BEG DSE 03 Block 02

BACHELOR OF ARTS (HONOURS) IN
ENGLISH (BAEG)
BEG DSE 03
PARTITION LITERATURE
BLOCK 02
PARTITION POEMS: W.H. AUDEN, AGHA SHAHID ALI,
FAIZ AHMAD FAIZ
Unit 1: W.H. Auden “Partition”
Unit 2: Agha Shahid Ali “Learning Urdu”
Unit 3: Faiz Ahmad Faiz “Dawn of Freedom”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Course Writer Course Editor and Formatting

Ms. Nabanita Deka Ms. Akankshya Abismruta
Assistant Professor Academic Consultant (English)
Department of English Odisha State Open University, Sambalpur
Maharaja Agrasen College
University of Delhi, New Delhi
Cover Page Design

Mr. Abhinandan Tripathy
Jr. Executive (Multimedia)
Odisha State Open University, Sambalpur
Material Production
Dr. Manas Ranjan Pujari
Registrar
Odisha State Open University, Sambalpur
(CC) OSOU, 2022 Writing for Electronic Media is made available under a Creative
Commons Attribution- Share Alike 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licences/by-sa/3.0
Printed by:
UNIT 1: W.H. AUDEN “PARTITION”
Structure
1.0 Objectives
1.1 About the Poet
1.2 Auden’s Writing Style
1.3 Auden and the Theme of War and Politics
1.4 “Partition”: the Text
1.5 Introduction to the Poem
1.6 Summary of the Poem
1.7 Critical Analysis of the Poem
1.8 Let Us Sum Up
1.9 Check Your Progress
1.0 OBJECTIVES
After reading this unit, the learner will be able to:
 Know about W.H. Auden, his life and his brilliant works
 Know about his writing style and the central theme of his works
 Understand Auden and his works in the light of war and politics
 Read and understand his poem “Partition”
 Critically analyse the poem “Partition”
1.1 ABOUT THE POET
Born on 21 February 1907, Wystan Hugh Auden was a popular British-

st
American poet. He died on 29 September 1973. A recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for
th
poetry for his 1947 poem, “The Age of Anxiety”, Auden was born in York, England,
and spent most of his years in and around Birmingham. Born in a middle class family to
George Augustus Auden, a physician, and Constance Rosalie Auden, a trained
missionary nurse, Auden studied English at Christ Church, Oxford. He had two
brothers namely, George Bernard Auden and John Bicknell Auden. Auden was the
Odisha State Open University, Sambalpur Page 1

youngest among them. He grew up in an Anglo-Catholic household and his love for
music and language was largely due to the church services during his childhood. Auden
spent his time teaching at British preparatory schools from 1930-1935. He shifted to the
United States of America in 1939 and became a US citizen in 1946 while also retaining
his British citizenship. He also taught at many American universities. His notable
works include “Funeral Blues”, “September 1, 1939”, “The Shield of Achilles”,
“Partition”, “The Age of Anxiety” and “The Dyer’s Hand” among many others. His
first book was titled Poems and was first printed in 1928 by his long-time friend and
poet Stephen Spender. It was later re-published by Faber & Faber in 1930 and by
Random House in 1934.
His long association with noted novelist Christopher Isherwood, whom he met
at St. Edmund's School, Hindhead, Surrey, forms a formidable part of his life. Auden
and Isherwood were in a sexual friendship from 1927-1939, while also having
relationships with other men. Both also collaborated on the work front and produced
three plays and a travel book, which established Auden as a left-wing political writer.
The adulation and publicity forced him to shift his base to the United States of America
in 1939. Interestingly, since his move to the States, his poems largely focused on the
theme of religion, notable among which are “For the Time Being” and “The Sea and
the Mirror”.
Auden married Paul Thomas Mann’s lesbian daughter, Erika Mann in 1935. The
union was largely a marriage of convenience to save Erika from the Nazis, who were
trying to strip her of her German citizenship. They remained life-long friends until her
death in 1969.
1.2 AUDEN’S WRITING STYLE
In his long career, Auden wrote about four hundred poems. A poet according to
him is a Maker rather than a Seer. His poetry style changed after his emigration to the
United States of America and after that he wrote many criticisms. In his early years in
America, Auden underlined the importance of metaphysics. In “Mimesis and Allegory”
(1940) he states: “Societies come to grief if and when they are confronted by problems

for which their technique or their metaphysics or both are inadequate, and every
technical advance requires a parallel advance in metaphysics” (1). Calling his approach
to poetry as ‘literary apologetics’, Auden situated his aesthetic theory on metaphysics,
which is largely Christian. His essays reflect on man’s current status in the world — a
world which according to him is “witnessing a collapse in civilization which annuls all
political differences and for which we are all collectively responsible, and that we have
arrived at this position as the result of a diversity and differentiation which have their
sources in the Renaissance and, especially, in the dualism of Descartes” (Callan 80).
Auden’s approach to literature is well reflected in The Enchafèd Flood (1950)

where “he classifies the types of hero in literature as possessing” the ideals of aesthetic,
ethical and religious (Callan 85). Poetry for Auden, as defined in his essay “Squares
and Oblongs” (1948) is “a game of knowledge, a bringing to consciousness by naming
them, of emotions and their hidden relationship” (173). Another crucial theme found in
Auden’s poetry is based on the idea that “this historical world is a redeemable world”.
Thus, “every successful poem therefore, presents an analogue of that paradisial state in
which Freedom and Law, System and Order are united, and contradictions reconciled
and sins forgiven. Every good poem represents already very nearly Utopia” (“The
Dyer’s” 1112). This idea is clearly reflected in “New Year Letter” (1941) and “The Sea
and the Mirror: A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest” (1944). Elaborating on
this idea, he talks of “transforming crowds into communities rather than of
transforming disorder into order” (Callan 87). This is mainly because a poet’s task
according to Auden is to discover a verbal society that can include relevant feelings and
transform a community into a perfect society. This “verbal society…like the physical
universe, can be described in terms of laws and structure. Prosody and syntax are to the
one what physics and chemistry are to the other; and the subject matter of the poet is
the crowd of historic occasions of feeling in the past” (as qtd in Callan 88).
Stressing on the formal aspects in poetry, Auden once famously told Stephen
Spender that he “arranged words into patterns with a mind whose aim was not to
express feeling, but to concentrate on the best arrangement that could be derived from
the occasion” (Spender 51). Auden’s brilliant rhetorical skills are well highlighted in

The Dyer’s Hand (1962) where he writes, “I am always interested in hearing what a
poet has to say about the nature of poetry, though I do not take it too seriously. As
objective statements his definitions are never accurate, never complete, and always one-
sided. Not one would stand up under a rigorous analysis” (52).
Auden’s poems, essays, criticisms and reviews were greatly admired and
welcomed by all. However, as his prolific reputation as a poet and critic grew by leaps
and bounds, he started losing his confidence and underwent a painful process of self-
criticism especially at a time when he was mired in scandals and controversies.
Surprisingly though, he observed that “his work flourished when he tried to
accommodate his own doubts and the negative judgments of others, that though some
of his critical assumptions were in error and had to be discarded, many were proving
beneficial, though often in ways he had not intended. He concluded that Providence
worked through his imperfect efforts to read and to write and that his work prospered
when he recognized its efficacy” (Riggs 208). This led him to the conclusion that in
order to appreciate art “an unlimited capacity for reverence and repentance” is required
(“Against Romanticism” 187).
Reflecting on Auden, Spender in World Within World: The Autobiography of

