From Kashmir to Pune

 Uthkar to aagaye hain teri bazam se magar

Kuch dil hi jaanta hai kis dil se aayen hai

(Faiz Ahamad Faiz)

 (I left while the gathering

Was still young

The lamp was lit

Yet the moth was denied

The kiss of love

Only my heart understands

The verses of sorrow

Engraved on the heart

As I came home)

Reflections: Ruminated during a period of self imposed academic exile at the University of Pune’s hostel 5 in the Indian state of Maharashtra. At last coerced to writing after a more than six month long complete creative drought and that too in such precarious circumstances, when the struggle for a hostel room has tested the limits of my patience and tolerance. Sought refuge in the room of a fellow Kashmiri where every moment is a mixture of delight and anger, joy and anguish, liberation and captivity. Every passing hour I ponder on how freedom and proprietorship are among the most supreme blessings bestowed to a man by the almighty.

A word on Pune first: By and large Pune is a better city for living and education because of its moderate temperature, highest job rate and the largest chain of inter disciplinary modern colleges leading to the moniker ‘the oxford of India’. It is one of the premier cities in Maharashtra after Mumbai and Nagpur; the multicultural and multi ethnic diversity have earmarked it on the national radar as the fastest growing cosmopolitan city. The nonstop construction, effective infrastructure, growing automotive sector and the establishment of IT parks and the educational institutes along with two reputed Universities  have  certainly brought it national as well as international recognition with in no time. Pune’s proximity to Mumbai, key location and the availability of talent produced every year by the various centers of learning made it most visited place in the Maharashtra. This city is a home of almost three and half million people and is divided into four administrative bodies apart from the main Pune municipal committee.

My acquaintance with the city is only two years old. I alighted here to pursue my research and am currently engaged in seeking the ultimate destiny of a doctoral from the University of Pune. I found it no different from its descriptions which place it next to Bangalore as one of the premier study centers in India. During my sojourn I have come across a dozen or so Kashmiri students enrolled in the different courses but the majority is research scholars; the corresponding number at graduate and post graduate level is considerably low. There is not one cause which explains why Kashmiri students give Pune a cold shoulder as compared to Bangalore and North India where they are found in large numbers. The primary reason as Marx points out is the economical base of every society on which super structures like judiciary, state etc are built. To survive and sustain when pitted against soaring prices of eatables articles and high rental charges (if your living outside the campus you have to pay one and half month rent as brokerage) notwithstanding rent being outside the budget of students from lower middle class families. But if the student has a fellowship or scholarship then he need not worry much.

A problem faced frequently by the likes of me and other kashmiri students in food. The typical spicy Mahrashtrian and South Indian food cooked in coconut oil tastes bland. To taste North Indian food or Non veg food you must go out and search. The silver lining in the cloud, however, is an international environment both inside and outside the campus that helps improve the communicative skills. Here either you have to learn local language or speak broken English/Hindi for communication purpose. Marathi is not only the official language but the language of transaction. It is immensely difficult to converse as opposed to cities like Mumbai or Nagpur where people converse in Hindi.

 One more deterrent is the tormenting journey from the foot hills of Himalaya to the Deccan plateau – an approx 2000 kms.  The train journey by the sluggish Jehlum Express is an absolute nightmare as the schedule is thrown to the winds while the train halts at every God forsaken station. The misery increases manifold after crossing Punjab as the three day journey spills into four.

However the darkest hour is followed by the dawn. The student population ensures a reasonable tolerance to cultural and political diversity.  This makes Pune a safe sanctuary for Kashmiri students. Unlike other cities, students usually don’t suffer harassment and suspicion on the pretext of security concerns. The shady vast campus of varsity and a significant presence of international students especially from Middle East ensure a platform for interaction and exchange of ideas that is not possible at home.

The funny thing however is that Kashmiris are often mistaken for Arabs or Irani   because of our similar religion skin and color. Often I yearn to remark: Yes we are foreigners without passports! One promised day with the grace of Almighty the desires shall find fulfillment. But whenever any news related to any untoward incident happens at home in which innocent civilians are killed in cold blood make us gloomy and sad. Whenever asked about my identity with a heavy heart I instantly associate myself with a region where violence, suppression and constant subjugation have submerged every part and corner into perennial mourning and lamentations. There seems to be no end to the cycle of innocent killings till the aspirations of people are not fulfilled.

