Let me give vent to a feeling of jealousy brewing in me for long. As we all know, independent India and Pakistan were born at one and the same time. But the problem of a national identity is peculiar to us alone. I as a Pakistani writer feel envious of my contemporaries in India, who may have other kinds of problems but were never seen perturbed about their national identity, Pakistan is going to complete its fifty years in the coming year, but the problem of identity with us is still there.
Allow me to look at the problem as it cropped
up among the writers and soon turned into a subject of controversy. Those were
early days of Pakistan when urdu writers were seen on both sides of the Divide
enjaged in writing about the the human miseries caused by the holocaust coming
in the wake of Partition. A few writers with their zeal for Pakistan, felt
disturbed to see that writers in Pakistan too were writing with the same
attitude towards Partition and the subsequent situation, which was the hall
mark of fiction and poetry being written in india. Foremost among writers reacting against this
prevalent attitude were Dr Taseer, Mohammad Hassan Askari and Mumtaz Shrin.
Their reaction led to the theory of ‘Pakistani Adab’ with Askari as its chief
exponent, who zealously argued that literature in Pakistan should emerge with a
character distinct from that literature in India.
This idea was unpalatable to the Progressive
Writers Movement. Its reaction was given voice by a progressive poets Ahmad
Riaz, who wrote: “Kaun Karsakta hai taqseem adab ki jagir,” that the domain of
literature is indivisible.
This sharp reaction triggered off a heated
controversy centering round the question as to how we will define Pakistani
literature as distinct from literature produced in India. And the controversy
soon gave birth to the question of identity. What after all is our identity,
that was the question. Let me here quote from Faiz. “You well remember” he said
“the idea that worked as the basis of pakistan; that we are a separate nation,
so we have a right to have a separate homeland, and that weare a separate
nation, because we have a separate culture. At that time none of us cared to
ask what we should have asked from ourselves. But now we have chosen to ask
from ourselves as to what is that we claim to be our separate culture.”
Herein lies the secret of our national
identity, if any, as culture, according to Faiz had made these remarks in 1968
while delivering a series of lecture on the problem of Culture in Azad Kashmir.
But as hinted above, we had began asking this question soon after the emergence
of Pakistan Allied with it were a few more questions. Are we a new nation born
on 14th August, 1947 on an old one. If old, how old. Should we trace
our history from the day Mohammad Bin Qasim entered this land or from the times
Mohenjodaro and Harappa. Does our culture originate from Islam or from our
land. If it is land based, why should we try to own Muslim relics on India
Apart from the controversy centering round
these questions in the intellectual circles, peoples in different walks of life were so fond in
those days of calling themselves a newly born nation little caring for the implications
it involved. Mohammad Hasan Askari warned about the dangers this assertion
being of being new carried with it and prophesied that “if we forget the aspect
of oldness of Pakistan, we will not be able to keep East Pakistan and West
Pakistan within one state for long”.
And he explained the aspect of oldness of
Pakistan in terms of a nation with its tradition evolved during the process of
centuries. But the idea of being born a new had a magic of its own. We see even
Faiz asserting that “With the partition of the subcontinent a new country came
into existence and a new nation was born – Pakistan nation.
And he set to define the culture of this new
nation, and while attempting this, he did not mind on embarking on journey of
Mohenjo-Daro, Harappa and Taxila. However, Faiz is seen taking a middle
position. On one extremes were those holding the view that culture is something
wholly and solely rooted in the land, and hence each region in Pakistan has a
culture of its own with no unifying force to integrate these separate cultural
entities or nationalities on a higher national level. On the other end were
those who laid stress on the concept of a national culture to the extent that
everything regional appeared to them to be negating what is national from their
point of view. There was also a third extremist group, which stood for a pure
Islamic culture. They branded as un-Islamic all other factors which constitutes
a culture.
Faiz readily dismissed those different
extremist versions of culture. But there was one more version of Pakistani
culture drawing its sustenance from Muslim history in the sub-continent.
Mohammad Hasan Askari, as has been pointed out earlier, explained it in terms
of traditions evolved in the process of centuries and designated it as
Indo-Islamic culture. JameelJalibi likes to call it Indo-Muslim, which is an
attempt to lay stress more on the historical process than on its Islamic
purity, he has also taken care while analyzing it, to accommodate regional
culture within its fold. “Regions” he says “are integral parts of national culture”,
but that they, in his opinion, should contribute to the collective soul of
nation.
According
to prof Gilani Kamran’s analysis as [presented in his book “Qaumkitashkeelaur
Urdu zaban”], it was during the centuries of Muslim rule in India that a new
culture emerged and took the shape now known as Indo-Islamic culture. It was
this culture, which according to him, helped Indian Muslim to have an awareness
of their national identity and make a demand for Pakistan. This identity, he
says, emerged in consequences of a common history, a common culture
consciousness, and a common heritage.
But Salim
Ahmed wondered that after we succeeded in getting recognized as a separate
nation on the basis of a common history and a common culture and achieved
Pakistan, we are being told that, we are not a nation and that we have no
common culture. 6. I agree with the analysis made by Gilani Kamran and I have a
deep regard for the sentiments of Salim Ahmed even, I will dare ask a question.
Why was
it that this identity, which worked as the basis for the basis for the demand
of Pakistan, becomes controversial immediately after the birth of Pakistan. Why
was it Quaid-e-Azam M.A. Jinnah during the years of the movement went on
asserting a separate Muslim identity with its roots in a common culture and, as
Faiz has pointed out, nobody cared to raise question about this common culture.
