MERRY CHRISTMAS by Langston Hughes

Published In New Masses (Dec. 1930)

Merry Christmas, China
From the gun-boats in the river,
Ten-inch shells for Christmas gifts,
And peace on earth forever.

Merry Christmas, India,
To Gandhi in his cell,
From righteous Christian England,
Ring out, bright Christmas bell!

Ring Merry Christmas, Africa,
From Cairo to the Cape!
Ring Hallehuiah! Praise the Lord!
(For murder and rape.)

Ring Merry Christmas, Haiti!
(And drown the voodoo drums –
We’ll rob you to the Christian hymns
Until the next Christ comes.)

Ring Merry Christmas, Cuba!
(While Yankee domination
Keeps a nice fat president
In a little half-starved nation.)

And to you down-and-outers,
(“Due to economic laws”)
Oh, eat, drink, and be merry
With a bread-line Santa Claus –

While all the world hails Christmas,
While all the church bells sway!
While, better still, the Christian guns
Proclaim this joyous day!

While holy steel that makes us strong
Spits forth a mighty Yuletide song:
SHOOT Merry Christmas everywhere!
Let Merry Christmas GAS the air!

Presented by NewsClots

‘Kitab Trinjan’ a poem by Zubair Ahmed

(To comemorate the end of Kitab Trinjan)

Lungh geyaN shamaN yaar deyaN
Yaad surahi bhhar bhhar rakhh lae
Din beetay khali paun bharae
Adh-bhulay nooN poora ker lae
Bunh bunh rakhh lae sawgundh gallaN de
Ghul ghul jo dhooN hoi
PauRiyoN leh gaye
Andar dub lae aas naroi
MuTheiN purtdi hawaeiN nup lae
MuR muR kai oh chaitay kerna
Jis na hona jo na hoi
Buss aj raat ruj vuss lae
Unt fana jo hoi

Author Zubair Ahmed made Kitab Trinjan possible through his dedication and volunteer work. View more here

Poet Amarjit Chandan wins the Anad Kāv Sanman 2009

The meeting of the jury for the Anad Kav Sanman 2009 took place in Delhi on 25th October 2009. The jury members for the award, Shri M.K Raina, Professor Bhagwan Josh, Professor Renuka Singh, Dr. Madan Gopal Singh, Bhai Baldeep Singh, Shri Manglesh Dabral attended the meeting chaired by Professor Satyapal Gautam. The jury unanimously decided that this year’s Anad Kāv Sanman be conferred on Amarjit Chandan for his seminal contribution to Punjabi poetry and for bringing Punjabi poetry on the international scene.

This is the only literary award of its kind in South Asia that exclusively celebrates poetic excellence. It is also amongst the biggest awards in terms of money.

Punjabi poet Surjit Patar was the first recipient of this award last year.

To honour the memory of the Punjabi poetess Baljit Kaur Tulsi, The Anād Foundation started Anad Kāv Tarang Poetry festival and Anad Kāv Sanman in 2008. The award, offered to eminent poets, includes a cash prize of Rupees 2.5 lacs, a citation, a silver plate and a turban.

The leading English author and art critic John Berger opined that Amarjit Chandan’s poetry transports its listeners or readers into an arena of timelessness. What he does is to fold time; time in his poems becomes like an arras or a hinged screen. The listener or reader is encircled by a multiplicity of times. His poetic practice assumes that there are more space-time dimensions than the four we habitually recognize. Each of Chandan’s poems proceeds in its own way and has its own form. Yet in all of them there is an assembly of different space-time dimensions.

According to Christina Linardakis, a well known literary critic from Greece, the pictures of Chandan’s poetry are lacking of anything pretentious. On the contrary, they are surprisingly intimate. They portray our own moments, they capture our thoughts, they express our dreams, the contradictions of our mind. Never the less, Chandan’s descriptive power is sublimating, the detail of their reference is depriving the reader’s right of an adroit escape, it holds out his hand disarmingly, it guides him through unusual and familiar paths.

In his poetic speech, Chandan is weaving and unweaving his impressions, the perceptions, the memories of each one of us, weaving in this manner mainly the thread of our own thought and of our own life.

Amarjit Chandan has published five collections of poetry including Kavitavān, Jarhān, Beejak, Chhanna, Gurhti and Anjal, as well three books of prose in Punjabi notably Phailsufiān, Hun–Khin (A discussion with Sohan Qadri) and Nishāni.

English versions of Amarjit Chandan’s poems have appeared in England in a collection Being Here (1995, 1999, 2005) and magazines Poetry Review, Artrage, Bazaar, Brand, Critical Quarterly, Modern Poetry in Translation, Index on Censorship and Atlas (UK), Papirus and Akköy (Turkey), Erismus, Ombrela and Odos Panos (Greece) and Lettre Internationale (Romania) and Sonata for Four Hands, Collection of Poems (Arc Publications) prefaced by John Berger due in Oct 2009.

The ANĀD Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion and preservation of culture, with particular focus on the preservation and perpetuation of the endangered intangible cultural heritage and traditions of South Asia. The ANĀD Foundation’s mission is to establish institutions as a means towards facilitating the recovery and enhancement of the intangible (sukham virsā) and tangible (sthūl virsā) heritage of South Asia as a priority.

Among the several aims of the Foundation include conferring ANĀD Sanmān, in the fields of poetry, music, dance, sports, science, technology, art, literature, theatre, cinema and handicrafts, etc. and for life time achievements in fields that the Trust is directly or indirectly concerned with.

The Anād Foundation is organizing the second edition of the festival Anād Kāv Tarang, an evening of poetry reading scheduled to be held on Sunday, November 22, 2009, at the India Islamic Cultural Centre, Lodhi Estate, New Delhi. A selection of Chandan’s 35 poems titled Paintee, designed by Gurvinder Singh and published by ANĀD, will also be released on the occasion. The function will conclude with musical renditions of Chandan’s poetry by Jasbir Jassi, Madan Gopal Singh, Rabbi Shergill, Sunanda Sharma and Bhai Baldeep Singh.

