
 
Azmi was initially educated in Islamic seminaries, but eventually became a true adherent of Marxism, dedicating his life to the service of the Communist Party of India. He joined the Communist Party at 19 and turned columnist for Qaumi Jung when he shifted from Azamgarh to Mumbai. He wrote Aavara Sajde (Vagabond Obeisances) when the CPI and CPM split in the 1960s.
 
He was married to actor Shaukat Azmi and had two children, actor Shabana Azmi and cinematographer Baba Azmi.
 
In the last 20 years of his life, he returned to his home in Mijwan and transformed it into a model village. In recognition of his efforts, the UP government named the road leading to Mijwan, as well as the Sultanpur-Phulpur highway after him. A train from Delhi to Azamgarh is also named after him, the Kaifiyaat Express.
 
In 1993, he set up Mijwan Welfare Society for the girl child and women in rural India, and made education and skill training its fulcrum. Namrata Joshi wrote for The Hindu that Kaifi had once told his son in passing that it would be nice if a film were made in his birthplace, Mijwan. “This week, Baba begins shooting Mee Raqsam (I Want To Dance), the story of a father and daughter, in the U.P. village. It stars Aditi Sharma, a 14-year-old Mijwan resident, in the lead and is expected to be ready for release by the year end, in a fitting finale to the Kaifi year,” she wrote.
 
“An interesting story about my father: He was always different. His mother used to recall that, in spite of being born to a zamindar family in the village of Mijwan in Eastern UP, Athar (he took on the pseudonym Kaifi much later) would refuse to wear new clothes on Eid because the kisan’s children who tilled their land could not afford to do so. His father Fateh Hussain was very fond of Urdu poetry and his two elder brothers also wrote poetry,” Shabana Azmi, the celebrated actress wrote for The Print.
 
“He was sent to the Sultanul Madaris in Lucknow for religious learning. Within weeks, he formed a union and rallied the students to go on strike against the institution. He was thrown out,” she wrote.
 
“From there, he went on to Kanpur and started working with factory workers, took on the pseudonym Kaifi, and began writing revolutionary poetry. This caught the attention of Communist leader Sajjad Zaheer, and he was invited to Bombay to write for the paper Qaumi Jung. He joined the Communist Party formally and found the path on which he was to traverse the rest of his life,” she added.
 
He joined the Progressive Writers Association in 1936 where he wrote about social justice, communal harmony, gender justice, and the plight of farmers. Along with other writers of the Progressive Writers Association, he believed in using writing as an instrument for social change, she wrote.
 
“Remembering her growing up years in the Red Flag Hall in Mumbai, Shabana says her father, born in ‘ghulam’ India, was confident he would die in socialist India. But the violence in independent India shook him. She describes how shattered he was by the Gujarat carnage in 2002. “I would watch him as he looked at the television coverage, face frozen in pain. But, he would say that the common man craves roti, kapda aur makaan, irrespective of the faith he follows, and that this madness will pass,” The Indian Express reported.
 
The report added that a decade ago, it was the sadness at the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992, that had made him write his seminal poem, Doosra Banbas. He wrote: …Paanv Sarju mein abhi Ram ne dhoe bhi na the/Ki nazar aae wahan khoon ke gahre dhabbe/Paanv dhoe bina Sarju ke kinare se uthe/Ram ye kehte hue apne dware se uthe/Rajdhani ki faza aai nahin raas mujhe/Chhe December ko mila doosra banbas mujhe (Ram had not even washed his feet in the Saryu river/When he spotted blots of blood/He got up saying/The capital’s ambience doesn’t appeal to me/I was exiled a second time on 6th December). Kaifi also played a role in Saeed Mirza’s Naseem in 1995, a poignant film on the fissures that surfaced in India after 1992.
 