Stephen Spender (1951) observed that for Auden, “A poet was a kind of chemist who
mixed his poems out of words, whilst remaining detached from his own feeling” (51).
However, his early works written mostly during his youth, highlights the emotional
chaos that he was in. T.S. Eliot’s “Tradition and the Individual Talent” in this context
came to his great rescue while he was at Oxford. Eliot’s essay consequently helped him
to isolate his own baneful thoughts and feelings.
In a world full of conflicts, the aim of their poetry as stated by Auden and C.
Day Lewis in their 1927 preface for Oxford Poetry is to create a “new harmony” (vi).
All kinds of experiences are necessary to produce art according to Auden:
There can be no art without a convention which certain aspects of experience as

important and dismisses others to the background. A new convention is a revolution in
sensibility. It appeals to and is adopted by a generation because it makes sense of
experiences which previously had been ignored. Every convention in its turn, when it

has done its work, becomes reactionary and needs to be replaced. Its effects, however,
do not disappear; its successor embodies them. (Poets of the English xviii)
Auden also reflects on the Romantic and Classical Age in his essays. Examining
the aesthetic theory of Romanticism in The Enchafèd Flood, Auden stated that the
culture preceding the Augustans was largely “chaotic idiosyncrasies” prompting
Alexander Pope and John Dryden to respect “Catholic and objective canons of good
taste recognizable by public and poet alike” (57). Romanticism stressed on imagination
for inspiration and Auden acknowledged the Romantic zeal for inspiration “as a force
which the conscious will cannot cause or control” (75). Thus, “[f]rom the Romantics he
learns to acknowledge its awesome power; from the Augustans he learns, he hopes, to
harness that power by reaffirming the necessity of dogma . . . not as the contradiction of
reason and feeling but as their ground and foundation” (as qtd. in Riggs 214).
Being a critic himself, Auden highly revered polemics. Polemics according to

him are necessary to test and strengthen poets’ convictions. Artists, according to Auden
as highlighted in “Heretics” (1939) are “always vulnerable to reaction because, unlike
science, art has no objective practical end to control its excesses” (374).
1.3 AUDEN AND THE THEME OF WAR AND POLITICS
The 20 century into which Auden was born witnessed many wars and social
th
and political unrest. Hence, it comes as no major shock to know that Auden was deeply
involved and concerned about the social, political and religious issues of his time. His
poetry is often based on such themes of war, conflict and the human condition arising
out of these conflicts. The wars of the 20 century and its consequences thus form
th
central themes of his poetry.
Auden was interested in “intellectual upheavals from Freud and Homer Lane to
Marx and Soren Kierkegaard” (Morse 117). He also took an active interest in the
Spanish Civil War and the Japanese invasion of China and volunteered for service in
the Spanish Civil War as a fighter and an ambulance driver. Auden witnessed not only
deaths and human sufferings but the total annihilation of Barcelona and the destruction

of churches and mass execution of clergymen. It is believed that this incident probably
led him to go back to the Church. Along with Christopher Isherwood, his collaborator
and intimate friend, Auden went to China and witnessed the Sino-Japanese War. Its
brutality and barbarity led him to write:
A land laid waste, with all its young men slain,
Its women weeping, and its towns in terror. (“Embassy” np)
The above lines from his poem “Embassy” captures the entire essence of war
and its futilities. Further, Journey to a War by Auden and Isherwood captures a
photographic sketch of their journey to China in 1938. A travel book in prose and verse,
Journey to a War published in 1939 chronicles their observations of the Sino-Japanese
War. The book also contains Auden’s sonnet sequence with a verse commentary titled
“In Time of War”. Calling it as the “greatest English poem of the decade”, Frederick
Mendelson observes:
Writing in a form that could easily have turned into a garland of miniatures, he achieved
monumental dignity and strength. The harsh crude textures of its verse, its emotional
clarity in the face of disaster, the rigor and inclusiveness of its moral logic, all
contribute to the poem's extraordinary weight and force. . . The brevity of the sonnet
encouraged precise local details while forestalling shapeless lists and bloated
generalities. (as qtd in Morse 118-119)
Calling the 1930s as a “low dishonest decade”, Auden in his poem “September
1, 1939” captures the essence of fear and terror in the advent of war:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night. (stanza 1)

Auden left England and emigrated to New York in 1938. The war-mongering
situation and Auden’s own celebrity status in England, where he was seen as the voice
of England forced him to leave the place. Auden “felt. . . that the natural law of
celebrity is a law of self-destruction” (Davenport-Hines 322). He wanted to stay away
from all these adulations and wished for a challenging environment where he can better
himself as a poet.
World War II formed major part of Auden’s poetry throughout the 1940s. The
monstrosity of war is well highlighted in his poem “New Year Letter”. The poem also
states his reasons for living in New York rather than England. Perhaps, the most
stimulating and haunting poem of Auden is “The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque
Ecologue” (1947). It won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1948. The theme of war and
man’s search for identity in a highly destabilising anxious ridden society with
continuous bombing raids forms the central imagery of the poem. Auden became an Air
Raid warden during the war and was later assigned to survey the war ravaged cities of
Germany. The towns of Nuremberg, Darmstadt were completely destroyed by Allied
bombing. Such acts then raises important questions about the validity and futility of
war because at the end of the day, it is the common people who suffer deeply. The
world then has been consumed by evil and humans tragically are living in an age of
anxiety. The consequences of war are tragic and yet war breaks out every now and then.
Man’s helplessness is well highlighted by Auden when he writes:
Though language may be useless, for
No words men write can stop the war
Or measure up to the relief
Of its immeasurable grief... (“New Year Letter” np)
Auden greatly understood the implication of politics on humans and their lives.
In the poem “Partition”, he questions the very idea of power and how it can change the
identity of a country and its people thus reinforcing the idea that in the game of politics,
common people are nothing but mere pawns. Auden’s pain and sympathy for the
helpless victims of war is aptly highlighted in his poem “The Shield of Achilles”

(1952). The poem reimagines a scene from the epic The Illiad where Thetis watches
Hephaestos, the God of blacksmiths, metalworking, fire and volcano forging a shield
for her son, Achilles. She hopes to find “ritual pieties, / White flower-garlanded heifers,
/ Libation and sacrifice” on the shining shield but finds instead dreadful visions of war
on the shield:
The mass and majesty of this world, all
That carries weight and always weighs the same
Lay in the hands of others; they were small
And could not hope for help and no help came:
What their foes like to do was done, their shame
Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride
And died as men before their bodies died. (Stanza 6)
The notion of war according to Auden has changed tremendously. Until 1914,
the Western literature viewed war as “glorious, and the words hero and warrior were
almost synonymous. . . today we know that war is an atrocious and corrupting
business. We can no longer read an epic like the Iliad in the same way that even our
grandfathers read it . . .” (qtd. in A Certain World 382). As a person deeply concerned
about the problems in society, each of Auden’s poems provides powerful testimonies of
war and its brutalities.
1.4 “PARTITION”*: THE TEXT
Unbiased at least he was when he arrived on his mission,
Having never set eyes on the land he was called to partition
Between two peoples fanatically at odds,
With their different diets and incompatible gods.

"Time," they had briefed him in London, "is short. It's too late
For mutual reconciliation or rational debate:
The only solution now lies in separation.
The Viceroy thinks, as you will see from his letter,
That the less you are seen in his company the better,
So we've arranged to provide you with other accommodation.
We can give you four judges, two Moslem and two Hindu,
To consult with, but the final decision must rest with you."
Shut up in a lonely mansion, with police night and day
Patrolling the gardens to keep the assassins away,
He got down to work, to the task of settling the fate
Of millions. The maps at his disposal were out of date
And the Census Returns almost certainly incorrect,
But there was no time to check them, no time to inspect
Contested areas. The weather was frightfully hot,
And a bout of dysentery kept him constantly on the trot,
But in seven weeks it was done, the frontiers decided,
A continent for better or worse divided.
The next day he sailed for England, where he could quickly forget
The case, as a good lawyer must. Return he would not,
Afraid, as he told his Club, that he might get shot.

(*Source: https://allpoetry.com/Partition)
1.5 INTRODUCTION TO THE POEM
The poem “Partition” by Wystan Hugh Auden or popularly known as W.H.

Auden was published in 1966. It is a highly politically charged historical poem offering
a commentary on the ill-thought method of partition of India by the British barrister, Sir
Cyril John Radcliffe at the behest of the then Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten. Having
arrived in British India for the first time on July 8, 1947, Radcliffe had only five weeks
to draw the borders, partition British India into two parts and create an independent
India and carve out Pakistan. Hastily done with outdated maps and incorrect census
records, the Partition was solely done on religious lines that resulted in the bloodiest
bloodbath ever witnessed by the Indian subcontinent. It also led to the largest ever
migration seen in 20 century with a million families displaced on both sides of the
th
border. The poem thus presents a raw and brutal sketch of the events leading up to the
partition of British India and highlights the callous attitude and high handedness of the
colonial British administration.
W.H. Auden was highly revered for his views and engagement with political,
moral and religious issues. His poem “Partition” then aptly reflects the socio-political
and religious situation of India back in 1947. The poem is a grim reminder of the fact
that common people are just mere pawns in the game of politics. One man drew and
decided the life of millions of people- its lines sketched in the memories of victims of
Partition like a deep scar; a scar that may physically fade away but leaving its remnants
mentally. The dance of death during and after the partition of India continues as its
aftereffects are being felt till today.

