By Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed

The Friday Times : 26 Feb 2016

Ishtiaq Ahmed was on hand to witness another literary festival, this one in Lyallpur (Faisalabad) – the heart of Punjab

A view of the session on Punjabi women

The Lyallpur Sulekh Mela (Lyallpur Literary Festival) held in the open ground of the Faisalabad Arts Council on 15-16 February 2016 was a milestone in Punjab’s cultural and intellectual revival and renaissance. Mr. Tariq Jatala, Mr. Ahmed Raza and I travelled together from Lahore to attend the festival. It fills a huge gap in the literary domain because the annual literary festivals of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad cater essentially for those who write and read in English and Urdu. Corporate money, foreign donors and native elites come together to provide resources and organisation which make possible these festivals. The Punjabi language and culture; the history of Punjab in general and of its people’s struggles in particular;  its wisdom preserved in folklore and sufi, yogi, bhakti and guru traditions  receives scant attention, if any at all in such forums. That is why the Lyallpur Literary Festival is a landmark event. The Punjabi Lok Sujaag, Kuknus and Faisalabad Arts Council collaborated to host the festival while Tohid Ahmad Chattha and Amir Butt were overall in charge of the programme. The support of the people of Faisalabad was obvious. Many leading personalities and public figures of the city attended the sessions.

In his opening remarks Tohid Ahmad Chattha made the very incisive observation that contemporary philosophy is examining the crucial – or rather decisive – role that language plays in the legitimisation of political and social power and establishing a hegemonic state narrative. Since the Punjabi language has been excluded from the national narrative altogether, the Punjabi masses are alienated and marginalised in the power games which the Punjabi elites play amongst themselves and against the smaller nationalities of Pakistan. Faisalabad-born veteran Punjabi writer Afzal Ahsan Randhawa expressed great joy over the literary festival taking place in his hometown. He deplored how Punjabi has been treated as a pariah language by the state.

A dance performance at the festival

Punjabi intellectuals made observations with an ease which comes from speaking one’s mother tongue

This is very true indeed. It has been very difficult for me to explain this absurdity to non-Punjabis – that the Punjabi elite and their allies in Karachi and elsewhere are the villains of the piece and not ordinary Punjabis whose language figures neither in teaching nor in revenue records or police records, which are all composed in Urdu and archaic Persian or English terminology.

A language  as rich and nuanced as the Punjabi used by Baba Fariduddin Shakerganj, Guru Nanak, Bulleh Shah, Shah Hussain, Sultan Bahu, Khawaja Farid, Mian Muhammad Bakhsh and other great humanists cannot be killed by state fiat. It lives on among people. These great Punjabis represented the inclusive values of the Sufi doctrine of Wahdat-ul-Wujud (Unity of Existence) and of related brotherhoods such as the Gorakhnathi yogis, the Bhaktis and Sikh Gurus. Except for a parallel cultural movement in Sindh, nowhere else in the Indian Subcontinent did so many people from different religious backgrounds share a common interest in creating understanding and goodwill among the various communities. While Guru Nanak chastised Mughal ruler Babur for using excessive force, Bulleh Shah deplored the raids of Afghan marauders. These men of wisdom and compassion were rooted in the local communities, shunned close links with the rulers and rejected the invaders.

The people of Faisalabad (formerly Lyallpur) enthusiastically attended the festival

However, it is never enough for a culture to base its achievements on the literature and historical struggles of the past only. It is how the present is being perceived and presented in poetry and prose and different art forms which indicate a people’s social and political awareness. Given the lack of facilities for learning Punjabi and little serious research done on the history of Punjab and contemporary Punjabi society one would have expected that the current state of Punjabi poetry and prose would be poorly developed. That assumption of mine proved to be serious flawed and impaired. I forgot that language and formal education are merely tools; human intellect is the same everywhere and people do not stop thinking just because their language is suppressed. On the contrary, such oppression lends them insights which are usually missing in elite narratives.  In the arts gallery of the Faisalabad Arts Council there were amazing paintings by Punjabi artistes which demonstrate their creative impulse.

