Words of protest as weapons of resistance

Gurupdesh Singh

It is unfortunate that writers have to return their awards to make their voice heard. There is nothing new in authorities being oppressive and deliberately deaf and the litterateurs to be critical or rebellious. But as we have seen in every generation, more than the acts of protest, it is their words that speak louder. The world appreciates the sharp edge of their language against the shrill rhetoric of the powerful. 

Poets know this well; that is why they do not play the game of their oppressors and thwart their loud harangue with delicately restrained, yet highly potent verses.   The result we have seen is that poets live longer than kings in public memory and are recognised as “unacknowledged legislators of the world”.  

This does not anyway absolve them from political persecution. History of letters is strewn with innumerable instances when writers were exiled, incarcerated and censored by authorities — literary masters like Dante, Nobel laureates like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and popular writers like Rushdie included. When Ghalib wrote: “Yarab, zamana mujh ko mitata hai kisliye/ lohe jahan pe harfe mukarrar nahin hoon main” (“Why do people try to erase me, I am not a rewritten word on the stone of the earth”), he was alerting us both to the persecuted state of a writer and their immortality.  

Poets have a vision that is much larger and prophetic than the self-centred gaze that most rulers have. Who can forget the images that Yeats invoked in the wake of World War I about the state of Europe. “The falcon cannot hear the falconer; things fall apart; the centre cannot hold...” A nearly 100 years after, we are not any better today.  

A step closer to our reality and more directly, Iqbal told around the same time the Brahman and vaiz: “Apnon se bair rakhna tune buton se sikha/ jango jadal dikhaya vaiz ko bhi khuda ne,” (“You learnt from idols to cause divisions in your own people and God showed the Muslim clergy too the way to war and clash”).

The history of intolerance has spawned literature all over the world that has become a landmark and an inspiration for generations over the centuries. 

Writers on slavery, racial prejudices, religious bigotry and political oppression have earned the wrath of authorities more than anyone else.  Yet the beauty is despite bans and expulsions they are read, honoured and celebrated. The writings of writers like Toni Morrison, Orhan Pamuk, Wole Soyinka are just some of the examples. 

Nearer home, we have also seen poetry of protest in ample measure that reflected the mood and  voice of the our millions. Leading the pack of anti-establishment poets is the inimitable Faiz. Remember his lines, “Hai ahle-dil ke liye ab ye nazm-e- bast-o-kushad/ ke sang-o-khist mukayyad hai aur sag azad” (“The capable ones are now subject to a new order for their movement; the rocks and pebbles have been taken into custody, the dogs have the freedom to move”). The rage of the 1970s, Dushyant Kumar intones, “Ab to is talab ka paani badal do/ ye kanwal ke phool kumhlane lage hai” (“It is time to change the waters of this pond, the lotus flowers have started withering).

Punjabi poetry too, in Pash, found a revolutionary poet of sterling qualities. His imagery and directness take you over immediately. “Main ticket kharch ke/ tuhada jamhuriat da naat dekhya hai/ hun taan mera natak hall ‘ch beh ke/ hai hai akhan te cheekan maaran da/ haq banda hai” (“I have seen the drama of democracy after paying the price. I have earned the right now to holler and hoot in the auditorium”).  Now if you do that the price can be fatal. Surjit Patar warns: “Jis ch suli da intzam nahi/ yaro aisa kite nizam nahi” (“There is no such administration that does not first arrange for execution). And we know Pash paid the price.

The dilemma that poets of revolt often face is that whether they should rouse emotions and sit on the sidelines or jump onto the wagon. The answer is difficult to find. Faiz  at one point says that “Aaj bazaar mein paa bazaulan chalo” (Let us walk the streets today with our chains on, the dripping eye and the fuming breath are not enough, the charge of being secretly in love is not enough). On the other hand, Bertolt Brecht answers in his own way 

“In the dark times, will there also be singing?

Yes, there will be singing.

About the dark times.”

I will go with Brecht, singing must go on. That is a tremendous lot of service that poets render.

The writer is a former Professor of English, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar.