A western scholar said in the last century that in the East nobody had freedom except poets. They could get away with the expressions others were never allowed. If we look at history it seems to be a half-truth.
Poets have enjoyed freedoms but the real picture is not as rosy as it looks. Poets have been free to sing paeans to their tribes, extol virtues of being religious or spiritual, glorify kings and rulers, and propagate ethical conformism. They have a licence to joyfully shout praises of love, eroticism and sex to the point of being ludicrous. Two areas however have been/ are off-limits; religion and power structures.
It can be profitable to talk of matters related to these subjects provided poets promote the dominant narratives strengthening the hegemony of the prevalent. The moment they develop their own perspectives to express their dissent, they are dubbed as heretics or rebels; heretics if clergy think it is a deviation, and rebels if it appears that they seem to challenge entrenched power structures.
Poets were taken seriously in the past when oral tradition ruled the roost. Noori Kamboke, a balladeer (Dholaiee) born in the 20th century, would be heaped with all kinds of gifts by the clan chiefs and landlords before his recitation at festivals (Melas) for the simple reason that if some influential teed him off, he could stoke the fires of vendetta by publicly narrating how their elders lost a tribal war to their foes or soiled their honour by being not able to avenge the wrong one to them by their enemies. He was such a powerful balladeer that his taunt could immediately lead to reopening of old wounds which would lead to bloody conflicts.
In the modern history of Punjab, Masa’ud Sa’d Salman (1048-1121), born in Lahore, was the first poet in the Ghaznavid period to serve several prison terms in appalling conditions. He was a versatile and prolific poet but what catapulted him to fame was called ‘Habsiyaat’ (prison poems) which he composed while he was interned. He was no rebel as he was well placed in the power hierarchy but got on the wrong side of a powerful faction of the then ruling clique. “Had the sky got me killed with grief and pain in prison / this patch of my life would not have yielded life giving poetry! (Trans…Wikipedia)” says one of his verses.
Another interesting fact about him is that he also had his “Hindvi Divan”, the poetry written in Punjabi, which has been lost in the mist of time. The much loved poet Bulleh Shah (18th century), a rebel and iconoclast, challenged all things regressive that came from the past. He spared neither clergy nor the political establishment. He blasted the sanctity of caste and class. So much so that singing of oneness or unity, when he feels satiated with all such holy stuff, he quietly says goodbye to it and enters the temple of diversity and celebrates multiplicity with remarkable aplomb. Clergy, it is reported, twice issued decree against what they called his blasphemous verses and wanted his head. Twice his guru Inayat Qadari, a great spiritualist, who acted as a bridge between non-conformists and religious establishment, interceded with the religious scholars on behalf of his beloved disciple and got him out of trouble. He mollified them by giving his interpretations of Bulleh Shah’s verses.
Iran is known to have a tradition of treating its poets with veneration bordering on fetishism. Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad (1934-1967), one of the pioneers of modern Persian poetry, was hounded as a young woman for her bold poetic stance on feminism, patriarchy and eroticism. For her admirers, she is epitome of boldness, unfettered femininity and a new perspective on how a conscious and rebellious creative woman sees herself and the world around based on gender bias. But for her detractors, she symbolises licentiousness, promiscuity and rejection of traditional moral values. “I have sinned a voluptuous sin/ in a warm enflamed embrace / sinned in a pair of vindictive arms/ arms violent and ablaze …Lust enflamed his eyes / red wine trembled in the cup/ my body, naked and drunk/ quivered softly on his breast (trans..Sholeh Wople)”, she says in one of her poems. No wonder her poetry was banned by the Islamic Revolution in Iran.
In early years of Pakistan, poet Faiz languished in jail for years for being part of a group of military officers that had planned to overthrow the regime and bring about a Soviet-style revolution. The pious intentions of the group apart, it was an airy-fairy plan born of political immaturity because there was absolutely no preparation or support on the ground for such a drastic change.
Another celebrated poet who had several stints in jail was inimitable Ustad Daman who was incarcerated for writing rebellious poetry that, the then ruling clique thought, was aimed at rabble rousing. Sadly, he was punished more under the so-called democratic set-up than in dictatorship. Daman was put behind bars multiple times on cooked-up charges by Z.A. Bhutto’s government.
Yet another defiant poet who suffered rigours of prison under Ayub’s dictatorship and Bhutto’s democracy was Habib Jalib. He refused to bend and openly challenged the shenanigans of people in power with the recitations of his fiery poems in public gatherings and political rallies.
Gul Khan Naseer from Balochistan and Shaikh Ayaz from Sindh have been celebrated poets but they were forced to spend years in jail for their nationalist and political views. Poet Abid Ameeq from Multan was thrown in the dungeons and tortured like many others during Ziaul Haq’s martial law regime.
In a nutshell, poets are allowed freedom to compose verses on love, flowers, seasons, angst, ennui, patriotism and, accepted religious and cultural values. They are free to write on all the things which pose no threat to the established order. It’s not just a question of subjects and themes but rather that of perspective or worldview that puts the custodians of established order on guard ready to pounce on any poet who refuses to work within the parameters established by them. How a poet looks at things is what makes them rattled; love can upset moralists if it’s not traditional, and a flower can make them lose their sleep if it’s a metaphor of woman’s robeless body primed for emancipation. — soofi01@hotmail.com
Published in Dawn, December 11th, 2023