In Urdu Poetry: The Progressive Episode (OUP 2017), author Carlo Coppola tells us about the life of Faiz Ahmed Faiz. A Professor Emeritus of Hindi-Urdu and linguistics at Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, U.S., Coppola is an award-winning teacher and mentor, having served as director at the University’s Center for International Programs. In 1963, he co-founded Mahfil, a Quarterly of South Asian Literature, later retitled as Journal of South Asian Literature. Up until 2002, the magazine served as a major pioneering outlet for South Asian literature translated into English.
Faiz, whose pen-name means munificence or kindness, was born on Feb. 13, 1911 in Sialkot. His father, Sultan Mohammad Khan (d. 1913), was a man of remarkable character. The son of a landless peasant whose ancestors migrated to India from Afghanistan, he worked as a shepherd in his childhood. He learned both Urdu and English and by fortuitous combination of intelligence, hard work, and serendipity, he was able to study law at Cambridge University. He eventually rose to become the personal interpreter and senior minister to the British-aligned Emir Abdur Rahman (early 1840s-1901) of Afghanistan, whose biography he edited and translated into English. He had several wives, including daughters of Afghan nobles. When he returned to Sialkot, where he befriended Muhammad Iqbal, he practiced law and married Faiz’s mother, his last and youngest wife. Shortly thereafter, Faiz was born.
Son of a famous father
Faiz was educated at Scotch Mission High School, Sialkot, and then attended Government College, Lahore, an institution affiliated with the University of the Punjab. Faiz notes that here he “had the same teacher as Iqbal, Syed Mir Hassan” (1844-1929), the venerable scholar of the Quran and professor of Arabic. In 1932 he received his M.A. English, having written a thesis on the poetry of Robert Browning, and in 1934 an M.A. in Arabic as a protégé of Syed Mir Hassan. At the same time, some of his earliest poems were published in the journal Caravan. Commenting on how he began to write, Faiz notes, “I started writing just as an inclination; no reason why one should become a writer especially.”
In 1936, Faiz received an appointment as a junior lecturer of English in the recently established Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental (MAO) College, Amritsar. Among his colleagues there were Dr. M.D. Taseer, principal of the college, and one of the signers of the 1935 London Progressive Writers’ Manifesto, who would eventually become Faiz’s brother-in-law. The two became members of the Angare Group, with Mahmuduzzafar, who served as vice-principal of the college and lecturer in history. His wife, Dr. Rashid Jahan, had set up a medical practice there. Through these friends, Faiz came into close contact with many of the influential members of the Urdu and Punjabi Progressive Writers Association (PWA).
Early trends
During this period in the late 1930s, Faiz began what would become lifelong association with workers’ and peasants’ organizations in the Punjab. In addition to his college teaching and work in labor organizations, he assumed the editorship of the journal Adab-e-Latif, where a number of his early critical articles on Urdu literature and literary theory appeared.
It was also in 1938 that he met Alys George (1914-2003), a young British woman who was visiting her older sister, Christobel. The latter was married to Dr. M.D. Taseer, one of the founding members of the PWA. Alys was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain since she was 16, and had worked with the Free India Movement in England, serving for a time as secretary of the fiery Indian nationalist V. K. Krishna Menon (1896-47). With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, she was unable to return to England and remained in Amritsar, where she and Faiz fell in love.
Marriage of Faiz
They were married at the vacation home of Dr. Taseer in Srinagar in October 1941. Their nikah was overseen by Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah (1905-1982), who would later prove to be one of the most important political figures in the history of modern Jammu and Kashmir. The ceremony was followed by an informal house party attended by family members and, among other guests, poets Josh and Majaz. In 1942, daughter Salima was born, followed by daughter Moneeza in 1945.
In 1940, Faiz had been appointed lecturer in English at Hailey College of Commerce, Lahore, a post which he held until the middle of 1941, just prior to his marriage. According to his close friend and English translator, Victor Kiernan (1913-2009), Faiz quit this post to join the British Indian Army when the Nazis invaded Russia on June 1941. As a member of the welfare department of the army, he was to be met with now on the Mall in Lahore in the uniform of lieutenant-colonel, solemnly returning salutes from British soldiers. Although Faiz joined the army in Lahore, posted initially in the welfare department, he soon became a public-relations officer and edited the Roman-script Fauji Akhbar (Army Newspaper), a post previously occupied by N.M. Rashed, who was assigned to intelligence work in Iran during the war.
Association with M.D. Taseer
Also stationed in Delhi during the war was Dr. M.D. Taseer, Faiz’s former associate from MAO College and brother-in-law. In addition, such writers as Saadat Hasan Manto, Mohammad Sannaullah Dar Meeraji, and Krishan Chander were working under the supervision of the legendary humorist and wit, A.S. Patras Bokhari of India Radio, thus forming an important nucleus for the Progressive Movement there during the war years. Faiz’s first collection of poems Naqsh-e-Faryadi, appeared in either 1942 or 1943. Faiz himself rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, received the Member of the British Empire M.B.E. (Military) award in 1944, and was discharged from service.
With Partition in 1947, Faiz assumed the important post of editor of the liberal English language daily, Pakistan Times. This newspaper, as well as several others, was owned by Progressive Papers Limited, an organization started early in the 1940s by prominent leftist politician Mian Iftikharuddin and a group of likeminded individuals. In addition to the editorship of this paper, Faiz was appointed editor of the Urdu daily, Imroze, actually edited by Chiragh Hasan Hasrat (1904-1955), despite Faiz’s official designation. During his editorship of these two papers, Faiz opposed the governmental policies of then-prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan (1895-1951), especially on issues concerning Pakistan’s association in the British Commonwealth and the country’s pro-American and anti-Russian cold-war policy.
