“Tie your bangles with your handkerchief so they don’t jingle,
The clergy has passed an edict against melody and music.
Amjad might die but he will not allow the elimination of melody:
Love of melody gives the artist courage.”
This is how young poet and singer, Amjad Shahzad, responded in verse to the declaration issued by Sufi Mohammad – head of the now banned Tanzeem-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat-i-Mohammadi (TNSM) – that music was now ‘forbidden’. The latter had just been released by the government in early 2009 for facilitating the peace agreement in Swat between the federal government and the Swat chapter of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
Pakhto poetry is heavily laced with a sense of gallantry and a romantic love for the motherland. Traditionally, the Pakhtuns have used poetry as an effective weapon of resistance against foreign occupation, the deprivation of their rights and, subsequently, against what is seen as state-sponsored religious radicalization.
The Pakhtuns use poetry to resist what is seen as state-sponsored religious radicalization
The history of written Pakhto poetry begins some 1,200 years ago with Patta Khazana (‘The Hidden Treasure’) by Amir Kror. Pakhtun prose can be traced back 400 to 500 years, drawing momentum from the Roshnai movement led by Bayzid Ansari, known as Pir-i-Rokhan. While romance, nationalism and resistance remain hallmarks of Pakhto poetry, its target audience and its symbols and metaphors have shifted with the sociopolitical conditions of the Pakhtuns. Usman Ollasyar, executive director of the Suvastu Art and Culture Association, says, “If Amir Kror and Malik Yar Ghar Shin were the founders of nationalist poetry, Pir-i-Rokhan and Khushal Khan Khattak laid the foundations of resistance poetry while fighting against the Mughals. However, Pakhto resistance poetry reached its zenith through the political movement of Bacha Khan and Khan Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai against British colonialism.”
Vive le re´sistance in the Swat Valley
Sanobar Hussain Kakaji, Master Abdul Karim, Khadim Mohammad Akbar, Abdul Kabir Kabir, Shad Mohammad Megay, Wali Mohammad Tufan and, as young poets at the time, Ghani Khan, Ajmal Khattak, Saifur Rehman Saleem, Qalander Mohmand and Dr Amin-ul-Haq… these are some of Pakhto resistance poetry’s most well known champions. Post-independence, however, Pakhto resistance poetry entered a more challenging phase when confronted by Zia-ul-Haq’s religious radicalization and the suffering inflicted by the so-called Afghan jihad. By the 1980s, firebrands such as Ghani Khan and Ajmal Khattak had become a source of inspiration for the new generation of Pakhto poets, among them Rehmat Shah Sail and Shamas Bunri.
SMS became the most effective way of communicating resistance poetry under the Taliban in Swat
Unlike the colonial era, Zia’s regime used both religion and state power to brutally crush resistance and muffle any dissenting voices. But hope came in the shape of the Afghan singers and musicians who had been displaced by the war in their country and fled to Peshawar. Shah Wali, an Afghan singer, was the first to render Ghani Khan’s poetry’s into music, in turn encouraging many local singers to follow suit. Sardar Ali Takkar, a civil engineering graduate, devoted himself entirely to singing Ghani Khan’s poetry while Gulzar Alam specialized in singing Rehman Baba, Ajmal Khattak and Rehmat Shah Sail along with other contemporary poets.
Rahmat Shah Sail
Others were daring enough to take on another genre of poetry. Young singers such as Haroon Bach, Amjad Shahzad, Kiran Khan and Waheed Achakzai chose to take resistance and nationalist poetry to new heights. In a desperate attempt to quash this movement, Zia banned all books by Ghani Khan, Ajmal Khattak and Rehmat Shah Sail. His attempts were futile. The surging popularity of cassette players – mostly purchased with the remittances flowing into Pakistan in the 1980s – ensured that resistance poetry reached its audience in the form of music.
Abdul Sattar ‘Bomber’ from Katlang, Mardan, was – as his nickname suggests – a particularly assertive poet. His poems against bigotry and theocracy stirred up a storm in the 1980s, again reaching people through audio cassettes. A defiant Ghani Khan could not be subdued and was emboldened to take on religious prejudice head on through his poems. Takkar began to put the latter’s poetry to music and produced a hit composition that certainly did not mince words:
“O mullah, you have never tasted juicy lips,
You cannot appreciate beauty.
The mullah condemns wine lovers while munching brittle bread:
What else can the poor man do in a mosque that houses neither a beloved nor booze?”
While deconstructing the so-called Afghan jihad, Ghani Khan bitterly says:
“Stomach bulging, spitting venom,
Preaching to me that I kill my brother as jihad:
This serpent hides behind a white turban and long beard.
Crushing the head of this great infidel is true jihad.”
Poetry aficionado Bakht Yar says he has memorised most of Ghani Khan’s verse sung by Takkar. ‘’When I first listened to Ghani Khan, “ he says, “I exclaimed he was an infidel! But then I pondered on the content, which changed my conception of life.” Indeed, while the Zia regime banned poetry books, it ignored music, which became the easiest and most effective channel for reaching even the illiterate. But the Taliban were savvier and brutally took on the job of eliminating music: its instruments, its musicians, its singers.
Ajmal Khattak
Ghani Khan
Rahman Baba
Interestingly, post-1980s poetry draws a clear parallel between Kabul and Peshawar and raises awareness of the Pakhtuns suffering on either side of the Durand Line. As the poet Fazal Subhan Abid wrote, “The Kabul wound is yet to heal; do not hurt Peshawar.” The new school of poets was also aware of the international and regional geo-strategic complexities that had pushed the region into perpetual conflict. Dr Sahib Shah Sabir elaborates on this in the following verses:
“Some invite them as volunteers; other want to turn them into a militia:
Every powerful party creates conflict for the Pakhtuns.
If time obliged me, it would fleece my skin for a shawl.”
Contesting the mullah’s notion of heaven, Shams Bunri says:
“To raise your status, you turn a mosque into a bungalow.
Such alcohol, damsels and lads in heaven,
Oh mullah! You turn it into a brothel!”
He goes on to add:
“In the war between oppressed and oppressor,
Neutrality is nothing but cowardice.”
Having lived under threat since the 1980s, particularly after publishing his first collection of poems Nawai Naghma, Abdur Rahim Roghani from Swat depicts the situation in the valley thus:
“The slaughterer was chanting ‘Allah o Akbar’,
The victim was reciting ‘La illaha illal lah’,
Oh God! This is a doomsday other than that ordained by you.”
But the Talibanization in Swat simply increased the impetus to resistance poetry. Aftab Sparly attributes this to the physical as well as mental agony that the people of Swat experienced, which overshadowed romantic poetry at the time:
“I dream of noise and wreckage;
I will dream of my beloved again
If peace returns to my land.
I am overwhelmed by the conditions in this land:
If ever I sleep, I dream of barbed wire.
For so long, the defenders have been stationed in our village;
Since then, I have dreamt of a serpent.
My faith is strong, no matter if wrecked by this storm.
I still dream of maples [as a metaphor for serenity] whenever I fall asleep.”
The deteriorating situation and the vague role of the state forced Pakhto poets into being forthright. Poet Hanif Qais laments:
“It is not only you burning,
My heart is also roasting.
O Swat! They have set you ablaze –
Whether boots or turban.”
The last five years have produced more published poetry collections than before. Amjad Shahzad, who is both a poet and a singer, has published two books – Na (‘No’) and Sandara ma Wajnai (‘Don’t Kill the Melody’) while the third is forthcoming. But the struggle of contemporary poets and singers has not come without a cost. All have their own stories of horror, sandwiched as they are between non-state and state actors.
SMS was the most effective way to communicate such poetry under the Taliban in Swat. Writer Usman Olasyar also took advantage of social media such as Facebook to broadcast his work. Last February, I received some verses from an anonymous poet through SMS, describing the Talibanization of Swat as a drama:
“O people, it is a drama!
But one part is real: the killing of Pakhtuns.”
The crisis also produced satirical poetry. Iqbal Jan, denouncing the ubiquitous check posts in Swat, lyricizes:
“What is the army seeking in Swat?
Are they expecting Osama under people’s belts?”
Roghni explains poetry as an expression of inner feelings as well as a reflection of the environment of the poet as a thinking human being. He makes an interesting point when he says that the Pakhtuns have never remained religious because their language lacks religious words and idioms. Shaukat Sharar and Aftab Sparly support this claim, agreeing that most written Pakhto poetry contains, at best, a very small fraction of religious – and primarily Sufi-inspired – characteristics.
If discerning Pakhtuns and Pakhtun society are secular and romantic, this makes religion an external element. Why, then, are they necessarily construed as being religious extremists? Is it because they are politically weak? Is it the lack of institutions and the fact they lag behind in terms of access to modern knowledge systems, which makes them vulnerable to external forces? In the end, the portrayal of the Pakhtun as a religious extremist represents only a small part of the whole.
Talimand Khan is a researcher and political analyst from Swat. Follow him @talimandkhan1