Often during discussions the media fed prejudices and myths about Kashmir come to fore. You try and set the record straight only to encounter either disbelief or plain denial. Both leave you fuming as you struggle to remove the layers of falsity that cloak the truth. As such I have never faced any well defined hostile behavior on account of my ethnicity like a friend of ours had to face. Annoyed at persistent reminders of his ‘terrorist status’, he tried to vent his anger on a paper tri colour embedded on the wall. The ensuing hullabaloo and his prolonged social ostracization sent shivers down my spine. At such moments you wonder how long shall home suffer the reign of tyranny. However I am optimistic, to quote Faiz:

Lambi hai gham ki raat

Magar meray dil raat hi tau hai

The night braided by sorrow

Indeed stretches out to an eternity

Yet madcap heart! Take solace

Soon dawn shall be ushered in all its finery.

The Comparison of Allama Iqbal and Robindranath Tagore

The two great legendary poets of sub-continent that earned international fame in the modern times are undoubtedly Allama Iqbal and Rabindranath Tagore. Both the poets are brilliant luminaries on the literary firmament of Indo-Pak Sub-continent, having to their credit outstanding contributions in the field of poetry and thought. It is, however, not possible to give a complete picture of these two master-minds in all their colours within the frame-work of a single article. Different approaches from different view-points will be necessary for such a comprehensive study.

 Rabindranath Tagore lived in a period when the whole sub- continent was in the clutches of British raj but the demand of separate nationhood was becoming louder and stronger at every passing day. His poetry and thought have been inspired by the teachings of the Vedanta or the Upanishad of which he was a votary. The poetry of Tagore usually revolves around the vicissitudes of life, Hindu mysticism, devotional and folk songs. As a poet he was very much fond of music, dance, stage and painting. The green buds of garden, flowery bower, chirping of birds; calm flow of rivers and the songs of mountain brooks is the hallmark of his poetry. The beautiful eyes of  Bengali belle with waving ringlets while sitting at the quay and filling their water pots was the sight of highest romantic feeling which always exuberated the heart of poet. The following extracts from Rabindranath will bear me out:

Bend down my head under the dust of your feet

Drown my egotism into my tears…

I have come to this world only as a pawn of your sports

My own desires will die unto your pleasure and love

And in weal and woe, none shall survive except you.

 At the early stage of his poetry he was tilted towards the love poetry but as his poetic art grows with the passage of time it turned to be the sole flight of his cognition and realism. For him the concept of luxurious life was just to sit in the moonlit night and to undulate lightly in gold like yacht on the calm and pure waters of river. In this yacht a beautiful Bengali belle puts her head on the thighs of poet and is delicately touching the stars. Then the Poet is singing in a light tune. The direction of the yacht and the flow of river is running continuously towards the horizon. Rabindranath is out and out a mystic poet of Pantheism, bordering, at places, on paganism

How beautiful and alluring is this fantasy but who can say to this extent that our proposed existence can be attained by having just these few provisions? Who can say, that life is only the name of singing, kissing and loving but in reality life is totally different and in fact not a bed of roses. In comparison to the river of Tagore Allama Iqbal’s river is roaring and even the consumption of his river is different to the Tagore’s river.

Let’s concentrate on the Allam Iqbal’s idealism

Romance and realism are two different things. In the poetry of Tagore romance is lavishly present everywhere but the glimpses of reality can also be seen in the crude form. However in the poetry of Allama Iqbal realism is present to such extent that hardly you find any ingredients of romance in it.  

For us Tagore from the beginning to the end of his literary carrier was a poet and remained poet forever. His university and his social reformation, his politics was mundane and a thing of digression. His couplet in any circumstances never remains aloof from the heart, romance and Bengali belles. But in the poetry of Iqbal, from the beginning to the end of his literary carrier he was a pedagogue and also died as a pedagogue. His poetry always tries to inculcate the real value of an individual, nation and endow in us the competency or capability to live in this world.

