WHY I WRITE: ESSAYS BY SAADAT HASAN MANTO (9 page)

Iqbal Day

Allama Iqbal died in 1938, a decade before Partition, but he is seen as a Pakistani poet. Iqbal was the writer of the poem, Tarana-e-Hindi, commonly known as Saare jahan se achcha, and was also one of the ideologues of a separate state for Muslims. He is today celebrated in Pakistan, though mainly as an icon, and more or less forgotten in India. Manto found himself in the surprising position of having to preside over the annual Iqbal Day in independent Pakistan. Surprising because he had no love for the Islamic State and, as he says here, he was not very keen on poetry. But the one thing he had in common with the man he was eulogizing was that both were persecuted. Iqbal for his heresies (he wrote a complaint against god, a great poem called Shikwa) and Manto because he rejected conventionalism of every sort. Both men, and this is also common to them, became heroes many years after their death. Iqbal for those who loved Pakistan and Manto for those who hated it.

Ladies and gentlemen and my fellow writers. For the honour of presiding over this, the first Iqbal Day, I want to thank you formally. However, seeing myself in this presiding chair, something else also comes to mind. I’m puzzled. Only till the other day, I was being abused and humiliated for my work and today. . . .

But then again, what happened with Allama Iqbal? In his time he was also abused and had to face the charge of being a heretic. On remembering this, my own bewilderment somewhat eased but then something puzzling occurred to me about my being here. I have as much association with the knowledge of poetry as Mahatma Gandhi had with cinema.

Anyway, I should make use of the opportunity that you civilized people have given me and so here goes.

I first became acquainted with Iqbal’s poetry through the bill of a bar I was drinking in. This was about fifteen years ago, when I was depressed with life as I tended to be in those days, and in fact tired of it. One night I was settling the account after having a couple of drinks when I spotted this line on the bill: “Life must be lived with danger.”

It was the timely advice of a fellow drinker perhaps, or the wisdom of the bartender. I must say that today it is different. Even if life itself were to tire of me, I would never be depressed by it. I could wager the most expensive thing on the most dangerous gamble and then square it off for no money at all. That line of Iqbal’s on the bill I agree with.

I became more familiar with his poetry in this same period. A friend gave me a copy of his book,
Bal e Jibreel
(Gabriel’s Wing) and pointed me to the couplet carrying an instruction from god. We read it together and it went:

Arise and wake the poor of my world

End tyranny and bring in the revolution!

In those days Iqbal was thought of as a Bolshevik and an agent of Russia. Today, in this independent Islamic state, the people who repeat this order from god are called Communists. They are tried under laws that prohibit their saying these words. It’s a miracle that Iqbal’s verse has escaped this justice.

The other day brought news that some refugee farmers in Punjab had set fire to a large store of grain. This was after their landlords had stolen the grain from the fields overnight and filled up their silos. It struck me when I read this that it wasn’t necessary for the artist’s message to reach the audience only through books, paintings and songs. When a true artist plucks a string, its vibrations remain for centuries and fill the atmosphere with his message. It reaches out and touches those it was meant for. How else did those illiterate farmers know of this couplet written years ago in Gabriel’s Wing?

The field that cannot feed even its tiller

Burn down every stalk that stands on it.

I’m not qualified to write about Iqbal’s philosophy and don’t want to say anything else. Yes, I have two disappointments which I find necessary to recount. The first one came when a poet of Iqbal’s caliber had to lavish praise on a false prophet. The other one I feel now. Iqbal wrote of the sky and land, the air and sea, of valley and mountain, of star and sun and moon — of all creation — as the inheritance of man. Today even his work is the preserve of a few self-appointed custodians. In our culture, it is common to find custodians of the graveyard. But Iqbal’s verse is alive, not dead. This squatting on his work is, if nothing else, against our traditions.

Iqbal had asked to be granted this wish: “Make my vision common.” This wish, from a pained heart, is sure to come true. But after witnessing it on soap packets, oil tins, hotel bills and laundry lists, it seems to me that though his words have been made common, his vision will take more time. As he himself said:

A diamond may be cut by a flower’s petal but

The naive man isn’t affected by the wise word.

– (Originally published as
Yom-e-Iqbal
)

A Question is Produced

Manto wrote this piece a few months after Partition. We know this because he refers to Gandhi as having passed away and Jinnah (who died only seven months later in September 1948) as still alive. His fondness for Gandhi, something he felt till the end, and his dislike for Jinnah, is apparent here. It is a slightly surreal piece for those who are unfamiliar with why Manto wrote on the subject of questions. The fact is, the ideological State suppressed the individual by denying him the freedom of speech. Manto took this aspect of Pakistan head on. Something was lost while translating this piece, which uses a recurring pun on the word “paida” (born), but I’ve given it a go anyway.

Respectable ladies and gentlemen (and also less-respectable women and men), your attention please!

You are hereby notified that another question has come up. In fact, from the time of Adam till this day, as many questions have been conceived as there are stars in the night sky. But even so, they keep producing themselves.

What I mean to say is that nobody stands up, or indeed sits down, to say that no more questions should be allowed to be produced.

Allah sends down natural disasters to control population explosion. He encourages us to go to war, He creates Pakistan and Akhand Bharat. In doing this, He teaches humans new and innovative methods of birth control.

For some reason, however, He hasn’t turned His attention to the problem of controlling this question explosion. Questions keep producing themselves every-where and could in fact arise any moment. The thing is very fecund. No particular weather, type of soil, water or fertilizer or plough is needed for one to produce itself.

A child is born after spending nine months in the womb, but a question pops out instantly, needing no midwife, no maternity home and no chloroform. It simply presents itself before us: Hello!