Liaquat Ali Khan strikes
The Muslim League-dominated government, led by Liaquat Ali Khan, was increasing its repression of left-wing activists. For example, the offices of the APPWA and of the All-Pakistan Trade Union Federation, of which Faiz was vice president, were raided. In response to such repression, the progressive forces united on Dec. 10, 1950, and formed the All-Pakistan Union for the Defense of Civil Liberties. Faiz was one of 17 members of its executive committee. In 1950, he was also elected general secretary of the Pakistan Committee for the Defense of Peace, served as a member of the Pakistan Journalists’ Union and as a Pakistani representative of the World Peace Council.
On March 9, 1951, Liaquat Ali Khan ordered the arrest of Major-General Akbar Khan (1913-1993), then-Chief of Staff of the Pakistan Army, his wife Begum Naseem Akbar Khan, Brigadier Muhammad Abdul Latif Khan, and Faiz Ahmad Faiz, editor of the left-wing Pakistan Times. These arrests precipitated what became known as the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case, in which 14 persons were tried on charges of treason and conspiracy against the Government of Pakistan. In addressing parliament on March 21 of that year, the prime minister stated that the arrests of March 9 and those that followed “nipped in the bud” a plot to bring Pakistan under a Communist government administered by a military dictatorship.
Early fear of Communism
According to the prime minister, “The country was to be brought under military dictatorship when the existing authorities, both civil and military, had been eliminated.” The government, which was to be founded after the coup d’état, “was therefore to be patterned on the Communist model but under military domination.” For this purpose, economic and constitution-making missions were to be invited “from a certain foreign country.” While this “certain foreign country” remained nameless, it was clear to all that it was Russia. In addition to Faiz’s arrest, the secretary of the pro-Communist Progressive Writers Association, Sajjad Zaheer, was also arrested as an undercover agent for that “certain foreign country” (presumably India’s party, which answered to the Communist Party of Russia).
With Major General Akbar Khan a member of a powerful and highly placed landlord family, it seemed rather unlikely that he should be involved with leftists to overthrow a government which was, in fact, protecting his own class interests. Commenting on the relationship, the trial of the 14 arrested proceeded after special powers were delegated to the government in the Rawalpindi Conspiracy (Special Tribunal) Act of 1951 and the Rawalpindi Conspiracy (Special Tribunal) Amendment) Act of 1952. The trials, held in-camera, took place in Hyderabad in circumstances of great secrecy and everyone concerned including counsel for the defense, was under oath not to reveal what was said during the proceedings. Ali Sardar Jafri, writing about Faiz, refers to the case as “infamous” and to Faiz and Zaheer as “awaiting the judgement of the Special Tribunal which tried the case in secret without giving proper opportunity for the accused to defend themselves.”
Poet of the struggling East
In articles published in both Pravda and Izvestia newspapers of Russia, Faiz is referred to “an outstanding son of the Pakistani people and a famed poet of the Struggling East.” At this time, Faiz’s poetry had been translated into English, Chinese, Vietnamese, Arabic, and other languages as well, and the courageous voice of the poet and fighter was heard at the Stockholm Congress for Disarmament and International Cooperation and at the Tashkent Conference of Writers of Asia and Africa. Commenting on this award, Faiz remarked succinctly and dispassionately: “Concerning the Prize, it came as a surprise to me. I was not expecting it. It was a pleasant surprise.”
From 1972-1978, Faiz served as chairman of the Pakistan Arts Council, representing his country at various international functions, visiting China, Russia, the United States, Cuba, and England. In 1975, he published Raat di Raat (Night of Night), a volume of poems in Punjabi, which attracted a great deal of attention due to the language debates which were going on in Pakistan at this time. Aptly stated, these debates centered around the question of whether regional languages of Pakistan, such as Punjabi and Sindhi, should be given status as a medium of instruction in high schools, colleges, and universities, where presently English and Urdu were being used also as languages of governmental administration. Faiz and a group of other prominent writers signed a statement in early 1972 which, in effect, lent support to such agitation against Urdu in favor of regional languages. In discussing this point, he stated that he signed the statement “to give Punjabi its due place in the scheme of things.”
General Zia
In 1977, General Ziaul Haq (1924-1988) came to power through a right-wing military coup. He imposed martial law and endorsed the aims of the Nizam-i-Mustafa Tehreek, an Islamic pressure group that sought to establish Sharia law as the only law governing Pakistan. As a result, the country was set on a course of rigid Islamic orthodoxy, which strongly resisted influences received as inimical or contrary to Islam. Such an aim ran contrary to secular Pakistanis, many of them negatively impacted because of their orientation and beliefs. Faiz was one such individual, so in February 1978 he went into self-imposed exile, settling for years in Beirut. Lebanon was then caught up in the civil war between Christian militias and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), headed by Yasser Arafat (1929-2004), with whom Faiz became close friends. There, Faiz edited Lotus, Journal of Afro-Asian Writers Association, which was published semi-annually in English, Arabic, and French. He had been one of the original founders of this organization in 1958, and recipient of its Lotus Award in 1976. His collection Sham-e-Shahr-e-Yaran appeared in 1978, containing, among others, the poem Duaa (Supplication/Prayer), originally written to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Pakistan’s Independence Day, August 1967, but which was generally read as a direct challenge to Zia’s Islamist coup.
In 1980, his collection of poems Mere Dil Mere Musafir (My Heart, My Traveler) was published; the dedication was to Yasser Arafat, after whom Faiz had already named one of his grandchildren. It contains some of Faiz’s most notable and poignant poems, especially those related the plight of Palestinians. He escaped from Beirut in the midst of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982, reluctantly returning to Lahore in November, where he remained, suffering from poor health. Shortly before his death on Nov. 20, 1984, Faiz received a nomination for the Nobel Prize for Literature.