But when the mind and heart are at war and feel exhausted due to the dilemma of world caused by the material pursuits. When the longing desire for worldly comforts start manifesting in the way of action and resolve to struggle for life. When the traveler embarks on the highway of life, feeling the heat of mercury and without seeing any remedy to refresh thyself just to take a rest under the shadowy tree. That time the poetry of Tagore can work as a heavenly drink and provide a relief to the tired nerves.

Both the poets lived almost in the same age when the sub continent was up against colonialism and the slogan of freedom was on the tip of tongue on both the cleric and priest. Every young and elder were restless to see the country as a free sovereign nation. The Allama Iqbal presents that burning desire like that.

LO PHIR IK BAR WAHI BADA-O- JAM SAQI

HATH AH JAI MUJE MERA MAQAM AE SAQI

Set out once more that cup that wine, oh Saki!

Let my true place at last be mine, oh Saki!

To be pessimistic in the campaign against oppression is not permissible in the religion of Allam Iqbal. He explains this thought in the verse.

NAHIN HAI NA-UMEED IQBAL APNI KISHT-E- WEERAN SE

ZARA NAM HO TO YE MITTI BOHAT ZARKHAIZ HAI SAQI

But of this barren acre Iqbal will not despair:

A little rain and harvests shall wave at last, oh Saki!

On his death Rabindranath Tagore wrote: "The deatlh of Sir Muhammad Iqbal creates a void in literature that like a mortal wound will take a very long time to heal. India, whose place in the world is too narrow, can ill afford to miss a poet whose poetry had such universal value." Chughtai has presented some interesting details. He tells us that despite being contemporaries and compatriots, the two poets never met each other. They did not even exchange letters. No written proof of a contact between them is traceable. However, it is said that once Tagore, while in Lahore, tried to meet Iqbal. He paid a visit to his Mayo Road residence but Iqbal was absent, gone to Bhopal for his medical treatment

                

Of Secular Radicalism and its fallout in the Egypt

 

The rise of liberal and secular extremism in the Muslim societies bankrolled by the anti Islamic forces have only one mission statement just to oppose and counter the growing awareness and teachings of Islam in the Muslim countries as well as in the West. Their poisonous propaganda have sometimes proved lethal to the Muslim countries because not only they polarize the society on the ideological lines but   create unnecessary impediments in the way of freedom of expression and the popular sentiment although things culminate at the victory of truth over the falsehood. After 9/11 when the war against Islam was waged by America and his cronies these hypocrites and apostates too start exhibiting alarming radicalism and extremism by killing dissent and indulging in an undemocratic ways to corner and sideline the mandate of people should be seen as a great matter of concern. They have embarked on a dangerous tramp when even an Islamic democratic political party is not acceptable and bearable thus validating the ideology of Islamic militant groups who believe in violent ways. The popular post Arab uprising followed by the landslide political victories of Muslim brotherhood in Tunisia and Egypt was considered to be the big setback for those countries that actually nourished and provided political clout to these dictators for their own interests in the region. But after the MB came to power particularly in the Egypt a new independent foreign policy in the interests of Egypt and the region was re-scripted which many observers believe became the bone of contention between the West especially with America and liberal extremists ever since they came in power in Egypt. They worry and had constant apprehensions regarding their interests and pacts and promises made by earlier regimes of Egypt with the Israel might suffer a huge blow in the Mohammad Morsi lead government. Albeit, they welcomed the democratic transition in Egypt but the way MB categorically didn’t toe the western line on those sensitive issues for which they had public mandate to reconsider and redrawn became a big diplomatic concern for them.

