Celebrating Life and Work of Faiz Ahmed Faiz:
Towards Building a South Asian Consciousness
The Department of Sociology, South Asian University and its journal, Society and Culture in South Asia organized Jashn-e-Faiz, an event to celebrate the life and works of Faiz Ahmed Faiz. South Asian University is a SAARC initiative. The event was organized to project the possibilities of an alternative idea of South Asian consciousness, which transcends the limitations of state-centric imaginings for the region.
Dr. Kavita Sharma, President, South Asian University in her initial remarks talked about the life of Faiz Ahmed Faiz and stressed how his works has mass appeal across borders. A poet like Faiz, went beyond ‘art for art sake’ to address the issues of exploitation, injustice and discrimination. As a poet, he is the figure whose works serve as a source of a common popular consciousness to emerge.
Dr. Ravi Kumar, Chairperson, Department of Sociology, said in his explanation on why this program was initiated that literary works and other arts forms provide a way to bring people of South Asia closer. A conversation among people needs to be developed takes place is beyond the instrumentalist limitations provided by restrictive bilateral agreements, visa regimes and other structural impediments and clearances that usually foregrounds relations among states. When bloggers are being killed in Bangladesh, when journalists are killed in Pakistan, voices of dissent suppressed in Sri Lanka, and rationalists are murdered in India, there is a need to devise ways to get over such intolerance and violence. This can be done using the ways, which have developed outside of state structures – what poets, artists and intellectuals have done historically. Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Nazrul Islam and Sahir Ludhiyanwi are only a few among a considerable list of such people who provide us ways to create a more tangible South Asian consciousness.
Prof. Sasanka Perera, Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences pointed out why the Department of Sociology has been instrumental in taking initiatives that are aimed at looking at the possibilities of how a South Asian consciousness needs to be developed using art forms as their emotional appeal to people had a better chance of making sense as opposed to diplomatic and other poltical initiatives which are often distant from ordinary people.
Prof. Salima Hashmi, artist and daughter of Faiz Ahmed Faiz who attended the event as the guest of honor spoke on the trajectory of Faiz’s poetry writing. In different phases, he wrote on issues, which he had to confront in his life. They ranged from themes emerging out of wars, economic impoverishment of masses, suppression of freedom of expression and so on. She spoke of how poetry provided the language of political protest, and suggested that Faiz’s work reflected it. He went beyond the dogmatic understanding of Marxism when he married romanticism with Marxism and argued that Marxism needs to be used as a humanist message. She went on to show how his works entered the popular domain and visual art production in Pakistan. Cultural development must alter the existing social values and new values will be created along with alterations in the social and political structure. Only one fundamental value exists, that is the value of humanity.
Faiz always represented the spirit of unity of people across borders, and this became clear when he did not become part of patriotic poetry writing during Indo-Pakistan war in 1965. Instead, taking thus event as a point of departure, he wrote a poem titled ‘Black Out’. He worked ceaselessly for Pakistan-India friendship. He rejected the narrow unilinear notion of Pakistan. He was concerned with the partition and the violence it had unleashed. He was constantly struggling in his life which informed much of his poetry. And he proves through his work that out of great suffering, a great sense of hope can be born.
In his presentation, Paresh Chandra from the Department of English, Delhi University argued that Faiz was not looking at the nation that the partition had created. He had expected it to be a different nation. He was concerned at the exploitation, alienation and oppression that was happening around him. His poetry on love also, while talking in an idiom of romance, was talking of this concern. He was trying to imagine an idea of community, love and hope. The idea of struggle and reflection on society seemed to take Faiz beyond narrow national boundaries.
Dr. Irfanullah Farooqi from the Department of Sociology, Aligarh Muslim University showed how there were words and images which emerged in the poetry of Faiz represented ideals and experiences which could go beyond the boundaries of the nation to imagine the experonecs of a larger collective.
The panel discussion expressed how works of art and literature has provided us sufficient inputs in terms of looking at struggles of people, their love and anxieties as an intrinsic part of human existence and hope for a better world. If crafted out of this hope cautiously, it may still be possible to formulate a South Asian consciousness which moves beyond the parochial ideas of the nation and nationalities.
Dr. Ravi Kumar
Chairperson
Department of Sociology
(Images courtesy of Ratan Kumar Roy, PhD Program in Sociology, SAU)
