Jalib and Today’s Pakistan

Pak­istan has under­gone var­i­ous highs and lows since the end of Cold War. In these two-decades, not only Pakistan’s domes­tic pol­i­tics expe­ri­enced dras­tic changes but region­al and inter­na­tion­al sce­nar­ios have changed as well. Inter­est­ing­ly, in the pre­vail­ing dynam­ics, one may find Habib Jalib’s poet­ry still rel­e­vant and appeal­ing. In this writ­ing, I will try to relate some of his poet­ry in the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion.

In the tur­bu­lent peri­od of Cold War when Pak­istan was main­ly ruled by mil­i­tary dic­ta­tors and, sim­i­lar to oth­er dic­ta­to­r­i­al regimes, cit­i­zens were bound to accept whichev­er poli­cies were imposed on them. Peo­ple who were faith­ful to dic­ta­tors enjoyed all bless­ings and oth­ers who were dis­si­dents faced tor­ture and tri­al. Jalib’s polit­i­cal incli­na­tion was towards social­ism and, like every oth­er left­ist of that time, he was against impe­r­i­al pow­ers – main­ly the US. Addi­tion­al­ly, rulers of our coun­try sought refuge in the Amer­i­can rather than the Sovi­et camp. Thus, it forced Jal­ib to pen against the US-Pak alliance which he deemed evil. Today, after the US inva­sion of Afghanistan, right wing groups such as Jamaat-i-Isla­mi (JI) have been sweep­ing the mass­es with anti-Amer­i­can rhetoric. How­ev­er, it is impor­tant to note here that JI pre­ferred the US camp dur­ing the Cold War. As Pak­istan moved to fight for US in Afghanistan and its impact start­ed affect­ing socio-polit­i­cal fab­ric of Pak­istan, Jal­ib wrote:
Hum larain amrikiy­oon ki jung kyun
Or karain apni zameen khoon rung kyun
(Why we should fight America’s war
And turn our land red with blood)

Balochistan’s con­flict is as old as Pak­istan. Mil­i­tary oper­a­tions against Baloch nation­al­ists have fur­ther exac­er­bat­ed this con­flict. Jal­ib was always omi­nous about Balochis­tan. He cau­tioned that Balochis­tan might have the same fate as East Pak­istan, now Bangladesh. I would say that if we had tak­en his warn­ing seri­ous­ly, today, Mama Qadeer would not have to march to Islam­abad for the grave issue of miss­ing per­sons. His poem ‘Jag mer­ay Pun­jab’ is still appeal­ing to us to take stand for the rights of Baloch peo­ple.
Inhi cha­lan se hum se juda Ben­gal hua
Poch na is dukh se jo dil ka haal hua
Roko ye selaab k Pak­istan Cha­la
Jag mer­ay Pun­jab k Pak­istan Cha­la
(For the same rea­sons Ben­gal was sep­a­rat­ed from us
Don’t ask me how my heart tor­ments because of this pain
Stop this tor­rent lest we lose Pak­istan
Wake up my Pun­jab lest we lose Pak­istan)

The recent Tharparkar inci­dent has astound­ed the whole coun­try. More than 100 chil­dren have died and many are on the verge of death. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, despite cat­a­stroph­ic loss­es of inno­cent lives, Pak­istan People’s Par­ty (PPP) is defend­ing its poor gov­er­nance by claim­ing this inci­dent to be an ‘exag­ger­a­tion’. One can recall Jalib’s mag­nif­i­cent poet­ry which befits PPP and oth­er cor­rupt and inept polit­i­cal lead­er­ship.
Huk­mu­ran hogaye kam­i­nay log
(The mean peo­ple are rul­ing us)

Since our state has decid­ed to nego­ti­ate with Tehrik-i-Tal­iban Pak­istan (TTP), some cler­ics have become celebri­ties on news chan­nels. Specif­i­cal­ly, Abdul Aziz Ghazi – the bur­ka avenger of Lal Masjid — has become the lead defend­er of Taliban’s Sharia. Indeed his notion of Sharia is noth­ing more than a fal­la­cy. Despite this fact, he is giv­en every chance on media to incul­cate his brand of Sharia. I recall Jalib’s poem which suits Abdul Aziz and his ilk.
Bahut mein ne suni hai aap ki taqreer Maulana
Mag­ar badli nahin ab tak meri taqdeer Maulana

(Maulana I have paid a lot of atten­tion to your speech­es
But it has not changed my fate yet)

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, Jal­ib is not alive today but his vers­es still depict real­i­ties of our soci­ety. In the end, I would like to quote Alla­ma Iqbal here whose say­ing per­fect­ly epit­o­mizes the state of Pakistan’s polit­i­cal and soci­etal struc­ture. He said, ‘Nations are born in the hearts of poets, they pros­per and die in the hands of politi­cians’.