Obeying the orders of their masters to topple the first ever legitimate civilian government in Egypt these liberal extremist used media, masses, money and military to force Mohammad Morsi to step down or resign but they couldn’t succeed in their undemocratic designs and at last by a unpopular  military coup they ousted the president. This hooliganism and mischievousness demonstrated by the liberal extremists is a slap as well as a black stain on the democracy for which the Egyptians have been craving since decades. This new wave of terrorizing and injustice  against the Islamic democratic political parties actually kicked off from the Bangladesh, where a ninety year old Islamic scholar is facing a capital punishment after a one sided trial found him guilty of 1971 war crimes . But now the focus has shifted to Middle East, where first time in the Arab history a strong Islamic government came to power through a democratic process on the borders of Zionist state. The growing popularity of the MB and the Arab world’s most influential pan Islamic socio political and religious movement and their political rise after the popular Arab uprising are giving sleepless nights to these liberal extremists and their masters across the border.  In order to keep MB away from the power they took services of their most loyal Egyptian army, secular extremist and some minority groups to meet out their political adventure in which till now they succeed.  They tried it many times in the history but every time defeat became their destiny now time and again in the disguise of civil rights groups, moderates and diplomats have made millions of Egyptians hostage by using baseless propaganda machines on the common issues which are meant to be debated and discussed in the parliament by the legislatures. The entire top brass of MB including the president Mohammad Morsi have been detained and kept undisclosed places so that to disconnect the communication between the people and leadership but the romance between Mohammad Morsi and his followers continues to pour in millions on the streets of different cities of Egypt. Earlier the way, millions of people came out from their homes to protest on the issues which needed at least full term to sort out in a country which since pharaoh’s time remained in the clutches of notorious dictators and to expect overnight solutions within a one year is a sheer stupidity and sans political immaturity. The anger and outrage of the people who gathered at the symbolic Tahrir Square for many days was actually fumed and stoked by the liberal extremists with a single agenda in their mind to topple the first elected government after the people of Egypt gave their verdict in the favor of Muslim Brotherhood in a free and fair election. It was quite clear right from the first day of protests that the opposition is divided and there seems no real unified democratic opposition leader heading this mass protest but it was the handiwork of some invisible forces in the costumes of opposition collaborated by the Egyptian army and hardliner seculars who were caught on camera distributing money to the people to gather at the Tahrir Square. The only one name which the international media was repeatedly airing for the presidency post and mediation was none other than the West’s old loyal yes man Mohamad Albardi former chairman of IAEA and the Nobel laureate for peace. It was his much waited  fact finding report regarding the presence of chemical weapons in the Iraq  which pave a way for America and its allies to demolish the country physically and economically forever. Interestingly now the most probable and prominent candidate emerging to lead the Egypt will be fully backed by the army and secular extremists certainly leave the country at the cross roads with serious political repercussions. Historically the Egyptian army has been the strongest institution in the country and is considered the most advanced armed force in the region as for as the human power and its military might is concerned but also with a humiliating glory. The shame of 1967 Egypt Israel war also known as six day war when the Israeli launched a surprise attack on its 24 airfields was one of the humiliating defeat in the history of Egypt but have so many victories at home in the form of military coups with the help of strong intelligence grid of six lakh policemen had virtually turned Egypt a concentration camp. It was the MB which struggled and suffered a lot under all the regimes even their founders were assassinated and executed but they stood against the oppression, injustice and never made any compromise with the tyrants. The history is witnessing and testing the leadership of MB again when their right to rule the Egypt has been usurped by the liberal extremist and the army. It was followed by the mass killing of hundreds of innocent people by the security forces who are still holding peaceful demonstrations across the Egypt in support of their ousted president is a shameful and ghastly act. The criminal silence of the world community after a democratic government with a 55% vote and followed by 63% votes in the referendum shows the double standards stand fully exposed and how intolerant they are towards the peoples Islamic movements.   The military coup against the civilian government is not an internal issue of Egypt but it is a serious international issue because the morally bankrupt liberal extremist have put Egypt and the region in a situation where anarchy, violence, civil war will only bring instability, discontent and resentment in the society. To protect Egypt from the detrimental dangers, every party has to return dialogue and the shortest path of dialogue, of course should begin with the return of president Morsi to office. 

