April 7, 2002

THE latest among the many victims of the communal madness in Gujarat is Urdu’s first poet, Wali Dakhani. Hindu zealots dug up his grave located on the outskirts of Ahmadabad, where he was laid to rest. The next day a saffron flag was hoisted on the desecrated grave. When human rights groups protested, Gujarat’s BJP government removed the flag but poured burning tar coal into the dug-up grave, and declared the premises out of bounds.

Strange way, indeed, to honour a poet, who loved Gujarat so much that Gujaratis re-christened him as Wali Gujarati out of reverence for his mystical poetry.

Wali’s sweet and lyrical Deccani Rekhta was the forerunner of Urdu poetry, particularly the ghazal. When he visited Delhi in 1700, the poets and scholars in that city were charmed by his ghazals in Rekhta, something that they had not thought possible, as Persian continued to be the literary language of the highfalutin Delhi poets. The ghazal Shaghl behtar hai ishq bazi ka; kya haqiqi o kya majazi ka, (love is a desirable pastime; be it this-worldly or that) won the hearts of the poets of Delhi, who began to eye Deccan with envy for its solitary yet groundbreaking advance in Rekhta.

Born in Aurangabad — now part of Maharashtra, and built on the site of the old seat of the Deccani rulers before they built Hyderabad — in 1667, Wali was arguably of Gujarati settler-origins. Gujarat was then considered part of the Deccan by the north Indians. Nasir Kazmi did some research on Wali’s origins for a radio programme back in the 1970s, and gives Wali’s year of death as 1742, as opposed to 1707. According to his findings, Wali visited Delhi twice, the second time round in the 1730s.

But regardless of the controversy as to how long Wali might have lived, it is clear from his poetry that he loved Gujarat, particularly the coastal town of Surat:

(Surat is full of virtue and beauty; every face there, is a priceless goddess)

And:

(Thorns of separation from Gujarat ache my heart; restless, it longs for the fiery spring of yore)

Undoubtedly the father of Urdu ghazal, Wali was revered for his contribution by his contemporaries as well as the latter-day great Urdu poets, including Mir and Ghalib, and closer to our own times, Qateel Shifai and Ahmad Faraz. All these poets paid tributes to Wali by using his rhymes and metres in one or more of their ghazals.

A poet of the sublime, Wali’s ghazal was made richer with infusion of sufi ideas, something that only the classical Persian ghazal could hitherto boast of. With the sad fate that befell his tomb near Ahmadabad at the hands of Hindu extremists, consider the following mystical verse:

(In peace we lie unfearful like your gaze; for the destitute do not fear the bandits)

Having said that, Wali also acknowledges the status of a man of learning, which in this particular case, seems to mock at those who committed the desecration of his tomb:

(The sun prostrates before him in honour today; see the sign of purity that adorns the face of the earth)

Yet, the very human feeling of helplessness experienced by the victims of hate and bigotry is best expressed in this verse:

(Every ear has heard Wali’s cry for help; but that idol-of-a-god did not come to his rescue)

Next comes the redemption of the wronged soul, and the absurdity of violence against the victim:

(Wali, a true lover does not seek to live in paradise; for he who seeks the one-with-no-abode does not need an abode)

The mystical thought then goes on to reach its culmination point, where the worthlessness of confronting the worldly evil is stressed. Herein also lies the critique of mystical poetry, which sees it as condoning aggression and violence, and thus, not as a worthy tool with which to face the villains of the world:

(Bear all pain Wali on the path of love; a true lover does not complain of hurt)

Yet, in spite of these mystical overtones, Wali was also a poet of the vernacular, which, at times, makes him push the mystical pessimism aside when the real world’s cruelty becomes unbearable, because human dignity deserves better:

(Friends, Wali is stunned at his own spectacle; beloved curses him here, boys ridicule him there)

Finally, Wali’s message to his own tormentors and to those of others like him is one that is so deeply rooted in the humanist Hindustani tradition that he remains a proud son of Hindustan, a scion of its multiracial culture — a culture he always called his own. The BJP, RSS, Bajrang Dal, VHP, Shiv Sena, and all others, who wish to purge India of its secular past that gave birth to people like Kabir and Wali, as part of their misguided mission to show love for Mother India, need to listen hard:

(To ditch the fire of love is to be faulty at love; My heart goes out to Lakshman ever since Krishna has wooed Ram)

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