KARACHI: A book on humanism in Urdu poetry titled Urdu adab mein insaan dosti by journalist and researcher Akhtar Balouch was launched at the Karachi Press Club on Saturday evening.

Director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and columnist I. A. Rehman said Mr Balouch was a known human rights activist. He said there was a perception that those who busy themselves with human rights activities moved away from the world of literature. He said the author had proved that it was not the case which meant that those who raised their voice for people’s rights could also pen a literary book.

Mr Rehman said the work that had been done on the different subjects touched upon in Urdu literature contained topics like freedom and the songs written in 1857. He said some 30 odd years ago a book published by Khwaja Manzoor Husain on Urdu ghazal elicited a variety of opinions. The subject of the book, he said, was the hidden political meaning in the romantic verses written by classical poets (Mir, Mushafi, Sauda et al). He argued that when “we started looking at poetry with a particular viewpoint”, it tended to impact our decisions and sometimes we inferred things which even the poets did not envision. He said humanism could be found in the works of old poets, but in the age we lived in, humanism had assumed a particular purpose.

Mr Rehman said he would be happy if people read Mr Balouch’s book and changed their views on certain poets. For example, he said, when Mohammad Husain Azad expressed his opinion on Jaffar Zattali’s poetry, people stopped reading him. Much later when someone else collected the poet’s works, people went back to reading his poems. But, he said, the shehr-i-ashob reference in our poetry was all about humanism where there would be complaints and wails about social injustices. He said he was surprised to notice that the author had missed out on quite a few of Zattali and Sauda’s verses which could have been included in the book. He jokingly said one of the reasons for the omissions could be that those verses had political connotations. He said despite that, the subject that the author had picked was the one which could lead to our salvation, because unless we treated human beings equally, things would not improve.

Mr Rehman said a good poet was one who expressed himself in minimum words. He said it was not right to think that sensitive individuals like poets did not care for human rights and did not contribute to society. He said going through Mr Balouch’s book would make the reader realise that in spite of the myriads of problems that our classical poets (Mir, Nazir Akbarabadi) were surrounded by, they did not lose sight of human values. He said (writing and reading) poetry could be one way of getting rid of the many issues that our country was faced with.

Earlier, Dr Moinuddin Aqeel said contrary to the general view people were still fond of reading books. He said not many scholars chose to write on the theme that Mr Balouch had chosen. He said he was happy that he was part of the research process that went into the publishing of the book because it was under him that the author had worked on his thesis. He said the topics that were being selected for MPhil theses at Pakistani universities were not up to standard, but Mr Balouch’s was not one of those, which was why when he approached him (Dr Aqeel) to work under him, he said yes. He said the author had written about poetry spanning two centuries (17th to 19th), and had done justice to his task.

Mr Balouch in his speech first thanked the guests for attending the programme and then talked about the reason for writing the book. He said once a friend had commented that there was nothing in Urdu poetry except the glorification of the beloved. This, he said, and reading a Wali Dukanni couplet, led him to investigate other aspects of Urdu poetry.

Dr Tauseef Ahmed Khan conducted the event. A. H. Khanzada welcomed the guests on the press club’s behalf.

Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2016