Faiz gets their goat again, this time in Maharashtra

The poetry of Faiz Ahmed Faiz has long been a red rag for the right-wing in India. Even more so after students at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) made the rousing lines of ‘Bol ke lab azad hain tere’ echo across the country, during the famous and fateful CAA protests of January 2020.

The opening lines of the nazm ‘Bol ke lab azad hain tere/ Bol zabaan ab tak teri hai (Speak, for your lips are free/ Speak, your tongue is still your own)’ infuriated the powers that be so much that reciting the poem was deemed an act of treason.

Another Faiz poem, (written in 1979 when the poet was living in exile in Beirut, and made famous by Iqbal Bano when she sang it in a black sari in 1985 to defy the oppressive regime of Gen. Zia-ul-Haq in Pakistan) became quite the anthem during the 2019 anti-CAA protests, spiralling out of Shaheen Bagh and spreading like wildfire across several states.

It, therefore, came as no surprise when the police registered a case of sedition against Pushpa Sathidar, wife of late Marathi actor and activist Vira Sathidar after a memorial meeting in Nagpur, the home district of chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and the headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Vira won national recognition for his film Court, which was India’s official entry for the Oscars in 2016. He died in 2021 and Pushpa has since been organising an annual memorial.

What triggered the complaint was both the event and the poem recited by Uttam Jagirdar, an activist affiliated with the Ambedkarite Samata Kala Manch. Jagirdar was openly critical of the controversial but yet-to-be-passed Maharashtra Special Public Safety Bill, 2024.

Championed by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who argues that a stringent law is needed to counter ‘urban Naxals’, the Bill has drawn widespread criticism from public intellectuals and rights activists.

The fact that the speaker referenced Hum Dekhenge and drew parallels between Pakistan under Zia-ul-Haq and the current political climate in India was enough. A clip of the speech in which he says India is going through a fascist phase was aired by a Marathi TV channel, and all hell broke loose.

“At a time when our troops were valiantly fighting the Pakistani army, radical leftists in Nagpur were busy singing Faiz,” the complainant fumed. He even quoted the line ‘Sab takht giraye jayenge’, reading it as an open call to rebellion.

**

For those who may take heart in those rousing lines:

जब ज़ुल्म-ओ-सितम के कोह-ए-गिराँ 
रूई की तरह उड़ जाएँगे

(When the mountains of tyranny/ Will be blown away like cotton wool)

[…]

सब ताज उछाले जाएँगे 
सब तख़्त गिराए जाएँगे

(When the crowns will be tossed/ And the thrones brought down)

[…]

बस नाम रहेगा अल्लाह का 
जो ग़ाएब भी है हाज़िर भी 
जो मंज़र भी है नाज़िर भी 
उट्ठेगा अनल-हक़ का नारा 
जो मैं भी हूँ और तुम भी हो 
और राज करेगी ख़ल्क़-ए-ख़ुदा 
जो मैं भी हूँ और तुम भी हो

(All idols will be cast out

From the House of God

And we, the pure and faithful,

Will reclaim what was ours.

The chant will rise: I am the Truth!

And you shall see, yes—

We shall see)

****

No arrests have been made yet, but police report that they are actively recording statements from those who attended the event. Interesting times for the state, with the Sangh pouncing on the legacies of both Phule and Faiz.

Teaching Marathi with ‘love’

Whoever heard of a political party teaching outsiders to deal with the local language? That is exactly what the Shiv Sena (UBT) led by Uddhav Thackeray has undertaken. Amid reports of delivery boys and bank employees abused and beaten up for their inability to speak Marathi in Maharashtra, the Sena has launched an initiative to arrange free Marathi lessons for the thousands who arrive here in search of work.

This has not only stopped the aggressive by Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) but has allowed Uddhav’s men to reach out to the large number of people from other states who are registered voters but have not yet picked up the local language.

Shiv Sena (UBT) spokesperson Anand Dubey, who is supervising the programme, says the initiative was launched on 13 April and has been received well. Besides workers employed in the private sector, the party is targeting fruit and vegetable sellers, taxi and auto-rickshaw drivers, among others. People who have to interact with local residents, he says, can learn the language as per their convenience. The teaching and training would be done with “love”, says Dubey.

Call it a gimmick or a smart political move, the initiative ahead of the BMC elections is almost certainly aimed at garnering both goodwill and votes. Only time will tell if it will continue after the election is done and dusted. Similar attempts in the past were short-lived. Dubey and his team emphasise that learning Marathi is fairly straightforward, and people can begin speaking it in a relatively short time.

Dhananjay Kumar from Bihar, a motor mechanic in Badlapur, says he learnt to speak Marathi in a month or so. His clients see him as one of their own and he has faced no discrimination.

CJI B.R. Gavai

CJI a ‘permanent state guest’ !

To sidestep an awkward situation triggered by Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai’s recent reminder that he expected the state government to , Maharashtra has now designated the CJI as a ‘permanent state guest’ — whatever that might mean. The same notification also lays down the protocol to be followed when the CJI visits the state.

Almost certainly prompted by the need to save face, the notification states that the CJI would be received by the chief secretary, the DGP and Mumbai’s police commissioner. This was already the established protocol, yet none of the three officials were present to receive Justice Gavai in Mumbai on his first visit to the state after taking oath as CJI.

The CJI was gracious in treating the issue as closed. The officials had apologised and that was the end of the matter, he said. However, bureaucratic circles are still abuzz. Certain reports claimed that all three officials were busy monitoring BJP’s ‘Tiranga Yatra’ post- Operation Sindoor. Could all three have decided to give the CJI’s arrival a miss of their own volition is the question being asked. Is it even possible that all three were unaware of the CJI’s first visit to his home state?

The CJI made it clear that while he is not particularly concerned about protocol, he felt compelled to highlight the lapse as it signalled a certain disrespect towards the judiciary. That Justice Gavai is a Buddhist and a Dalit was not missed by anyone. All three officials were dutifully present, however, when the CJI visited Chaityabhoomi in Dadar, the site of Babasaheb Ambedkar’s cremation.