Mir Anis bi-centenary in Karachi

IT was a pretty commendable idea to have a seminar to mark the bi-centenary of Mir Anis (born 1802) in Karachi for the simple reason that he is not a poet who can be sacrificed at the altar of religious or sectarian bias.

The Anjuman Saadat-i-Amroha organized the seminar and ensured the participation of scholars who are known for their contribution to the Anisean studies.

Mir Anis was born in Faizabad, not very far from the Ram Janam Bhoomi, and is known to have passed his childhood in the most cosmopolitan atmosphere in which Sadhus, Sanyasis and Ulema had an unfettered role to play. Not surprising, therefore, that Ramayana, Panchtantra and Padmavat were grist to his mill along with Arabic and Persian classics.

The Anjuman’s lead in the bi-centenary celebrations has spurred a group of Lahore and Punjab intellectuals such as Agha Amir Husain (of the Classics) and Syed Afzal Haider. They have formed a National Committee for Anisean celebrations and the postal authorities have consented to issue commemorative stamps. The TV/radio authorities have been requested to plan the celebrations. I thought that the Academy of Letters would take the lead, but a government department has to remain a government department. It has to lag behind in initiatives lest it is accused of pleading the case of someone lying buried on the other side of the border. Perhaps there should be no difficulty on this score when Amir Khusro and Ghalib have made it to the Victory Stand here.

Urdu, being what it is being claimed to be, should enjoy the company of all of its ‘luminaries’ regardless of borders. We cannot afford to be cultural chauvinists. It is opportune that we welcome the cultural events about personalities whose message of love and tolerance could cross-fertilize our meagre intellectual resources.

Mir Anis has a claim on us and, likewise, we have a claim on him. Whenever someone wants to speak chaste, correct and lovable Urdu they have consciously or unconsciously chosen to benefit from him. Perhaps Mir Anis could be shortlisted as one among those four or five poets who are the architects of our language. And language is not something we can trifle with. We have trifled with it too much in the past and no wonder, then, we are faced with a highly tragic, yet amusing, situation that we are, perhaps, the only people whose children have not been ensured even one well-taught language at the school level.

The speakers at the Mir Anis seminar, particularly Dr Raza Kazmi, Dr Hilal Naqvi, Prof Sahar Ansari, Mehdi Masud, and this scribe, dwelt at length on the great contribution which Mir Anis made as a poet. Mir Anis wrote exquisite and effective Marsias, and the best aspect of his individuality is that he succeeded in getting acceptance of his innovation — a completely Indian landscape and value system. Mir Anis, quite unhesitatingly, uses characters from Hindu mythology — Arjun, Ram, Sita and Lakshman — interspersed with Purbi vocabulary in some of his Marsias to simulate an Indian setting.

Dr Kazmi was of the opinion that Mir Anis had ‘religion’ as the mainspring of his Marsias as Mir Taqi Mir had ‘Ishq’ for his ghazal poetry. Dr Naqvi’s contention was for a literary frame of appreciation of Mir Anis. Mehdi Masud, who was the chief guest at the seminar, disagreed with Dr Kazmi and thought that Mir Anis should be appreciated for his synthesis of religious conviction and a highly developed literary sensibility. He thought that it was not doing justice to Mir Anis if his highly imaginative prowess was not acknowledged as the main difference between him and his close rivals. Even Mirza Dabeer paid the ultimate tribute to Mir Anis in his famous chronogram which regarded Mir Anis as the ultimate maestro.

There is no doubt that Mir Anis made the tragedy of Karbala the national mourning of northern India. Yom-i-Ashur in northern India was not a sectarian commemoration. It embraced cultured Hindus and Muslims of all denominations.

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Arundhati Roy: Arundhati Roy is in the news these days. A writer who got the Booker prize for her novel The God of Small Things, she has also a sharp eye for the brutal facts of Indian Life.

A seminar on her article State Terrorism, published in the Sunday Magazine of Dawn on May 5, organized by Irtiqa Institute of Social Sciences is an honour which has gone Roy’s way by a well-known body of academics, known for organizing seminars on topics of importance for the intellectual health of the nation.

Roy has emerged as a much talked about writer on important issues facing the Indian nation. I have gone through some of her articles on War Against Terror, and new trends in Indian historiography. Now it is the Gujarat pogrom which has attracted her attention.

Her article in Dawn was commented upon at the Irtiqa seminar. The speakers were all praise for Roy’s response to a horrendous situation. The world is awake to Talibanization — be it the smothered one or its Indian variety which the Sangh Parivar and BJP are promoting in the Indian society. It is all the more tragic to note that the militant Hindu ideology, which had been propped up by the British, has become a curse for India. Dr Charles King has devoted his latest book to the colonial ‘construct’ of Hinduism. Isn’t it a fact that some Indian politicians are donning the mantle of Nazis in utter disregard of their own profession of Ahimsa. Maybe, it is a clever move on their part to liquidate Dalit opposition to upper caste Hindus by persuading the Dalits to join the gangs of hooligans on a full-time basis. Isn’t it a sad spectacle to see one oppressed section of the population killing and looting another in Gujarat today?

I only wish that the architects of Hindu ideology — Colinbrooke, Savarkar, Gowalkar, et al. — could take rebirth to see for themselves that the wild oats which they had so dexterously sown have brought a rich harvest of human skulls in almost all parts of India. The Taliban were really ‘kids’ compared with the mature, fully developed Frankenstein variety donning the mantle of secular democracy. That’s what Roy’s article seeks to convey — albeit in a harsher language.

Player power must not be allowed to run cricket

SO long as player power was confined to money matters, someone like me, a spectator who saw more of the game, supported it. But as with trade unions which interfere with management, player power must not be allowed to run the game. One after another, Australian players are issuing statements that they are not prepared to tour Pakistan. The latest is Mark Waugh who, probably will not even be selected.

Mark Waugh may have other reasons for not visiting Pakistan. It was he and Shane Warne who opened the can of worms of match-fixing. Having accused Salim Malik of offering them a large sum of money for “throwing” a Test match, it transpired that both these players had been regularly receiving money from a bookie for providing him with information.

The Australian Cricket Board had fined them but had kept this under wraps until a newspaper got hold of and published the story. Both Mark Waugh and Warne had refused to appear before Justice Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim who had been asked by then BCCP to carry out an inquiry.

I don’t really want to go over the tawdry match-fixing business but simply to put Mark Waugh’s statement in perspective. It is Australia’s tour of Pakistan later this year that is of concern to me.

The tour is in jeopardy because of an unrelated bomb blast in a hotel adjoining the one where the New Zealand and Pakistan teams were staying and which led to the Karachi Test match being abandoned.

Bomb blasts, unfortunately, have become a fairly common occurrence. This does not make them any less abhorrent. They can occur in London or New Delhi or any other country but when they occur in Pakistan, they somehow make Pakistan a volatile and unsafe country and cricket tours, somehow, appear to be the first casualty.

India refusing to tour Pakistan is for reasons wholly political but the West Indies refusing to do so, for security reasons, was a bit too much and ultimately, the matches against them were played at a neutral venue, Sharjah.

Now there is talk of the Australia series being played at a neutral venue and Tangiers, of all places, is being mentioned. The statements being issued by Australian players, Steve Waugh, Adam Gilchrist, Glenn McGrath, Warne constitute interference in administrative matters and their purpose is not only to bring pressure on the Australian Cricket Board but they serve to build-up public opinion against the tour. This is a case of the tail wagging the dog.

When the ICC had given its blessings to the idea of neutral venues, I had warned that a terrible precedent would be set. And if players are allowed to decide which countries they will tour and which they won’t, it would be curtains for international cricket. The PCB is not saying much beyond that it is allowing the dust to settle.

I have no doubt that the PCB is in touch with the ACB but something must be done to counter the adverse public opinion that is building up in Australia and Pakistan must put its case, not only to the ACB but to Australian media.

We need to counter the statement being issued by certain Australian players, who, in case, must not be allowed to go public with their ill-informed views. There is still some time for the tour. Why are these players rushing to judgement?

Steve Waugh has been sacked as Australia’s captain for the One-day Internationals. His captaincy of the Test team is hanging by a thread. Does he feel that his team will lose to Pakistan in Pakistan and in the process, he will lose the captaincy?

We have had to hear, ad nauseum, about the flat tracks that visiting teams, particularly from England, must encounter in the subcontinent. What about the flat track at Lord’s on which the Test match against Sri Lanka was played?

They don’t come any flatter unless we take into account the wicket at St. John’s at Antigua. The wicket at Lord’s fooled both teams, both went in with four seamers and left out the spinners.

In fact, it was being mentioned by the commentators, Ian Botham and company that had England won the toss, it would have put Sri Lanka in. Just as well for England’s think-tank that Sri Lanka won the toss and batted.

Sri Lanka piled on 555 and at that, some of their batsmen threw away their wickets including Sanath Jayasuriya who ran himself out foolishly. The Sri Lankans brought the sun with them and Lord’s was lit up. And we saw the Sri Lankan batsmen at their brilliant best and England without Darren Gough and more importantly Ashley Giles was stuck with four mediocre fast-medium trundlers.

The Lord’s wicket which is seamer-friendly was never so flat and so batsman friendly though England had to follow-on, confirming that English cricket is not yet on an upswing.

It is an insult to Sri Lankan cricket that this is the first ever Test series it is playing in England. Sri Lanka has been playing Test cricket since 1982 and yet never managed more than an one-off Test match in England.

A tour of England is still considered important just a Wimbledon is important in the tennis circuit. I am not so sure that I approve of all the changes that have been made at Lord’s ever since I first went there in 1962.

There is still something special about a Test match at Lord’s and as one enters the Grace Gates, one senses a kind of spirituality. Cricket crowds in England have changed but not the crowd at Lord’s.

There are fewer yahoos and none of the drunken louts that one encounters on other grounds. Lord’s is still a social occasion and going to watch cricket at Lord’s has a snob value of which I approve.