LAHORE: Moneeza Hashmi says the Faiz Ahmed Faiz Ward in the Central Jail Sahiwal has pictures of Faiz, and memorabilia, including his books and letters donated by the Faiz Foundation. It was inaugurated on the occasion of Harappa Literary Festival. About 100 literary figures attended the opening of the museum.

“I went there (Sahiwal Jail) after about 69 years as I last went there when I was six years old,” she said in a session on Faiz Ahmed Faiz Ward in the Sahiwal (Montgomery) Jail on the last day of the Faiz Festival on Sunday. Other panellists included Dr Nasir Abbas Nayyar and Dr Riaz Hamdani.

The session played a video recorded on the inauguration of Faiz Ahmed Faiz Ward. The video had a man singing Mujh Sey Pehli Si Mohabbat Meri Mehboob Nah Maang, the famous poem of Faiz, in the background in a very melodious but sad voice.

Moneeza said the poem was sung by a prisoner of the Sahiwal Jail and his singing moved her a lot. Dr Nayyar said he had met the prisoner singing the Faiz’ poem, who was a murder convict, and came to know that he was an amateur singer facing a life term. He said turning the erstwhile Gora Ward into the Faiz Ward was a historic move. He endorsed Faiz was not in the Sahiwal Jail due to the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case, as his jail term in Sahiwal was the conspiracy against progressive writers. Establishing Faiz Ward at the Gora Ward was a step to realise the suppression of the time and to feel the pain of the iconic Urdu poet. A visit to the ward was just like revisiting what Faiz might have felt during the days he spent there. “Some great literature of the world has been produced in the jail and Faiz’s Zindaan Namah and Dast-e-Saba were a part of that,” he said and added that Faiz was accompanied by Capt Khizar Hayat and Maj Ishaq in the jail.

“I was a seven years old child when I used to roam around this place (the jail shown in the video). I was allowed to roam around as I could not sit still. My mother and sister used to be in the room, meeting my father (Faiz) and I used to hang out outside,” Moneeza said.

In the video, she is seen saying that she would insist on her father to give her a doll on her birthday, not realising that her father could not give her a doll while being in jail.

Dr Riaz Hamdani, the director of the Sahiwal Arts Council, said: “A cultural conference was held in Sahiwal in 2018 and I took all the delegates to Harappa. The next year we had to arrange another edition of the conference and I thought of a different place to take our delegates to. We thought of taking the delegates to visit Sahiwal Jail due to Faiz.”

Mr Hamdani added that it was hard to do, given the security at the jail, but the then deputy commissioner cooperated with the arts council a lot and he also took interest in it. It was ready on the next edition of the conference, he said and added that he remembered how moved Moneeza was when she visited the jail to execute the plan to launch the museum.

ECONOMY: A session was held on the Politics of Economics in Pakistan: An Alternative Perspective, moderated by Dr Haroon Shareef.

Dr Hadia Majid said the World Bank published a report on productivity some weeks back, showing that Pakistan’s labour was added 40pc more value compared to 30 years back but that’s far less compared to Polish and Vietnamese workforce.

“In 1990, Vietnam’s economy looked more like what our economy looks today. However, they were able to completely transform (their economy) while we could not do that,” she said and pointed out only 20pc labour force participation by women compared to 78pc men in Pakistan. Regarding women participation in labour force she said, “We stand at the lowest in the region except for Afghanistan”. However, she added that more women workers were involved in the informal sector, which remained uncounted. She lamented that women were trained in traditional skills, but not in skills which could add more value to the labour and products.

Dr Shareef said that many years back he was involved in a survey to find out the top three areas in which women could be trained. “Seventy percent women in peri-urban and urban areas opted for opening a beauty parlour while we thought it might be IT etc.”

He added that during the Benazir era, the lady health workers’ programme was introduced and the women were more than willing to work against a meager stipend as it gave them mobility and payment.

“If we want to revive our economy we have to change the postcolonial system of taxation and have more participation of women in production.”

Dr Shareef said our exports were less as compared to imports because 20 years back, if we were exporting things worth 100USD and importing products worth 125USD, “today our exports are of the same value, but our imports are at 250USD.”

Shareef pointed out that Vietnam was a security state in the past, but it changed its policies and flourished and Malaysia did the same.

Dr Ali Hasnain said there was a shortage of dollars in the country due to the anti-export virus. “Our economy is 350bn USD, but we are now begging for 1bn USD. Since 1947, we have been getting foreign aid for the Afghan War, War on Terror and then CPEC. We have been covering the shortage of dollar artificially, but now the world is not ready to give us loans.”

There were fears that inflation would be 35pc this year, which meant that an average income would go down by one-third, Hasnain said, painting a gloomy picture of the days to come.

Dr Ikramul Haq also spoke.

Published in Dawn, February 20th, 2023