Agha Shahid Ali; the poetry of loss and longing

Mir Liyaqat

Research scholar

Pune University

Loss and longing are universal human passions which are predominantly active in sensitive souls that always try to find vent into something more glorious and charming. The etymological meaning of word ‘loss’ according to the Oxford Advanced learners dictionary is the state of no longer having something or as much of something; the process that leads to this or the disadvantage that is caused when somebody leaves or when a useful or valuable object is taken away; a person who causes disadvantage by leaving. In literary nomenclature, essence of loss is indeed a complex phenomenon and its thematic interpretations are embedded with psychological, emotional, artistic, social and realistic approaches. The sense of loss originates from a situation of doubt or when “a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact and reason”, as stated by the John Keats. Long back, Johann wolf won Goethe in his essay, “escape from ideas”, interpreted the state of doubt with reference to both human beings and work of art. A sense of loss, no doubt, is deeply related to the state of unconsciousness which passes through various psychological processes. On the other hand, Longing is a sense of hope and desire which is like a fire that sets action aflame. The same sense is expressed by emotions such as "craving" or "hankering". When a person desires something or someone, their sense of longing is excited by the enjoyment or the thought of item or person, and they want to take actions to obtain their goal. 

     

Agha Shahid Ali (1949-2001) a Kashmiri-American Diasporic poet who was born in 1949 at Delhi but was brought up in Kashmir, the land to which he had a deep sense of belonging. He died of brain cancer in December, 2001 and was buried in Northampton, Massachusetts. He authored several collections of poetry, including Rooms Are Never Finished (2001), The country without a post office (1997). The beloved witness: selected poems (1992). A Nostalgist’s Map Of America (1991), A walk Through the Yellow Pages (1987), The Half Inch Himalyaas (1987). In Memory to Begum Akhter and other poems (1979), and Bone and Sculpture (1972). He was the author of T.S Eliot as editor (1986), translator of The Rebel’s Silhouette: selected poems by Faiz Ahmad Faiz (1992) and editor of Revisiting Disunities: real Ghazal in English (2000).

Shahid can favorably be compared with other “Regional” writers like Seamus Heaney from Ireland, Derek Walcott from the Caribbean and Mahmoud Dervish from Palestine, whose art is surcharged with the politics of their native countries. What these writers share is a rootedness in place and native landscape.  The Palestinian critic, Edward Said comments: “this is poetry whose appeal is universal, its voice unerringly eloquent.”¹ Ali writes his poetry which pleads of the great loss of his mother and motherland, friends and foreign land, his beloved, Kashmir and his love for life. Though a poet of great sensibilities he portrays gloom and loss. To him the sense of loss and longing constituted the basic condition for poetry. It underlines the reality that poet normally thrive on the themes of separation, absence, exile and loss. In the case of Ali it was both in his spirit and blood. To him the loss and longing appear as a metaphor for his beloved which he willingly embraces and keeps as his constant companion. This also makes him a poet of distinction while he thematizes one experience to another by providing poetic virgin to each expression. This poetic art becomes his distinguished gift with which he is able to look into the depth of loss and longing, and completely gets immersed in its unending charm and prefers to remain in that ‘ magic casement’ forever. In this figuring of his homeland, he himself became one of the images that were spinning around the dark point of stillness—both shahid and shahed, witness and martyr—his destiny inextricably linked with Kashmir’s, each prefigured by the other.

I will die, in autumn, in Kashmir,

and the shadowed routine of each vein

will almost be news, the blood censored,

for the Saffron Sun and the Times of Rain. …  

All the volumes of Agha Shahid Ali remain replete with poetic expressions of displacement, exile and longing to come back to the place of belonging i.e. the valley of Kashmir. These images come to the fore in his writings when the poet conceptualizes the loss of lovers, home, country and the memory itself. Right from his first collection of poems, Bone-Sculpture, we can see the sense of loss and longing in one form or another. In this collection, he depicts and structures the pangs of separation without revealing to himself and others the details of his personal circumstances which took him away from his homeland. Ali’s next collection, A Walk Through the Yellow Pages, lifts the poet from the sense of loss and destruction to enjoy a slightly lighter vein. He experimented with different styles from bathroom graffiti to restaurant menus and the dialogue interactive form. However, in spite of all this there exists cynical poetic loss at the back of his mind. But the sense of loss and longing gets highly personalized in the volume, In Memory of Begum Akhtar. Here we find his emotional loss coming to the fore. Begum Akhtar; a Kashmiri female singer used to sing ghazals of Mirza Galib and Faiz Ahmad Faiz in the drawing room of his house in Kashmir.