And then of course all people have their distinct traditions of dance and music and the Punjabi bhangra and other dances and their quick beat of dhol and dholak are part of the national cinema of both Pakistan and India. There was ample display of it at the Lyallpur Literary Festival. The only thing peculiar with West Punjabis is that while men dance, women sit quietly with their head covered and try to look pious.

The author and friends at his session on Punjabi history

When the contemporary Punjabi novel, short-story, theatre and drama were discussed – and the attitudes of Punjabi women towards the language issue came up and were commented upon – I realised how sophisticated are our new generations of Punjabi intellectuals and artistes. They had been reading and internalising current trends in literature and philosophy and developing their aesthetical tools and analytical categories in the light of their own experiences and observations. Consequently, when they presented their observations, they did it with an ease which comes only when one is speaking in one’s mother-tongue.

I took part in a session which was supposed to focus on books on Punjab’s history.

Unfortunately no attention was given to my book which is on the Partition of the Punjab and covers the most tragic and traumatic experience in the history of modern Punjab. A lot of time was wasted on vain disputation of random historical facts and myths. Nevertheless I succeeded in pointing out that while blaming the British for our ills was (to a point) justified, there was little in the Muslim past of a thousand years to be terrifically proud of. Not a single modern college or university or hospital was made by our great warrior-kings. I should have pointed out that the city of Lyallpur was built by the English.

Hosts and organisers – Amir Butt and Tohid Ahmad Chattha

Contemporary Lyallpur and its literary scene are reminiscent of Lahore 45-50 years ago

The highpoint was the closing session of Punjabi mushiara (poetry recital). As a youngster I remember attending many mushiaras in Lahore. They would take place in many parts of the city and one could hear Ahmed Rahi, Tofail Hoshiarpuri, Zaheer Kaashmiri, Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, Sagar Siddiqui, Allama Latif Anwar and occasionally Faiz Ahmed Faiz as well. The poetry was sublime. Those traditions are almost dead in Lahore.

But on the 16th of February, I could relive the same atmosphere, which was charged with an extraordinary display of social and class-conscious poetry as well as traditional verses about unrequited love and occasional fulfilment. The mushaira and other proceedings have been uploaded on the Internet. I was particularly mesmerised by the totally irreverent poetry of Sabir Ali Sabir. Here is a man who thinks like Bulleh Shah and has the courage to go even further in rejecting dogma and hierarchy and authority.

Afzal Randhawa opening the Literary Festival

Contemporary Lyallpur (Faisalabad) reminded me of a Lahore that existed some 45-50 years ago. One could meet the writers and poets easily and we knew each other and people were courteous and well-behaved. Lyallpur is just the right size and my friend Afzal Amir Shah who spent a lot of time in the city told me that the social cohesion of that city was maintained by the close biradari (kinship) links amongst both the settlers and the local people. When the canal colonies were built, hundreds of thousands of people from the overpopulated eastern districts of the united Punjab, especially from Ludhiana, Jullundhur, Hoshiarpur and Kapurthala State were settled in Lyallpur from the late 19th century onwards. Their younger generations continue to be closely-knit even now.  I met the historian Dr Abdul Qadir Mushtaq who belongs to the native tribes of Lyallpur and adjoining areas. He told me that the same cohesion is found among the native people. Nevertheless, the truth seems to be that the settlers have taken over; this happens quite so often.  In his concluding remarks Amir Butt pledged that next year the literary festival will take place and he invited us to come again. I sure will if I am around at that time.

The Punjabi heart beats strong and loud in Lyallpur. If I could choose to settle in Pakistan I would prefer Lyallpur and not Lahore.  However, just as I was about to send off the article I was told that Faisalabad is the hotbed of jihadi forces. However, on those two days it seemed that the progressives and leftists had taken over the town!

Ishtiaq Ahmed is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Stockholm University, Visiting Professor at the Government College University Lahore and Honorary Senior Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore.