Westernized elite founded Pakistan and helmed it for decades before Zia-ul-Haq sought to recast the state and society and provoked artistic resistance with poets such as Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Jalib rallying against it to foster a vibrant culture, music, and literature
In 1947, a Westernized elite founded Pakistan as a homeland for Muslims of British India and helmed the country over the next three decades. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the country’s British-educated founder who drank in moderation and ate ham sandwiches and sausages, Westernized his name. His successor, the Oxford-trained lawyer Liaquat Ali Khan, impressed top American diplomat George McGhee as somebody like them.
Pakistan’s first military ruler Ayub Khan, who took power in 1958, came from a similar background. He was among the first Indians selected for training at the British military academy at Sandhurst based on compatibility with British values and norms. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan’s first democratically elected leader and the University of California, Berkeley, alumnus, was also cast in a similar mould but unwittingly played a role in changing how the country was run including by picking Zia-ul-Haq as the army chief superseding seven generals.
Zia-ul-Haq, who overthrew and had Bhutto executed, was cut from a different cloth unlike those who helmed Pakistan until the late 1970s. He came from a conservative family. Zia’s father, Akbar Ali, an official at the British Indian Army’s headquarters in New Delhi, was known for his religiosity and drilled his son into Islamic life. Zia offered regularly prayed, fasted, and mobilised the Muslims to serve the faith at Delhi’s elite St Stephen’s College.
Zia-ul-Haq joined the British Indian Army but swam against the tide there, too. He was an exception to the Westernized ways of his fellow Indian officers. Zia refused to give up his traditions and offended his British superiors with his lifestyle. He resented the lifestyles of the Pakistani army officers, who inherited British military culture and drank and partied. Unlike them, Zia said his prayers and was treated with some amusement and sometimes with contempt. He never drank. Smoking was Zia’s sole indulgence.
Zia-ul-Haq sought to recast the Pakistani state and society. Poet Ahmad Faraz described the era as the worst phase for Pakistani writers but something that provided ‘ample food for thought for the poets and made protest poetry so popular in Pakistan.’ Faraz was a leading voice of dissent against Zia, along with revolutionary poets Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Habib Jalib. Faiz wrote the iconic Hum Dekhenge poem taking on Zia for acting like a god, underlying ultimately only people have the right to rule.
Hum Dekhenge became an anthem of protest and hope beyond Pakistan when Zia banned the saree and prompted iconic Ghazal singer Iqbal Bano to wear a black six-yard formal wear and sing it in defiance in 1985 in front of an audience of 50,000 people at a packed Alhamra hall in Pakistan’s cultural capital of Lahore. The ban touched a raw nerve. Sarees were popular among the upper class. Prominent public figures such as Jinnah’s sister, Fatima, and Bhutto’s wife, Nusrat, who led the political movement against Zia, preferred sarees.
Sarees were also a symbol of defiance against Zia-ul-Haq. Delhi-born Iqbal Bano’s choice of saree in the colour of protest for the rendition of Hum Dekhenge made it particularly powerful. A recipient of the Pride of Pakistan award from the government in 1974, she became the voice of protest through the rendition.
Faiz’s grandson, Ali Madeeh Hashmi, wrote that the Alhamra hall was filled to the brim before Iqbal Bano even came on stage to sing the iconic poem. He added that people streamed in, and soon there was not an inch of space left in the hall once the doors were opened. People sat on the stairs, the floor, and wherever they could find space. Hashmi recalled that Iqbal Bano started singing to loud cheers. The loudest cheers were reserved for Hum Dekhenge amid chants of ‘Inquilab Zindabad’ (long live the revolution):
She finished the concert, but the audience refused to let her leave and begged for an encore of Hum Dekhenge. A technician in Alhamra surreptitiously recorded the encore and this is the recording that survives today. For those of us sitting in the hall, it was quite surreal. The clapping and cheers were so thunderous that it felt at times that the roof of Alhamra hall would blow off.
Faiz’s family copied and distributed audio copies of Iqbal Bano’s concert, which increased her popularity. Zia’s generals were rumoured to be among her guests at the gatherings where she subsequently performed.
Progressive Literature
Poets Fahmida Riaz and Kishwar Naheed were among other leading women to stand up to Zia’s policies and produce some of the acclaimed radical feminist poetry challenging military rule. Riaz became known for her iconoclasm and nonchalance. Her Badan Dareedah (lacerated body) was Pakistan’s first feminist poetry collection. Riaz and Naheed followed in the footsteps of Faiz and Habib Jalib, who continued the pre-partition tradition of progressive literature in Pakistan.
Jalib’s simple and easier poetic style helped him strike a chord with the masses. He backed Fatima Jinnah when she took on Ayub Khan and contested elections against him by reciting revolutionary poems at her rallies. Jalib once veered off script and recited a poem live on state-run Radio Pakistan against a crackdown on pro-democracy forces. His finest poem Dastoor was written in 1962 against Ayub Khan’s constitution. ‘Aisey dastoor ko, sub-he-be-noor ko, main nahin maanta, main nahin jaanta [This constitution, this dawn without light, I refuse to acknowledge, I refuse to accept],’ he wrote.
Jalib was at his acerbic best against Zia-ul-Haq. He refused to call ‘zulmat ‘(darkness) Zia (light), cruelty kindness, darkness dawn, desert a garden, and a human being God. ‘The city was desolate. Was it a jinnee or was it a referendum?’ he wrote, mocking Zia’s 1984 referendum to legitimize his rule.
Taimur Rahman, Mahvash Waqar, and Haider Rahman’s rock band Laal (red) carried forward the legacy. The band, whose members often wore shirts with Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara’s picture on a red star, came into prominence through its rendition of Faiz and Jalib’s poetry during the movement against military ruler Pervez Musharraf in 2007.
Laal expanded its activities after playing at small gatherings for select audiences at workers’ rallies and colleges. Its songs about the fight against injustice became instant hits, prompting a big media house to sponsor and release its music CDs. ‘Umeed-e-Sehr (hope of dawn)’, the title track from Laal’s debut album, was a runaway hit. Laal resurrected the tradition of rock bands, which had declined since 1999 with media liberalization and the revival of cinema.
Zia’s puritanical regime ironically propelled a musical explosion in the 1980s. The Pakistani pop and rock music industry peaked between the late 1980s and 1990s. Nazia and Zoheb Hassan, known in India for their chartbuster ‘Disco Deewane’ song, and the Junoon band were among those who emerged as pop sensations during this period.
Two decades after Zia-ul-Haq died in an air crash, Mohammad Hanif’s satirical novel A Case of Exploding Mangoes (2008) about the possible reasons for the death continued a tradition of irreverence toward Pakistan’s powerful military, which has ruled the country for over three of its seven decades of existence and meddled in politics when out of power.