1.6 SUMMARY OF THE POEM
Stanza 1
The first stanza informs us about the arrival of Sir Cyril John Radcliffe to India
for his “mission”- the mission of partitioning British India into India and Pakistan. Sir
Radcliffe was “unbiased” on his arrival in India. However, the phrase “atleast”
highlights that he became biased after his arrival in India. He has never been to the
Indian soil before as the poem suggests and yet he was called upon to divide the
country geographically, which ultimately changed the fate of the entire Indian sub-
continent. He was called at the behest of the then viceroy, Lord Mountbatten to divide
the country as two fanatical factions with their different food diets and religion wanted
to live separately. The Partition thus was solely made on religious grounds. Radcliffe
was informed in London that the time was less for any “mutual reconciliation” or
“rational debate” and hence “separation” or partition was the only solution left, which
had to be done immediately.
The poem further informs us that the Viceroy wrote Radcliffe a letter in which
he was advised not to be seen with the Viceroy for his benefit. Certain arrangements
were made for Sir Radcliffe upon his arrival in India, which included accommodation
and he was given the company of four judges- two Hindus and two Muslims. He was
advised to consult with these four judges before making a decision. The ultimate
decision of Partition however, solely rests with Sir Radcliffe as the last line suggests.
Stanza 2
Stanza 2 offers us a desolate picture with Radcliffe secluding himself in a

“lonely mansion”, with police patrolling the gardens and guarding him day and night.
His life probably is in danger as he was provided security to keep the “assassins away”.
It is in this mansion, Auden points out, Radcliffe sealed the fate of millions by drawing
the lines of partition. Auden here criticizes the method in which partition was done by
Radcliffe. With outdated maps and incorrect “Census Returns”, Radcliffe not only
divided a nation into two halves but also divided its people, displaced them from their
homes, dislodged their identity eventually leading to the slaughter of millions. But why

was the partition done hastily? As pointed out by Auden, there was no time either to
check the records or go and inspect the contested areas. And just like that a decision
was made; a life-changing decision for everyone.
Auden in this stanza also highlights the infamous hot climate of the
subcontinent which was hated by the Britishers. Auden however exaggerates the
climate of India here by labelling it as “frightfully hot”. The extreme heat and bouts of
dysentery terribly affected Radcliffe. But, in seven weeks the boundary was drawn,
frontiers decided and an independent India and a new Pakistan was created. A nation
thereby was partitioned and a continent was created hastily- for better or worse only
time would tell for the colonial masters hardly cared about the fate of the people of the
Indian subcontinent.
Stanza 3
The fact that the British colonial masters had zero regard for the people of
Indian subcontinent gets highlighted when we find Radcliffe sailing for England the
very next day after drawing the borders, as if nothing happened. England here becomes
his safe haven, a place where he could easily forget the events in India just like a good
lawyer does. India and its events surrounding Partition are then nothing but just a
“case” for him. The last lines suggest that Radcliffe would never return to India for the
fear of being shot. This indicates that Radcliffe probably realizes his grave mistake of
partitioning India that led to the cataclysmic mayhem on both sides of the border and
his refusal to accept his salary of Rs. 40,000 for drawing the border.
1.7 CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE POEM
The partition of India was an extraordinary event- an event that still plagues
India and Pakistan. Partitioned on religious grounds, the event of 1947 had unparalleled
ramifications with catastrophic results affecting millions of people in both India and
Pakistan. As Arjun Mahey notes:

Ten million people (mostly Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims) had to leave their homes and
ancestral holdings, and a tenth of them were slaughtered in the most singular civil war
in recent history: there were no leaders, no armed forces, no plans, only a spontaneous
and visceral ferocity whose possibility was unanticipated, and whose legacy is more
than evident even today. (“Partition Narratives” 133)
This socio-political upheaval is well highlighted by Auden in his poem

“Partition”. Can a nation be divided on religious grounds? Can a person who has never
set foot on the Indian soil or knows anything about India partition it? Could lands be
divided, settled and new homes created in such a way? Auden has answered what
historians could not through a caustic criticism of partition in this poem. Partition of
India was not just a division of land but division of people too based on their food diets
and religion. Not only homes but identity of people too got displaced. A boundary line
was drawn in a matter of seven weeks which sealed the fate of millions.
Sir Cyril Radcliffe, a barrister was called upon from England to India to draw
the borders and create an independent India and a new land called Pakistan. As the first
stanza of the poem highlights, Radcliffe was unbiased when he first arrived in India, a
land he never visited before. He was briefed in London about the turbulence in India-
about the raging violence between two groups of people who were “fanatically at odds”
with each other because of their different food diet and religion. “Time…is short,” he
was informed and there was hardly any time left for mutual reconciliation. Separation
thus, was the only solution left. And Radcliffe did separate the land into two with the
outdated maps and incorrect census returns. He was given four judges, “two Moslem
and two Hindus” with whom he could consult. However, it is astonishing that
Radcliffe, who never set foot in India and is a white colonizer has the final say in
drawing the fate of millions of colonized people.
Tucked in his heavily fortified “lonely mansion” with police guarding him
“night and day” for the fear of assassins, Radcliffe drew the border in seven weeks
without even visiting the contested areas. There was hardly any inspection into people’s
claims and their feelings. The reference to India’s hot weather and Radcliffe’s “bout of
dysentery” indicates his urgent immediacy to partition British India into two and thus

divide a land for better or worse. It is worth noting that the colonial attitude is at its
zenith here. Radcliffe and the other British colonial masters (the colonial British
administration) hardly cared for the colonized Indians. The haste in which British India
was divided reflects their callous attitude. This is further reflected when Radcliffe sets
off to England the very next day, quickly forgetting about what he did because the
partition was after all just a “case” for him. He realises later though the consequences
of his one action for he vowed not to return to India for fear of being shot.
The power play of politics was at its full display during and after the Partition
and Auden has adroitly addressed the issue of power, politics and religion in this poem.
In “Partition”, Auden discovered “an oblique way to write about power and the
sacrifice of life by focussing on an individual who represented human, secular failure”
(Davenport-Hines 321). The figure of Radcliffe goes on to highlight that the fate of
common people purely lies on the decision of political masters and bureaucrats. With
the drawing of one border, millions became homeless overnight, hundreds and
thousands were butchered sparing no one. The fiendish violence and barbaric scenes
during and after Partition engulfed the entire nation. Auden himself witnessed the
cataclysmic consequences of Partition when he went to visit his brother John in India
four years after the Partition: “Reflecting on this tragedy over the years, he wrote about
it only after discovering a workable poetic strategy that shifted the focus to Radcliffe,
the individual responsible for drawing the borders” (Morse 125). Davenport-Hines
praises the poem as “elegant, spare, comfortless” (321) and the poem surely is elegant
and presents a scathing review of the lack of judgement on the part of Radcliffe and the
British administration at the manner in which British India was divided. However,
Auden’s colonial mindset gets reflected when he degrades the climate of India by
referring to it as “frightfully hot”. The exaggeration is unwanted and further gives the
impression of India as a hostile nation, which is probably why Radcliffe wanted to
complete his assigned work at the earliest.
The poem nevertheless, looks at the unjust manner in which British India was
partitioned into two- India and Pakistan. It criticizes the British workforce and
administration that relied on outdated maps and incorrect census records to partition

British India by a man who never visited India before. The international border and its
traumatic scars run deep- bodily scars which will fade off eventually but the mental
scars take forever to heal. Partition left people with nothing but terror and confusion.
The political absurdity as critiqued in the poem is unmissable and that is what makes
W.H. Auden a revered political poet, who “understood the nature and limits of political
power” (Morse 125).
1.8 LET US SUM UP
In this unit we learn about the life of W.H. Auden. His poetic career went through many
changes, impacted by war and politics,along with his move to the United State of
America. Later in his life, he began writing metaphysical poetry. In “Partition”, he talks
about Cyril Radcliffe and the mission he was sent to India for - the partition of the
Indian subcontinent. We critically analyse the socio-political angle of this move and
discuss the power play involved in the partition.
1.9 CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
1. How is the socio-political upheaval of partition described in the poem?