Kaifi Azmi was a romantic, revolutionary, contrarian and rebel. The report added, “a poet who often brought together disparate themes in his works, Kaifi, who died in May 2002, is best summed up in a tribute by his son-in-law and and poet Javed Akhtar. In his poem Ajeeb Aadmi Tha Woh, a tribute to Kaifi, he writes: Woh aankhein jinmein hai sakat/Woh hont jin pe lafz hain/Rahunga inke darmiyaan/Ki jab main beet jaaunga/Ajeeb aadmi tha woh (The eyes that have power and strength/And the lips that have the words/I will remain, between the two/ Even when I shall pass/What a strange man he was).”
 

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‘Jagmagate thhe jahan Ram key quadam ke nishan
Piyaar kee kahkashan leti thi angdayee jahan
Mod nafrat ke usee rah guzar mein ayee
Dharam kya unka hae, kya zaat hae, yeh janta kaun?
Ghar na jalta tau unhe raat mein pehchanta kaun ,
Ghar jalane ko mera, log jo ghar me ayee ,
Shakahari hae mere dost tumhara khanjar(From ‘Doosra Banvas ‘ by Kaifi Azmi)
Rough translation ‘ The Second Exile’
…..
Wherever he had stepped and his footprints shone
The river waters where thousands of stars of love meandered
Instead now took turns of violence and hatred
What is their Religion, what is their caste, who knows?
Had the house not burnt, who would have known the faces
Of those who came to burn my house
Your sword, my friend, is vegetarian.

(Remembering 06 December 1992 : ” Doosra Banvas” by Bhupinder Singh , https// bhupindersingh.ca/2006/12/05..)

This poem by Kaifi Azmi written in the aftermath of Babri Masjid demolition reveals the contradictions of the movement and is relevant even today. ‘I was born in a slave India,grew up in an Independent India and would like to die in a Socialist India’ was his dream. This dream remains unfulfilled as the present system of inequality is growing very rapidly.

Centenary year

Sayyid Akhtar Hussein Rizvi ( Kaifi Azmi) was born in January 1919 in Mizwaa(n) village of Azamgarh district in U. P. In a deeply religious landlord family. He was sent to a ‘ Madrassa’ in Lucknow for religious education. But he soon developed social consciousness, organized students and held demonstrations. He became ‘comrade’ and not a ‘ moulvi’. He was a man of conviction and never deviated from the ideology. (Kaifi Azmi – a maulvi’ who turned to music and Marx, by Ashutosh Sharma, published 10 May, 2018, nationalheraldindia.com). In his early 20s, he became a member of CPI and had the CPI card in his ‘ kurta’ even at the time of his death.

His works

Kaifi wrote fiery poems for the deprived, the disadvantaged, dispossessed, downtrodden and underprivileged. He recited them in poetry congregations. Eminent poet late Nida Fazli in his book ‘Chehre’ writes, ‘ Kaifi’s entire poetic work is the story of those tears in different words”. Being born in a shia family, he mourned for the 72 martyrs of Karbala. After becoming a communist, he mourned for the thousands of sufferers in the world. Nida Fazli mentions in his book that Kaifi’s style of poetry recitation was a part of tradition that he inherited during his childhood in Muharram gatherings.

A pioneer in Urdu and Hindi poetry, he could publish only a few collections of his poems: ‘ Jhankar(1943) ,’ Aakhir – e- shab’ (1947) ,’ Awara sijde(1973) and the collected poems Sarmaya(1992) which consist of not more than 125 poems. Many of his writings are uncollected. Despite suffering from cerebral stroke that left him partially paralysed for 25 years, he did not stop writing. He was a master of prose too. He wrote columns in urdu ‘Blitz’ simultaneously published in Hindi between 1964 and 1972 collected in two volumes titled ‘Nayi Gulistan’.

Activist.

Kaifi ( correctly spelt Quifi Azami) was a poet activist and led many strikes and participated in many protest demonstrations. He is a socially and politically committed shaiyirs and belonged to the legendary poets club of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Sahir Ludhianvi, Maqdoom Moinuddin, etc. His poetry and his politucal activities are inseparable. ( Obituary: An indefatigable poet- activist , by Vishnu Khare frontline.thehindu.com). His poems like Andhi or storm and Bekari ( without a job) depict anger, passion and commitment. In his ‘ Istiqlal or ‘resolve’ , he visualized the dangers of Fascism.

Sensitivity towards women

His epic poem ‘Aurat’ was so inspirational that Shaukat who was listening to his poem recital at a congregation proposed and made him her life partner. In ‘ Shanti van ke quarib ‘( near shanti van) , he visualizes democracy as a woman riddled with darts. In ‘ jel ke dar par’ ( at the Gate of a Jail) he moving depicts the emotions of two woman and a child visiting their incarcerated bread winner. In ‘Bewa ki khudkushi’ ( the Widow’s suicide) he graphically narrates the tale of a young widow killing herself.

Film lyricist

To support financially, he wrote lyrics for the films like ‘Buzdil (1951), Kagaz ke phool, Shama, Haqeeqat , Anupama, Pakeeza and Arth, etc. He wrote about 240 songs for 80 movies. For Heer Ranjha, he not only wrote Punjabi- flavoured songs but also entire screenplay in verse. He also did a cameo screen role in Naseem, wrote dialogues for M. S. Satyu classic Garam Hawaan and screen play for Shyam Benegal Manthan’.

A great person

He was honored with many awards including Sahitya Akademi Award, Padma Shri and for his dialogues in Garam Hawaa, s received Afro – Asian Lotus Award. But his major role in political and social movements and poetry for the masses makes him one of the greats who influenced post independent socialist thinkers and writers.

Celebrating his centenary, one should strive to achieve his dreams – socialist India with communal harmony. In this year, when there is every likelihood of rising caste or religious bigotry, Kaifi’ s works should be source of inspiration in combating communal tensions and senseless violence

The writer from anywhere and everywhere is a supporter of communal harmony

Courtesy: Countercurrents.org
 

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On May 10, Kaifi Azmi, poet, activist, lyricist, communist, breathed his last. For a fitting tribute to this ‘last pillar’ of Urdu poetry, ‘the last among the revolutionary poets’, we could think of none better than his daughter who has never needed to look further than Abba’s soul–stirring nazms, ‘Makaan’, ‘Aurat’ and ‘Bahroopni’ to inspire her struggles for the urban poor, gender justice and communal amity

He was always different, a fact that didn’t sit too easily on my young shoulders. He didn’t go to ‘office’ or wear the normal trousers and shirt like other ‘respectable’ fathers but chose to wear a white cotton kurta–pyjama 24 hours of the day. He did not speak English and worse still, I didn’t call him ‘Daddy’ like other children, but some strange sounding ‘Abba’! I learned very quickly to avoid referring to him in front of my school friends and lied that he did some vague ‘business’! Imagine letting my school friends know that he was a poet. What on earth did that mean — a euphemism for someone who did no work?

Being my parent’s child was for me, unconventional in every way. My school required that both parents speak English. Since neither Abba nor mummy did, I faked my entry into school. Sultana Jafri, Ali Sardar Jafri’s wife, pretended to be my mother and Munish Narayan Saxena, a friend of Abba’s, pretended to be my father.

Once in the 10th Std, my vice principal called me and said that she’d heard my father at a recent mushaira and he looked quite different from the gentleman who had come in the morning for Parents’ Day! Understandably I went completely blue in the face and said: "Oh, he’s been suffering from typhoid and has lost a lot of weight, you know… and made up some sort of story to save my skin!

It was no longer possible to keep Abba in the closet. He had started writing lyrics for films and one day a friend of mine said that her father had read my father’s name in the newspaper. That did it! I owned him up at once! Of all the 40 children in my class, only my father’s name had appeared in the newspaper! I perceived his being "different" as a virtue for the first time. I need no longer feel apologetic about his wearing a kurta–pyjama!

In fact, I even brought out the black doll he had bought me. I didn’t want it when he first gave it to me. I wanted a blonde doll with blue eyes, like all the others had in my class. But he explained, in that quiet gentle way of his, that black was beautiful, too, and I must learn to be proud of my doll. It didn’t make sense to my 7–year–old mind but I had accepted him as ‘weird’ in any case and so I quietly hid the doll.

