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critique Spirit of
the age A word about
letters
critique By Babar Mirza On the 6th of February
1957, police raided a book shop on Temple Road in Lahore and seized 22 During the proceedings, the court heard the opinions of doctors, professors, students and some exponents of art. Most of the witnesses -- including such eminent figures as Shakir Ali, Ishfaq Ahmad, professor Sirajuddin (Principle of Government College, Lahore), Rashid Akhtar (Pakistan Radio's assistant director) and Mrs. Anna Molka (head of Punjab University's fine arts department) -- testified that the pictures expressed the beauty of the human form and were not sexually stimulating or obscene. Justice Faruqi however held otherwise, but with some very interesting reasoning. He accepted the rule that 'obscenity as understood in law consists of publishing or exhibiting such matter or object which has the tendency to corrupt the minds of those who are open to immoral influences by exciting in them sensuality and carnal desire,' but didn't apply this subjective standard of morality in its conventional form. He noted that except for three photographs, the 22 albums forfeited from the bookshop contained only photos of nude females. Questioning why the beauty of the human form could only be expressed through females who are naked, he quoted a research concluding that photographs of nude females were produced primarily for the consumption of males, majority of whom were erotically aroused by the photos 'just as they were aroused upon observing living females.' Using this reasoning, Justice Faruqi held nude to be obscene. Sadly, gone are the days when we had so many exponents of art and a feminist judge. In 1992, the law changed as well. Deciding on a petition filed by Habibul Wahab Al-Khairi, the Federal Shariat Court held that Islamic law did not acknowledge the 'accepted morality' of the people and 'the shameful deed is to be analysed objectively in the light of the teachings of Islam.' Subsequent case law and my own knowledge do not contain much understanding of the Islamic concept of obscenity, but I must humbly submit that the idea of an objective morality sounds like a unicorn to me. Obscenity is not the only reason why the law does not approve of certain types of publications. In fact, the Press and Publications Ordinance 1963 contained fifteen sub-sections on the basis of which published material could be forfeited and the publishers and writers punished. In 2002, the government had the good sense of repealing this law in favour of the relatively limited (though still absurdly broad) provisions of the Pakistan Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Code. The provisions of the Pakistan Penal Code assign punishments for producing material which is obscene, seditious, creates disharmony among different classes or groups of people, maliciously and deliberately insults the religious beliefs of a class or group or defiles the sacred name of the Prophet. Moreover, some provisions introduced by General Zia ul Haq provide for exceptional limits on Ahmadis regarding their freedom of expression. Depending on the provision violated, punishments range from three months to death. Publications punishable under the Penal Code are also liable to be forfeited by the government under the Criminal Procedure Code. These laws are predictably broad and boring, but its through cases that you learn that the long arm of the law in this case is attached to a small brain. Since Saadat Hasan Manto was sentenced to pay a fine of 300 rupees for writing and publishing 'Thanda Gosht,' there has hardly been any conviction on the grounds discussed in the last paragraph (though Ahmadis are still the exception). The reason has nothing to do with the merits of a case, but the fact that officials exercising legal authority have always made glaring procedural errors which showed their slothful and discriminatory approach. In 1964, the governor of West Pakistan ordered the owner of a printing press to deposit Rs. 20,000 as security for having published two books titled 'Jawani Ke Raaz' and 'Shab-e-Aroosa.' This order was held to be illegal by the Lahore High Court in 1976, as it was not preceded by a show-cause notice (which implies the right to hearing). For the same reason, the court declared illegal the order of the provincial government to forfeit three books written by Fakhar Zaman (the order of forfeiture was issued in 1978 and the judgment was given in 1996). In some other cases, the authorities lost their case because failed to point out any specific grounds for forfeiting a publication or fining a publisher. These include cases involving Mahmood Khan Abbasi's book 'Khilafat-e-Muavia wa Yazeed' (1961), a review of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's book 'Myth of Independence' published in Fahmida Riaz's magazine 'Awaz' (1982), Yousuf Saleem Chisti's book 'Tareekh-e-Tasawwuf' (1985) and Ghulam Ahmad Parvaiz's booklet 'Firqay Kaisey Mit Saktay Hain' (2006). In two cases, the officials felt so relaxed as to even forget to produce the material the alleged possession of which was punishable under law. In the first case, a publisher, a bookseller and a peon in WAPDA were convicted in 1976 by the military court for possessing obscene literature. It took three years before the Lahore High Court found that 'this so-called 'obscene literature' allegedly recovered from the petitioners in the case is not forthcoming on the record,' and therefore, the decision of the military court was illegal. Similarly, in 1979, the summary military court of Gujrat sentenced Attaur Rehman, who was Yehya Bakhtiar's private secretary, to rigorous imprisonment for nine months and a fine of Rs. 5,000 for possessing booklets titled 'General Zia Ki Taqreer Ka Post-mortem' and 'Reply to General Zia's speech of June 25, 78.' The High Court reversed this decision next year on the grounds that nothing had in fact been recovered from the accused and that no public witness had come forth to support the case of the prosecution. In a 1960 case, certain passages from the book 'Mizanul Haq' -- which compared Christianity and Islam and tried to show the superiority of the former over the latter -- were held to have the deliberate and malicious intention to insult the religious feelings of Muslims. On an assurance by the Bishop of Lahore, the court allowed the publishers to delete the offensive passages from the future editions of the book but did not reproduce them in the judgment. In a 1962 case, certain passages from Duncan Macdonald's book 'Development of Muslim Theology, Jurisprudence and Constitutional Theory' -- which was also part of Punjab University's Masters in Political Science syllabus -- were also accused of intentionally insulting the feelings of Muslims. This time, the court did reproduce the relevant passages, but didn't order for their expulsion from the text: Chief Justice Kayani re-wrote the passages to make them legally acceptable. Thus we see that the legal standards to determine what's obscene, seditious, or religiously insulting are quite vague under Pakistani law. Except for a few early cases, courts seem to prefer a case-by-case approach to avoid having to come up any standard definition. More importantly, the added callousness of state officials suggests that any alleged violation of these laws would seldom lead to legal sanction, provided, of course, the alleged violator doesn't go missing or die at the hands of a fanatic.