……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
2. Do you sympathise with Cyril Radcliffe? Discuss.

……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
3. What did Cyril Radcliffe do?

……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
4. Write a brief note on Auden’s writing style.

……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
5. Analyse the power play mentioned in the poem.

……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………

UNIT 2: AGHA SHAHID ALI “LEARNING URDU”
Structure
2.0 Objectives
2.1 About the Poet
2.2 Agha Shahid Ali and his Poetic Style
2.3 “Learning Urdu”: The Text
2.7 Let Us Sum Up
2.0 OBJECTIVES
 Know about Agha Shahid Ali, his jovial life and his brilliant works
 Know about his writing style and the central theme of his works revolving
around memory, history, pain and trauma.
 Read and understand his poem “Learning Urdu”
 Critically analyse the poem “Learning Urdu”
2.1 ABOUT THE POET
Born on February 4, 1949, Agha Shahid Ali was an Indian English poet and
translator who later immigrated to the United States of America. Ali was born in Delhi
into an illustrious Qizilbashi Agha family of Kashmir. His father Agha Ashraf Ali was
a well-known economist and his grandmother Begum Zaffar Ali was the first woman to
pass matriculation exam in Kashmir. Agha Shahid Ali grew up in Kashmir and did his

schooling from Burn Hall School, an all-boys missionary school in Srinagar, Kashmir.
He studied at University of Kashmir for his Bachelor’s degree and went to Hindu
College, University of Delhi for his Master’s degree in English literature. He later
emigrated to the United States of America where he earned his PhD degree in English
from Pennsylvania State University and also a Masters in Fine Arts in Creative Writing
from University of Arizona.
Ali’s famous collection of poems include The Half-Inch Himalayas (1987), A

Walk Through the Yellow Pages (1987), A Nostalgist’s Map of America (1991), The
Country Without a Post Office (1997), and Rooms Are Never Finished (2001) which is
his last published collection of poems. He also translated Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s collection
of poems titled The Rebel’s Silhouette (1992) and was the editor of Ravishing
Disunities: Real Ghazals in English (2000). Ali was associated with New Formalism, a
literary movement in American poetry that urged for a return to the traditional forms of
verse viz, metre, rhyme and narrative poetry. New Formalism was largely a reaction to
the Modernist innovations of Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot. It is interesting to note that Ali
wrote a doctoral thesis on T.S. Eliot which was later published as T.S. Eliot as Editor in
1986.
Although he was a Muslim, Ali had a secular upbringing and his poems are a
blend of English, Hindi and Urdu culture. He also wrote Ghazals and his last book was
a collection of English ghazals titled Call Me Ishmael Tonight: A Book of Ghazals
(2003) published posthumously. Born in Delhi, lived in Kashmir and an immigrant in
the United States, Ali was a by-product of many cultures. As a multicultural and
diasporic poet, Ali’s poetry evokes the feeling of loss, pain and suffering. His poems
revolve around the theme of longing, memory, nostalgia, exile, identity crisis and
history. The theme of Partition also regularly features in his poems. The maelstrom of
Partition left people and the country in ruins. Kashmir, a place that was close to Ali,
had to bear an irreparable damage due to the partition of India in 1947. This loss and
destruction of Kashmir is constantly highlighted by Ali in his poems.
Ali did not generally use blank verse in his poetry but loved experimenting with
rhymes and metrical forms. His unique blend of English and Urdu culture is well-

reflected when during one of his poetry reading sessions at the India International
Centre in Delhi, Ali got upset by the silence of the audience. Unfazed by formalities, he
demanded an occasional ‘wah’ from the audience at the end of each recital.
Remembering Ali, Neerja Matoo notes:
The mature poet, who articulated the trauma of the displaced, whether in the territory of
the mind or in geographical space, and came to be acknowledged as a major poetic
voice by the western English-speaking world, never lost the air of the little boy, every
facet of life filling him with a sense of wonder and excitement, joy and pain.” (176)
Agha Shahid Ali never married. He died of brain cancer on December 8, 2001
in Massachusetts, USA. Agha Shahid Ali was a person full of vibrancy and joie de
vivre. He was a kind of person who did not let illness come in the way of his
celebration of life. Ali died poetically with a song by Faiz on his lips: “aa.e kuchh abr
kuchh sharāb aa.e/ is ke ba.ad aa.e jo azaab aa.e” (np).
2.2 AGHA SHAHID ALI AND HIS POETIC STYLE
Fondly called ‘bhaiyya’ by his family and friends, Agha Shahid Ali was a
multicultural poet. He is an Indian Muslim English poet and one of the few English
language poets from Kashmir to talk about India’s partition and independence. Bruce
King observes that “[r]ather than a poetry of fragments and fragmented experiences in
which cultures incongruously conflict, Ali's has become increasingly organized into
meaningful structures, with inner narratives, suggestive of continuity” (2). In his
poems, Ali talks about how culture and political events causes separation leading to a
sense of loss, exile nostalgia and trauma. The pitiable human condition is brought to
light in his poetry. Most importantly, his poetry shows “a quiet, but persistent
engagement with political questions of justice: questions of rights and power” (Sabitha
180).
Ali was born in Delhi, lived in Kashmir and attended the Burris School in
Munice, Indiana. His poems thereby are characterised by a sense of longing and

nostalgia for his multiple homes and ‘lands’. Talking about Ali’s poetry, Bruce King
states:
While Ali's poetry reveals signs of exile blues, fantasies of roads not taken, longings for
the securities of family and old friends, its idiom is often American and without the
exile's defensive need for cultural assertion, revenge for humiliations or self-
congratulation for having made it in a strange land. Rather his poetry imaginatively
moves rapidly across borders associating and examining experiences in a variety of
lands and situations to establish relationships or to recall what has been lost in the
process of living. (3)
Loss, nostalgia and exile are the common themes inherent in Ali’s poetry. His
Indian past, the ancient cultural heritage of India, the events of Partition and people’s
loss regularly feature in his poems. Persian and Urdu poetry has been a strong influence
in his writing style especially the ghazal “with its conciseness, use of repetitive images
and phrases to develop suggestions of symbolic narrative, its elliptical metaphors,
imaginative leaps and reliance on the reader to bring together a diversity of unrelated
couplets into a supposed metaphoric narrative” (ibid.). Ali’s poetry speaks of a desire,
of longing, separation and nostalgia- of what has been lost, events that cannot be
undone, relationships that cannot be developed, histories that cannot be altered and pain
that cannot be healed. Memory, trauma, history and its representations thereby form an
intrinsic part of his poetry. His poem “Farewell” in A Country with a Post Office deals
with these themes:
I'm everything you lost. You won't forgive me.
My memory keeps getting in the way of your history.
There is nothing to forgive. You can't forgive me.
I hid my pain even from myself; I revealed my pain only to myself. (np)
Ali published his first book of poems Bone-Sculpture in 1972 in India. The
poems are personal in nature with themes ranging from his loneliness, his separation
from his family due to travel and education, feelings of dislocation in an alien world,

nostalgia and memories of his family, ancestors and history. The very title Bone-
Sculpture is symbolic for bones signify death and destruction. Many of his poems also
talks about death and funeral. Agha Shahid Ali has always been nostalgic for Kashmir
and the old world charm of Delhi under the Mughals. However, since the Partition,
Urdu culture has seen a drastic change and its remnants are only found in ghazals that
takes us immediately to a nostalgic trip. Ali’s poem “Thumri for Rasoolan Bai” is one
such poem that is filled with loss and nostalgia. The poem burns with raging issue of
Hindu-Muslim divide and the consequences of Partition:
I ran from there.
the wind’s blood-edge where
her songs had curled me in
flames
I could only preserve
her breaking voice. (np).
Ali’s poems are highly autobiographical in nature and seeks to explore the
questions of origins, exile, life, death and his own evolution as a poet. His poem
“Introducing” is about his development “as a poet from his mid-teens through his
twenties. It begins with the interesting observation that English romantic poetry was not
out of place in Kashmir with its changing seasons and natural beauty. Although the
trees were different, Urdu poetry was often similar” (King 5). His poems “Not
Autobiographical I” and “II” are deeply personal and gives an insight into his family.
The poems exhibit the modern and secular nature of his parents and the more traditional
and orthodox approach of his grandparents. He grew up in a family that revered Islam
and European thought.
Deeply rooted in his culture, Ali longs for the lost time, the lost nation and the
continent that has now been broken into two due to Partition. His poem “Learning
Urdu” is an evocative response to the divorce brought about by Partition thereby,
breaking in the continuity of a shared culture, identity and language. The Dogri

