Daily Times

Anyone who is familiar with the field of Urdu poetry will readily recognise and acknowledge that it is extremely gendered. The gendering works at two levels. First most of the poets are men; virtuosity in verse is still considered to be a male purview and women poets, even well-known ones, continue to be marginalised. Second, the predominant themes and metaphors of the genre assume the poet-as-male (and consequently the reader as male) and revolve around the themes of the beauty of the beloved, the plight of the lover and the pains of un-requited love. Women feature mostly as an abstraction and as the object of the male protagonist’s desire. As Rukhsana Ahmad points out in her introduction to ‘Beyond Belief’ (the first collection of feminist poetry published in Pakistan), “The bulk of the published Urdu poetry is still love poetry bound in old traditional idioms and conceits. These conceits include the as the embodiment of agency and the woman as a mere object, represented as a feckless beloved, who was endowed with heavenly beauty. . . fair of face, dark haired, tall, willowy, for whom the poet was willing to die but who vacillated from indifference, shyness and modesty to wanton wilfulness and cruelty. ”

For most of the progressive male poets, notwithstanding their commitment to social change and egalitarianism, for the most part in their work a woman was depicted as a weak victim of oppressive structures who depended on men to save and protect her. Though the poems like ‘Aurat’ (Woman) by Kaifi Azami, some poems by Majaz and particularly poems by Habib Jalib are an exception. But for some real feminist anthems to rise in Urdu poetry, we had to wait for the works of feminist poets from Pakistan, particularly Kishwar Naheed and Fehmida Riaz. In order to understand and appreciate their work, it is important to place it in the context of the material and social conditions in Pakistan within which it was written. The political, social and cultural milieu of Pakistan in the 1980s was defined by General Zia-ul-Haq’s agenda (though not much has changed to the moment as for as the plight of women is concerned).

The challenge posed by these feminist poets to the establishment worked at different levels, first they were women poets writing in what was an overwhelmingly male literary milieu; second, they were feminists raising their voices against an increasingly hostile and misogynist social and cultural context and third they were producing work that effectively subverted existing, accepted conventions of poetic form and content. Most of their poetry addressed women’s issues. Since women were the vanguard of the movement against Zia’s martial law government and its policies, it is not surprising that they were also the political and prominent writers/poets/artists of the time. Both Fehmida Riaz and Kishwar Naheed were targeted repeatedly by the state. Fourteen cases of sedition were filed against the magazine edited by Fehmida Riaz, one of which carried the death sentence. Riaz had to go into exile along with her family. Naheed was constantly harassed in her job as a civil servant and frequently threatened. Cases were filed against her as well. Clearly, both were seen as threats to the state.

Kishwar Naheed makes a point in her well known poem “Hum Gunahgaar Auraten” (We Sinful Women). Besides being a harsh indictment of those who sold out to the establishment, these words also directly subvert the dominant stereotype of women as weak and ineffectual and their accompanying ideas about ‘feminity’. The phrase ‘We Sinful Women’ repeated like a chant throughout the poem, functions as a slap in the face of the status quo and the state, referring as it does to the Zina Ordinance which uses the crutch of religion to hold women responsible for all sex crimes.

Fehmida Riaz’s poem ‘Chaadar Aur Chaardiwaari” (The Veil and Four Walls of Home) was another explicit example of the way feminists used poetry as a medium of dissent against the orthodox regime and the critique of the religious hypocrisy. In this powerful poem, Fehmida Riaz , by rejecting the chaadar being offered to her by the self styled keepers of people’s conscience also reject the construction of her as a sexual object. She subjectes these powers to biting sarcasm with mock honourifics and a series of formula phrases. The last stanza of this poem is worth noting, for in direct contrast to the depiction of women in Urdu poetry, Riyaz counterposes her own reading of women against the traditional ideal of womanhood and proposes a new female subject –an intelligent, sentient being (as opposed to object of desire and symbol of lust), a quintessentially modern subject whose ‘ship will move full-sail in the open wind’. The relationship between men and women is also redefined as one of comradeship between equals; this kind of comradeship only possible, however, with a radically reinvented redefined man — an Adam who is capable of winning her confidence and thus worthy of her.

Yet another poem by Fehmida Riyaz “Aqleema” is notable. The explicit references to the female body are Fehmida Riyaz’s reminder to us that the patriarchal society objectifies its women and treats them as sacrificial lambs, destined to be butchered and consumed. The poem goes on to draw attention to the fact that ‘Aqleema’ has a mind too, one that is rendered invisible by the patriarchal system, not merely to human beings, but alas to nature itself.

The arrival of feminist poets in the realm of Urdu poetry signalled the beginning of the new brand of progressivism, one that took on the establishment in ways that were radical and powerful. These poets — Kishwar Naheed, Fehmida Riaz, Ishrat Afreen, Saeeda Gazdar, Neelma Sarwar, Sara Shagufta, Zehra Nigaah, Gulnar and others — transformed not merely the themes of Urdu poetry, but also its language and its grammar. As Rukhsana Ahmad writes, these poets represent ‘that strand of the progressive tradition in Urdu poetry which had in the early forties so powerfully contributed to the freedom movement. They, more than anyone else in the contemporary period are the true inheritors of the tradition of progressive poetry, its champions and its trailblazers.

A very short poem by Ishrat Afreen titld ‘Intisaab’ (Dedication) sums up the contribution of the feminist poets to literature quite well :

“Mera qad; Mere baap se ooncha nikla; Aur meri ma jeet gayi”, (My height; Surpassed that of my father; And thus, my mother won).

The writer is a freelancer