Nasir
Kazmi: By Sarwat Ali It is difficult for a son
to write on the life and works of the father for either the son is rebellious
and Nasir Kazmi started writing poetry the moment he became aware of the tremendous power of beauty. In adolescence it is usually a fallout of sexual attraction. He wrote for a girl who fascinated him and as he grew older he realised an artistic experience is fleeting and can only be captured and retained through art -- in his case poetry. His first verse that he wrote made him immensely happy: It was in 1942 that he was noticed in a mushaira and his ghazal became quite famous: He migrated to Pakistan before his graduation and like many others had nothing on him but the clothes that he was wearing -- no property, no money, and no house to live in. Those trying days were made harder by the death of his mother who could not bear the burden of the catastrophic change. He took up many jobs. His first was with 'Auraq e Nau,' then he switched to 'Humayun,' where he became a joint editor, later he became a liaison officer in Social Welfare Department, moved to the publicity wing in Village Aid Programme and then took over the responsibility of deputy editor in 'Hum Log.' Finally in 1964 he joined Radio Pakistan and stayed there till the end. The reason for this repeated change of jobs was because he had decided very early in life to become a full time poet. This may have been possible had he lived in Ambala where the family had old connections and ancestral property but it was difficult in Lahore where financial condition compelled him to work. Through ghazal -- which to many was a form that should have been abandoned with the changing sensibility -- he was able to capture the experiences of his time. It captured the spirit of the age and instead of repeating what the others, particularly of the classical period, had written but expressed the experiences of his time. The first phase of his poetry -- the first three to four years in Pakistan -- is full of the imagery and symbolism of hijrat (migration) which he had to experience like thousands of others, and therefore expressed the experiences and sentiments of a collective upheaval. This form was later called 'jadeed ghazal,' ghazal that had been re-invented to express the realities of the time. Nasir Kazmi lived in the times when there was a great ideological divide also reflected in the groupings of the writers. The left-leaning writers only spoke of commitment and the ideological advancement through literature. Nasir may not have fitted the mould, was based on truthfulness of experience based on the immediate reality. He wrote in high seriousness, a reflection of his commitment to his work. In this high seriousness there was no room for anything frivolous. He was not an entertainer who pleased his patrons by writing what they wanted to hear but only what went on in the person of a creative nature. It appears that Bassir Sultan Kazmi is not particularly keen to wash away the stains of adverse criticism from his father for being not responsive enough to the circumstances and for being overtly idealist. He was more in the mould of classical poets who only kept the eternal frontiers as their reference point. To them the day to day happenings in society did not qualify becoming the stuff of poetry. The progressives on the other hand were so particular about the day to day happenings that they appeared to be almost chroniclers, more in the fashion of journalism and social documentalist. Nasir Kazmi himself confessed that he was not interested in writing ghazal but more interested in writing poetry. His choice of the genre was accidental, though secretly fortified by the fact that he liked the ghazal and the major works in Urdu were mostly in this form. He created an ethos of the ghazal that was different from the traditional ghazal, basically through imagery that was new emphasising on a certain continuity in the verses which was not strictly following the traditional pattern. Bassir Sultan puts up a spirited defense against the criticism levied by Saqi Farooqi on the ghazal being dated. His ghazal expressed or created a mood in a more definite and direct manner than the traditional ghazal. As Nasir Kazmi himself asserted that readers and listeners were not getting tired of the ghazal, they were getting tired of the cliches in the ghazal -- he reintroduced pure poetic experience in the ghazal, cleaning and wiping away the dust and mire of the unfelt mannerism of the cliche that the ghazal had become. The main chapters of the book have been divided into biography, poetry, revival of ghazal or 'jadeed ghazal' and the comparison between Nasir and Mir. The views of his contemporaries had also been compiled at the end. Bassir Sultan Kazmi himself is a poet of no mean merit and he has also written a play 'Bisat' which has been staged. For many years he has been living in Britain busy pursuing his academic pursuits. A word about letters By Kazy Javed Punjabi Adabi Sangat Punjabi Adabi Sangat -- the second oldest literary organisation in Lahore after Halqa-e-Zauq -- is going to complete 45 years in the second week of July. The Sangat was established