language as reflected in the poem has died a thousand death like the victims of Partition
and all that remains now is a hazy memory of the past, of pre-Partition days and the
traumatic memories of Partition. The poem “Learning Urdu” has two versions and in
the revised version called “After Partition”, Ali makes a scathing attack at the events of
Partition that altered the history of the Indian subcontinent: “History broke the back/ of
poetry” (qtd. in King 6).
In 1987, Ali published his ground-breaking book The Half-Inch Himalayas. The
book of poems revolves around the theme of nostalgia, exile and his acceptance of his
new homeland, the United States of America. The stellar work is divided into four
sections with a prologue titled “Postcard from Kashmir” that instantly sets the tone and
theme of the book. “Postcard from Kashmir” evokes Ali’s profound memories of his
home in Kashmir. As informed in the poem, the poet-narrator receives a postcard from
his home in Kashmir and he is immediately transported to the world of nostalgia and
remembers the distant land of Kashmir that he has now left behind:
Kashmir shrinks into my mailbox,
my home a neat four by six inches.
I always loved neatness. Now I hold
the half-inch Himalayas in my hand.
This is home. And this the closest
I'll ever be to home.” (np)
The longing for his home and his pain is well reflected in the imagery that he
uses to express his loss and suffering. He tries hard to link his old home and his new
home; his old world and his new world but the painful realisation dawns on him that
Kashmir will never be the same again when he returns:
…When I return,

the colors won't be so brilliant,
the Jhelum's waters so clean,
so ultramarine.” (np).
Ali finds himself displaced and distorted from Kashmir, his memory is still “a
little/ out of focus” and yet he tries to hold on to that memory because Kashmir forms
an integral part of his existence (np). It is this desire to hold on to memory and establish
a link between the past and the present that is reflected in his poems. The poems in
Section I of The Half-Inch Himalayas deal with “fantasies or imaginings of his family
history” that largely spurs up from his desire to be a part of memory and his family
history (King 7).
Ali’s tryst with history, his reverence for Indian crafts and handloom industry
that was largely destroyed by British colonialism is adroitly highlighted in his poem
“The Dacca Gauzes”. India’s weaving industry had a glorious past until the arrival of
Britishers. Weaving, as Ali notes in the poem is “a dead art now, dead over/ a hundred
years” (np). British colonialism and imperialism destroyed the weaving industry of
India and since then it has lost its earlier sheen:
In history we learned: the hands
of weavers were amputated,
the looms of Bengal silenced,
and the cotton shipped raw
by the British to England.
History of little use to her,
my grandmother just says
how the muslins of today

seem so coarse and that only
in autumn, should one wake up
at dawn to pray, can one
feel that same texture again. (np)
The second section of The Half-Inch Himalayas chiefly deals with life in Delhi
and is an ode to the rich culture and history of Delhi, which again takes us to a trip
down the memory lane. Perhaps, the most splendid of poems from this section is “After
Seeing Kozintsev’s ‘King Lear’ in Delhi”. The poem paints a painful picture of the rich
grandeur and charm of Delhi under the Mughals that is now lost. It also highlights the
poverty and destruction of Delhi under the Britishers:
Beggars now live here in tombs
of unknown nobles and forgotten saints
while hawkers sell combs and mirrors
outside a Sikh temple. (105)
In the next stanza of the poem, Ali thinks of Zafar, poet and the last Mughal
emperor of India. Zafar was chained and dragged through the very streets of Delhi that
he once ruled and was forced to watch “his sons hanged” (ibid.). All Zafar begged and
hoped for was to be buried in Delhi but sadly he “lies buried in Rangoon” (ibid.). Ali’s
“In Memory of Begum Akhtar” and “Homage to Faiz Ahmed Faiz” are the concluding
poems of Section II that pays tribute to the subcontinent’s cultural giants and in the
process celebrates India’s glorious past.
Section III of The Half-Inch Himalayas speaks of Ali’s life in America:
His life is uprooted; there are many references to airplanes, nights in bars and changing
apartments… The landscape is now of an American life, being on the move, from
apartment to apartment, airport to airport. There are no longer ancestral homes, ancient
monuments. (King 10)

Section IV contains six poems that narrates his nostalgia and longing for his
home in India while Ali is in the United States of America. If The Half-Inch Himalayas
takes us on a nostalgic trip then A Walk Through the Yellow Pages (1987) takes us to a
“surreal world of nightmare, fantasy, absurd incongruity, wild humour and the
grotesque” that is often characteristic of Ali’s poetry (King 12). Existential dilemmas
and anxieties that often arise due to displacement and migration in an alien world forms
the crux of Ali’s poetry. He is thus a prolific diasporic poet. His poem “Language
Games” from A Walk Through the Yellow Pages reflects these dilemmas and anxieties
caused by homelessness and cultural alienation:
I went mad in your house of words,
purposely mad, so you would
give me asylum. (np)
Ali’s sense of exile and the pangs of it are poignantly captured in his poem
“Exiles” written for Edward W. Said. The poem highlights the pain of leaving one’s
home and the circumstances of being “exiled by exiles”:
In Jerusalem a dead phone’s dialed by exiles.
You learn your strange fate: you were exiled by exiles. (np)
His poems also contain the notion of death. His last published collection of
poems Rooms Are Never Finished (2003) deals with death and destruction of his
beloved homeland Kashmir, his mother’s death and his painful journey with her body
back to Kashmir:
Thus I swear, here and now, not to forgive the universe
that would let me get used to a universe
without you. She, she alone, was the universe
as she earned, like a galaxy, her right not to die,
defying the Merciful of the Universe,

Master of Disease, "in the circle of her traverse"
of drug-bound time. (“Lenox Hill” np)
It is interesting then to note that through his anxieties, sense of homelessness,

alienation, exile, nostalgia and memory, Ali has been able to successfully build an
oeuvre of work that is both poignant and charismatic. He is a refugee who will “be
paroled in real time” as Ali admits in his poem “Ghazal” written for Daniel Hall.
Born after Partition, Agha Shahid Ali can hope to know the rich and glorious
days of pre-Partition era only through its remnants via a deep sense of nostalgia and
memory. He is “interested in actually knowing about the past of others and able to
assimilate the lacunae of foreign history to his imagination” (King 16). Thus, most of
his poems talks of history, memories and creates an imaginary situation where he is part
of people’s history. It is this sheer sense of memory and imaginings that help Ali
establish a link between the past and present, between the old world and the new world.
Although Ali’s poems are colloquial in nature, it displays a standard language of color,
oxymorons, metaphors and allegories that renders his poems a lyrical appeal. He
blended Western and Indian traditions in his writing style and was the Guru of both
Canzone and Ghazal form. Agha Shahid Ali may have died but his legacy lives on:
I want to live forever. What else can I say?
It rains as I write this. Mad heart, be brave. (“The Country Without a Post
Office” np)
2.3 “LEARNING URDU”*: THE TEXT
From a district near Jammu,
(Dogri stumbling through his Urdu)
he comes, the victim of a continent broken
in two in nineteen forty-seven.

