Lucknow: “Daayare me simat ke aaya hai, har ravayat se hatt ke aaya hai, Andhiyon ko zara khabar kar do, sher vapis palat ke aaya hai…(He has come with restraint, without tradition, Go inform the storms, the lion has returned).” This was May 2016 when a young poet, Imran Pratapgarhi, sang praises of ex-MP and gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed. Atiq was attending a felicitation ceremony for Pratapgarhi, who had just been bestowed the Yash Bharti award by the then Samajwadi Party (SP) government at the age of 28.
He also went on to say that whenever he targets “cruel governments” through his poetry, he remembers that “there is someone sitting in Allahabad who would take care of everything”.
Two years later, in another mushaira, he again showered praise on Atiq, saying: “Badi dushwaariyan hain par jise gaaya zaroori hai, chhalak kar band honthon tak chala aaya zaroori hai, Allahabad walon baat meri yaad rakhna tum, tumhare shaher par iss shaks ka saaya zaroori hai (Remember Allahabadis, the shadow of this man is necessary for your city),” he recited.
Cut to 2023. While 35-year-old Pratapgarhi’s career graph has shot up since, and he is a Rajya Sabha MP of the Congress from Maharashtra, his old verses written in praise of Atiq have earned him the wrath of political rivals.
Days after Atiq and his brother Ashraf were killed in Prayagraj while in police custody, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) mounted an attack on Pratapgarhi when the Congress included his name in its list of 40 star campaigners for the 10 May Karnataka assembly elections.
However, Atiq is not the only one for whom Pratapgarhi used the title of sher in his poem. In March 2017, ahead of the UP assembly elections, he used the same quatrain for another alleged gangster-turned-politician, Mukhtar Ansari, calling him a “lion” too. Ansari was fighting his fifth election and Pratapgarhi had gone to entertain an election rally organised by him in Mau, and canvas for him.
Former vice-president of the Allahabad University Student Union (AUSU) Abhay Awasthi said shayars, like other artists, sell their art.
“Many times politicians, including notorious ones, organise mushairas. Poets feel compelled to praise the organiser who has pumped money into the event. This is not the era of (Suryakant Tripathi) Nirala, Mahadevi Verma, Akbar Allahabadi and (Mirza) Ghalib when poets could say uncomfortable truths before the rulers. This should not be linked to morality,” he said.
His “professional compulsions” for showering praises on Atiq or Ansari notwithstanding, it is the quatrain that has landed Pratapgarhi in trouble, with BJP leader and Union minister Shobha Karandlaje claiming that Pratapgarhi considered Atiq as his “guru” and called him “bhai (brother).”
“Such a person became a Congress MP from Maharashtra and entered the Rajya Sabha. He came to Karnataka (during an election rally) and claimed that Muslims are not those who bow their heads but those who chop heads,” she was quoted as saying in media reports.
She is also quoted as saying, “He made such statements to the media. He has uploaded the statement on social media. He was associated with Atiq Ahmed and used to invite the latter over meals… Atiq used to attend his mushairas. Such a person is on the Congress star campaigner list. It means Congress ka haath, Congress ka saath….”
Pratapgarhi did not respond to queries from ThePrint despite calls and messages. The Congress has not officially responded to the BJP’s attack. However, ex-Congress MLA from Prayagraj, Anugrah Narayan Singh told ThePrint that while he has not heard Pratapgarhi’s statement, the latter is not one to make such controversial statements.
Meanwhile, in his journey from a student-poet to a Congress leader, Pratapgarhi’s trajectory has seen many turns. From love for his mother, to Islamophobia, ‘ghar wapsi’, Kairana, terrorism, and Muslim unity, Pratapgarhi has written on diverse topics.
While his poems “Main musalmaan hoon, Kairana bol raha hai” and “madrasa” tackled the issues of Islamophobia, and ‘ghar wapsi’, his “shor dehshat duaaon ki cheekhein suno,” was a tribute to the Pulwama martyrs.
ThePrint viewed at least 20 videos of Pratapgarhi reciting his shayaris between 2012 and 2022. Several of these have been uploaded by him on his official YouTube channel.
In one of the videos, he alleged, while addressing a crowd, that senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy had, while talking to a news channel, said that the best way to rule the country was to divide Muslims. Pratapgarhi went on to ask the “Barelvis, Sunnis and Shias to be one and take to the streets”.
In yet another video, he mentioned how he penned a verse while on the way to the venue.
