Muddling through the mist

My two books subsequent to Naqsh-e Faryadi, namely, Dast-e-Saba (1952) and Zindaan Nama (1956) are souvenirs of my four year stay in prison. Although basically these writings are related to the mental impressions and thought processes which started with 'Mujh se pehli si mohabbat meri mahbuub n maang', prison itself, nevertheless, is a fundamental experience in which a new window of thought and vision opens itself. Thus prison is first like another adolescence when all sensations again become sharp and one experiences once again that same original astonishment at feeling the dawn breeze, at seeing the shadows of evening, the blue of the sky and feeling the passing breeze.

—Faiz on his period of incarceration

The Indian Army

While in Faiz's personal life things were looking up following his marriage with Alys and the early success of Naqsh-e Faryadi, the world at large was facing the spectre of Nazi Germany's brutal aggression. When Stalin signed a pact with Hitler, the progressives began to look upon the conflict as a war of imperialists seeking global domination. Therefore, they were neither for the war nor against it. But when Germany attacked the Soviet Union, their outlook changed overnight. The imperialists' war became the peoples' war and the sentiment became favourable towards the British and the Allies. Objective observers saw the hypocrisy of the leftists and progressives in this sudden change of heart about who were the bad guys in this conflict. For Faiz personally, while the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union was a concern, he was equally bothered by the Japanese attack on India. This is what he said about it:

We did not care much about the war. We thought this was something concerned with the British and the Germans, but in 1941, the Japanese entered the war. On the one hand, the Japanese came to the borders of India and on the other hand, the Nazis and the Fascists came to the doorsteps of Moscow and Leningrad. We felt it was time to go and join the fight, so we joined the army.

Faiz joined the Public Relations Department of the Indian Army as a captain in 1942 and moved to Delhi. His main work related to the monitoring of communications concerning developments in various theatres of war and summarizing them for use by the Army personnel. This turned out to be an influential role, given the fact that information on a daily basis was the most valued commodity. Recognition came quickly—a year later, Faiz was promoted to major and after another year, he became a lieutenant colonel. His main contribution to the war effort was a team-oriented approach to sharing news among the troops and motivating them to fight for their motherland (India) and not for Britain or the Soviet Union. As the war came to an end in 1946, Faiz got another honour: an MBE (Member of the British Empire) in recognition of his meritorious service.

As his tenure with the army was coming to an end, Faiz was looking for new job opportunities. It was then that an old friend came to him with a job offer. The person who made the offer was Mian Iftikharuddin, whom Faiz had known as the publisher of Adab-e-Latif. Mian was starting a new daily newspaper called Pakistan Times and he wanted Faiz to be its editor-in-chief. Faiz had some reservations because he had never managed a daily newspaper in his life and also 'Pakistan' was still a possibility but not a reality. After consulting his friends and some personal reflection, Faiz agreed to take up this job and in early 1947, he moved back to Lahore. Success came early, as Pakistan Times and its sister publication Imroze became the most popular newspapers in Lahore within months of their launch.

15 August 1947

By mid-July 1947, following the passage of the Indian Independence Act by the British Parliament, it was quite certain that while India would earn its long-awaited freedom soon, the country itself would be divided into two independent countries. In early August, Alys had taken their two daughters (Salima born in Delhi in 1942 and Moneeza born in Shimla in 1946) for a summer vacation with Dr Taseer's family in Srinagar. Faiz was troubled by the impending storm that would destroy millions of homes and families as the date of Partition drew closer. He had started working on a poem called 'Sub-h-e Aazaadi' and he shared it with his close friends when he visited Srinagar. The poem, when published, created quite a stir because people both on the right and the left had expected to hear a different kind of poem. But Faiz was never someone who wrote to meet others' expectations. He responded only to his inner voice. The editorial that Faiz wrote for the paper also provides a peek into his inner thinking. He wrote:

It is 15 August today. The dawn that brought this day into the world also restored to our people their longlost freedom. Through many bleak decades of political serfdom, millions of us have waited and hoped for this dawn. It has arrived at last and yet, for us in Punjab, it is not bright with laughter and buoyant with a song. It is black with sorrow and red with blood. The reality of freedom, compared to the reality of the death and suffering around us, appears insubstantial and far away.

The conspiracy

Alys woke up early on the morning of 9 March 1951, sensing some activity outside their home. Very soon, they found out that the police had come to take Faiz with them, with no adequate explanation other than 'we have our orders'. Later, Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan announced on the radio that a conspiracy had been discovered involving several military officers, the most prominent among them being Major General Akbar Khan, and a few civilians, that included Faiz as chief editor of Pakistan Times. The government needed a legal shield to prosecute the 'conspirators' and, therefore, the legislative assembly quickly passed the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Act. This is how Faiz explained his role in the whole thing:

At the end of 1950, I met an old friend of mine from the army who had been appointed Chief of General Staff, General Akbar Khan … I met him by chance in Murree … and he said to me, 'Look, we people in the army … are very disgruntled because this country is going to the dogs. We have made no constitution for four years, there is so much corruption, there is so much nepotism, no elections are being held … and there is no hope and we want to do something.' I said, 'Do what?' He said, 'Overthrow the government, and we want to have a non-party government and have elections and a constitution … and this that and the other.' I said, 'All right!' He said, 'Well, we want your advice.' I said, 'This is an army exercise, I can't give you any advice.' He said, 'Anyway, you come to our meeting and listen to our plan.'

Faiz went to the meeting along with two of his civilian friends, and that was all.

After his arrest, Faiz was kept in solitary confinement for four months; his family didn't know for three months whether he was dead or alive. All the conspirators got jail sentences for varying lengths of time; Faiz got four years. While the separation from Alys and the family was painful, Faiz took advantage of the free time in jail to write poetry. It is worth mentioning that while he was a newspaper editor and became involved in trade union activities, he had virtually stopped writing poetry.

(Excerpted with permission from Surinder Deol's Faiz; published by Rupa Publications)