He mentions the minced air he ate
while men dissolved in alphabets
of blood, in syllables of death, of hate.
'I only remember half the word
that was my village. The rest I forget.
My memory belongs to the line of blood
across which my friends dissolved
into bitter stanzas of some dead poet.'
He wanted me to sympathize. I couldn't,
I was only interested in the bitter couplets
which I wanted him to explain. He continued,
'And I who knew Mir backwards, every
couplet from the Diwan-e-Ghalib saw poetry
dissolve into letters of blood.' He
Now remembers nothing while I find Ghalib
at the crossroads of language, refusing
to move to any side, masquerading
as a beggar to see my theatre of kindness.
(*Source: https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/learning-urdu/)

The Partition of India in 1947 was a watershed event in the history of the Indian
subcontinent. The theme of Partition and issues related to it forms a major component
of Agha Shahid Ali’s poetry. His poems tell tales of loss, suffering, memory and
trauma. His poem “Learning Urdu” is one of the most evocative poems. It beautifully
captures the plight and emotions of the victims of Partition, an event that not only
partitioned a land and its people but also partitioned culture, language and identity that
was once shared. The poem thus is marked by a sense of grief, loss, memory and
nostalgia where the Dogri language is lamenting over its current fate.
The Partition of India in 1947 changed the cultural, social and political
landscape of Kashmir. A land that was once the cauldron of different culture and
tradition is now left in ruins thereby leaving Kashmiris in a state of identity crisis. It is
this devastation and chaos that Ali tries to capture in his poem “Learning Urdu”.
In the very first stanza of the poem, the poet-narrator introduces us to Dogri
language. Dogri is a common language spoken by Kashmiris but chiefly spoken in the
Jammu region of Jammu & Kashmir. The Partition of India in 1947 left Kashmir in
ruins. And the poet-narrator is trying to capture the destruction wreaked by Partition in
Kashmir by asking Dogri to talk about the after effects of Partition.
The Dogri language has the unique ability of being written both in Devanagari
script or the Persian variant of Arabic script. Hence, it is very well spoken in both India
and Pakistan- the two Partitioned countries. This only goes on to highlight Dogri’s
common and shared identity with both India and Pakistan. It is interesting to note that
in this poem the Dogri language has been personified to give it human attributes. The
language thus has been shown to be a victim of Partition just like the Kashmiri people.
Just as men lay dying in a pool of death “dissolved in alphabets of blood, in syllables of

death” due to hate and violence, Dogri too seems to be sharing the same fate. The poet-
narrator here seems to be hinting at the mortality of Dogri language. People on both
sides of the border of India and Pakistan shared common heritage and history. The
Partition of 1947 however, ripped off from people their shared ancestry, common
identity and language.
The second stanza sheds light on the trauma and identity crisis experienced by
the victims of Partition. It talks of a heart-breaking tale of the Dogri language, who like
the Kashmirissuffered from a lack of belongingness. Like the victims of Partition,
Dogri too was a victim of displacement and exile and its memory has thereby become
hazy after Partition. This is probably because like the common people of Kashmir,
Dogri is also dying a slow death. Many speakers of the language are now on the other
side of the border. The only memory now left “belongs to the line of blood” across
which friends have now “dissolved/ into bitter stanzas”. The use of “bitter” hints at two
things- firstly, evaporation of friendship leaving only enemies behind due to the rift
created by Partition, which was nothing but an act of violence, hatred and religious
fanaticism and secondly, Dogri speaking friends who died in the ensuing violence of
Partition.
In the third stanza, the poet-narrator informs us that Dogri wanted him to
sympathize with his situation. It is at this point that the poet-narrator steps out of
Dogri’s narration in a bid to analyse his own position vis a vie the events surrounding
Partition. We are then informed that the poet-narrator could not sympathize with Dogri.
And was “only interested” in knowing the “bitter couplets”. Trauma and pain can at
times leave people immune to feelings. Agha Shahid Ali probably is so traumatised by
the events of Partition that he is besotted with grief and has become immune to pain.
Such a phenomenon can only happen if one is unable to accept the reality of Partition
and longs for the historical past. In such a scenario then, all one wants like Ali, is
answers- answers that can finally answer the rise of such “bitter couplets” and events.
Continuing his narration in the fourth stanza, Dogri talks about his diminishing
stature, which has now dissolved “into letters of blood”. Delving into memory, Dogri
talks of a time when he “knew Mir backwards, [and] every/ couplet from the Diwan-e-

Ghalib…”. But now, all that remains is poetry dissolving “into letters of blood”. The
letters and language that one used earlier to bind and unite people is now being used as
a vehicle of hatred. The Dogri language which was once a cultural identifier has now
lost its very identity due to Partition.
The last stanza of the poem presents a dystopian picture where we are being told
that Dogri remembers nothing. Amidst such a situation, we find Ali imagining a
situation where Mirza Ghalib is “at the crossroads of language”. Ghalib is at a juncture
where he is forced to choose a side. Ghalib however, refuses to choose any side, any
religion and any country. This indicates that language has no barrier. Ghalib however,
has disguised himself as a beggar so that he could escape identification and see instead
Ali’s “theatre of kindness” and position on Partition.
Agha Shahid Ali was a vibrant and jovial person by temperament. But his
poems surprisingly were full of pain, loss, trauma, longing and desires. A multicultural
poet by heart, his poems were a blend of English, Hindi and Urdu tradition, which was
largely an attribute of his multicultural life in Delhi, Kashmir and the United States of
America. His poems primarily revolve around the theme of memory and history. His
poem “Learning Urdu” is one such poem that deals with the historical event of the
Partition of India in 1947. One would think that Partition divided a land and its people
into two. However, a critical analysis would reveal that the Partition of 1947 was
beyond just a mere division of land and its people into two factions based on religion.
The event which changed the face of the Indian sub-continent was also about division
of culture, tradition, language and identity that was once peacefully shared. Ali’s poem
“Learning Urdu” then is an attempt to highlight and examine the death and destruction
of a language that was once spoken by Kashmiris before Partition.
The poem “Learning Urdu” is essentially about the Dogri language, a language
chiefly spoken in the Jammu district of Jammu & Kashmir. Ali’s poems often tell tales
of loss, death, exile, identity crisis and displacement. The event of Partition displaced

hundreds and thousands of people eventually leading to a sense of loss, displacement
and identity crisis. Like the common people, Dogri language too has suffered from a
huge loss, identity crisis and a gradual decay. It is for this reason that the language,
Dogri has been personified in the poem by Ali to better express its emotions, sense of
loss and death like a human being. Personification is a figure of speech that attributes
human qualities and characteristics to an object or any non-human being.
In the very first stanza of the poem, we are introduced to Dogri, who as the
poet-narrator informs comes from “a district near Jammu”. Stumbling through his
Urdu, Dogri too has become a victim of Partition, who has somehow consumed the
“minced air” as men lie in a pool of blood, the result of hatred and violence. The
reference here is to the mayhem and bloodshed that happened during the partition of
India.
The scars and memories of Partition largely governed by a sense of trauma run
deep. Physical scars may fade away with time but mental scars are forever engraved in
memory- memory that becomes traumatic. Traumatic events and memories at times
occupy a larger part of our conscious mind, pushing memories of other events to our
sub-conscious and unconscious mind so much so that you hardly remember about it.
Dogri too hardly remembers his past life and events prior to Partition: “I only
remember half the word/ that was my village. The rest I forget”. The only memory that
he now has is of bloodshed and violence that happened during the Partition. Victims of
trauma have a hard time forgetting about traumatic events. Dogri too is a victim of such
trauma which is clearly reflected when he says that his memory belongs only “to the
line of blood” across which his friends have dissipated “into bitter stanzas of some dead
poet”. The use of the word “bitter” here is highly significant for it indicates many
things- the literal death of his friends, friends turning into foes because of Partition
thereby indicating the death of friendship and the death of a shared language, identity
and culture. In this context, it is interesting to note that Dogri can be written in both
Devanagari script and Arabic script thereby making Dogri a common language spoken
by people in both India and Pakistan. Dogri thus has a history and reminds us of a
glorious Indian past.

It is thus pitiful that a language like Dogri that has a rich heritage now stands
divided. Its poetic language is dissolving “into letters of blood” thereby indicating its
mortality and slow death just like the victims of Partition. Poetry is the language of
love, peace, friendship and brotherhood. But during Partition, only hatred found its
existence and poetry dissolved into the thick air of hatred, blood and violence. The
Dogri language, that once had the poetic ability of uniting people across culture and
religion is now being used as a vehicle of hatred. The language thus has lost its earlier
identity and is now in a state of exile because of its displaced roots- with some speakers
of the language choosing India as their home and some choosing Pakistan as their
home. A language and its roots is identified by its speakers. In this context, where does
Dogri belong? Where are its roots? Which side will Dogri choose? The chaotic
situation and trauma thus has affected Dogri’s memory: “He/ Now remembers nothing”
thereby indicating a sense of identity crisis.
The crossroads of confusion is highly symbolic as indicated in the last stanza

because Ali imagines a situation where Mirza Ghalib too is at the “crossroads of
language”. Ghalib however, refuses to choose any side disguising instead as a beggar to
see Ali’s “theatre of kindness”. This can be interpreted as Ghalib’s refusal to choose a
side after Partition deciding instead to remain on both the worlds of India and Pakistan,
which he clearly has through his much revered legacy.
It is quite interesting to note that the language Dogri has not only been
personified and given human attributes like pain, memory and identity but, has also
been given a specific gender that of a male. Throughout the poem, Dogri is repeatedly
referred to as ‘He’ and it seems that the entire conversation is happening between two
males- Dogri/He and the poet-narrator/Ali. In this context then it thus seems that two
patriarchal forces have occupied the larger domain of power in a sphere where only
men could exchange their thoughts about an event that was also about power; decision
of which was largely taken by patriarchal forces at work. Nevertheless, the poem
“Learning Urdu” is about pain and suffering where a language that has been personified
is lamenting about its loss, exiled state and identity crisis. Ali’s poems are full of
longing, nostalgia, memory, history and imaginings where the poet-narrator Ali wishes

to be a part of history. In doing this, he transports himself in imagined situations where
he can safely act as a link between the past and the present, between the old world and
the new world.
2.7 LET US SUM UP
In this unit we learned about the life of Agha Shahid Ali. His works were greatly
affected by the destruction of Kashmir. Memory, loss, trauma, and partition are central
to his poems. Although born a Muslim, he had a secular upbringing. In his poem
“Learning Urdu”, he personifies the language Dogri to lament the destruction caused by
the partition of India, especially Kashmir.
1. Why is Dogri language unique?

……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
2. Why is Dogri language lamenting its fate in the poem?
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
3. Write a brief note on Agha Shahid Ali’s poetic style.
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
4. In the poem, what conveys that patriarchal forces have occupied larger domain of
power?
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
5. Explain the role of memory in the poem.
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………

UNIT 3: FAIZ AHMAD FAIZ “THE DAWN OF FREEDOM”
Structure
3.0 Objectives
3.1 About the Poet
3.2 Faiz Ahmad Faiz and his Poetic Style
3.3 “The Dawn of Freedom”: The Text
3.7 Let Us Sum Up
3.0 OBJECTIVES
 Know about Faiz Ahmad Faiz

 Know about his writing style and the central theme of his works revolving
around partition of Indian subcontinent
 Read and understand his poem “The Dawn of Freedom”
 Critically analyse the poem “The Dawn of Freedom”
3.1 ABOUT THE POET
Born on February 13, 1911, Faiz Ahmad Faiz was a Pakistani poet who wrote in
Urdu and Punjabi languages. A poet par excellence, noted poet Sudhir Ludhianvi once
described Faiz as the ‘abode of the Worshippers of the dead’. Apart from being a poet,
Faiz was also an essayist, a filmmaker, a journalist and a trade unionist. Faiz was also a
serving officer in the British army during World War II. He won the Lenin Peace Prize

award in 1962 and also received the Lotus Prize for Literature in 1976. Faiz was also
nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature shortly before his death on November 20,
1984. He was conferred with Pakistan government’s highest civilian award, Nishan-e-
Imtiaz in 1990.
Born in Punjab, British India into an academic family, his father, Sultan
Muhammad Khan was a barrister who worked for the British government. As per the
Muslim tradition, his first brush with education was at a local mosque where he was
taught Islamic studies and learned Quran, Arabic, Persian and Urdu languages. He later
went to Scotch Mission school and after matriculation went to Murray College at
Sialkot. He later joined Government College, Lahore where he received his BA degree
with Honors in Arabic language. In 1932, Faiz was awarded his Master degree in
English literature from Government College, Lahore and that same year he also
obtained his MA degree in Arabic from Punjab University's Oriental College.
Faiz was a leading member of the Communist Party of Pakistan. His wife, Alys
Faiz, a British national was also a Communist and was a member of the Communist
party of United Kingdom. He met Alys in 1941 who was a student at Government
College University, Lahore. Faiz taught poetry at Government College University
during that time. Speaking about her husband, Alys says, “Faiz knows how to live with
oddities and hardships of life. I have seen him bereaved over the death of his kith and
kin, but he never loses the composure of his mind” (Lall 61).
In 1951, Faiz was arrested as part of a conspiracy for trying to overthrow the
government of Liaquat Ali Khan. He was released after four years and later went on to
become an active member of the Progressive Writer’s Movement. Faiz went into self-
exile after the execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Zia-ul-Haq’s tyrannical regime in
1979. He returned to Pakistan in 1982 only after Israeli occupation of Lebanon. After
his return to Pakistan, Faiz was deeply pained to see the Orwellian state of affairs in his
home country. Echoing his thoughts about Faiz’s self-imposed exile, noted writer and
critic, Edward Said in his essay “The Mind of Winter: Reflections on Life in Exile”
states:

To see a poet in exile-as opposed to reading the poetry of exile-is to see exile's
antinomies embodied and endured. Several years ago I spent some time with
Faiz Ahmed Faiz, the greatest of contemporary Urdu poets. He had been exiled
from his native Pakistan by Zia-ul- Haq's military regime and had found a
welcome of sorts in the ruins of Beirut. His closest friends were Palestinian, but
I sensed that although there was an affinity of spirit between them, nothing quite
matched-language, poetic convention, life history. Only once, when Eqbal
Ahmad, a Pakistani friend and fellow exile, came to Beirut, did Faiz seem to
overcome the estrangement written all over his face. (qtd. in Ali 130)
Faiz also wrote literary criticism that was published under the title Meezan. He
regards literary criticism as an extension of his poetry. For Faiz, his verse and prose are
not independent of each other. Faiz was also a translator and translated poems of his
Turkish friend cum poet Nazim Hikmet. Faiz brought a revolution in Urdu poetry
through his poetic genius. The charm of Faiz’s verses lies in the use of rhyme in his
ghazals. The theme of his poems were universal in nature that exposed human misery
and the tyrannical rule and apathy of the political establishment. In her introduction to
the True Subject, Naomi Lazard states: “This century has given us a few great poets
whose stance and influence have altered the consciousness of the world: Pablo Neruda,
Cesar Vallejo and Ernesto Cardenal in the Western hemisphere; Nazim Hikmet and
Yannis Ritsos in the Middle East; and Faiz Ahmed Faiz in South Asia” (qtd. in Ali
131).
Faiz’s poetry has a dual character- that of the self and society vs one’s devotion
and commitment to one’s nation, the ideal vs the practical. His verses thereby are
replete with notions and experiences of the self and the socio-political conditions.
Faiz’s poetic genius lies in the fact that his poetry was enjoyed by both the intellectual
elites and masses: “The impact of Faiz's verse has been so deep and great that he is
from any angle 'a Poets' poet'. Also a poet who wrote for the masses. He has to his
credit a positive achievement in Urdu verse and there is no denying the fact that he will
be looked upon even in future as one of the eminent poets of Urdu that India or

Pakistan has produced so far in the present century. His poems have glowing vigour
and vitality” (Lall 58).
3.2 FAIZ AHMAD FAIZ AND HIS POETIC STYLE
Faiz Ahmad Faiz was a champion of human rights and social justice. He grew
up in an orthodox Muslim family. At a very young age, he was given lessons on Arabic
and Persian language. Apart from Urdu, he was also a great lover of English literature:
Faiz was an outstanding example of a syncretic poet, who in today's language,

would be described as cross-cultural. A lover of Keats, Shelley and Browning,
he often adapted the sonnet form in his early poems. A translation of a poem by
Browning figures in an early edition of Imprints”. (Rahman 106)
Faiz’s first collection of poem titled Imprints (Naqsh-i-Fariyadi) was published

in 1941 when he was a serving officer in the Indian Army in World War II. His early
poems are very gentle and perceptive. In the poem “Nocturne” translated by Sarvat
Rahman, Faiz presents a situation of a young man who is in a state of “self-
forgetfulness” by looking at the beauty of the midnight moon:
Midnight, the moon, and self-forgetfulness
The past and present are faded, afar;
A supplication shapes the stillness
Dimmed is the sad assembly of stars. (113)
The next scene appears to be from a world of dream:
It is as if life were part of a dream
The whole wide world but a mirage would seem.
Slumbers the weary voice of moonlight
Upon the dense dark foliage of trees;

With half shut eyes, the Milky Way recites
The sacred text of Love's desire to please.
Mute melodies from my heart strings arise,
Fill me with heady ecstasy apace
Yearnings and dreams, a vision of your face. (114)
Faiz’s verses were also influenced by European surrealism and his later poems
were a blend of modern and classical traditions. Nature was always a dominant theme
in his poems. This is aptly reflected from the fact that even during his darkest hours;
during his prison days, Faiz never forgot to appreciate the beauty of nature:
Each star a rung,
night comes down the spiral
staircase of the evening.
The breeze passes by so very close
as if someone just happened to speak of love.
In the courtyard,
the trees are absorbed refugees
embroidering maps of return on the sky.
On the roof,
the moon - lovingly, generously -
is turning the stars
into a dust of sheen.
From every corner, dark-green shadows,
in ripples, come towards me.