For further information, contact
The Anad Foundation
C-26, Nizamuddin East
New Delhi 110013
Telephone (Bhai Baldeep Singh) 9810002653
Email: anad@anad.in and/or bhaibaldeep@gmail.com

Press Release

Lahore’s First Punjabi Bookstore Deemed Shut

Kitab Trinjan (KT), the first dedicated shop of Punjabi books in Lahore, is due to close end of this month.

Kitab Trinjan was established in 1997 to encourage the publishing and dissemination of Shahmukhi Punjabi literature in a situation where Punjabi books were shunned away by the ‘regular’ bookshops that were happy instead to sell the more ‘lucrative/prestigious’ Urdu and English books. With regard to the privilege enjoyed by English and Urdu at the regular book shops, however, the situation in 2009 remains more or less the same.

In the last 12 years, thanks to the continuous and ongoing volunteer work of Zubair Ahmed Jan, Kitab Trinjan has sold more than 1,200,000 (12 Lakh) Punjabi books; bought 7,71,635 books from other publishers; published works created by modern Punjabi writers under various imprints; but most of all, has built a cultural community unique to itself. This community is built by extending regular interaction, support and contribution to literary communities of the Punjab, Panjab and the Diaspora. Zubair’s ongoing support to Sangat Shah Hussain in Lahore, to the online Punjabi news and cultural digest Wichaar.com, to the largest online archive of Punjabi Gurumukhi/Shahmukhi literature Apnaorg, to the only Punjabi literary quarterly magazine that prints simultaneously in Gurumukhi and Shahmukhi Temahi Sanjh, for example, has strengthened the respective organizations and cultural communities.

I had the opportunity to visit Kitab Trinjan in its very first year when Activist Zafaryab Ahmed told me in Islamabad about it, and later introduced me to Author Zubair Ahmed who was instrumental in establishing, and then managing it. Later, i went to the shop, a 1.4-roomed top floor of a depleted inner city building in Lahore, though inside, it was the most inspiring place to be. In fact, that was the first time that i had actually seen hundreds of Shahmukhi Punjabi titles in one place. It created a feeling of wonderment where i was enchanted also by the fact that the development of Punjabi literature was not in the hands of policymakers of Pakistan but us, the writers and readers of Punjabi.

Here is a 1998 photo of Kitab Trinjan from the outside, taken by Amarjit Chandan, a long time supporter of KT.

Detail, Kitab Trinjan by Amarjit Chandan, 1998

In 2006 and 2007, i found Kitab Trinjan in a newer, bigger and brighter place. It was doubtless the most well-organized and well-managed book shop of the three Punjabi book sellers on and around Mozang Chowk since Zubair had help from KT’s only paid worker, Ghulam Haider who worked as a full time sales associate.

The following are the reasons given for the closure of Kitab Trinjan: That there were no Punjabi book stores in 1997 and now there are two more that are operating as full time businesses; That there is duplication of services between Suchet Kitab Ghar and Kitab Trinjan; That KT is limited by its voluntary nature; and, that Zubair Ahmad, the Volunteer Manager of KT, wants to focus on his creative work.

The above reasons do not jell with me as they defy all logic; and in that, it seems that this decision is taken for the benefit of less than half a dozen people instead of the benefit of even those 6,896,000 Punjabis who were living in the city of Lahore just after Kitab Trinjan first opened its doors. In the 1998 Census, the total population of Lahore was counted as 6.8 Million, however, later estimates indicate that the population of Lahore was 10 million in 2006.

My problem is as follows:
The first reason encourages us to believe, in defiance of all demographic considerations, that perhaps there are no Punjabi speakers in the additional 3.2 Million people that were counted as living in Lahore in 2006; that may be there is no increase in the city population since 2006; or if the population increased it did no sprout any new buyers of Punjabi books; that there are no new students of Punjabi language; and, certainly no new lovers of Punjabi literature. Else, the simple fact of population increase would have been enough to justify the continued existence of, at least, these three Punjabi book stores. In other words, such reasoning suggests that 3 BOOK STORES are too many for 6 to 8 MILLION Punjabi speakers of Lahore.

The second reason perpetuates confusion as it meddles with the roles of Suchet Kitab Ghar a Publisher of books and magazines who operates as a distributor/retailer to support its primary role as a Publisher; and Kitab Trinjan, a Bookseller/Distributor who has published books only on occasion.

The third and the fourth reasons are issues that can easily be resolved by Zubair himself if given the chance. Having an outlet for Punjabi books at his home in one of the suburbs of Lahore will eliminate the daily hardship, and leave more time for creative work.

I also do not share the ‘expatriate’s politically correct’ statement forwarded by my friend and another long time supporter of KT, Ijaz Syed, in his response to the closure of Lahore’s first Punjabi book shop.
‘My heartiest felicitations to the Central Committee members for taking this timely decision! Kitab Trinjan played its historical pioneering role in the publication and distribution of punjabi books at a time when this service was most needed. In my view, along with other Central Committee friends, a lot of credit for maintaining and managing Kitab Trinjan for these twelve long years rightly goes to Zubair Jan. Of course, none of this would have happened without Najam Sahab’s benevolent presence.’

In accordance with the ‘enlightened expatriate’s politically correct guide’, a non-critical acceptance and appreciation of this decision has duly been tendered by Ijaz, else, why would he call it a ‘timely decision’? Is it really the requirement of this time to close one of the three (progressive) Punjabi book centers in Lahore?
Na!
I think it’s time to relocate this one, and open the fourth.
Tell you why.
When Kitab Trinjan was selling an average of 1 lakh books per year, Suchet Kitab Ghar and Sanjh Publications were also registering sales, I am willing to bet on it! So, if in the last 12 years, all three have shown an increase in sales, i don’t see why Kitab Trinjan needs to shut. Also, if the establishment of a sales/distribution center by Suchet Kitab Ghar (and Sanjh) did not have a negative impact on Kitab Trinjan, why now, Kitab Trinjan needs to be eliminated in the interest of one or both?

