Patriotic Pakistanis, exiled poets or unwelcome refugees?: three Urdu poets write of Partition and its aftermath

Abstract

This chapter looks at the literary and political complexities that Urdu poets faced owing to the 1947 Partition of the Indian subcontinent. The discussion focuses on three Urdu poets who came to live in Pakistan (or, at that time, West Pakistan). A poem by each of the poets that engages with Partition and its aftermath is examined. The poets are Faiz Ahmed Faiz (1911-1984), Josh Malihabadi (1898-1982) and Fahmida Riaz (b. 1946). Faiz, Josh and Riaz write in redrawn landscapes as they seek to relocate their creativity in different spaces, and engage with history, exile and memory. All three are Urdu poets who are considered Pakistani poets; yet they were all born in undivided India. Each had a different experience of Partition; those experiences are reflected in poetry and in reputation. Are they patriots, exiles or refugees – or were they all three at some time or another? These three poets’ creative perceptions contribute to the cultural and political understanding of the division between Pakistan and India, and underline why that understanding is of the utmost importance and urgency today. Before the discussion turns to the individual poets, it is worthwhile to think briefly about the genesis of the idea of dividing the Indian subcontinent, and about some of the initial consequences of the division. It was, in fact, a poet who first broached the idea of Pakistan in a public forum. Allama Muhammad Iqbal (1878-1938) spoke on December 30, 1931 at the annual session of the All India Muslim League in Allahabad. He was then the subcontinent’s leading Muslim philosopher, and a poet in Persian and Urdu. Knighted by the British almost a decade earlier, his words carried both an immense political and poetic weight. In his presidential address to the Muslim League, Iqbal said:I would like to see the Punjab, North West Frontier province, Sind and Balochistan amalgamated into a single state. Self-Government within the British Empire or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India.