by AAMIR RAZA
Researcher Aamir Raza sheds light on Pakistani revolutionary poet Habib Jalib’s poetry of resistance.
“No poet since Wali Dakkani has been able to capture greater audience than Habib Jalib. He is truly the poet of the masses…” – Faiz Ahmad Faiz
Poetry, like politics, has a long tradition of building solidarity among the participants of social movements who are fighting the prevailing heavy cloud of social and political fatigue. In June 1962, when General Ayub Khan fostered a new constitution in Pakistan and the dictatorship was tightening its grip on civil society, a young dissident poet decided to vigorously oppose military rule through his defiant poetry, and chose to sing about the common man and his life. The new constitution abolished parliamentary democratic practices and established a dictatorial and autocratic ‘presidential rule’ of Field Marshal Ayub Khan. Calling out the farce, Habib Jalib wrote Dastoor.
Deep jis ka mehllaat hi Mein jaley,
Chand logon ki khushiyon ko le kar chaley,
Wo jo saaye Mein har maslehat ke paley,
Aisey dastoor ko,
Sub-he-be-Noor ko,
Main nahein maanta,
Main nahein Janata.
Due to its mass appeal, Jalib was requested to recite it wherever he went. As a result, Ayub Khan sent Jalib to prison but even this could not prevent him from expressing dissent in his poetry.
How Habib Jalib stood against the establishment
Dastoor doesn’t only capture the political frustration and anger of ordinary Pakistanis but also celebrates the voice of the oppressed living under tyrannical rule anywhere in South Asia. It thus became the anthem of resistance against ‘dictatorial’ regimes in Pakistan.
More recently, the poem was recited repeatedly by protestors across India during the agitation against the polarising Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). His poetry rejected authoritarian inclinations and dispensations.
He was never a Darbari poet and during his lifetime, never reconciled with the ruling establishment. He continued speaking his mind and never shied away from taking on the powerful.
Quint for more