LAST week I was in Delhi, participating in a seminar about Faiz Ahmed Faiz organised by Ghalib Institute, a prestigious literary institution which was the brainchild of Dr Zakir Husain. He, while holding the office of vice president, conceived the idea of an institution with the aim of preparing for the Ghalib centenary in 1969. After celebrating the centenary on an international level, he had decided that the institute should hold an annual seminar on Ghalib.

Held at the end of 2011, the Faiz seminar attracted delegates from a number of countries, including Pakistan. The seminar was inaugurated by the distinguished Hindi scholar, Professor Namvar Singh. After his inaugural address, Faiz’s daughter, Moneeza Hashmi, spoke as the chief guest. The other Pakistani delegates who read their papers in different sessions of the seminar included Kishwar Naheed, Asghar Nadeem Syed and myself. Ghalib Awards 2011 were distributed by Dr Karam Singh, member of the Rajya Sabha.

The seminar may well be seen as an apt conclusion to the year of Faiz. All those who spoke and read out their papers were very convincing in what they presented and there is a very good reason for that. The presenters had at their disposal all the forgotten material that researchers retrieved throughout the year. Critics too were heavily engaged in a renewed study of Faiz which added more to their previous assessment of the poet.

We had a large number of Faizian publications during 2011, some of which were compilations while others were more comprehensive in their research. One volume was published by the Muqtadira Qaumi Zaban at the start of 2011. The other, a larger volume, was brought out by distinguished researcher Syed Taqi Abdi during the later months of the year. These two compilations include most of what had been retrieved during the year and are invaluable in helping readers and critics alike in understanding Faiz’s point of view, especially in contrast with the objections made by critics as well as many of his fellow writers. Faiz never bothered to retaliate to the criticisms against him and neither did he ever explain his position in face of the charges levelled against his poetry. Both these volumes comprise a number of interviews with him, and as researched by Syed Taqi Abdi, all took place between 1964 and 1984.

One question put to him by me was, “In your verses you don’t speak loudly in a direct way, the way a revolutionary poet likes to speak. For this you have been criticised by the progressive critics.” He responsed, “Bhai, kya karain, khalis siyasi shairi humain  karni aati nahin.” He added, “Also what prevents me from writing in this way is the fact that such writings, as time passes, grow irrelevant. I remember Ezra Pound saying that good poetry is of course contemporary, but it is never topical.”

In another interview he stated: “Agitational poetry too has a place of its own. But it soon loses its relevance. We should be able to write what bears a permanent value, a kind of poetry which is in accordance to the ideology we believe in and at the same time it should also respond to artistic values. And as time passed they too agreed with this view”.

These statements help us understand Faiz’s poetic position in relation to the ideology he believed in. He insists on being faithful to the ideology but at the same time, being a genuine poet, insists on poetic values. He perhaps is conscious of the finedistinction between ideology and its interpretation made by ideologues. He is committed to ideology, but the poet in him does not allow him to become a prisoner to the interpretations made by the custodian of the ideology. This is where lies the difference between his poetry and the verses written by the other progressive poets.