In the Half- Inch-Himalayas, Ali’s sense of loss and longing takes another dimension of his nostalgic feelings. Here he focuses on a specific situation, when he wrote about the loss and this loss had a name---India, Kashmir and his own clan Agha family in Kashmir. Ali’s first love was Kashmir, be in New Delhi, Pennsylvania or Amherst, his pen never failed writing about the loss of men, meadow and material of the beautiful valley, Kashmir. Poem after poem be it “ Postcard from Kashmir,” “The Snowman,”  “ Prayer Rug,”  “ Cracked Portrait,” “Story of a Silence,” Ali’s heart always remained full of his beloved Kashmir. The theme of loss and longing takes on a diversed form in a Nostalagist’s Map of America, a situation of an escape from reality when he faces all-round uncertainty in a foreign land. It deals with his status as an immigrant on the soil of U.S.A and depicts a sorrowful state of mind when he faces the death of his friend, Philip Paul Orlando, who was suffering from a dreadful disease. In the poem Ali frames the texts with an epigraph, “What have you known of lost? That makes you different from other men?” and the recurrent theme of love and longing that prevails almost in every poem of Ali as in ‘The Season of Plains’ he writes ‘their utter summer, messages pass between lovers. Heeer and Ranja and others of legends, their love forbidden, burned incense all night waiting for answers…’

In The Country without a Post Office, Agha Shahid Ali’s sense of loss and longing reaches its climax, where Kashmir becomes the centre stage of his thoughts. The very title of anthology is suggestive of the complete and all-pervasive sense of loss for the poet. It’s a look on Kashmir that is, current history and poetry in the sense that the people of Kashmir are still for the democracy in real sense. It brings on forefront the feelings of the people their pain, suffering and anguish. They are still waiting for the day when their pain would come to an end, whatever the people of Kashmir have experienced in the past decades, the bloodshed, losing the dear and losing the peace for which Kashmir was known. In the 1990’s for seven months, there was no mail delivered in Kashmir, because of political unrest and violence. A friend of the poet’s father watched the post office from his house, as mountains of letters piled up. One day, he walked over to the piles and picked a letter from the top of one, discovering that it was from Ali’s father and addressed to him. He mourns the devastation that has visited on his childhood home, Kashmir which once called the paradise on earth In the poem “I See Kashmir from New Delhi at Midnight” he writes, “Drippings from a suspended burning tire, are falling on the back of a prisoner, the naked boy screaming, “I know nothing” (13-15). As post office symbolizes a particular address and an identity of a specific person who lives in a country and at the same time the absence of it means an eclipse of his existence from the world, such a situation becomes unbearable for the poet and therefore laments his despair throughout the narrative of the poem. It was in The Country without a Post Office   that rediscovered his Kashmir connection and helped paint an unbiased image of the plight of the people of the vale before the world. Agha Shahid Ali offered a speaking portrayal of Kashmir from the days of Haba Khatun to the recent days. In predominantly elegiac tone, Ali draws parallels between Sarajevo and ancient Greece and offers a series of speaking sketches of terror and torture. But Ali is still hopeful that the conditions in Kashmir will become normal. In the same poem in the end he writes, “I’ve tied a knot, with green thread at Shah Hamdan, to be, united only when the atrocities, are stunned by your jeweled return” (52-55). Shah Hamdan is a shrine in Kashmir where both Hindus and Muslims tie knots with green thread. It is a kind of ritual which is supposed to bring peace and love between the two communities. Though Ali writes about loss but he is a poet with hope. In all his writings, he ends on a positive note. He is hopeful that one day everything will be normal.

 The Rooms Are Never Finished, convey the vast range of the sense of loss that make him to traverse or pass through a series of sad happenings. This collection was nominated as finalist for National Book Award in America. It dealt with his personal loss or devastation, his mother’s death and the subsequent journey of her dead body back to Kashmir where she wished to be buried.

