At a time when Recep Tayyep Erdogan plans to hold a referendum in Turkey to expand his presidential powers, and trades barbs with his Dutch and German counterparts for not allowing his ministers to canvass for him among the Turkish diaspora, I chanced upon the book In Jail with Nazim Hikmet by Orhan Kemal.

This book, originally titled Three and a Half Years with Nazim Hikmet in Turkish, is translated by Bengisu Rona with some added letters, poems and prison notes she thought relevant. In her detailed introduction, she highlights the history of the imperial machinations of European powers, Soviet expansionist ambition, communist movement within Turkey and the different hues of Turkish nationalism that surrounded the life and times of Nazim Hikmet and Orhan Kemal.

In Pakistan, for most of us the earliest introduction to the works of Nazim Hikmet was through his poems translated into Urdu by Faiz Ahmed Faiz. Hikmet was an extraordinary poet, playwright, fiction writer and memoirist. However, what earned him universal acclaim was his poetry that brought together a wide range of themes in old and new forms, and an uninterrupted political struggle for the working class and the downtrodden. Orhan Kemal, less known in Pakistan, was 12 years younger than Hikmet and one of the most popular Turkish novelists of the 20th century.

Kemal regards Hikmet as his master in literary craft and artistic sensibility and owes his success in writing to those three and a half years from 1940 to 1943 that he spent with Hikmet in Bursa Prison. Both were serving terms for professing and propagating Marxist ideology and allegedly inciting Turkish soldiers to mutiny. Kemal served one five-year term, but Hikmet was in and out of prisons for most of his life.

In this moving narrative, while Kemal captures the personality, character, moods and erudition of Hikmet like a man who is in awe of his master, there is always a critical eye which he keeps open for further probing of thoughts and ideas. Hikmet’s forbearance in the face of permanent hostility and his deep respect for human relationships stand out as his most significant traits. But the writer himself was no ordinary man in terms of his commitment to his pen, his art, his ideology and his people. Somehow this book resonates with the times in which we live now, in Turkey and elsewhere.

I am distant from what is happening in Turkey at the moment. But I know that while history does not repeat itself in that strict sense, there are common patterns of consolidating, increasing, perpetuating and brandishing personal power that are found throughout human history. Any individual or institution that comes in the way of authoritarianism is either annihilated or suppressed. Deals are cut and compromises are made, but not with those who possess an innate sense of right and wrong. In one of the letters to his friend and fellow writer, Kemal Tahir, Hikmet wrote: “What a wonderful country: spies serve their sentences in their houses with gardens and those of us who love this country above all else are shunted from prison to prison.”

We have treated some of our best writers equally shabbily in this country when it comes to dealing with social criticism or political dissent. From Habib Jalib to Shaikh Ayaz and from Faiz Ahmed Faiz to Gul Khan Naseer, so many have served prison terms or spent years in exile. These poets were penalised for speaking against economic exploitation, cultural repression, autocracy and curbs on civil and political rights. You may say today that in some ways they were lucky because during their times making dissenters disappear was perhaps fashionable only with Latin American dictators. Our state and society also made Saadat Hasan Manto face one court case after the other for being pornographic, lecherous, anti-social and irresponsible.

But what autocrats never learn from their predecessors is how their image is tarnished in history for such short-lived power and how the work of artists they make so much effort to curb always survives and outlives them.

The writer is a poet and essayist based in Islamabad. His collection of essays Crimson Papers: Reflections on Struggle, Suffering, and Creativity in Pakistan was recently published by Oxford University Press

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, March 26th, 2017