Three years later, I pulled it out as proof that I was a ‘different’ daughter of a ‘different’ father! In fact, I now displayed it with such new found confidence that instead of being sniggered at by my classmates, I became an object of envy! That was the first lesson he taught me, of turning what is perceived as a disadvantage into a scoring point.

The atmosphere at home was completely bohemian. Till I was 9–years–old we lived at Red Flat Hall of the communist party. Each comrade’s family had just one room; the bathroom and lavatory were common. Being party members had re–defined the husband–wife relationship of the whole group. Most wives were working and it became the responsibility of whichever parent was at home, to look after the child. My mother was touring quite a lot with Prithvi Theatres and in her absence Abba would feed, bath and look after both my brother Baba and me, as a matter of course.

In the beginning mummy had to take up a job because all the money Abba earned was handed over to the communist party. He was allowed to keep only Rs. 40 per month which was hardly enough for a family of four. But later when we were monetarily better off and had moved to Janki Kutir, mummy continued to work, in the theatre because she loved being an actress.

Once, she was to participate in the Maharashtra State Competition in the title role of ‘Puglee’. She was completely consumed by the part and would suddenly, without warning, launch into her lines in front of the dhobhi, cook etc. I was convinced she’d gone mad and started weeping with fright. Abba dropped his work and took me for a long walk on the beach. He explained that mummy had very little time to rehearse her part and that as family it was our duty to make it possible for her to rehearse her lines as many times as she needed to or else she wouldn’t win the competition — all this to a 9 year old child. It made me feel very adult and very included. To this day, whenever my mother is acting in a new play or new film, my father sits up with her and rehearses her cues.

She participates in his life equally; at a price of course! She fell in love with him because he was a poet. However, she learned soon enough that a poet is essentially a man of the people and she would have to share him with his countless admirers (a large number of them female!) and friends. When I was about 9–years–old, I remember an evening at a big industrialist’s home. His wife, a typical socialite, announced in a rather flirtatious manner, "Kaifi Saheb my usual farmaish — the Do Nigahon Ka something, something – you know folks, Kaifi Saheb has written this ‘nazm’ in praise of me"… And Abba, without batting an eyelid, started reciting this poem which was in fact written for my mother.

I got completely hysterical and started screaming that the poem was written for my mother and not for this stupid woman. A deathly silence prevailed and my mother said, "Hush child, hush." She took me into a corner and said that I wasn’t to take such things to heart – after all ‘Abba’ was a poet and such were his ways; he didn’t seriously mean that the poem was written for this lady etc. I would hear nothing of it. Needless to say, that was a poem Kaifi Azmi could never use again and that woman still hates me!

Amongst his female friends Begum Akhtar was my favourite. She would sometimes stay with us as a houseguest. In fact Josh Malihabadi, Firaq Gorakhpuri and Faiz Ahmed Faiz would stay with us, too, despite there being no separate guest room, not even an attached bathroom. Luxury was never the central concern of these artists; they preferred the warmth of our tiny home to the 5–star comforts available to them.

I was fascinated by these mehfils at home. I would sit up in rapt attention, not even half understanding what they recited, but excited nevertheless. Their beautiful words fell like music on my young ears. I found the atmosphere fascinating — the steady flow of conversation, the tinkering of glasses, the smoke-filled room. I was never rushed off to bed; in fact I was encouraged to hang around, provided I took the responsibility for getting up in time for school the next day. It made me feel very grown up and included.

Soon I started attending mushairas — Sahir Ludhianvi was popular, Ali Sardar Jafri greatly respected, but Kaifi Azmi had a different magic. He was always amongst the last to recite — his deeply resonant voice pulsating with vigour, drama and power. Baba and I used to be fast asleep on the stage, behind the gao–takiyas and would invariably wake up to the thunderous applause that resonated each time his name was announced.

I never saw him either surprised or flattered by the applause. In fact, to my mother’s despair, he would never come home and tell her how the mushaira went. A non–committal ‘theek tha’ was all she could extract from him. Years later when I was about eighteen, I remember prodding him to tell me which ‘nazm’ he had recited and what the audience response was like. My mother said briefly, "Don’t even try, he’s not going to tell you. Over the years I have trained myself to bury my curiosity in a newspaper when Kaifi comes back from a mushaira."