Ali’s last collection, Call Me Ishmael Tonight, adds a mythical dimensions to the theme of loss and longing. Based on the Biblical it is a book of ghazals in English. Ali worked assiduously to establish a place in American literature for the formal discipline of the ghazals and in a typical Faiz Ahmad Faiz style and with publishing of this book he was been able to achieve that place. In this collection he has made references to the Quranic version of the Abraham parable but with a slight difference where in Quran, Ishmael has been shown willing to be sacrificed but here it’s the elder Ishmael rather than Isaac who is called as the sacrifice of God. Being an ardent advocate of ghazals, he firmly believed that the rules of the ghazals should be clear and classically stringent.

Conclusion

Thus Ali’s poetry casts its craft and concern upon histories of loss, longing, injustice and brutality particularly those endured by Kashmir weaving simultaneously the threads of individual’s experience and that of people close to him. Ali challenged himself to form a consummate original art and consciousness in order to struggle against the factors which inevitably work to create a sense of loss in his personal, social, emotional and intellectual involvements especially in the state of Kashmir that for him remains an alter ego, and a rich source of inspiration for creative purpose. It’s in this perspective of the tragedy of his birthplace that Ali writes, “A pastoral,” in which he seems to be burning with desire and longing for peace in Kashmir.

We shall meet again, in Srinagar,

By the gates of the villa of peace,

Our hands blossoming into fists

Till the soldiers return the keys and disappear. Again we will enter

Our last world, the first that vanished

In our absence from the broken city.

REFERENCES

Edward Said, Tributes (Kashmir: Agha Shahid Ali Foundation, 2002) 46.

Ali,Agha Shahid. Bone- Sculpture. Arizona: SUN. Gemini Press, Inc, 1972.

---. In Memory Of Begum Akhtar. Calcutta: Writers Workshop, 1979.

¬---. A Walk Through The Yellow Pages. Calcutta: Writers Workshop, 1987.

---.The Half-Inch Himalayas. Pennsylvania, U.S: Wesleyan University Press, 1987.

---.A Nostalgist’s Map of America. New York, U.S: W.W.Norton and Company, Inc, 1991.

Ali, Agha Shahid. 1997. The Country Without a Post Office. New York, U.S: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

---. Call Me Ishamael Tonight. New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2004.

LEGENDS WILL INSPIRE THE GENERATION

On February 11, exactly 29 years after when the main ideologue of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front Maqbool Bhat was hanged in 

Tihar jail. The History witnessed another political hanging of a Kashmiri; an ex- militant turned fruit seller M.A.Guru terrorized and tortured by the so called security agencies executed amid secrecy and urgency to satisfy the collective conscious of India. After the epic one sided trial in the Supreme Court of India found him guilty on the circumstantial grounds in carrying an attack on the Indian parliament in the 2001. Interestingly both the Martyrs happened to be from the North Kashmir which not only have a long history of sacrifices but have given birth the iconic heroes who time to time shaped the political contours of state. Being the frontier part of valley and heavily militarized it always remained the strong bastion of resistance movement over the years.

The case of M.A. Guru was somewhat different than the judicial trial of Maqbool Bhat, who was already on the death sentence and petitioned to the then President of India Giyani Zail Singh for clemency on the grounds of an unfair trial.  But his clemency was rejected and hanged subsequently in a retaliatory action after the JKLF members on February 6, 1984 kidnapped and murdered the Indian diplomat Ravindra Mhatre in Birmingham, England. Afzal’s case was a share miscarriage of justice like denying a lawyer at the most crucial stage of his judicial trial and convicted him on a mere flimsy grounds left a black blot on the Indian judiciary forever. Moreover Afzal also had a right under the Indian constitution to challenge the rejection of his mercy petition which was open to judicial review but the continues harassment and judicial humiliation right from the first day of his trial forced him to drink the hemlock of grave injustice and discrimination exhibited by the Indian judiciary.

