The bus with former Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on board arrived in Lahore, Pakistan, on 19 February 1999. It was a rather extraordinary bus that had left India carrying a message of peace and hope between the two countries.
During the journey from Delhi to Lahore, four lines were played on the PA system of the bus, which according to reports, ‘became all the rage’.
Tum aao Gulshan-e-Lahore se chaman bardosh
Hum aayen subh-e-Banaras ki raushni le kar
Himalaya ki havaaon ki taazgi le kar
Phir is ke baad ye poochen ki kaun dushman hai?
(Come bearing the fragrant garden of Lahore
And we will bring the light of a Banaras morning
And the fresh breeze from the Himalayas
And then let us ask: who is the enemy?)
These lines were written by Urdu poet, critic, and lyricist Ali Sardar Jafri. It was a fitting tribute to Jafri and the diplomacy mission between India and Pakistan. He was seen as the ‘leading light’ of the Progressive Writers’ Movement, an anti-imperialist literary collective in British India.
Jafri was a supporter of a pluralistic and egalitarian India. He was jailed twice in his lifetime, once by the British in 1941 and then by the Indian government in 1949. Ironically, the Indian government presented him with the Jnanpith Award in 1997, noting that “Jafri represents those who are fighting against injustice and oppression in society.”
His poetry highlighted the conditions of the working class but also made place for Radha and Krishna, Buddha, and the Vedas. He edited a collection of poetry about Mirabai titled Prem Vaani Meera, which was later published in 2004. He also wrote a poem titled Lahu Pukarta Hai, or The Blood Calls, in 1965 speaking of the blood of a human that is not an infidel, an apostate, nor a Muslim: “This first heart-clasping word of the Book of Life is the song of the Vedas and the Gita, the melody of God’s scripture.”
In 1999, when Vajpayee made the historic peace trip to Pakistan – The Lahore Summit in February – he presented his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif with the first-ever album of anti-war poems titled Sarhad, written by none other than Ali Sardar Jafri.
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‘Every gesture is a genocide’
Jafri was born on 29 November, 1913, to an aristocratic family in Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh. By the age of 17, he was writing poems under the pen name Hazin, which he later dropped. At 20, he took admission in Aligarh Muslim University but was expelled due to his participation in the freedom struggle.
The same university later conferred on him an honorary doctorate (D.Litt) degree in 1986. He later enrolled in Zakir Hussain College and soon after published his first collection of short stories, Manzil, in 1938. But his postgraduate studies at Lucknow University ended abruptly when he was arrested for writing anti-war poems.
By 1936, he had already presided over the first conference for the Progressive Writers Movement in Lucknow. In 1942, he moved to Bombay where he befriended Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet and Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. Jafri met Pablo Neruda in Bombay in the 1950’s while he was visiting India as a diplomat. He met Hikmet in Moscow in the 1960’s. As Communist poets, they forged a bond based on their fight for similar struggles across the globe. Jafri refers to this in his book, Lucknow ki Paanch Raatein (The Five Nights of Lucknow), published later in 2005. Jafri also wrote a poem about Hikmet. His fondness for Hikmet is reflected in the names he gave to his two sons, Nazim and Hikmet.
Jafri worked as an assistant editor for Naya Adab, a journal devoted to the Progressive Movement in 1946. Along with Mulk Raj Anand, Sajjad Zaheer, and Akhtar Hussain Jaipuri, he is widely credited with helping to found the Progressive Writers’ Association in 1930. Like his progressive contemporaries, his writing focused on challenging conventional wisdom about the nature of war, of society, of the family, of gender, and of religion.
After being imprisoned twice by the British in 1940 and 1941 for his subversive ideas, he was imprisoned once again by the government of Independent India due to his poetry condemning exploitation of the people of the country in the hands of the State that revealed “at every step a storm of blood, at every turn a bleeding man.” He penned, ‘Every gesture is a genocide, yet they say the murderer is gone,’ in his poem Fareb (Betrayal), written in 1948.
Jafri was arrested for writing these lines. In his obituary for Jafri in Sahitya Akademi, publisher K. Satchidanandan wrote, “Twice sent to jail by the British in 1940 and ’41 for his subversive views, again he was sent to jail by the government of Independent India for his vitriolic verses indicting exploitation that revealed” at every step a storm of blood, at every turn a bleeding man.”
His plays Yeh Kiska Khoon Hai? and Paikar, both of which were presented by the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) in 1948, were well-received. But it was his poetry that ultimately won him the most admiration and acclaim.
He also co-produced the movie Gyara Hazar Ladkiyan (Eleven Thousand Girls) in 1962, and his show Kahkashan, based on the lives of seven noted Urdu poets, was a runaway hit with immense mass appeal.
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Contribution to literature
His poetry was not parochial but global. He extended solidarity to the Iranians, Africans, and Afghans, among others. Post-Partition, when Urdu was bereft of a national or regional identity, Jafri tried to redeem it. Throughout his poetry career, he worked alongside Inder Kumar Gujral, Anand Narain Mulla, and others, to advance this cause. Jafri played an important role in the development of the Gujral Committee Report too.
In an interview given to Pritish Nandy, an Indian poet and journalist, in 1997, after the Urdu Academy refused to award him the Sant Gyaneshwar Award, Jafri lamented the rise of communalism in India. This was a post-Babri India. He added that the hate he is receiving for his poetry is unfounded since the verses are borne out of a deep anguish over what is happening in India. The award was announced to recognise his outstanding contribution to Urdu literature for his heart-rending elegiac poem Ajodhya (1992).
Jafri was conferred the Padma Shri in 1967. While presenting the Jnanpith award to Jafri, even Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a life-long member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), admitted that one might disagree with Jafri’s ideas but not with his vision.
He passed away at the age of 86, after due to a brain tumour, on 1 August, 2000.
(Edited by Tarannum Khan)