I would have none of that — I sat across Abba’s chest and tickled him pink till he said, "Only small people indulge in self-praise; the day I do badly, rest assured I’ll come and tell you."

He has never treated his work as special. Even when he came back from a song recording, he never brought the cassette back home. A far cry from young lyricists today, who subject all their guests to their latest song, goading them to say, ‘wah-wah’! He never actually puts pen to paper till the night of the deadline. Then there is a furious cleaning of drawers, numerous letters that get replied to, a number of inconsequential things that get attended to. I’m sure the creative process is occurring simultaneous to the radio blaring, children laughing, children’s friends over, ‘taash’ going on in the house.

The family is never expected to hush up because he is writing — in fact the door of his study is always open so he can keep in touch with the outside world as well. I once changed the position of his desk away from the door because I felt he needed greater privacy. Mummy protested he would hate it. Came evening time and predictably Abba had made her change it back to the original position.

He writes only with a Mont Blanc pen and has a huge collection of them. Every now and again, he takes them all out, looks at them lovingly and then puts them back under lock and key. When a friend of mine presented me one, Abba pinched it although he possessed three identical ones and wrote my friend a ‘cute’ letter giving reasons why the pen was safer with him than with me!

He is very fond of good food and cannot eat a meal without ‘gosht’. He’s hugely ‘superior’ about being a UPite and will not condescend to eat Hyderabadi food, even though mummy has tried to cajole him over the 52 years they’ve been married! Each time we eat khatti dal, a separate arhar ki dal is cooked for him. And woe betide the person who unmindfully picks up the khatti dal ka spoon to serve him his arhar ki dal!

There is much that he and Javed have in common — both have a strong sense of propriety, are extremely takkaluf-pasand and cannot brook mediocrity. Both are hugely political animals. I used to deliberately stay away from politics and pride myself on not reading the newspaper as a reaction against all the politics that were discussed constantly in the house. But when I got involved with Javed and heard him and Abba have their discussions, (I used to listen from a distance) I gradually started taking a deeper interest. In discovering Javed I was rediscovering Abba, getting in touch once again with Urdu poetry and passionate politics, realizing how deep into my father’s ways, my roots were.

When I opened my eyes to the world, the first colour I saw was red. My parents were living at the Red Flag Hall and a huge red flag used to greet visitors at the entrance. It was only later that I realized that red was the colour of the worker, of revolution. My childhood was spent travelling with my mother’s Prithvi Theatre on one hand, and mazdoor–kisan meetings in Madanpura with my father. There used to be red banners everywhere, a lot of naare-bazi and a lot of protest poetry. As a child I was only interested in these rallies because the mazdoors pampered me.

Imperceptibly however, my roots were catching soil. Today when I’m at a demonstration, participating in a padyatra or in a hunger strike, it is merely an extension of what I saw happening as a child. On the fourth day of my hunger strike years ago in Mumbai for the housing rights of slum dwellers, my blood pressure started falling and my mother was beside herself with fear. But Abba, who was in Patna, sent me a telegram saying, ‘Best of luck, comrade!’

Again, on the eve of leaving for a padyatra for communal harmony from Delhi to Meerut years ago, I went to say good–bye to the family. I was nervous and uncertain. I had been amply warned that it was very dangerous for an actress to be roaming the streets of UP — my clothes would be ripped off, stones would be thrown, etc. The whole family was reflecting the tension.

Mummy, Baba, his wife Tanvi and Javed were all hovering around me but not saying a word. I walked into Abba’s room and hugged him from behind. He pulled me up in front of him and said, "Arre, is my brave daughter getting scared? Go, nothing will happen to you." His eyes were completely fearless. It was as though a fresh burst of oxygen had been pumped into my blood–stream. Needless to add, the padyatra was a big success. It was yet another instance of my having relied on his judgement and passing the test with flying colours.

