About two days ago the Federal Censor Board of Pakistan did not allow the release of Nandita Das’s film ‘Manto’ in Pakistan on the grounds that it ‘has anti-Partition narrative theme and explicit scenes which is against the norms of Pakistani society’. The film has, however, been released on Netflix and the Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Fawad Chaudhary, has tweeted to Nandita Das that he would make efforts to get it released. This is a positive sign and it would redound to the credit of the PTI government if it is released.
However, Saadat Hasan Manto (1912-1955) has faced similar reactions from the upholders of orthodoxy and self-appointed custodians of puritanical values since he was writing. He was a prolific writer whose published output comprises 22 collections of short stories, a novel, five series of radio plays, three collections of essays, two collections of personal sketches and several works which are lost because he sold them in his last years to unscrupulous publishers who took advantage of his penury. But it is not the quantity of his writings which makes him one of the greatest writers of the Urdu-Hindi using world. It is his originality, his courage, his defiance of the norms of a hypocritical society, his integrity and, finally, his humanism. He faced the charge of obscenity for some of his works such as ‘Thanda Gosht’ and ‘Khol Do’. But more trenchant and incisive criticism of the violence of the Partition is difficult to come by in the annals of Urdu literature.
Both stories use sex but not for its prurient interest. In both it is a weapon. A weapon which was unleashed over the bodies of the women of both sides: Muslim and non-Muslim alike. In ‘Thanda Gosht’ the Sikh protagonist suffers from paralyzing guilt when he discovers that the beautiful girl he had abducted to fornicate with was dead. She was the cold flesh (thanda gosht) which gives the story its name and she makes the protagonist also cold as he too finds normal activities impossible after this traumatic experience. In the other story an old father rejoices when his kidnapped and oft-raped daughter shows signs of life by opening her trouser strings when the doctor tells his assistant to open the windows (khol do=open up).
The censors in the 1950s just could not see that this was a vitriolic comment on violence and not a prurient story. One would have thought that the censors have educated themselves somewhat better since then but alas, this has not happened. However, a film on Manto directed by Sarmad Khoosat and written by Shahid Nadeem was released in Pakistan in August 2015. The TV serial on it, originally written in 2012, was screened in December 2015. Madiha Gauhar displayed Shahid Nadeem’s play upon it under the title ‘Kaun hai ye Gustakah?’All of them had scenes from Manto’s short stories including the two which the censors find so objectionable.
Instead of freedoms being extended in our country, we are seeing their curtailment. Instead of the state being the sole censor we have emerged as self-censors in a big way. Moreover, the trend of right wing narratives dominating all others is universal now
So it is perhaps that this film has a critical stance on Partition. But this too is somewhat strange. After all Manto’s short story ‘Toba Tek Singh’ in which the inmates of an insane asylum are exchanged between the two countries after Partition is well known in Pakistan.
The protagonist, who resists the idea of partition, dies in the no man’s land between the two countries since he refuses to be exchanged. His land is Toba Tek Singh and there he would remain despite the Partition. Scenes from this story are depicted in the Pakistani film and, of course, Zia Mohyiuddin has read this story out to packed audiences in Lahore and elsewhere.
Manto, like other writers of the period, did condemn the violence during the partition. Some writers and intellectuals of that period pointed out that this would not have taken place if so much hatred had not been injected into the Pakistan movement. Other people thought that the violence was proof that there should have been a separate land for Muslims who would suffer from violence in a united India.
This debate is only of academic interest now and most important stakeholders, including the BJP, have publicly accepted the reality of Pakistan. There should not be any insecurity on this count now but apparently there still is even if Manto is read and films based upon his life are welcomed in Pakistan. It is probably only because the film comes from India that the censors are so insecure. Otherwise there is little which anybody does not already know in the film. Actually, because Manto left Bombay (Mumbai) and migrated to Lahore, the great writer accepted the Partition in practice despite his lamentations about its human cost.
Censorship is as old as history. One of its best examples comes from Plato who writes in The Republic that poets should not be allowed to come into the ideal city state. His reasons are that they are heterodox, they question the dominant myths and they deconstruct the revered pieties which uphold the structure of power. But Plato has the grace of saying that the poets should be given respect when they arrive at the city gates. Their feet should be washed and they should be given something to eat and drink before they are told politely to depart in peace. Nobody treats dissidents like that of course. Manto too was not treated with such courtesy.
Yet, he was not tortured nor incarcerated. In the rest of the world (Communist regimes, monarchies, dictatorships) dissidents were confined to dungeons without light and fresh air and tortured till they died. In Pakistan too members of the Communist Party of Pakistan, such as Hassan Nasir, faced the same fate in Lahore Fort during Ayub Khan’s dictatorship. And even now one hears of people disappearing leaving distraught families running from pillar to post to see their faces and hear their voices. Instead of freedoms being extended in our country, we are seeing their curtailment. Instead of the state being the sole censor we have emerged as self-censors in a big way.
Moreover, the trend of right wing narratives dominating all others is universal now. In the United States, never as free a country as popular myths suggest, there is a fresh assertion of hatred against minorities. In Germany, mostly as a consequence of taking too many refugees from the Arab world, the neo-Nazis are on the rise. In France there is a backlash against immigrants. In Britain there is rising anti-immigrant feeling. In Brazil the right is riding high.
In India a wave of terror is being unleashed against Kashmiris. And even in the rest of north India (UP especially) anti-Muslim feeling is on the rise. In short, the liberal humanist wave of the 1960s is receding and the new right is rising just as it was in the 1930s in Europe. And the worrying part is that these opinions and attitudes based on hatred and narrow mindedness are defended by the people. So now it is not just the state which is perpetuating the politics of hatred; it is us— the people! Against this populist support of hatred the only antidote is to keep alive the ideals Manto and others struggled for. But the question is: ‘are we moving towards another epoch like the 1930s?’. I do not know. But ‘The second Coming’, a poem written by W.B Yeats (1865-1939) in 1919,comes to the mind. Beginning with ‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold’ the poem has the following two lines:
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
This describes the present situation. The poem ends with the chilling lines:
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethelem to be born.
Could the ‘rough beast’ be a world war? ethnic cleansing? —what?
The author is an occasional, freelance columnist
Published in Daily Times, December 20th2018.