Bulleh Shah, reviled and denigrated in his life, is now venerated to the point of being worshipped in his homeland and beyond. He is read, quoted and sung all across the north of subcontinent in a state of ecstasy in a never-ending intellectual and spiritual resistance against orthodoxy and its dictates. He is an inseparable part of repertoire no Qawaal, classical vocalist, folk-singer, even pop artist can afford to part with.

Reason? Audiences! People in the Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and Jammu Kashmir want the sound of music galvanised with his verses which carry manifest and hidden fire. What fire or fire of what, one may ask. It is fire of angst and anguish that compels him to expose all that’s sublime and mundane, and sacred and profane. You, for example, rarely find a poet in mystic/Sufi tradition who craves for hidden unity/oneness and having found it circumvents it in order to embrace diversity with its serendipitous gifts.

At times Bulleh Shah [1680-1758] resembles Karl Marx, as he in his unending quest like the latter seems to ‘doubt even his doubts’. His literary tool is exposé which he uses like a scalpel to make ruthless incisions on the sick limb that human society has become. His mordant wit lays all bare showing how things in a moribund social structure have turned into their opposites.

Major theme in his poetic exploration is the question of human identity which in the context of historical conditions of his time assumes the dimensions of a social and spiritual crisis. In the 18th century a sizable segment of peasantry led by chieftains were aggressively asserting their new Sikh identity, Marathas were proudly flaunting their ancient caste-based identity wrapped in the colour of resurgent nationalism and a semi-alien Muslim identity espoused by Mughal aristocracy, which had already faded into insignificance, was hopelessly failing to integrate the Muslim converts with those ensconced in the enfeebled power structure.

Last but not least was the ferocious invasions from outside aimed at crippling the enervated Mughal and eliminating rising Sikhs and crushing fired-up Marathas. In this chaos bordering on anarchy it was a kind of all against all. In other words it was, apart from power struggle, a war of identities which was being fought with no holds barred. In this situation the Mughal Empire was out against the Sikhs and Marathas and was burdened with the additional task of warding off predatory foreign invaders. Sikhs and Marathas were fighting Mughal as well the foreign invaders besides being engaged in their internecine conflicts. And foreign invaders were striking at all three, Mughal, Sikhs and Marathas.

It’s not surprising when Bulleh Shah angrily sighs: “Now the hell has opened its bogs/ Punjab has gone to the dogs [trans-Taufiq Rafat]”. In such a conflagration ignited by conflicting demands of a group of disparate identities, it won’t be unusual for a sensitive poet to take up the issue of human identity as one of his main concerns. And whenever you are faced with the question of identity in the context of subcontinent, you have to inevitably deal with the deeply imprinted phenomenon of caste, the bane of our ancient society.

Bulleh Shah is very upfront about his intent to tackle the issue of caste distinctions; he would like Lord Buddha and Guru Nanak reject caste hierarchy in its entirety as ill-conceived and inhuman. His view stands in a contrast to the attitude of his immediate successor Waris Shah, the bard of the Punjab.

Bulleh Shah and Waris Shah both apparently share the same respectable Arab lineage. The former strikes at the very roots of caste in existential terms while the latter castigating other castes shows unusually soft corner for his own clan of which he seems to be proud to chagrin of many.

Bulleh Shah follows in the footsteps of Guru Nanak who says; “I am the lowest of the lowly [Neechi haun utt neech]”. When he accepted Anayat Qadari as his spiritual Guru, he was subjected to taunts by his family and clan. They derided him as to why he being a Syed genuflected to Shah Anayat, his mentor, who was from Arain clan. Now in the caste hierarchy of South Asian Muslims a Syedis like a Brahman and an Arian like a Vaishya, for reasons right and wrong. He vociferously condemns attitude driven by caste biases: “Ever female from near and afar/ turned up to brief Bulleh/ Listen Bulleh, they said, it’s a sin to condemn the prophet’s kin…[trans- Taufiq Rafat]---Let anyone who calls me a Syed be punished with the tortures of hell /And let him revel in the pleasures of heaven who labels me an Arain…If you seek the pleasures of spring, become a slave of the Arian…[trans- Nazir Ahmed]”.

One can’t be more categorical in the rejection of caste hierarchy; the so- called high caste puffed up with self-importance is threatened with hellfire. He goes a step further and identifies with the wretched of the earth, the outcast. “I’ m just a sweepress/…Being untouchable, none comes near me, but I’mon the way, I do not care/ What’s my pay after a hard day’s grind? A hard pillow, and what you leave behind /This is my life: cold, and sickness and scorn; an empty stomach, clothes that are torn/ The straws of my broom are all that own/ I’ m just a sweepress…[trans- Taufiq Rafat]”.

Dalit sweepress is outside the four fold Varna system of Hindu society and thus untouchable whose mere touch can pollute a caste Hindu. Bulleh Shah’s critique of caste though strident is not new in the literary and cultural tradition of the Punjab; Guru Nanak and his successors, and Shah Hussain before him emphatically insisted on human equality. His lyrics in-question seems to have been inspired by similar verses of Shah Hussain, an almost word for word borrowing in fact. His way of dealing with the crisis of human identity is first to expose the hollowness of the false identities and demolish them in order to discover the core of what’s human which sets us apart from other creatures. He shows ample moral courage to happily discard all the privileges associated with his own caste and clan in the interest of his intellectual integrity that abhors compromises. His pronounced rejection of high and mighty on the higher rungs of caste ladder and seamless association with the lowly makes him not only a spiritual revolutionary but also people’s darling.

People, he says, are here to see the spectacle and people love it when they see him demolishing what needs to be demolished to regain and enhance human dignity. — soofi01@hotmail.com

Note: Death anniversary [Urs] of the poet is celebrated in the 2nd week of month of Bhadon [August 16 to September 14].

Published in Dawn, August 26th, 2019