A magistrate is smoking in the court. No question arises. The accused, yours truly, is summoned but doesn’t bow to his Lordship. Immediately, the question of contempt of court is produced.

Another example: you find no work and find it difficult to make ends meet. For two years you have struggled and finally give in and decide to kill yourself. You’re fortunate to have failed in this effort. But now a legal question has been produced: why should you not be punished for making the attempt at suicide?

And another: the government has built a ring road and on its entire stretch didn’t think it necessary to erect a urinal. One day you’re just dying to go. You relieve yourself against a wall when a cop gets you. The question of committing an indecent act in public has now been produced.

Yet another: you’re a local refugee (from west Punjab). You’re running a press in Rawalpindi, and another in Peshawar. You’re living in Lahore, where a third, Hindu-owned press is allotted to you. No question is produced.

But say you’re a refugee from the Indian side of Punjab. You’ve left behind a large press in India. You move to Lahore but can find no press there to be given to you. You’re angry and ask why a third press was given to the local man. The question is produced: isn’t he more deserving than you because he’s accustomed to running presses?

One more: thieves strike six times in your house in one month. You’ve not gone to the police — why bother them with trifles? But they find out anyway. The question now produces itself: why did you refrain from doing an important duty?

Uncomfortable questions have been produced and more will surely be born. In the last century, the question kept arising whether the Mughal state would be overthrown. And so, on every page of its history you’ll find men, great historical figures, with their necks through this noose of a single question: will the Mughal state survive?

In Amritsar’s Jallianwala Bagh, people of all faiths came together for freedom. The question again was produced of overthrowing the State, and thousands of people answered that question with their lives.

Questions are usually dangerous — those that arise in the minds of rulers and in the minds of the ruled.

For the ruler usually only a single question arises (though it can appear in different versions): what can be done to control the ruled? And the question arises whether by doing this, whatever is done, the sentiment of the ruled towards the ruler will be suppressed.

Experience tells us that laws and Acts and such things have always been unsuccessful during suppression. But why? See, another question has popped out.

Of course, it’s not necessary that every question should have an answer. The real question is: what is the proper thing to do? If it is to remain silent, then undoubtedly politicians would not speak. Here the question is whether this silence might provoke seditious talk among some people. But then again, why not just get rid of all such men? And another question comes up. By doing this, which in English is called a “purge”, is it guaranteed that the others will be silenced? Or will the purge produce a reaction in them?

The French philosopher, J J Rousseau was troubled by this question: when man is born free, why is he in chains everywhere? But what became of this line of thought? In cutting off their chains, didn’t the French cut down a few human beings as well. The question is: was such a revolution moral?

And what happened in Russia? The slaves of centuries rose with the question of freedom. And then? They then enslaved the Tsar and his family and finally executed them. The question arises: what right do the ruled have, over some small question, to sacrifice their ruler?

But what is to be done? Whether questions are small or big, thin or fat, the damn things just keep producing themselves. Elders tell us that the questions that are produced in the mind can be answered by the intellect, but not those produced by the body. For example, the question of hunger has come up in a man’s stomach. If you reply to his question with sympathy, dreams of a better future and thoughts of paradise where grapes automatically squeeze their nectar into his mouth, you’ll get nowhere with him. Because the stomach demands an immediate reply to its question about food.

The question here is — when all of us know this, why do we approach the question of hunger and poverty in other ways? It’s a serious question.

And then there are silly questions, which don’t really deserve an answer but have your attention in any case. I was at a saloon the other day getting a shave. While the barber was lathering me up, he came up with this: ‘So do you think Gandhiji shaved himself or got someone to do it for him?’

Whether a man is a barber or cobbler, butcher or baker, millionaire or pauper, these questions will keep producing themselves and there’s no known way of applying birth control to them.

Yesterday, I wondered: when Adam came into being, what did he feel? And forget us adults, even children come up with some beauties every so often. We’re all familiar with, ‘Mother, where did I come from?’

What about, ‘Father, do male pigeons massage female pigeons?’

Two little kids peeped into a locked room through the window and the question popped out: ‘Why do they tell us it’s bad to go about with naked feet when...’

Even the most illiterate minds produce a question. I was at a kabab stall on McLeod Road the other day. A man said: ‘I’ve heard that Caliph Umar would sweep the floor of the local mosque in his neighbourhood. Do you think Jinnah also does this?’

And a beggar was heard saying: ‘I want to ask Jinnah if his Islamic state means that I wear these rags while he dons spanking new jackets.’

It’s obvious that these questions are akin to blasphemy. But what can be done? Questions produce themselves automatically whether
halal
or
haram
. Sometimes the same question is produced in the minds of thousands at the same time. These days most people are thinking whether the business of Pakistan’s government is governance or mischief. Others among us phrase the question in a slightly different way: ‘Nawab Mamdot. Nawab Daultana. But wasn’t this supposed to be an egalitarian state?’

In Pakistan today the following questions have produced themselves:

Should women cover themselves?

If yes, what about nurses?

Should women wear their hair in one pigtail or two?

Is it fine for women to walk confidently?

Should women mount a horse wearing a shalwar or a sari?

While on the subject of women, another question produces itself. A bearded woman goes to the maulvis and asks: ‘So what is the proper thing for me to do? Am I to keep this beard? If so, how long? And should I shave off the hair on my upper lip?’

One question that’s produced in the minds of our leaders concerns the 50,000 girls who were left behind during Partition and are being used by the enemy. The leaders have been troubled by this for nine months. It’s possible that along with the question of those 50,000 girls, another 50,000 little questions will be produced (in fact a few thousands may have already been produced.)

– (Originally published as
Sawaal Paida Hota Hai)