As a father, I have always taken Abba for granted, but as a poet I continue to be overwhelmed by his work. I cannot claim to know or even understand all his work but I find his poetry striking for its strong imagery, its sheer power and its broadness of vision. His most personal problem transcends itself in a much larger vision so that his struggle no longer remains his own, but becomes the struggle of all human beings. Whether its my work with slum dwellers or women or against communalism, there’s always a nazm of Abba’s to guide me, to inspire me to carry on the struggle. Thus ‘Makaan’, ‘Aurat’ and ‘Bahroopni’ have become the pillars on which rests my work.

He is one of the few who has practiced what he preaches. There is no dichotomy between word and action. I have grown up believing that merely good intentions are not enough — you have to translate them into action.

It is impossible to arrive at any understanding of Kaifi Azmi, unless you include his work for Mijwan, the tiny village in Azamgarh where he was born and has now decided to spend the rest of his life. Abba, who had left Mijwan in his teens, returned briefly to it when he married mummy and had his first child (a son who died at the age of one). Soon after partition his family migrated to Pakistan one by one and he felt his roots in Mijwan had been severed forever.

However, in 1973, upon partially recovering from his brain haemorrhage, his left side still severely damaged, he started chanting the name ‘Mijwan’ with such persistence that my mother was forced to take him there. It turned out to be an amazing trip for him. He realized that Mijwan was and would always remain the place where he belonged. The house he was born in was occupied by various distant cousins and it would have been unfair to throw them out (the communist theory of the tiller owning the land).

(The people of Mijwan will for long remember Kaifi Azmi for the total transformation that he brought into their life in a short span of 15-20 years. While there was nothing before, the village today has a pucca approach road, electricity and telephone connections, a school and a computer centre for girls and a junior college).

…and grief

(June 10, 2002 )

I look out of the window from Abba’s room. The sky is blue, the grass green, flowers in bloom. I turn back to look inside the room. Books lined neatly on the shelves. His spectacles, writing pad, Mont Blanc pen lie in wait for pen to be put to paper and new verse to flow… Everything is the way it was… but Abba is not there…

Anees Jung, in a letter of condolence to me writes, "I know what the loss of a parent means Shabana. I also know one never loses a parent. In a strange, mystical way they become closer in death, for their spirit no longer trapped in frail frame becomes all pervasive and surrounds us like the air we breathe." Comforting words no doubt but all I feel is insurmountable grief.

Abba was not only my father; he was my friend, my mentor, my guru. In the last few months of his illness, as he lay in the ICU with tubes down his stomach, throat and neck, he could not speak and yet we managed to communicate. He would raise his eyebrow, squeeze my hand, indicate with his eyes and I would understand. In the same way that I understand what our granddaughter Shakya wants, although she is not yet able to speak. Abba in any case was given to long silences. He spoke both through his words and through his silences…

He fell silent much before the tubes were physically put to him. The Gujarat carnage shattered him. I would watch him as he looked at television coverage, face frozen in pain. With tears streaming down my eyes I asked, "Don’t you feel frustrated and defeated as you see the mindless killings, the hateful revenge, man killing man in the name of religion?’’

He wiped my tears and said quietly, "When one is working for change, one should bring into that expectation the possibility that the change may not occur in one’s lifetime and yet one must carry on working towards it."

It was his faith, his belief in the innate goodness of man that kept him going through the darkest of times.

‘Pyar ka jashn nai tarah manana hoga/ Gam kisi dil mein sahi gam ko bhulana hoga’ (‘New ways must be found to celebrate love/Grief in whosever’s heart must be overcome).

In wiping the tears of the victims of the Gujarat carnage and thousands of others who have fallen prey to communal riots, in wiping the tears of slum dwellers constantly displaced by mindless government policies, in wiping the tears of all marginalised sections of society, particularly women, would I have also paid tribute to my father, a giant amongst men?

‘Koi to sood chukaye, koi to zimma le/Us inquilab ka jo aaj tak udhaar sa hai’ (‘If only some one would repay the loan, assume responsibility/for the revolution that until now appears like a debt’).

You envelope me like the air I breathe Abba. I promise to turn my personal loss into an armour like you have always done, and carry on with the work you left behind.

