Sing Heavenly Muse, is the sublime opening of Milton’s Paradise Lost. Rakhshanda Jalil has an equally evocative, epic scale and tenor in the opening to what may well turn out to be a modern-day classic, Love in the Time of Hate: In The Mirror of Urdu.
Tracing how there has been a slow but steady build up in the situation, Rakhshanda Jalil points out, “Slow, small, seemingly insignificant events, beginning with the countrywide Rath Yatra of 1990, kept adding a layer of “normal’ till we have reached this stage of the New Normal, where blatant bigotry, bare-faced communalism and publicly-aired prejudices are considered perfectly all right.”
Changing the Normal
People are being forced to unlearn the values they have imbibed and grown up with. In a poetic vein, the author invokes a couplet of Shahryar: Waqt teri yeh ada main aaj tak samjha nahi/Meri duniya kyun badal dii, mujh ko kyun badla nahi (Time, I have never understood this trait of yours till today, Why have you changed my world, but not changed me).
The canvas is large and wide, but Rakhshanda Jalil strikes a chord in the reader. Even while drawing attention to the grim, awefully-terrifying and bone-chilling social climate of hate and violence that is gripping all around, at the same time, the author holds up the mirror of Urdu that harks the nation back to the eternal core cultural and civilizational ethos that shaped the distinct national personality. It is not defined by alienation and exclusion, but by assimilation and inclusion, which is the foundational Idea of India.
Invoking the magic of the legendary Urdu poet Sahir Ludhianvi, Rakhshanda Jalil sets the stage for a grand reconciliation, which is the only way to pull back from this suicidal path. Nafraton ke jahaan mein hum ko pyaar ki bastiyaan basaanii hain/
Duur rehna koi kamaal nahi, pass aao to koi baat baney (In this world of hatred, we have to set up habitations of love. Staying away is no big deal, coming closer is the real thing).
The book, comprising 80 themes, is divided into four sections of Politics, People, Passions and Places.
Recreating Partition Horrors
In Politics section, Rakhshanda deals with a host of contemporaneous issues. As a result of Partition, the nation has been scarred by communal hatred and battered by storms of communal frenzy. The expectation was that the nation would have learnt its lessons. Far from it, there are deliberate, open attempts to stoke the fire.
There is a lurking sense of regret that even after over 75 years of Indian Independence, Partition Horrors are being recreated and brought alive. Contrived controversies like Halaal, Hijab and Love Jihad, besides mob-lynching, which is communal riot in a micro-form, with the same intent to send across a deadly and damning message to a particular community, just like Hitler did, through hate and violence, have worsened the situation.
As a Hindu, I feel it is highly revulsive and revolting that a pious chant of God’s name has been turned into terror-induced shrill slogan that sends chill down the spine. Lord Ram is portrayed in the Ramayan as a personification of compassion.
Just before the start of the war in Lanka, Ram sends Vanar Prince Angad as emissary to Ravan. The message is simple and straight. Return Sita and I will go back the way I came. Ravan misreads it as a sign of weakness of Ram and scoffs at the peace proposal. Such a kind and compassionate personality is being sought to be portrayed in the opposite way, in these times of Hate.
The Delhi riots, when terrifying slogans were raised, or communal violence entering the Millennium City of Gurgaon, “prove that these are no longer hypothetical scenarios. This is a lived reality for countless Indian Muslims.”
Anwar Jabalpuri’s couplet says it all. Na tera hai na mera hai, yeh Hindustan sab ka hai/Nahi samjhi gayi yeh baat, to nuqsaan sab ka hai (Neither yours nor mine, this Hindustan is everyone’s /If this is not understood, the loss will be everyone’s).
Hitlerian Parallel
The present situation in India is not without parallels. There are striking aspects of the way Adolf Hitler came to power. Interestingly, Hitler enjoyed enormous personal popularity, but he never fared well in popular elections. Interestingly, he, too, secured 37 per cent vote. He enjoyed oratorial skills and exercised democratic rights to free speech and holding rallies and finally managed to come to power through the democratic process. Once firmly in the saddle, he disabled and dismantled the Weimar Republic.
Judgment at Nuremberg, a film of 1961, is referred by Jalil to illustrate the point of the terrible consequence of those who knew, yet chose to remain silent, as terrible changes were being wrought in the civil society, in the executive, the judiciary and in almost every sphere of life in Nazi Germany.
Rakhshanda Jalil writes, “An American judge presides over a tribunal in post-War Germany in the trial of four German jurists accused of “legalizing” Nazi atrocities. Prescient with lessons for us in India, it makes compulsive viewing.”
Parallels are indeed ominous. Targeting a single community, Hitler managed to strike fear in a vast majority of people. Persistent depression, like low-grade fever that does not quite halt the daily rhythm of life. But it just slows down a person by its continuous, relentless presence, making the person sad and somehow empty.
Growing Marginalization
Rakhshanda points out, “I suspect I am not alone in this. I feel this fear and depression among a great many Muslims in urban India. I hear it in their silences. I sense it in their steadfast refusal to get drawn into political debates. I notice it in their stoicism in the face of virulent hate swirling about in school and college WhatsApp groups as well as RWA/housing society group chats.”
In the section on People, Rakhshanda starts with What Makes Gandhi Alive Today? Born more than 150 years ago and assassinated more than 75 years go, he continues to appeal to the modern mind across the world.
Quoting from Nushur Wahidi, Gandhi is shown as a light that cannot be snuffed out, a life force that will always show the way, a treasure that can never be pillaged. Woh humesha ke liye chup huve magar ik jahaan ko aawaaz dii/Woh humesha ke liye so gaye magar ik jahaan ko jaga diya (He was silenced forever, but he gave voice to a world/He went to sleep forever but he awakened the world).
Mard-e-Kaamil
Rakhshanda is exceptionally shines in her portrayal of Mard-e-Kaamil Maryada Purushottam Ram through the lens of Urdu. Invoking Allama Iqbal, Rakhshanda shows how people brim over with love and respect for Ram-e-Hind, whose very name is a badge of honour and as someone every Indian is proud of.
Labrez hai sharaab-e-haqiqat se jaam-e-Hind/Sab falsafi hain khitte-e-maghrib ke Ram-e-Hind (The goblet of Hind is brimful with the wine of Truth/All philosophers acknowledge him as Ram of Hind).
In the section on Passions, Rakhshanda Jalil dwells on themes like Basant Bahaar, to khana-peena to paan.
Sweeping changes have affected even the normal way of bidding goodbye or the common reference to Eid. “Looking back, I am unable to pinpoint the exact age when Ramzan became Ramadan and Khuda Hafiz morphed into Allah Hafiz, or, for that matter, when people began to greet each other with Ramadan Kareem,” she says.
Qawwali
On Qawwali, she gives the essential elements and its format. Qawwali begins with Hamd, in praise of Allah. It’s followed by Naat, in praise of the Prophet (RA). Manqabat is in praise of Hazrat Ali and the Pir of the dargah where it is performed. It concludes on tarana. Usually Qawwali is performed in khanqah, between Maghrib and Isha prayers in the evening.
Qawwali travelled out of the khanqah, into the gatherings of the kings and nobles and finally to the celluloid. A noteable example is Nighaen milaane ko jee chaahta hai from the film, Dil Hi To Hai.
In the section on Places, Rakhshanda dwells on historical spots like Jallianwala Bagh massacre; Kaala Pani: Across the Black Waters; to Taj Mahal; Lucknow; Banaras; and Aligarh, among others.
Hindu-Muslim Unity
Jalil pegs her entire thesis on the theme of Hindu-Muslim Unity, which is the essence of the Core Indian Cultural and Civilizational Ethos. She draws upon the magic of Urdu, which is not merely a language but a culture of inclusion, love and communal harmony, a language that does not divide but unites the people. She evocatively cites Momin, Kabhi hum bhi tum bhi the aashna, tumhe yaad ho ke na yaad ho (Once you and I were friends, whether you remember it now or not).
Tragically, Urdu, the Language of Love, has fallen on bad days, in these times of Hate. But Rakhshanda Jalil, always positive and forward-looking, is confident of the inherent resilience in the language and its uncanny capacity to spring back to life. One would prefer to go along with this rare confidence of Rakhshanda Jalil.
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