Urdu, for Indians, by Indians

In a collection of freshly written essays, Rakhshanda Jalil celebrates poetry's healing properties, while cautioning against prioritising one's religion over our shared humanity

Love in the Time of Hate: In the Mirror of Urdu

Author: Rakhshanda Jalil

Publisher: Simon & Schuster India

Pages: 264

Price:  Rs 699

“When push comes to shove in the New India that is Bharat, not even speaking English will give me an exit pass if a mob baying for Muslim blood were to gherao me. All my so-called privileges can be brought to naught by a crowd of lumpens. This realisation is chilling,” writes Rakhshanda Jalil in her new book Love in the Time of Hate: In the Mirror of Urdu.

The author, translator and literary historian, who is an authority on Urdu literature, speaks on behalf of numerous Muslims in urban India who live with the fear of violence each day as they encounter hate speech on campuses, television, social media, and in housing society WhatsApp groups. This is not how things should be, especially in a country that prides itself on its democratic values, age-old traditions of interfaith exchange, and unity in diversity.

Since Ms Jalil is aware of the advantages offered by her class background, education, and her access to people in high places, she is quick to admit that Muslim kabab sellers, plumbers, electricians, painters, carpenters, vegetable vendors, car mechanics, quilt makers and other service providers are a lot more vulnerable. They have to hide their “Muslim-sounding” names as their religious identity can be used as a reason to terminate their services.

Love in the Time of Hate reminded me of Nazia Erum’s book Mothering a Muslim: The Dark Secret in Our Schools and Playgrounds  (2017), published by Juggernaut. Ms Erum uses interviews with Muslim mothers from Delhi, Gurugram, Mumbai, Lucknow, Noida and Hyderabad to give us an account of their fears and the strategies they use to protect their children from bullying, discrimination and physical harm in schools and on playgrounds.

As we mull over the election results, let us take strength from these lines in Urdu penned by the poet Bashir Badr, which feature as an epigraph in Ms Jalil’s book: Saat sanduqon mein bharkar dafn kar do nafratein/ Aaj insaan ko mohabbat ki zarurat hai bahut (Stuff all the hatred in seven boxes and bury it deep/ Today, humans need love more than anything else).

Poetry often serves as a balm and a refuge; this book is a celebration of its healing properties. Ms Jalil is out to prove that “Urdu poetry is NOT poetry by Muslims for Muslims about Muslims”, and that the concerns of poets writing in Urdu extend far beyond the travails of the shama and the  parvana  (popular tropes of the candle and the moth) or the gul-o-bulbul

(the rose and the nightingale) that came to Urdu poetry from classical Persian poetry.

She accomplishes the task of breaking stereotypes quite effectively in this collection of freshly written essays and previously published pieces that have been substantially revised. She writes, for instance, about how Vardhaman Mahavir and Gautam Buddha have been eulogised in Urdu poetry, which might come as a surprise to those who wrongly assume that Urdu poetry must restrict itself to prophets, mystics and saints from the Islamic tradition.

Apart from drawing attention to the importance of plurality, Ms Jalil also makes room for voices that warn readers about the perils of identifying so closely with one’s religion that it takes precedence over the shared experience of being human. Nida Fazli, for instance, writes: “Koi Hindu, koi Muslim, koi Eesai hai/ Sabne insaan na hone ki qasam khayi hai (They are a Hindu, or a Muslim or a Christian/ Everyone has taken an oath not to be a human).”

As one would expect from a volume of this kind, it also addresses the impact of socialism and communism on several poets writing in Urdu, including Wamiq Jaunpuri, Ali Sardar Jafri, Makhdum Mohiuddin, Josh Malihabadi, Sahir Ludhianvi and Majrooh Sultanpuri. Saadat Hasan Manto — the reputed writer of short stories—had a sharp critique of these left-leaning tendencies. This might unsettle Manto fans who view him as a messiah of the marginalised.

Ms Jalil quotes him in Urdu, and offers an English translation: “Mujhe naam-nihaad Communiston se badi chid hai. Woh log mujhe bahut khalte hain jo narm-narm sofon par baith kar daraanti aur hathaude ke zarbon ki baatein karte hain.” (I get very irked by so-called Communists. Those people who sit on soft sofas and speak of the blows of hammers and sickles trouble me greatly). These remarks by Manto are absolutely relevant even today.

This eclectic collection also contains essays about Urdu poetry on horrific events such as the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre and the demolition of the Babri Masjid; on historical figures such as M K Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Rani Lakshmi Bai and Bhagat Singh; and on more tender subjects such as love, watermelons and harsinghar flowers. It deserves to be read widely, for it achieves a delicate balance between harshness and beauty.

The reviewer is a journalist and educator who is  @chintanwriting on Instagram and X