Also read: Eshwarappa’s son loses out, BJP’s final Karnataka list has a Lingayat candidate for Shivamogga
From AU student to shayar
“Hamaare haathon mein shehnayi thamaayi gayi to hum Ustad Bismillah Khan ho gaye, Hamaare haathon mein sarod thamaaya gaya to hum Amjad Ali Khan ho gaye, Hamare haathon mein tabla thamaaya gaya to hum Zakir Hussain ho gaye, Aur agar paer dagmagaya to Haji Mastan bhi ban gaye (When Muslims were given shehnayi, we became Ustad Bismillah Khan, when given the sarod, we became Amjad Ali Khan, when given tabla, we became Zakir Hussain, and when we wavered, we even became Haji Mastan),” he wrote as Imran Khan, much before becoming a politician.
Son of Mohammed Iliyas Khan, a Unani medicine practitioner, and Sajida Khan, a homemaker, Pratapgarhi is the second of ten siblings.
Born in 1987, he arrived in the erstwhile Allahabad in the early 2000s.
Addressing a gathering back in 2017, he confessed he couldn’t speak even khadi Hindi properly when he landed in the erstwhile Allahabad for his higher education.
Talking about Pratapgarhi’s rise from a student to a poet, former AUSU president Sanjay Tiwari told ThePrint that during a cultural event in 2003, Imran participated in a poetry writing competition and bagged the first spot.
“He was pursuing his graduation when he expressed his desire to participate. When he recited a few poems, he won our appreciation instantly. I appointed him as the convenor of the poetry competition. He went on to win the first prize in that competition, defeating thousands of participants,” he recounted.
Tiwari recalled how he introduced Imran to lyricist Javed Akhtar during the latter’s visit to the city. “Akhtar was running an organisation for which he engaged Imran and the latter participated in mushairas abroad through the same.”
As his popularity rose, Imran Khan became Imran Pratapgarhi.
By 2016, Imran was striking all the right chords with the audiences across Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Delhi, and even Dubai, with his nazms and poems which had first made him famous in the kavi sammelans of his alma mater.
His popularity reached the Akhilesh Yadav-led UP government in March 2016 which awarded the poet with the Yash Bharti award.
‘Voice of Muslims’
Pratapgarhi has touched upon economic issues such as the GST with the same enthusiasm as he has spoken about Islamophobia, the disappearance of JNU student Najeeb Ahmed, and Muslim unity.
“Chai waale babu ko chai leke doobegi, chai se bache to gaye leke doobegi…Notebandi, GST is sab se bhi bach gaye, to Najeeb ki maa ki haaye leke doobegi (the tea seller babu will lose because of the tea, if he escapes tea, he would lose due to cow….if saved from demonetisation, GST and everything else, then he would lose due to the curse of Najeeb’s mother),” he recited at a mushaira at Jamia Millia Islamia in November 2017, leading to rapturous applause from the public.
In his media interviews, Pratapgarhi has said the first nazm that won him accolades was ‘madrasa’, in which he appealed to people to delink madrasas from terrorism.
“Kabhi nahi ho sakta qatl-e-aam madarson se, mat jodo aatankvaad ka naam madarson se…(Madrasas can never cause bloodshed, don’t link terrorism with madrasas),” he wrote.
Poet to Congress star campaigner
A known critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Pratapgarhi, had told a gathering soon after getting the Yash Bharti award, “People ask me if I will continue to write boldly, here is my answer…” He then went on to recite another hard-hitting quatrain targeting the government.
When he wrote “Hum Musalmaan hain….,”and asked listeners to donate for the mother of Najeeb and the family of Minhaz Ansari who died allegedly after facing torture at the hands of Jharkhand police in 2016 following his arrest over “objectionable Whatsapp messages”, many saw him as a voice of the Muslims.
As he rose in stature, Pratapgarhi’s presence was sought not just by student leaders, socialites and intellectuals, but also by politicians.
One of them was Atiq. While introducing Atiq to a crowd in Pratapgarh back then, Pratapgarhi said the former was “like” his father and also a “good friend”.
At another instance, he called Atiq his “guru”.
In 2019, Pratapgarhi joined the Congress and contested the Lok Sabha election from UP’s Moradabad. He was delivered a crushing defeat by senior Samajwadi Party leader S.T. Hasan.
Despite the loss, he continued to find favour with the party high command and was one of the star campaigners of the Congress. In June 2021, he was appointed the chairman of the party’s minority department.
Pratapgarhi’s meteoric rise within the Congress led to resentment when in May 2022, he was chosen as the Rajya Sabha member from Maharashtra, ignoring several senior leaders such as Milind Deora and Sanjay Nirupam.
He became a recognised figure in Congress protests — both inside and outside Parliament, and the face of the party in news debates.
“Imran was always known for not mincing words. But, it is the politician in him who has taken over the poet now and he is making speeches,” said one of his acquaintances from his university days on the condition of anonymity.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)