What went wrong with us that the question of this nature cropped up after we
had achieved Pakistan. To say that the intellectuals had been misled by the
propaganda campaign launched by the enemies of Pakistan does not appear to be a
very sound explanation. Perhaps the explanation lies somewhere in the
historical process which came to an end with birth of Pakistan. We in fact were
interlocked in a love-hate relationship with the Hindus. For centuries we has
fought against them and had made peace with them. We abhorred their religious
rites, their “pooja” and designated all this as “kufr”. And yet we felt
attracted to their age-old cultural patterns, to the colorfulness of their
rituals. In this situation with two opposing forces, that of repulsion and
attraction working side by side, we influenced them and were in turn influenced
by them. Thus living among Hindus, who were in majority, the Muslim in India
felt a pull toward their awareness of their cultural existence distinct from
them. The more wise among them justified that influence they had absorbed in
the process by saying that “kufr kuch chaheay Islam ki raunaq kayliey”.
Such was
our identity, for the awareness of which we were indebted to the Hindus. With
the sudden elimination of the Indian context and the Hindus, we lost our
cultural balance and pour identity grew blurred, the nation called Indian
Muslims, which had created this homeland, itself underwent the process of
partition. The part of the nation secure in Pakistan developed the feeling of
being a newly born nation.
It was
now that our regional consciousness, which had remained subdue during the
movement years, came to the fore-front. The exponents of this consciousness
made attempts to discover roots of their country in Mohenjo-Daro, Harappa and
Taxila. With the elimination of Hindus from our society, it appeared to these
intellectuals so easy to seek relationship and take pride in the Aryan and
pre-Aryan past of the land. Prof Karkar Husain, on the other hand, opined that
what we have dug out from our soil, backs the historical continuity, which is
so necessary for establishment of a cultural tradition.
But Ahmed
Nadeem Qasmi, while on a visit to Mohenjo-Daro discovered historical continuity
in the bullock cart creeping on the dusty road of Mohenjo-Daro, reminding him
of what he had just seen in the museum.
But as
pointed out by Faiz, there is a snag in it. If we begin our history from
Mohenjo-Daro, we will, according to him, be compelled to own the succeeding
periods of history which include the period of Brahman culture, the period of
Buddhist culture, and the period of Greek culture, and in consequences we will
have to accommodate Ashok, Chandr Gupt, Alexander the Great, Raja Pours and
Raja Risaloo among our heroes. What in the end is left is a tiny part of
history which separates us from Hindus.
This
situation compelled Faiz to say good bye to his Marxist friends’ concept of
Pakistani history and culture. And he declared in unequivocal terms that “our
religion is the basis of our culture”.
Mohenjodaro and Harappa. And with the help of historical process in
Muslims India he discovered two strong cultural links between the two wings-the
architectural of the mosques and mausoleums and the dish of “pulao”.
But after the separation of East Pakistan,
our poet did not care to remember such cultural links which took birth and
developed under the historical process in the Muslim period throughout India.
Or perhaps because of being a poet, he doesn’t believe in being consistent in
his arguments. He himself emphatically said that frontiers of culture are not
always synonymous with the frontiers of the state,12 and he declared in
unequivocal term :It goes without doubt that Delhi, Agra, Mir and Ghalib are
parts of our cultural heritage. The same can be said about Samarqand, Bukhara,
Hafiz, Saadi and Roomi.
But the poet takes no time in changing his
position and advises us to differentiate between what we find on our land and
what lies beyond our land: “of course we have close links with Tajmahal, Lal
Qila, Samarqand, and Bukhara, but they are not our property. Mohenjo-Daro on
other hand, Is our property. So is Sehwan Shrif, Taxila, Lahore, Multan and
Khyber”.
Let me quote here a comment from Dr. Wazir
Agha, who said that Samarqand and Bukhara have only been formally named here.
“The real intention is to strike out Red Fort and Taj Mahal from the cultural
heritage of Pakistan,” and adds “but immediately after saying thus he perhaps
realized that he had said not behave like a frog in well . We should not try to
disown what has become a part of culture. But is he not contradicting himself.
What after all does he want to say”.
I have nothing to add to these remarks by Dr
Wazir Agha. But he has said something more, and that seems to me a very same
comment on the cultural controversy In Pakistan. He says that “with the
emergence of new political frontiers, a kind of cultural anarchy seems
inevitable.” 16
He is right. It is state of cultural anarchy
we are living in. but perhaps the Urdu word ‘ghadar’ used by Wazir Agha is more
apt here. And in times of ‘ghadar’ we hardly except from anyone to talk sense.
Faiz, whom we had accepted as the most sensible man among us (I mean the
writers), suggested a way out from Siqafai ghadar or cultural anarchy. “Let us
scrutinize. He said: the cultural fragments scatter around us and carve out
from them prescriptions of cultures, which is around us and carve out from them
prescription of a culture, which is distinctly Pakistani”. (17) Good
suggestion. But I was reminded of a profound statement by Eliot. He was
discussing culture in his own European context. He expressed his apprehension
that if Christianity goes, the whole of our culture goes. And he adds “Then you
must start pain- fully again, and you cannot put on a new culture readymade.
You must wade for the grass to grow to feed the sheep to give the wool out of
which your new coat will be made. You must pass thoroughly many centuries of
barbarism.” 18
So the prescription recommended by Faiz is
fine. But, alas, it is unworkable, so with the alternative left with us wait
for the grass to grow. Our identity at present lies in our craving for an
identity.
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