The elites in our society have the ability to first co-opt and then eulogise icons of resistance once the brand of resistance signified by those individuals has been overcome. Their institutions have a knack for first appropriating and then mutating the ideas of resistance once the power of these ideas is subdued. Therefore, something we must never forget is the treatment meted out to the living poets and writers who contest the established social norms, the exclusive political system, the oppressive economic order and muzzling of free speech.

There is hardly anyone significant who was not treated shabbily and either mentally or physically tormented over the 70 years of our existence as a country. Saadat Hasan Manto, who towers above the rest in Urdu prose, was the first to be taken to task. He faced one court case after another for being obscene and anti-social. His writings were dissected and he was disgraced by the custodians of good literature and public morality. In 1955, he died at the age of 42 after being subjected to a hand-to-mouth existence for the last few years of his life. When Manto was going through his trials and tribulations, the iconic Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz was jailed under the charge of participating in a conspiracy aimed at overthrowing the government. With some respite from his suffering for a few years in the 1970s, he was mostly seen as a threat to the political and economic order and branded a Soviet agent.

Mir Gul Khan Naseer (1914-1983), master poet and Balochi-language writer who occasionally wrote in Urdu and Persian as well, was a champion of the rights of Balochistan as well as of oppressed people anywhere in the world. He was politically active from his teenage and spent a total of 15 years in prison during his lifetime. He is renowned for composing motivating verse for the Baloch against subjugation, imperialism and class exploitation.

Born in the same year as Naseer was the leading Pashto poet Ghani Khan. The content of his poetry is not entirely political, but Khan’s association with the rights movement landed him in jail several times. His intellectual prowess challenged the set patterns of thinking and the established order within and outside Pashtun society.

Shaikh Ayaz, born a decade later than Naseer and Khan, is the most prominent and celebrated poet of the Sindhi language in the 20th century. He could not avoid the wrath of the coercive arm of the state either. Equally known for his absorbing prose in Sindhi and some exquisite verse in Urdu, Ayaz’s memoirs of the time he spent in Sahiwal Jail form a part of the essential reading for writers and political workers alike. For a long time his views were taken to be as challenging the integrity and sovereignty of the state. Also from Sindh is the formidable Urdu poet and writer Fahmida Riaz who belongs to the generation of poets coming after Ayaz — those who were born around or just after the creation of Pakistan. She was initially branded obscene and immoral because of the strong feminist content of her work and was also declared a traitor. A television programme was even aired against her highlighting how she hatched her anti-state conspiracies. That is something her predecessors were spared from. May Riaz live long, but her condition reflects what she has suffered at the hands of the state and society at large for most part of her life.

Habib Jalib was born in 1928 and died in 1993. His directness and simplicity address the common folk. He was in and out of prison and could barely make ends meet for challenging power and struggling for democracy and socialism through his poetry. There are so many others who suffered when alive or continue to suffer even today — writing in languages ranging from Shina and Burushaski to Punjabi and Seraiki. But what I find ironic is that we now issue a stamp to commemorate Manto, create a fad about Faiz, institute awards in the name of Naseer and Ayaz, name a park after Khan and decorate Jalib with the highest civilian honour.

The writer is a poet and essayist based in Islamabad

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, June 15th, 2018