It is not the first time that the hapless people of state are facing this brazen denial of justice from a country claiming herself the deity of democracy but over the last 24 years it has been the sordid tale of every ordinary Kashmiri. Whether, it is the case of Konin Poshewara mass rape, Jaleel Andrabi murder, Custodial Disappearances or the Shopian gang rape and murder, every time Indian judiciary and its probing agencies failed to live up to the cannons of justice. However Afzal’s case was the last litmus case before the highest seat of Indian judiciary to deliver justice. But being Muslim and Kashmiri in India, the cloak of justice as usual is used as a tool of vengeance by the jingoist media, fanatic right wing groups and other so called secular political parties for their dirty power politics on the name of ‘ultra-patriotism’. The way the sitting minsters of the ruling party along with opposition parties in Delhi were passing statements in full media glare and the way other fanatic groups were bursting crackers and distributing sweets to celebrate the hanging is a new face of incredible India. Where justice has become mirage and the so called democratic leaders have become blood thirsty.

Afzal's hanging may be an event of celebration or a case of vote bank politics in India but it definitely has given Kashmir only another martyr to strengthen their political beliefs against the repression which was immediately echoed by the beleaguered CM of state saying that it will definitely inspire the well learned and politically mature third generation of the conflict. I think the CM rightly diagnosed the coming events because the young generation of Kashmir have not seen Maqbool Bhat only they heard about him but the Afzal Guroo will become a living legend of the movement because they have seen him and feel his execution. By clamping curfew, barring people to protest against the execution, gaging media are the usual combination of brute force and Machiavellian manipulation designed to pit people against each other over the protest calendars are the tested tactics by a  the oppressor. It will be very interesting to see how the people of state will collectively react in the summer when the boots will return to barracks because as a nation, we are notorious of forgetting its martyrs for the sake of electric transformers and daily wages. It will be also interesting to see how the Separatist camp will capitalize this sacrifice to shrink the space of pro-Indian political parties before they stage any drama to hoodwink the people for their power politics.  Although the clandestine execution of Afzal have exposed them time and again of being rubber stamps and toys in the hands of New Delhi as for as the political decisions of the state are concerned. They will continue to roll crocodile tears for their political benefits in and off the assembly to show people that we protested and were not in favor of execution. Thus it becomes crystal and clear that they are just installed statues, who are well paid to show the world that a democratic setup is working in the state under the Indian constitution.

On the other hand it may be tough and fatal to come out on roads and protest against the state terrorism in the valley but the Kashmiri’s working and studying in various states in India protested openly and their eternal romance with freedom resonated in the backyard of oppressor. The slogans like we want Azadi, hang me I am Afzal were chanted by the brave hearts mostly students enrolled in various varaisites defied all odds of restrictions and fear psychosis of being arrested and targeted shows the volcano of revolution is simmering and it’s the matter of time when the old empire of oppression will succumb before aspirations. The protests at the Jantar Mantar, Hyderabad and Dehradun although attacked by Hindu fascist collaborated by police shows that the more oppression is inflicted on us the stronger we are emerging. For the cause it is a positive change but for tyrant it’s an alarming signal for the oppressor that the young Shaheens of valley irrespective of gender and region are united on one page that is freedom form the forceful occupation. A student in the Osmania University goes poetical and emotional while leading a protest rally in the campus against the execution in this way…

assi khoon dyut na? Azaadi (have not we given blood? Freedom

assi yaar dit na? Azaadi (have not we given our dear ones? Freedom

lakchaar dyut na? Azaadi (have not we given our childhood? Freedom

garre baar dyut na ? Azaadi (have not we given our homes? Freedom

gam khaar dit na? Azaadi  (have not we given caring ones? Freedom

teilli kyaazi yee ne? Azaad (then why do not it comes? Freedom

The way hastily typed memo was deliberately send by the speed post with every name insultingly misspelt, baring family the last chance to meet him and turning the whole valley into a concentration camp in order to stop the back clashes will not deter the people of Kashmir. The local collaborators can make rucks in the assembly of fools, can broadcast emotional statements to vow the people, fanatics in India and media can celebrate the hanging, like medieval people barely aware that they had lost the moral authority to rule Kashmir a long time ago, when the first bullets were fired at Gawkadal Bridge. The more disproportionate brute force is unleashed in the nook and corner of Kashmir to crush the freedom sentiment the more strong and sacred the resolve and cause becomes. The hanging of Maqbool Bhat and Afzal Guroo have not frightened and traumatized Kashmiris but it made them proud and brave enough to take the struggle to its logical end.

Come Oh tyrant let’s try our skill!

You try your bow I will try my heart!