5. Pakistan and the PWA
It should also be pointed out that members of the Halqa not only admired Faiz’s poetry but published it regularly in their journal ‘Adabi Duniya’ although NM Rashid once commented with biting criticism that he did not believe that literature required a ‘music director’ or adherence to a certain set of beliefs.
Both groups admired the others’ works and even helped at times. Thus the unofficial leader of the ‘modernists’, NM Rashid wrote the foreword to Faiz’s first published collection and dedicated his collection ‘Mavra’ to his friend and ideological rival. The foreword to ‘Mavra’ was written by none other than the leader of the Punjab section of the PWA, Krishen Chander. Upendranath Ashk, another stalwart of the PWA, dedicated one of his short stories to Rashid.
Faiz, as a progressive, paid little heed to traditions and rules. As we have seen, during the 1938 conference, Faiz was completely serene in the face of the chaos of holding the conference amidst a peasant gathering. The noise and disorder between the sessions did not bother Faiz one bit. For him, the presence of the peasants was entirely in line with the founding principles of the PWA of bringing literature to the people. For Faiz, what was important was the work, not the credit. He always differentiated between the ‘movement’ of which he considered himself a part and the ‘organization’ towards which he always had a logical and dialectical approach. In his own words, organizations form and fall away but movements continue. He acknowledged the obvious, that the PWA did not invent progressivism; it merely gave it shape according to the needs of the time.
With the passage of time, differences of opinion arose within the organization. Some artists, chafing against its ideological direction and perceiving it as limiting their creative expression and freedom of thought dissociated themselves from it. Faiz remained aloof from these clashes, he had never paid heed to rules imposed ‘from above’ anyway. He continued experimenting with different poetic forms, writing verses that painted the world in new and delicately beautiful ways and gathering admirers in droves. He never confined his poetry to ‘socially relevant’ themes alone though there remained a strong undercurrent of the pain and longing of ordinary people in all his work. He also believed strongly in the union of all democratic, progressive forces, no matter which ideological school they belonged to. He was convinced that only such a united front could roll back the forces of reaction and evil and he believed the PWA to be such a front.
The mission of the PWA became especially complicated after the division of India and the formation of Pakistan. The PWA had come into being as a broad national vanguard with a core political purpose of defeating British Imperialism. It included writers, poets and artists of many political persuasions all of whom were united in their fervent desire for independence. After this was accomplished, the organization, along with the nation, split into its Indian and Pakistani counterparts. Unlike Pakistan which was faced, immediately, with economic ruin and resulting political and social unrest, the situation in India was relatively settled. As a result of Pakistan’s dilemma, there was in the organization a difference of opinion about how to proceed on the artistic front. As described above, most of the founders and leaders of the PWA believed in socialist ideals and were proponents of social change on the model of the former Soviet Union which, at that time, served as a beacon of hope for all colonial and oppressed people. They had adopted the slogan of ‘if you are not with us, you are against us’ leading many more moderate members to become disillusioned with the organization. In 1948, MD Taseer left the organization and published one of his poems in the magazine ‘Ehsaan’ outlining what his feelings were about the organization members (Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi replaced him as the organization’s secretary).
Faiz, too, was becoming increasingly disillusioned with the ideological rigidity on display. He began to absent himself from the organization’s meetings and grew more taciturn. This did not go unnoticed and led to some vocal criticisms from other members, usually directed at his poetry. In one instance, Ali Sardar Jafri, referring to Faiz’s famous ‘Subh-e-Azadi’ (Dawn of Independence) accused his friend and comrade of ambiguity of thought going so far as to suggest that the poem reflected the disappointment of those Muslim League leaders who felt betrayed at not having received all the territory they had hoped for in the new country.
Faiz stayed silent. He never responded to personal attacks whether from friend or foe and, in general, refrained from ‘protest politics’. He had protested the expulsion from the PWA of a group of young artists who had been branded ‘Romanticists’, to no avail. Many years later he was still regretful that he had not opposed that move more forcefully in the association’s meetings and blamed himself for what happened. He remembered that everyone (in the organization) had a nebulous idea of ‘freedom’ in their minds but what that would mean in practice, nobody knew, which led some people to move towards more emotional extremes, leading others who should have remained with the organization, to be marginalized. Faiz was of the considered opinion that the organization should have restricted itself to trying to influence the ideas of the artists, not critiquing their works. In his opinion, this was what led to the loss of great artists like Saadat Hasan Manto, Ismat Chughtai and Qurrat-ul-Ain Haider. It is debatable whether an artist like Haider would have stayed on in the organization even if Faiz’s opinion had prevailed given the vocal attacks on her work and person.
Excerpted and translated from ‘Parvarish-e-Lauh-o-Qalam; Faiz, hayaat aur takhleeqaat’ by Ludmila Vassilyeva.
