There is an ancient Rule of the Drafting Room: if satire begins to feel as a report, verify the double line. Today’s Datelline says Nagpur, May 20, 255, and yes, the news is real.
Three people, including the widow of the filmmaker Veera Sathidar, now looking “antinational” charges because someone recited Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s Hum Dekhenge In a commemorative service. The FIR is based on the new section 152 of Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita, our newly welcomed sweating for sedition.
Let it sink: a poem written in 1979 to the martial law of Zia-Oh-Haq needle is apparently dangerous for Indian sovereignty in 2025. My internal deputy wants to label this Irony, grade a. My inner citizen only sighs.
A pairing, a complaint, a country for the limit
According to the complaint, Faiz’s verses “propose an anti-eestablingment choir” and risk community disharmony. There are no judgments yet, the police surface us: they are simply researcher.
Translation: The process itself is punishment. Court dates, lawyer fees, the slow routine of the bureaucracy, all for some urdu lines that begin with a Koranic echo and end in the skin of chicken.
Faiz’s scaffold is Islamic, sure – “WA-YABQAA WAJHU Rabbika …” – But architecture is stubbornly secular. The upper tyrants, not the temples; Thrones, no theologies. The crown that is thrown could belong to any despot with a Wi-Fi connection and a fragile ego.
The lightning rod, of course, is the heretic “an-al-haq” -Mansur al-Hallaj “I am the truth”. Read slowly and listen to his Sanskrit cousin “Aham Brahmasmi”. Two languages, a rebellion: the divine spark within each mortal throat. When Faiz contradict Hallaj in his stanza, Islam is preaching; He is detonating the hierarchy. The truth, suggests, is portable and intensely personal.
The image shows people who protest with their fists. (Image credit: AI generated)
Anti-Caa protests, Hum Dekhenge It became the unofficial background score, hymn of equal parts and cradle songs. That clearly ghostly resonance to those who would prefer their dissent very well laminated and out of the ear. So here we are, transporting a 46 -year -old Pum to the witness box.
Punch a thought for Pushpa Sathidar. She gathered friends to remember a husband who once acted in a movie literally titled Court – A scathing drama about the Indian justice system. Now life mimics cinema with cruel precision.
Every time we criminalize a couple, let’s shrink the idea of India for a syllable. The Constitution promises “freedom of expression and expression.” But freedom with asterisk after asterisk is only probation. Ask yourself: yes Hum Dekhenge It is communal, what is it? Kabir’s pairs? Amrit Pitam’s AJ AAKHAAN WARAS SHAH NOW? If metaphorical thrones are outside the limits, our literature curriculum will be seen as a WhatsApp censored striker.
Why does this matter (even if you never quotes Faiz)
Because poetry is a canary. When the State seeks criminal codes to silence a stanza, you can bet the most difficult tools await prose. Journalism, cinema, academy: the tail forms rapidly.
Because combining decorated with disloyalty It is the oldest trick in the authoritarian play book. Change the act number, change the sedition name if necessary; The choreography remains the same. Because a republic trusts its own foundations should laugh at a poem, not litigate it.
We read Faiz out loud: in Urdu, Hindi, Bengla, even Klingon if that helps. Let’s combine “an-al-haq” with “Aham Brahmasmi” and see the blurred edges. Remember that metaphors do not carry Molotovs, they carry mirrors. And while we are in that, maybe up that firm. Replace “Endanggering Sovereigtty” with “trigger the uncomfortable self -reflection.” At least it will be honest.
Faiz ends with a promise: “Hum Dekhenge, Lazim Hai Ke Hum Bhi Dekhenge.” We will see, it is inevitable that we also see. Yes, we will: the verdicts, the recoil, the memes, the inevitable fall of the extralimitation laws. The truth has survived the worst regimes that ours. It usually does it. The question is if we still recognize ourselves when the curtain falls. Until then, keep the poems by hand. They make excellent flashlights.
Discharge of responsibility
The opinions expressed above are the author’s own.
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