Poets vs hawks: War hysteria in India-Pakistan

[Editor’s note: The following essay was first published in 2010 by (the now defunct) Viewpoint socialist ezine. Though written in the context of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, it remains relevant in light of current events, which is why LINKS has chosen to post this slightly edited version.]

War hysteria in India-Pakistan is a cyclical phenomenon that hits every five-to-eight years. The 2008 Mumbai attacks by black-hooded shooters once again drove both countries to this madness. Every time hysteria afflicts India-Pakistan, both states lose their sanity and reason goes into exile. Hawks — bearded and saffron — absolutely rule the roost in their respective countries. Absurdity reigns supreme.

Since both countries possess nuclear bombs, the freemasonry of across-the-border jingoists never forgets to make nuclear threats. During the 1999 Kargil conflict, the two states exchanged nuclear threats at least thirteen times in three months.

In India, “Hate Pakistan” is a saffron mission that Sangh Parivar [the Hindu chauvinist organisations spawned by the RSS] has taken upon itself to accomplish. In Pakistan, teaching hatred of “Hindu” India is part of school textbooks; that way the state ensures citizens are indoctrinated. Politicians assert their patriotic credentials by exhibiting their hawkishness.

A “confidential memorandum” penned soon after the creation of Pakistan by Sir Feroz Khan Noon (who later became Prime Minister) ahead of his meeting with the US ambassador, reveals the state/establishment mindset: 

The Mussalmans in Pakistan are against Communism. The Hindus have an ambassador in Moscow, Mrs Pandit, who is the sister of the Hindu Prime Minister in Delhi, Mr Nehru, and the Russians have got an ambassador in Delhi, the Hindu capital. We the Mussalmans of Pakistan have no ambassador in Moscow nor is there any Ambassador in Karachi … our capital. If USA helps Pakistan to become a strong and independent country … then the people of Pakistan will fight to the last man against Communism to keep their freedom and preserve their way of life.

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, considered Pakistan’s most intelligent and least provincial leader, was obsessed with India. Otherwise an avid Jawaharlal Nehru reader, Bhutto vowed a “thousand-year-long war” against India. In 1974, when India went nuclear, Bhutto vowed: “We [Pakistan] will eat grass, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own [nuclear] bomb.” If such was Bhutto’s phobia, political dwarfs such as Nawaz Sharif (two-times prime minister and head of the right- wing Muslim League) can be excused for celebrating “Youm-e-Takbir” to mark the anniversary of Pakistan’s first nuclear bomb tests.

Even when the cyclical fit of war hysteria has subsided, there is no escape from the warmongering media and mosques, which compete to see who can demonise “Hindu” India more. Take for example Rawalpindi’s Jamia Masjid Ghausia mosque, were a recorded fiery speech by Hafiz Saeed [co-founder of the terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba] was played through loudspeakers to mark Kashmir Day in 2003: 

The holiest soil on earth is that of Pakistan and we cannot tolerate the unholy presence of Nancy Powell on our holy land. Her presence keeps us away from Allah’s blessings. Pakistan should cleanse itself from her unholy existence… Allah has told us to make atom bombs, America is telling us not to. Who should we listen to as Muslims: Allah or America? Kashmir will not be solved by talks, not by American arbitration, not by its division but only by jihad, jihad, jihad!… The Hindus were terrorists yesterday, they are terrorists today and they will remain terrorists tomorrow. We are right in seeking revenge from these spawns of evil.

While the mosque is understandably a bearded domain, puritans also dominate the Pakistani media, particularly the vernacular press. Inflammatory statements make frontpage headlines, penetrate personalised columns and are editorialised.

The press is particularly a Jamaat-e-Islami sphere and columnists such as Abdul Kadir Hassan take pride in declaring themselves “dust from [Islamic scholar and journalist] Maulana Abul A'la Maududi’s feet”. It is no surprise if Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) chief Qazi Husayn Ahmad should occupy four frontpage columns to tell you that “Muslims should not rest in peace until we have destroyed America and India.”

Mercifully, even if the Hafizs and Qazis dominate the mosque and media in Pakistan, the hearts and minds of Pakistan’s ordinary people have always been captivated by her Dervish poets: Chaudhry Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Ustad Daman, Habib Jalib and Shaikh Ayaz.

Faiz was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize in 1962 and has become such a legend that even JI posters carry his verses while right-wing rags such as Nawa-i-waqt publish supplements on his birthday — though not while he was alive! He was a permanent scourge tormenting the authorities. Hence, he was regularly jailed and forced into exile.

Due to his mass popularity, authorities attempted to assimilate him. His humanism and commitment to peace, however, could not be reconciled with authorities busy building a confessional state. Ruling by gunpoint, authorities wanted to overcome internal differences by creating an external threat — “Hindu India” — rather than foster unity through democratic means.

Faiz refused to subscribe to any such nation-building project. Hence, when Pakistan went to war, in 1965 and 1971, Faiz raised the flag of peace and refused to jump on the patriotic bandwagon. Recalling the two wars, he later said: 

These two were difficult periods for me because I was under a great deal of pressure to write war songs, but I said, “Look here, I am not writing any war songs!” They said, “Well, why not ? It is your patriotic duty.” I said, “Look, firstly, because I consider these wars to be a very wanton waste of precious lives and secondly, because I know that Pakistan is not going to get anything out of either this war or that war. I am not going to write any war songs.” 

But Faiz did write poems for peace during both these wars. During the 1965 war, he composed “Elegy” for a fallen soldier and “Blackout”:

Since our lights were extinguished
I have been searching for a way to see;
my eyes are lost, God knows where.
You who know me, tell me who I am,
who is a friend, and who an enemy.
A murderous river has been unleashed
into my veins; hatred beats in it.
Be patient; a flash of lightning will come
from another horizon like the white hand of Moses
with my eyes, my lost diamonds.

During the second war, he wrote “Stay Away from Me” and “The Dust of Hatred in my Eyes”. The latter was written from the point of view of East Pakistan (which later achieved independence and became Bangladesh) where Khakis, assisted by JI brigades, launched a planned genocide. Faiz hailed from West Pakistan and refused to accept this massacre in his name. He asked:

How can I embellish this carnival of slaughter,
how decorate this massacre? Whose attention could my lamenting blood attract?
There’s almost no blood in my rawboned body and what’s left isn’t enough
to burn as oil in the lamp, not enough to fill a wine glass.
It can feed no fire, extinguish no thirst.
There’s a poverty of blood in my ravaged body,
a terrible poison now runs in it. If you pierce my veins,
each drop will foam as venom at the cobra’s fangs.
Each drop is the anguished longing of ages’ the burning seal of a rage hushed up for years.
Beware of me. My body is a river of poison.
Stay away from me. My body is a parched log in the desert.
If you burn it, you won’t see the cypress or the jasmine,
but my bones blossoming like thorns in the cactus.
If you throw it in the forests, instead of morning perfumes,
you’ll scatter the dust of my sneared soul.
So stay away from me. Because I’m thirsting for blood.

According to Faiz: “Well that naturally infuriated these people even more. So for a few days, I was obliged to go underground in Sindh and not to stay with the wrath of my patriotic friends.” Sindh did not merely shelter Faiz. Shaikh Ayaz also had to go into hiding there. Considered the greatest Sindhi-language poet in modern times, Shaikh Ayaz also refused to become hysterical when the war drums began beating. He instead addressed Narayan Shyam, his Hindu friend and fellow Sindhi-language poet, living across the border, and said:

There in front of me is Narain Shayam!
His tales and mine are the same, our promises are the same, 
He is the king of poetry, but my colourful ways are also the same 
Land also same, beloved also same, heart also same, horrors also same 
How can I point a gun at him! 
How can I shoot him! How can I shoot! How can I shoot! How can I shoot!

A Lahori-Punjabi, Ustad Daman was a member of Indian National Congress. Despite an invitation by Pandit Nehru, he did not migrate to India. He was put behind bars by both Khakis and the democratically elected Bhutto for the dangerous views he articulated in poems that travelled across Pakistan:

Wagah and Attari do not exchange blows 
Nor do Gita and Quran engage in a fight Between apostasy and Islam, 
there is no bickering 
Only profit and loss must always be kept in sight

Fortunately, on the other side of Wagah, in India, Sahir Ludhianvi (a laureate of the Lenin Peace Prize) reciprocated Daman, Faiz and Ayaz:

Whether you kill an enemy or your own kin
It is the blood of humanity that sheds
Whether war is in the east or the west
After all, it bloodies world peace.

Whether bombs fall on homes or target the frontiers
Victim is the spirit of advancement
When fields, whether they belong to us or the others, are set on fire
Life suffers hunger.

Whether the tank moves ahead or retreats
It makes the earth’s womb infertile.

Whether you celebrate victory or lament a loss
Life mourns at the funerals.

War itself is a problem
What solutions can it offer
Today it will cause bloodshed and fire
Tomorrow, it will bring hunger and need.

Therefore, O gentle folks
It’s better that war keeps getting deferred
It’s better the candle keeps burning
In your homes and ours.