Maqsood Saqib of Pancham/Suchet and Amjad Salim of Sanjh Publications have, for different reasons, earned my un-wavering respect and love as people and professionals; and, i fully support the work of both. The same, may be more so, is true for Zubair Ahmad of Kitab Trinjan.

In other words, Bawa Jees te Bawi Jees, please do not be presenting Lahore in such narrow terms. The City and its people need and deserve all three of these wonderful spaces to develop Punjabi literature; and still, a few more. Not less!
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C.M. Naim on Gopi Chand Narang

There was a time when people wrote a literary piece and then ascribed it to someone whom they held in high esteem out of love, admiration, reverence or some other strong sentiment. Jalaluddin Rumi wrote a magnificent volume of ghazals but did not put his name to it. It has always been known as Diwan-i-Shams-i-Tabriz (The Diwan of Shams of Tabriz). An unknown poet wrote another, smaller diwan of ghazals and ascribed it to Khwaja Mu’inuddin Chishti of Ajmer. Later some other people concocted ‘table-talks’ of some of the Chishti Sufis and circulated them as genuine collections. In Urdu literary history, two examples of something similar immediately come to mind. When Muhammad Husain Azad desired to publish a definitive edition of the ghazals of Shaikh Ibrahim ‘Zauq,’—the first poet laureate of Bahadur Shah ‘Zafar’—he felt no qualms in composing new ghazals and verses to fill in the gaps he felt his beloved master would have filled in himself. Then there is the fascinating case of one of the foremost modern poets in Urdu: when Sana’allah Dar took on the name “Miraji” after a woman named Mira whom he obsessively loved, he might have had in mind the exemplary bond between Rumi and Shams.

Urdu literary culture, however, has known many more cases where someone took the work of another person and claimed it as his own. Particularly among the poets. The practice of ustadi/shagirdi in Urdu poetry encouraged it. Many an ustad or master poet earned his meagre living by giving away his verses to his pupils or shagird, who in turn provided for his needs. Some ustad openly sold verses to anyone who came with money the night of a musha’ira (a gathering of poets). A nawab or king would appoint some good poet as his ustad and then quite as a norm expect him to put together a volume of ghazals in his name.

It also happened in prose. Imam Bakhsh ‘Sahba’i’, a contemporary of Ghalib and teacher at the famous Delhi College, reportedly wrote for a Mughal prince a tazkira or account of the poets of his time. The book, Gulistan-i-Sukhan, carries the name of Qadir Bakhsh ‘Sabir’ as its author, but Ghalib always referred to it as “Sahba’i’s tazkira.” Much later, when the Anjuman-i-Taraqqi-i-Urdu (“Association for the Development of Urdu”) published The Standard English-Urdu Dictionary in 1937, the organization’s Secretary, Maulvi Abdul Haq (a.k.a “Father of Urdu”), put his own name on the cover as its editor, instead of the Anjuman’s. But at least he was honest enough to clearly acknowledge in the Introduction that the work had mainly been done by Dr. Abid Husain of Jami’a Millia. Since then, however, things have been going downhill in Urdu, particularly in its academia. The late Azhar Ali Farooqui of Allahabad earned his living by writing Ph.D. dissertations for others, with the full knowledge of the university’s professors. I personally witnessed how he worked.

In the old literary culture plagiarism of the ordinary kind was also common and not made much of. The stakes were not high then. But now the stakes are quite high in the academic world. Ambitious university teachers no longer can make do by merely taking care of their patron’s grocery shopping and milk cows—I witnessed both at Aligarh. Now they must publish “research” in order to get coveted promotions and titles. Sadly, quite a few take to plagiarism as the shortest route. I became involved in the case of one such ambitious academic at Aligarh back in the early 1980s.

The Department of Urdu, Aligarh Muslim University, had obtained some money from the government for a professorship in Aesthetics, and advertised the job. One of the candidates was a Reader in the department, who was far better known for his fiction than research—he wrote at least one superb novella that will always be admired. In no time that gentleman managed to publish a volume on Urdu Aesthetics. I was most surprised when I came across the book in our library at the University of Chicago. Having known the person since our shared college days, I couldn’t imagine him as the author of the book. A couple of hours of digging around in the library solved the mystery. The talented academic had taken a well-known book on Aesthetics in English by a Bengali scholar and diligently translated most of it into Urdu. Dutifully I prepared a short article, presenting page-and-line references to the original. It was published in Urdu, and received plenty of notice. But nothing actually happened. The gentleman didn’t get the job—no one did, as I remember—but he went on to become a full professor, and soon chaired the department for a while. Needless to say he received—justly, I must add—a ‘Padma Shri’ as a fiction-writer.

Presently the Urdu literary/academic world has been violently shaken by what must be termed “the mother of all plagiarisms”. Instead of the out of fashion field of Aesthetics, it is the currently much more fashionable field of Literary Theory that is at issue, and the person at the ‘heart of darkness’ is no less than Dr. Gopi Chand Narang, Professor Emeritus, Delhi University, who from 2003 to 2007 presided over the Sahitya Akademi and has received two “Padma” awards from the Indian state—the latest being “Padma Bhushan” in 2004. (A full list of his honours and publications may be seen at his website.

At the centre of the scandal is the book Sakhtiyat, Pas-i-Sakhtiyat Aur Mashriqi Shi’riyat (“Structuralism, Post-Structuralism, and Eastern Poetics”), for which Dr Narang received the Sahitya Akademi award in 1995. Though the title suggests that it might be a comparative study, bringing out the commonalities and oppositions between two contemporary Western literary/linguistic theories and their counterparts in Sanskrit and Urdu—a rather curious undertaking—but in reality it only describes and explains the three topics in the book’s title, and the major thinkers who contributed to them.

As far back as 1997, an Indian Urdu critic named Fuzail Ja’fari had explained in some detail how Dr Narang’s book shied away from original thinking and analysis, limiting itself simply to what X wrote and Y said in Western languages (Zahn-i-Jadid, Delhi, #22-3). In fact, he described the book as a “compilation” (talif), adding that it was not an original piece of writing (tasnif). Now a young scholar Imran Shahid Bhinder, a doctoral candidate in the Department of English at the University of Birmingham, U.K., has made a much more serious charge. Bhinder published in 2006 in the annual issue of Nairang-i-Khayal, a Pakistani journal, an essay entitled “Gopi Chand Narang is a Translator, not an Author.”