You are watching over us, aren’t you?

Archived from Communalism Combat, July 2002 Year 8  No. 79, Tribute

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While the Thackeray arrest drama unfolded in Mumbai in the latter half of July, I was in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It was very interesting to watch the episode from a distance, to see how others looked at the event and our city. The entire affair was widely covered in the Bangladeshi newspapers. Their interest in Thackeray is because of his role in the Mumbai riots, the response of the Indian State and the judiciary to it, and also because of his campaign for the deportation of poor Bangladeshis in Mumbai. Many Bangladeshis maintained that the poor Muslims being hounded by Thackeray are not from Bangladesh but from West Bengal.

Talking to social activists, lawyers and others, it was evident the Bangladeshis were showing such keen interest in the entire Thackeray drama as they are also engaged in similar battles in their own country.

The Mumbai riots of 1992–1993 that claimed almost a 1000 lives, is a matter of concern not just for Indians but to all those in South Asia who stand for amity and peaceful co–existence between Hindus and Muslims. If in India all thinking citizens are deeply concerned about the religious intolerance towards minorities and contempt for the rule of law by the religious right wing and extremist Hindu groups, in Bangladesh, too, they are concerned about similar intolerance of the Muslim right wing and extremist groups. In both the countries such groups are trying to occupy the democratic space by taking a religious and moral high ground. Religion is being used for political purposes. This is creating unease in the common and educated people.

During my weeklong stay I was to learn how what happens in India has a strong ripple effect throughout South Asia. People asked me many questions about the Mumbai riots and what happened to a city known for its cosmopolitan nature? I could tell them about my own experience of the Mumbai riots as I was on the streets and in slum colonies that were the scene of much bloodletting.

As I shared my experience they, too, spoke of what happened in Bangladesh after the Babri masjid demolition. I was keen to know the reality of Bangladesh as Taslima Nasreen’s novel Lajja had caused such sensation in both the countries. Those I met were at pains to help me to understand both the issues — the persecution of Hindus and Lajja — from their viewpoint.

A large number of Bangladeshi women activists and human rights activists feel quite differently about Taslima Nasreen than how we look at her in India. Sukumar Biswas, who works with Bangla Academy, wanted me to let Indians know that "Lajja is a fiction although based on facts. But it is also an old story happening since 1947. It is provocative and has ill–served the cause of the Hindu minority in Bangladesh. It is shameful for a long cultural tradition of India to uphold Taslima Nasreen".

Without exception, those I talked to told me about the anti–Hindu riots in Bangladesh after the demolition of the Babri masjid. Yes, it was true that hundreds of temples and homes and business establishments of Hindus were destroyed and rape of women reported. Many told how ashamed they were of what happened and were concerned by this new religious intolerance which has been on the increase. Although it was true that there were Hindu–Muslim riots before partition in Calcutta and Noakhali, in the subsequent decades there was marked absence of these in East Pakistan and later Bangladesh.

My Bangladeshi friends saw a direct co–relation between usurping of democratic institutions by the ruling class and increasing human rights violations and persecution of minorities by the religious extremists. The religious extremists in both the countries are using the ‘Religion in danger’ slogan as a bogie and an excuse for spreading intolerance and thrusting their own brand of narrow religious belief.

One person told me that Bangladesh could be called an industry of fatwas, as all kinds of fatwas are being issued all the time. Most women and human rights activists have stopped taking these fatwas seriously. They just ignore them and get on with their work.

I visited Sylhet. My local host, Supriyo Chakraborty, gave me a brief history of Sylhet. During British rule, Sylhet produced the largest number of educated people. They occupied high posts in government as well as in educational institutions. The British took many of them to Assam. At one time it was part of Assam.

Sylhet was the only district in Bengal and Assam to have a referendum for people to decide if they wished to join Pakistan or India. The scheduled castes voted for Pakistan under the lure of ministerships and government posts. But the Assamese also did not want this Bengali majority district to merge with Assam for fear that Bengalis would become dominant in Assam.

The referendum resulted in Sylhet becoming part of East Pakistan. A large number of Hindus left after 1947, turning Sylhet from a Hindu majority to a minority Hindu province. Across the border from Sylhet is the Karimganj district of Assam.

Today Sylhet has become the centre of Islamic religious extremism. In recent years most controversial fatwas have been issued from this town, including the one against the writer, Taslima Nasreen. In the post-Babri demolition riots Sylhet town and district saw much vandalism against Hindu property and religious places. I met several victims of that riot. These Hindus still carry deep psychological scars and feel insecure. It is worth our noting what they feel and live through, as in India we have a moral responsibility to ensure that our actions do not put to risk the life and property of the Hindu minorities in countries across our borders and cause forced migrations.

As I listened to the accounts of Hindus from Sylhet, I felt as if I was listening to the account of the Mumbai riots. In many places Hindu properties were attacked and damaged in the presence of the police who did nothing. In some cases police were contacted and help sought but the police arrived too late — after the damage was done. In many localities, Muslim neighbours stayed indoors out of fear when the attackers came. If the government won’t protect the life and property of the innocent people and the minorities who else would?

Were there no examples of Hindu lives, homes, businesses or temples being protected and saved from attackers? Yes, in Sylhet and in Dhaka, I came across several examples of these. Muslim neighbours sheltered Hindu families in their homes for days. In other cases, neighbourhoods prevented outside attackers from entering their localities.

There were also instances of police officers taking prompt action and individual politicians protecting Hindus and organising relief for the riot victims. Scores of intellectuals condemned the attacks on the Hindu minority. My hostess in Dhaka herself had one Hindu family staying with her for a week. She received threats at the time but simply ignored them.

Every Hindu I met told me how they had a choice — in 1947 and in 1971 — to stay or to leave. They chose to stay with the deep conviction that they belonged there and had fought along with their Muslim brethren during the Bangladesh liberation war. Why were they being persecuted and discriminated now? Where can they go? What will be the future of their children?

I thought of many Muslims in Mumbai who had uttered similar words of despair after the Mumbai riots. I remembered Shabana Azmi telling me only recently how deeply hurt she had been at the time when she was called pro–Pakistani, a Pakistani agent, during the Mumbai riots. I remember her pain when she told me, "My father had a choice to go to Pakistan in 1947, but he chose to stay in India as they had fought for the freedom of India. Now I, the daughter of Kaifi Azmi, has to prove my loyalty to India."

These words of anguish of a proud Indian who never thought of herself as a Muslim but was made to feel that way for the first time, feels marked for life. Just as the Hindus of Bangladesh who shared a bond as Bengalis with their Muslim brethren but are today made to feel different and aliens in the land of their ancestors. This feeling of being under constant threat has caused a steady migration of Hindus from Bangladesh in recent years.

I was deeply moved by the fact that the justification for the most recent attack on the Hindus in Bangladesh was provided by events in India. I told many Bangladeshis how sorry I was that these tragedies in India had provoked persecution of the Hindu minority in their country. We have a responsibility as a Hindu majority in India to also ensure that our words and actions do not put lives of others at risk.

When I expressed these sentiments to my hostess Sultana Kamal in Sylhet, she responded with these words: "In any society the onus is on the majority to protect their minorities and make them feel secure. We cannot use happenings in India as an excuse to shirk from our own responsibility."

Sultana Kamal is very well known in Bangladesh for her work in the field of women’s rights and human rights and is a recipient of the prestigious Humphrey Award. She and her husband Supriyo have taken a consistent stand against injustice. Their house has been bombed twice and they constantly receive threats. But their spirit is undaunted.

Swami Chandranathnanda who is head of the Ramkrishna Mission in Sylhet told me, "Confrontation, hatred and enmity is very harmful to human beings. Politicians are constantly preaching it. Our mission preaches humanity. The crying need today is to have greater interaction between communities and to learn to live peacefully."

Will this new millennium change the trends in South Asia and make every minority feel safe and secure whichever country or region they happen to be in? We owe this to the future generations.

Archived from Communalism Combat, October 2000 Year 8  No. 63, Neighbours

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