during Ayub Khan's rule -- the days when raising a voice in support of In Punjab, Pubjabi Majlis, a writers organization, was banned and Qudratullah Shahab dissolved the Punjabi Group working in the Pakistan Writers Guild. However, there were some men of letters who could not be stopped. They held a meeting in Lahore's Pak Tea House in July 1963 and formed the Punjabi Adabi Sangat. In a newspaper interview, the late Raja Rasalu who served as the first secretary of the Sangat counted Safdar Mir, Ahmad Rahi, Ustad Daman, Akmar Alemi, Masood Pervez, Shahzad Ahmad, Najm Hussain Syed, Anwar Sajjad, Shafqat Tanvir Mirza, Abbas Akhtar and Javed Shaheen among the 23 founding fathers of the organisation. Ahmad Rahi was elected as its first secretary general. The Sangat was founded
primarily to provide a platform to Punjabi writers. Its aims included
preservation of Punjabi's 800 years old literary heritage, promotion of the
Punjabi language and Punjabi Adabi Sangat arranges weekly literary meetings and has introduced dozens of new writers during the past few years. Pak Tea House was the venue for its meetings during the early years. The venue changed to a YMCA with the beginning of the 1970s and presently it is in chaupal, Nasir Bagh. The credit for Sangat's 45 years old survival goes to Raja Rasalu, Shafqat Tanvir Mirza, Tanvir Zahoor. Pervez Hashmi, Iqbal Qaiser. Its present office holders Prof Ashiq Raheel, Ahad Nabeel Shad and Sanavar Chadhar have started publication of its official monthly 'Suneha.' New books Sufism is being promoted as an antidote to religious fundamentalism. Sufism played a considerable role in bringing humane teachings of the religion to the forefront during the Middle Ages but is this medieval countermeasure still effective? Dr. Fatima Hussain's answer is in the affirmative. She teaches History at Delhi University and is known in South Asian academic circles for her book 'The Palestine Question: A Historical Perspective.' Classic, of Lahore, has just published 'Sufism & Bhakti Movement: Contemporary Relevance,' that has been compiled by Dr. Fatima Hussain. Dedicated to Benazir Bhutto, the volume carries papers presented at a seminar held at new Delhi's Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. Some articles of Pakistani authors, too, have been included in this 351-page book. The book is a must read not only for those who are interested in the role of Sufism in the contemporary world but also for those who are concerned about the growing threat of religious extremism to global peace. For any readers of literature, Farhat Perveen is no more an unknown entity. Her two collections of short stories 'Munjmad' and 'Restoran ki Khirkhi se' have already won her many admirers. Her third collection has now hit the bookstands. Titled 'Kanch ki Chattan,' it has been brought out by Jahangir Books. 'Mailay Kafan' is the title of a recently published collection of Urdu short stories. It is Naila Sadaf's self-published third volume of 22 stories. Earlier her two books of Punjabi short stories had seen the light of the day. Faisal Hashmi has been living in Norway since long but his passion for modern Urdu poetry has refused to wane. He has now come up with a selection of Wazir Agha's poetry composed during the past half a century and published in various collections and journals. Departed Souls Literary critic and former chairman of the Karachi University's Urdu department Prof Dr. Syed Abdul Khair Kashfi is among the three noted writers who passed away during the past fortnight. Born in a family known for its interest in literary and cultural activities, he established himself as a scholar of Urdu literature while publishing many books. His 'Hamaray Ahed ka Adab aur Adeeb' was first published some twenty years ago and is still read as a scholarly introduction to modern Urdu literature. Shamim Akhtar Saifi was a former bureaucrat who authored his only book after retirement from service. Titled 'Mah-e-Neem Shab,' it is a book on the life and poetry of Mirza Ghalib recently published by Jahangir books. Prof Asghar Saudai died at the age of 83 in Sialkot. His literary fame almost entirely depended on the famous slogan 'Pakistan ka matlab kiya, La Illah Illahah.' |
albums mostly containing life-sized nude pictures of females. The shop owner
was charged with offending the law against selling obscene books, magazines,
etc. After a couple of appeals, the case eventually reached for revision
before Justice Faruqi of the Lahore High Court to determine whether the
photos were obscene.
sees the father as an authoritarian figure or is too discreetly obedient. It
appears Bassir Sultan Kazmi has attempted to maintain an uneasy balance in
his 'Nasir Kazmi- Shaksiat Aur Fun.'
Punjabi Sindhi, Pashto or Balochi languages, their literary heritage or
cultures was a serious crime. Many Sindhi writers including G.M.Syed, Sheikh
Ayaz and Muhammad Ibrahim Joyo had been thrown behind the bars for committing
this 'offence.'
literature, publication of books and journals in the language as well as
translation of its literature into other languages.