A year later, a revised and expanded version of the essay appeared in the journal Jadeed Adab (July–December, 2007), which at the time was printed at New Delhi—now allegedly stopped under pressure from certain people—and published from Germany. (It is also available on the web). In 2008 Bhinder published two more articles in Jadeed Adab, the first in its January–June issue, entitled “Plagiarism in Urdu Literature – How Long will it be Defended?” and the second in the July–December issue, entitled “Gopi Chand Narang’s ‘Truth’ and ‘Context’ [as] Thievery.” Both articles found plenty of circulation in both India and Pakistan, and excerpts were reproduced in a couple of Indian journals. Now a Pakistani journal, ‘Akkas, published from Islamabad, has brought out a special issue devoted to Dr Narang’s oeuvre and career, including a more detailed analysis by Bhinder.

In summary, Bhinder has most convincingly established that Dr Narang’s achievement in that award-winning book is not that of an author but only of a translator, and that too of a reprehensible kind. According to Bhinder, Dr Narang did not read the original authors—Ferdinand de Saussure, Claude LeviStrauss, Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault, and others. He read only their well-known interpreters, and then transferred the latter’s analyses and interpretations into Urdu, doing so verbatim and without giving the reader any indication of what he was doing. In his third article mentioned above, Bhinder has given extraordinary details of the Dr Narang’s “authorial” enterprise. He has quoted excerpts from the Urdu book and then placed them next to their unacknowledged English original. Further, he has listed with precision the countless pages in Dr Narang’s book that correspond almost word-for-word with the English pages of American and British scholars. For example, pages 79–106, 234–240, 243–267, and 288–329 of Dr Narang’s book, according to Bhinder, are exact translations of pages 27–42, 149–158, 86–103, and 49–70, of Raman Selden’s book, A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory (1985). The other exploited scholars that Bhinder similarly identifies are Terence Hawke, Catherine Belsey, John Sturrock, Jonathan Culler, Christopher Norris, and Robert Scholes. (I must add that Bhinder’s critique has some other dimensions too that are important and relevant for all academics in a general manner.

The evidence Bhinder presents is quite irrefutable. When, for example, I checked the pages he points out in Selden’s book, they indeed turned out to be the unacknowledged source of Dr Narang’s remarks. I also stumbled upon something equally interesting. Dr Narang has a note on Michel Foucault (pp. 193–8) in the second chapter in his “Book Two,” i.e. the second section of his book. The text on pages 194–6, as pointed out by Bhinder, is merely a translation of pages 158–9 in Selden’s book.

I checked the “sources” that Dr Narang’s has helpfully listed for each chapter, and found that he does list Raman’s book as a source for that particular chapter. And gives exact page numbers too: 79–84 and 98–102. The first reference, however, turned out to be where Selden discusses Bertolt Brecht, Theodor Adorno, and Walter Benjamin The second was equally curious: in Selden’s book, page 98 deals with Frederic Jameson, but pages 99–102 contain only a bibliography. Again, the opening paragraph of Dr Narang’s note on Jonathan Culler (pp. 318–9) is, as per Bhinder, entirely Selden’s (p. 62). But in the sources, Selden’s name is listed with page numbers 106–27! In other words, while Dr Narang twice went to the trouble of indicating precise—though unrelated—pages in Selden’s book, he somehow failed to include the pages he had actually abused.

Bhinder’s charges are extremely serious. They are also thoroughly documented. First made three years ago, his accusation has remained unchallenged—unlike in the past when the slightest criticism of Dr Narang promptly produced a spate of articles in his defence and diatribes against the critic. This time he and his admirers are remarkably silent. And for good reason. They understand that any attempt would only bring more notoriety. Sadly, they also know that the academic circles in India in general, and the university departments of Urdu in particular, take no notice of inconvenient details. With them it is always “business as usual.”

After all, soon after Bhinder’s original article came out in 2006, Dr Narang received the degree of ‘D.Litt. Honoris Causa‘ from the Central University at Hyderabad. Then after two more articles, two similar honorary degrees were conferred on him in the past six months, by the Maulana Azad National Urdu University and the Aligarh Muslim University.

Sahitya Akademi has an excellent policy of making its award-winning books available in other major languages of India, including English. Dr Narang’s book received the award some fourteen years ago, but, to my knowledge, it has so far been translated only into Hindi (2000). May I ask the Akademi to do a major favour to Urdu letters? Marathi and Bengali scholars, in my experience, are usually far more knowledgeable about modern and pre-modern literary theories than an average Urdu academic. (I very much include myself among the latter.) The Akademi should have Dr Narang’s award-winning book translated into both Bengali and Marathi so that it can properly be judged by his peers in India. Given the international protocols on copyright, however, an English translation might not be advisable at this time.

C.M. Naim is Professor Emeritus, University of Chicago

Text provided by Ijaz Syed

Shiv Kumar Batalvi by Amarjit Chandan

This thought-provoking appreciation of Shiv Kumar’s poetry and his contribution to Punjabi literature is rendered by another poet of note: Amarjit Chandan; and, is presented here to commemorate Shiv Kumar’s birthday on the disputed date of July 23 (Wichaar.com).

The Poet of Gloom and Doom was a Good Laugh
By Amarjit Chandan

Shiv Kumar, Southall 1971. Amarjit Chandan Collection

Among the post-1947 generation of Punjabi poets, Shiv Kumar (SK) is perhaps the most popular poet. He has the same sort of following as painter Sobha Singh has for his kitsch paintings like Sohni Mahival and Gurdas Mann for his hollow songs. Sant Singh Sekhon, who once called SK as the Keats of Punjabi poetry, defined SK’s creative limitations in his introduction to his English rendering of SK’s Luna (1985):

‘When he [SK] first shot into prominence, he was at once noted for the peculiar charm of his diction and imagery and for his tone of decadent passion and existential despair. His favourite themes were the ache of desire, the melancholy of love and the fascination of death. …Young poets who make a startling initial effect by talking like disappointed old people are found generally to have walked into a dead alley. Shiv Kumar, with very modest education, seemed peculiarly to be such a poet.’
Luna, English version, MS, in my collection

Sekhon’s precise insight sums up the man and the poet. I am not the only person to be in total agreement with Sekhon.

It is a common view amongst Punjabi literary circles that SK’s poetry revolves around unfulfilled adolescent romance. It is all gloom and doom. Morbid imagery is recurrent in almost all his poems e.g. tears, pain, separation, poison, malady and death. He weaves words with pleasant lyrical sounds, which carry away the Punjabi reader without giving much thought to their actual meanings. A contemporary of SK said: Shiv’s poetry is like the stringed musical toy, which is music to your ears while the seller plays it. But in your hands it is just clay.

Though it is a cliché that poetry is impossible to translate, but most of the time the real worth of a poem is put to test when it is translated into another language; in this instance from Punjabi into English. This is another way of deconstructing the text. As an example I cite titles of two of SK’s poems: Vidhwa Rut (The Widowed Season) and HanjhuaN dee Chhabil (Tears dealt out gratuitously to slake thirst). The Punjabi word chhabil has no equivalent in English. It is a variation on the Arabic word sabil, especially a stall put up during Muharram to offer water or soft drinks to passers-by. In Punjab during the month of June, when the summer is at its peak, Punjabis of all denominations put up such stalls – chhabils. I quote a typical couplet from one of SK’s poems titled HanjhuaN de Gah (The Harvetsing of Tears):

jahi laRhi merey kaljey te birhoN dee dhamuRhi
merey jeriaN da arsh te pataal sujjia.
What a terrible wasp of separation it was, who stung my heart
The sky and the abyss of my heart got swollen.
Birha tu Sultan, 1975

The English version of the above lines is a faithful rendering of the original in Punjabi, though the wasp in Punjabi is not of neutral gender; it is she. I can testify that the couplet is as meaningless in the original as it is in the translation.

A random survey of Shiv Kumar’s fans would reveal that his popularity is based on just four or five poems. The top of the pop being mainu paiN birhoN de keeRhey ve (May I be infested with the maggots of separation). Him being handsome with wailing singing voice is another factor. He fits into the popular image of tragic hero, who dies young. He is the Devdas of Punjabi poetry. Unfortunately his later poems written during the rise of Maoist-Naxalite movement in East Punjab in the late 1960s especially Rukh nu fansi (A Tree Hanged) are little known. He tried in vain to be ‘modern’ and did write some prayogvadi experimental poems comparing bottles of beer lying on the table with ballistic missiles. Through Navtej Singh (d 1981), the editor of Preet Lari, SK flirted with the communists and read his poem Nehru de Varisan nu (To the Heirs of Nehru) in the Communist Party of India (CPI) congress held in Bombay in 1964. CPI’s and Preet Lari’s soft corner towards Nehru is well known. Even Navtej Singh found the poem politically naive and edited it before it was published in his magazine. I was close to Navtej Singh and worked under him for a while as an editor of Preet Lari. It all happened before my eyes, as it were.

Though SK borrowed some of his diction from Sufibani and titled one of his collection Birha tu Sultan after Sheikh Farid in the Adi Granth, he failed to take his work to the level of spirituality. Some recent academic studies claim that Shah Hussain was SK’s inspiration. It is worth noting here that Shah Hussain’s work was turned down by Guru Arjan Dev (1563–1606), when he had visited the fifth Guru in Amritsar to impress upon him to include his work in the Adi Granth. [As quoted in Gurshabad Ratnakar Mahankosh – Encyclopaedia of Sikh Literature, Bhai Kahn Singh, Reprint 1990; Ithas Sri Guru Granth Sahib (A History of Guru Granth Sahib), Giani Gurdit Singh, 1990]. If Shah Hussain was SK’s role model, then why he picked up his diction only and not his philosophy of Sufism? In my conversations with Sohan Qadri, a painter-poet and a close friend of SK has to say: ‘Shiv Kumar was a good laugh, but he was not deep.’ Hun-khin (The Present Moment in Time), Navyug 2000.
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Talking about a revolution: Bhagat Singh Bilga

Bhagat Singh Bilga, 2006. Photo by Ajay Bhardwaj

Bhagat Singh Bilga, the last survivor of the Gadar Movement, tells Teena Baruah about his many adventures (2005)

The man former prime minister I K Gujral calls “a legend” is not a scholar or a man of many words. Ninety-eight-year-old Bhagat Singh Bilga is a revolutionary, the last survivor of the Gadar (revolution) Movement, a struggle launched by expatriate Punjabis in the US and Canada to overthrow the British in India.

Bilga still remembers the heady days when he signed up for the movement. It was 1931 and he, then 24, had just reached the Republic of Argentina in search of a job. The first person he met was revolutionary and freedom fighter Bhagat Singh’s exiled uncle Ajit Singh. Soon, Bilga was won over by the cause. The money he earned by working as a clerk in a railway store went into the kitty that funded revolutionary outfits like Naujawan Bharat Sabha and Kirti Party, and he became a key member of the Gadar Movement in South America. “Gaye the kamai karne ke liye, leke aye inqalab (We went to earn a living, and brought back revolution),” says Bilga, reclining on a narrow bed in a room at Desh Bhagat Yadgar Memorial Hall in Jalandhar. The hall was inaugurated by him and his comrades in the Gadar Movement.

The movement had its roots in discrimination against Indian immigrants in Canada and the US. In April 1914, Gurdit Singh, a prosperous Punjabi contractor from Singapore, chartered a Japanese ship, the Komagata Maru, to take a party of Indians over to Canada. The ship sailed from Hong Kong and, after collecting other passengers at Shanghai, Kobe and Yokohama, arrived at Vancouver on May 23, 1914, with 376 Indians – all Punjabis, with 340 Sikhs, 12 Muslims and 24 Muslims – on board. Canadian immigration authorities refused all but 22 passengers permission to land. The ship eventually headed back to India. As it approached Calcutta on September 26, 1914, a European gunboat corralled the ship and held the passengers prisoner. The Komagata Maru was then taken to a place called Budge Budge, about 17 miles away from Calcutta and the passengers were told that they were being sent to Punjab on a special train. Many of them were reluctant, preferring to remain in Calcutta and seek employment there. In the scuffle that resulted, the policemen opened fire and 20 people died. It was the spark that lit the torch of the Gadar Movement. And the Soviet revolution in 1917 fanned the flames; the ‘Gadaris’- as the followers of the movement came to be known – looked to Moscow for financial support and revolutionary training, their ultimate aim to establish a communist state in India.

Bilga too was sent to Moscow by the Gadar Party with 60 other Gadaris to learn the Russian language, Marxism, politics, economics, military techniques and guerrilla warfare. In 1933, he received his orders to return to Punjab. Sikhs in those days were followed by the British all over the world on their journey back home, and arrested the moment they touched home ground. Travelling on a fake passport under the pseudonym ‘Milky Singh’, Bilga took an impossible route, crossing Paris, Berlin, and Colombo, before reaching Kanyakumari. He crossed Nagpur and Calcutta before coming to Kanpur. It took him a year.

Bilga is preparing to travel again. “Today, I have a valid passport,” he says with a smile. He is going to Birmingham in the UK to stay with his two sons, Kulbir, 76, and Prem, 56, and consult doctors about his prostate problem. “When you travel after 90, you should travel light,” he adds, packing his age-old grey overcoat in a tiny suitcase. It’s also hard for him to find things in his small, cluttered room at the memorial hall.

Bilga’s home, the Desh Bhagat Yadgar Memorial Hall, is a treasure trove for researchers, safekeeping over 17,000 books about India’s revolutionary history. There are handwritten statements of Gadaris, a British directory containing sketches and whereabouts of Gadaris, original copies of the movement’s handwritten newspaper Gadar (in Punjabi and Urdu) which was published from San Francisco in 1913, and 2,000 rare pictures of revolutionaries, who usually took great pains to conceal their faces and identities.

“I have dedicated myself to this museum which has 35 other freedom fighters as its members,” he says. “It traces the life of each and every Gadari along with their photographs. We have collected them from their villages, relatives and friends, in India and abroad. And all this to tell the world that Englishmen didn’t leave India because a handful of Indians threw salt into their eyes. They left because we sent them packing.”

Over the past 46 years, the museum has received financial help from NRIs, as well as information about their revolutionary relatives and friends. “They know these pieces of history will be safe with us,” says Bilga. Every October, a five-day festival called Gadari Mela is hosted at the Yadgar Hall to celebrate the contributions of revolutionaries. It is attended mostly by families of martyrs of the Gadar Movement – 400 revolutionaries were hanged and 5,000 were sent to Kala Pani for life imprisonment; most of them never returned – who often come from abroad to be a part of it. Last year, a BBC reporter who filmed a documentary on Bilga sent him some cash and a rare picture of Gadaris in Singapore taken on February 15, 1915. Unfortunately, Bilga can’t enjoy viewing his collection as he used to, having lost his eyesight three years ago.

The debility has also robbed him of his habit of reading his favourite Punjabi daily Naya Zamana. But Bilga regularly listens to TV news bulletins and receives a steady stream of visitors. His comrades’ family members often drop in for a glass of tea. And then there’s 52-year-old Gurmit Singh, a former journalist and student communist who has dedicated his life to keep alive the memories of the Gadaris. Gurmit spends 12 hours with Bilga every day and is family now – Bilga’s wife Jannat died 35 years ago. “I talk to him about everything from family problems to pressures at work,” says Gurmit. “He listens carefully and his advice is in sync with the times. Sometimes, it seems he is 20 years old.”

Bilga’s daughter Kranti died of typhoid after he was arrested for his anti-Partition protest after Independence. His two sons live in Birmingham and are active leftists – elder son Kulbir is currently the president of the Indian Worker’s Association in Birmingham. “It’s in their genes,” he says with pride. “And they love fussing over their father, sending money and arranging expensive medical treatment for me.”

His family aside, Bilga has many well-wishers. CPI (M) general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet, 90, has known him for 30 years. “His village Bilga is about 8 km away from my village Bundala,” he says. “Also, we have worked together as comrades for the Communist Party. I have rarely seen a more dedicated father, a finer freedom fighter and a more grounded politician in my lifetime.” And Balwant Singh Ramoowalia, 60, former union minister and former secretary general of the Akali Dal, calls him a “true patriot”. Ramoowalia was introduced to Bilga a quarter of a century ago while he was settling pension cases of freedom fighters as an MP in 1998. He adds, “Bilga’s commitment to the nation is so strong that he could never get along with any political party completely. In fact, he earned the reputation of being ziddi (stubborn) by standing to his personal ideology.”

Bilga continues to act stubbornly on his beliefs. His emphatic belief in pluralism led him to take on Sikh extremists during the Khalistan separatist movement in the late 1970s and 1980s.

“In 1978, it was impossible to challenge Punjabi terrorists if you were a Sikh,” recalls journalist Kuldip Nayar, 79. “While covering the Punjab unrest, I heard of Bilga. He stood alone and spread his pluralistic ideas. The fact that he had no weapons to defend himself didn’t bother him either.” Bilga agrees that it was impossible to speak against Khalistani mobs in the emotionally charged villages of Punjab in the early 1980s. “We recruited more than 200 young intellectuals to pacify the fanatics,” he remembers. “Most of them were gunned down.” Bilga went from one village to another on his cycle, requesting Hindus not to give in to communal hatred. “I once went to a condolence meeting of a slain Hindu and addressed Sikh mourners there against the movement. After coming back home, I sat in the courtyard awaiting my death. I desperately wanted to be a martyr!”

Bilga has had many close calls. Once, he travelled from Colombo to Kanyakumari with a British spy in tow. He posed as a Tamilian and exchanged his ticket with a co-passenger. But the spy wasn’t fooled. Finally, Bilga had to jump out of the train at Nagpur. He reached Kolkata, worked as a trade union leader and played an important role in bringing the shutters down on Juggi Lal Kamlapat cloth mill – the strike was called because the mill owners had beaten a worker to death. He also established two underground presses, one in Kanpur and another in Lahore.

As the memories come flooding back, Bilga becomes animated again, belying the fact that he’s 98. He has only recently allowed his body certain concessions. “Earlier, I used to wake up at 6 am,” he says. “Now, my body revolts. It tells me to go back to bed. And I listen to it. Sometimes.”

To know more about the Gadar movement, log on to www.gadarmemorial.com

Featured in Harmony Magazine April 2005

Baba Bhagat Singh Bilga (Ghadri) moves on at 102

‘Baba Bhagat Singh Bilga, the last surviving member of Ghadar Party, died today in Birmingham, UK. He was 102 years old.’
A comment at Uddari Home this morning from Bharat Bhushan
paash.wordpress.com
Waiting for more.
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Added:
Talking about a revolution: Bhagat Singh Bilga
Photos in Foto Mandli
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Punjabi MaaNboli and the Punjabis-3

Punjabi Literature Conferences

In the past couple of months, two national conferences on Punjabi literature have been announced in Canada, one to be held in Toronto in the Summer of 2009 and the other in Ottawa on the 16th tomorrow. I received information for both but could not get much out since the organizers had sent circulars in Gurumukhi alone.

First, it reminds me of my own inability to read Gurumukhi script, and prompts me to finish learning it in haste to overcome this ‘diversity barrier‘ of being a Punjabi. Second, and at the same time, it gives me the realization that this is not all that needs to happen to develop Punjabi language and literature in Canada.

Literary conferences are a great way of bringing people together to share new work, discuss issues faced by literary communities, and to reach consensus where needed. I am positive that the two conferences scheduled in Toronto and Ottawa plan to, and will, do that.

However, just as i have to keep impressing upon some White Canadians that the term ‘Canadian’ does not stand only for a ‘White Canadian’ person; so, i need to keep suggesting to some Punjabi event organizers to not use the term ‘Punjabi Literature’ to mean  ‘Punjabi Gurumukhi Literature’ or ‘Punjabi Literature in Gurumukhi script’; and, to not use the word ‘Punjabis’ only for ‘Sikh Punjabis’ or for ‘Punjabis of Sikh family origin’.

I do that not just because i am a non-Sikh Punjabi and can not read or write Gurumukhi but also because 60% of Punjabis the world over are NOT of Sikh orientation, and most of the published Punjabi literature is NOT written in Gurumukhi. Indeed, the first Punjabi literary work was written in Shahmukhi or Persio-Arabic script by a Muslim Punjabi named Baba Farid (1173-1265).

My suggestion to organizers of literary and cultural events would be to do either of the following:

- For Punjabi literature conferences that are catering only to Punjabis of Sikh orientation, please write ‘Gurumukhi Punjabi Literature’ instead of just ‘Punjabi Literature’.

- To claim that an event is dealing with ‘Punjabi literature’, a fair representation of Punjabi literary works in Gurumukhi, Shahmukhi and Devnagri must take place. The same holds true for representation of Punjabi authors of Christian, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh orientation; and, of corresponding communities and issues.

Before i finish, there are lighter things to discuss since the two conferences are generating some activity in areas where Punjabi literary communities have flourished; and, that includes Surrey and Vancouver, the (Lovely) Lower Mainland.

Here, i want to tell you The Story of Four Friends, three of whom are on a committee delegated with the task of deciding who is/was going to present papers on various issues of literary importance for one of the two conferences. The Three members of the committee met, and decided to send three papers to the conference from BC, and then proceeded to elect themselves as the three presenters.

The story does not finish here even when it is a powerful end.

The Fourth friend objected to it, and in return, was awarded with a fourth paper and another space for presentation at the conference.

I have objections to the process where presenters were ‘agreed upon’ and papers were ‘allocated’ by a three-member committee to its own three members. In other words, the three decision makers who were to send three representatives of BC Punjabi literary communities to a conference in Eastern Canada, ended up electing each other for representation by awarding the three papers to themselves. On top of that, the objections raised by the Fourth friend were not based on the critique of the process but spoke to the exclusion of an individual and another denominator; and so, was readily satisfied and silenced upon receiving the hand out.

My problems are with the process and not the people. In my view, all the four people well deserve to be at the conference to present their work and views but not in this way. Next time, please get others to nominate you or at least resist being the sole membership of a self-nominating decision-making committee.

As well, the first three and the fourth presenter all write in Gurumukhi, and all hail from Punjabi Sikh community. This in itself would be misleading for the participants of the conference in the East as it gives the impression that there are no Shahmukhi or Devnagri Punjabi writers in BC or that there are no Muslim, Hindu or Christian Punjabi writers in BC. My four friends are well aware that that is not the case.

If the purpose of the two conferences is to develop Punjabi language and literature than the conferences must be way more inclusive in representation than they are now or have been in the past.

In this, there are reasons other than the development of Punjabi language and literature that may help us to become inclusive. It is inevitable that public funds are accessed to organize national and international literary and cultural events, and because of it, the organizers and decision makers of such events must take responsibility to represent in diversity the communities they undertake to represent; and, to not view and define Punjabi communities in Canada from the standpoint of personal or single-group interests.

There is hope that the Punjabi Literature Conference in Ottawa tomorrow will address these issues of diversity in Punjabi language and literature; and, will decide upon a policy of outreach to and inclusion of Punjabi writers of all scripts, gender, abilities; and, of diverse religious, social and economic backgrounds.

I must also stress that such discrepancies are found in all communities where a section has more power or influence in relation to others. There are similar scenarios in Punjabi Muslim communities in Pakistan where such events are organized without assuring rightful representation, for example, of women, gay people, writers in rural areas, and non-Muslim Punjabi writers.

Also, living in Surrey (12.67% South Asians) for the past decade, i can not help notice the activities of organizations such as Surrey International Writers’ Conference (SIWC). Over 25% of Surrey’s ‘visible minority’ population is South Asian (Punjabi Sikh majority) yet the representation of Punjabi and South Asian writers in the SIWC has been none or negligible. See the presenting authors’ list for the SIWC 2008.

Now view one of the strongest reasons for this non-representation:

Surrey International Writers Conference (SIWC) sports an all ‘white’ organizing team in a multicultural city (46.1 ‘VM’), and year after year, produces a conference promoting English language writers of Anglo-Saxon origin while using public funds endowed to it by Surrey Board of Education through its Continuing Education program.

I wonder if the decision makers at Surrey Board of Education are aware of Surrey demographics, and if the mandate of the Board does include equality of representation when allocating public funds for literary and cultural development of the people of Surrey.

Also, the SIWC Team may not be aware of literary groups and organizations of Surrey Punjabi writers that are operating here for over thirty years, and of the fact that Surrey South Asian communities do have published authors in them.

If my expectations are unrealistic, the situation needs clarification from the SIWC, Continuing Education program and Surrey Board of Education.

Failing all else, my usual suggestion would be to at least change the name if not the essence of the Conference. Instead of just ‘Surrey International Writers’ Conference’ (SIWC), it could be ‘Surrey International White Writers’ Conference’ (SIWWC) or ‘Surrey International White English Writers Conference’ (SIWEWC).

I will not worry about the increased length of the proposed names and their abbreviations as to my estimation, it may not require much additional Continuing Education funding to implement a name change.

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‘As of 2006, the population of surrey is 394,976, a 13.6 percent increase from the 2001 population. The foreign-born population is 150,235, constituting 30.28 percent of the city’s population. Visible minorities number 181,005 or 46.1 percent of the population, while Aboriginals constitute 1.9 percent of the population. [2]

‘As of 2006, visible minority groups in Surrey are as follows[3]:

• 27.5% South Asian

• 5.1% Chinese

• 4.2% Filipino

• 2.4% Southeast Asian

• 2.0% Korean

• 1.3% Black

• 1.1% Multiple Visible Minority

• 1.0% Latin American

• 0.5% Japanese

• 0.5% Arab

• 0.5% West Asian

• 0.2% Other Visible Minority’

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrey,_British_Columbia

‘Newton has the largest population of all the city’s town centers, as well as the most ethnically diverse population; over half of the population is considered visible minority (predominantly Sikh)[1]. According to the 2001 census, the population of Newton was 91,595.’

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_Town_Centre

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Vimla Dang rests in peace

Vimla Dang:  1926 – 2009

In Chheharta, this Sunday, a great Punjabi Kashmiri woman completed the journey of her magnificent life. She was a revolutionary activist from her student days who worked for social change with a singular determination, and was honored with many rewards including a Padma Shri award.

Vimla Dang was born in 1926 in Allahabad, and raised in Lahore where she married Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Satya Pal Dang in 1952, and moved to Chheharta the same year.

On May 10, 2009, after experiencing a brief illness, Vimla passed away. View her profile: A Great Woman from the Punjab.

Though expected, death is always unexpected in the moment of its appearance. On May 9, this comment was posted by Chitra, Vimla’s Grand Niece, on the above page:
‘Vimla Dang is Kashmiri, married to a Punjabi :) I’m proud to say she’s my grand aunt.’
In response, i had requested more information and photos.

The next day, yesterday, Amarjit Chandan forwarded an email message from Sukhdev saying ‘Vimla Dang is no more‘, and a few hours later, sent this photo titled ‘last Rites’.
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It is hard sometimes to feel gratified with the fulfillment of some requests. However, I was prompted again this morning with another comment ‘Vimla Dang passed away yesterday‘ from Bharat Bhushan.

Vimla Dang! What an inspiring life!
Thank you.

CPI leader Vimla Dang dead
She fought for downtrodden till her last breath

The Tribune Chandigarh May 10 2009

A pall of gloom descended on the industrial township of Chheharta, near Amritsar, when veteran CPI leader and former MLA Vimla Dang died at a private hospital here this morning after a brief illness. She was wife of Satya Pal Dang, also a veteran CPI leader.

Supporters and senior Communist and local leaders reached the house of the Dang couple to pay homage to the departed leader. She was cremated in the Naraingarh crematorium. The pyre was lit by Anil Dang, a nephew of Satya Pal Dang.

National general secretary, Communist Party of India (CPI), AB Bardhan, Joginder Dayal, national executive member, CPI, Bhupinder Sambhar, state secretary, Mangat Ram Pasla, state secretary, Marxist CP, Congress and BJP candidates for the Amritsar Lok Sabha constituency Om Parkash Soni and Navjot Singh Sidhu, respectively, and other senior Communist leaders attended the cremation.

Awarded with Padma Shri in 1998 for her contribution to the social sphere, Vimla, along with her husband, had fought many relentless battles for the cause of the downtrodden. They took a principled stand against militancy in Punjab. She remained president of the Punjab Istri Sabha and took up the cause of women’s emancipation and 33 per cent reservation for women.

She belonged to a Kashmiri Pandit family and graduated from Kinnard College for Women, Lahore, before shifting to Mumbai after Partition. She got married to Satya Pal in 1952 in Mumbai after she returned from Prague, where she represented India in the International Union of Students.

After marriage, the couple shifted to Chheharta. They decided not to have a child as they did not want to divert their attention from people’s struggle.

Though the couple led “underground” life during the British rule and both were entitled to Freedom Fighters’ Pension, they never claimed the same till date.

The couple retired from the National Council of the CPI and decided not to contest the assembly elections with the plea that there must be an age limit for holding a political office.

The Tribune Chandigarh May 10 2009

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Photo: Satya Pal Dang (centre), husband of Vimla, and other leaders pay last respects to her in Amritsar on Sunday. Photo by Vishal Kumar