At any moment they may break over me,
like the waves of pain each time I remember
this separation from my lover. (“A Prison Evening” np)
It is the beauty and constancy of the moon that gave him hope and courage:
This thought keeps consoling me:
though tyrants may command that lamps be smashed
in rooms where lovers are destined to meet,
they cannot snuff out the moon, so today,
nor tomorrow, no tyranny will succeed,
no poison of torture make me bitter,
if just one evening in prison
can be so strangely sweet,
if just one moment anywhere on this earth. (“A Prison Evening” np)
Faiz was imprisoned in 1951 but prison life did not deter him from his
revolutionary spirit and he composed few lines about it in his poem “Stanza”:
If they snatch my ink and pen,
I should not complain,
For I have dipped my fingers
In the blood of my heart.
I should not complain
Even if they seal my tongue,
For every ring of my chain
Is a tongue ready to speak. (np)

Faiz was a fierce commentator on social and political issues and was a fierce
defender of his ideals. He strived and hoped for a peaceful world where people lived in
harmony irrespective of race, colour, creed and sex. He detested fanaticism of any kind.
The events of Partition distressed him greatly and he always worked for the friendship
between India and Pakistan. Probably this is why, he is still revered by people in both
India and Pakistan. The poetic genius of Faiz allowed him to expose the injustices of
society and highlight human condition and aspirations of the common people. Poetry
was his vehicle to express his political thought: “He more than any other poet or writer
in the sub-continent demonstrated by his example that an artist could be intensely
political and at the same time reach the paragon of art-preserving and enhancing the
romanticism and symbolism of the great classical poetry” (Ahmed 2071). None but
only Faiz could have infused new life into traditional symbols of poetry to give
expression to his social and political thoughts. Although Faiz was highly political his
poetry however was devoid of any “slogan-mongering and crude political rhetoric”
(ibid.). Perhaps, this is why the lyrical, narrative style and symbolism of Faiz’s poetry
cuts across borders, cultural, political and religious divide.
Faiz Ahmad Faiz was a person with hope, evolutionary ideas and great
optimism. The universal themes of his poems touch every human’s heart. His poem
“The War Cemetry in Leningrad” translated by Naomi Lazard is one such poem
highlighting the woeful condition of humans across the world. The poem thus
establishes a link of humanity irrespective of nations and borders:
These dabs of living blood
are carnations and tulips
sprinkled on the ice-cold stone.
Each flower is named for one
of the unforgotten dead,
and for someone who weeps over him.
These men have finished their work;

there is the testament of the flowers
and the woman carved in granite.
She is their mother now,
She makes them all small again,
Watches them sleep forever.
Only she is awake, draped in her stone
garland, weaving and reweaving
her other garland of sorrows. (95)
Faiz changed the face of Urdu poetry with his soulful verses. Applauding Faiz,
Agha Shahid Ali calls him a “poet who was such a master of the ghazal that he
transformed its every stock image and, as if by magic, brought absolutely new
associations into being” (Ali 132). Faiz took his poetry to new heights. His poems
though romantic in nature are quite unconventional. He took the conventional way of
looking and appreciating a beloved into a form that also reflected his social and
political thought. Waiting for the beloved for him was like waiting for the Revolution.
He misses his beloved as reflected in his poem “Spring Comes” translated by Lazard.
However, spring comes but without his beloved. As a result, the torment and
melancholy sets in and he continues to suffer oppression:
Spring comes; suddenly all those days return,
all the youthful days that died on your lips,
that have been lost in the void, are born again
each time the roses display themselves.
Their scent belongs to you; it is your perfume.
The roses are also the blood of your lovers.
The torments return, melancholy

with the suffering of friends,
intoxicated with embraces of moon-bodied beauties.
All the chapters of the heart's oppression return,
all the questions and all the answers
between you and me
Spring comes, ready with all the old accounts reopened. (37)
His beloved thus has the power to end the tormenting pain in his heart, just like
the Revolution that has the power to end the pain and agony of the common people.
His highly acclaimed poem “Don’t Ask Me Now, Beloved” translated by Sarvat
Rahman is a poem that was once envied by many Urdu poets when it was published.
The poem addresses the cruel realities of society. The narrator seems to be in a
dilemma because earlier his beloved was his sole universe. He realises that his love for
his beloved and his duty towards his social commitments are of the same kind. Both
demand love, devotion, commitment and sacrifice. The poem highlights the poet-
narrator’s love for his beloved but also underlines his duty towards the society and
nation as more important than their love:
Don't ask me now, Beloved, for that love of other days
When I thought since you were, life would always scintillate
That love's pain being mine, the world's pain I could despise.
…Other pains exist than those that love brings,
Other joys than those of lover's mingling.
Dark fearful talismans, come down the centuries,
Woven in silk and damask and cloth of gold;
Bodies that everywhere in streets are sold
Covered with dust, all their wounds bleeding,

Bodies that have passed through the furnace of ills
With putrid ulcers which their humours spill.
How can I but turn my eyes sometimes that way;
Your beauty is still ravishing, what can I say/
Other pains exist than those that love brings,
Other joys than those of lover's mingling.
Don't ask me, now, Beloved, for that love of other day. (113)
The narrator thus declares that he can no longer be consumed by the love of his
beloved only for he is now consumed by the concern for the oppressed people. The
poet-narrator also reveals that his beloved has never shown him any reciprocity:
That love's pain being mine, the world's pain I could despise.
That you beauty lastingness to the spring would donate,
That nothing in the world was of worth but your eyes;
Were you to be mine, fate would bow low before me.
It was not so; it was only my wish that it were so…” (113)
Agha Shahid Ali however points out that while addressing the figure of the
beloved, Faiz might also be referring to Revolution as his beloved- the beloved-
Revolution who refuses to return: “In this poem, Faiz is of course drawing a line of
demarcation between the political and the romantic. But, often, a mingling of the
political and the romantic pervades his poetry. Sometimes the two, especially in the
ghazals, are entangled in such a way that there is no point in trying to separate them:
the political meaning informs the romantic and the romantic, the political” (Ali 136).
His poems thus are political in nature. However, his poem “When Autumn
Came” is a highly critical poem that talks of censorship under a dictatorial regime. It
presents a scenario where voice of protest is trampled down to the ground by the raging
autumn/dictatorial regime:

This is the way that autumn came to the trees:
it stripped them down to the skin,
left their ebony bodies naked.
It shook out their hearts, the yellow leaves,
scattered them over the ground.
Anyone could trample them out of shape
undisturbed by a single moan of protest.
The birds that herald dreams
were exiled from their song,
each voice torn out of its throat.
They dropped into the dust
even before the hunter strung his bow. (np)
The concluding lines of this poem asks God to have mercy on the “withered
bodies” and resurrect them in the hope that at least someone can sing the songs of life
and protest again:
Oh, God of May have mercy.
Bless these withered bodies
with the passion of your resurrection;
make their dead veins flow with blood again.
Give some tree the gift of green again.
Let one bird sing. (np)

Faiz was deeply concerned about the injustices meted out to the common
people. He believed that only through a revolution the condition of people could change
for the better. The long revolution then can only come if people speak up and protest.
Hi poem “Speak” beautifully captures this sentiment:
Speak, your lips are free.
Speak, it is your own tongue.
Speak, it is your own body.
Speak, your life is still yours.
See how in the blacksmith's shop
The flame burns wild, the iron glows red;
The locks open their jaws,
And every chain begins to break.
Speak, this brief hour is long enough
Before the death of body and tongue:
Speak, 'cause the truth is not dead yet,
Speak, speak, whatever you must speak. (np)
The truth thus can only come to light if people speak up. His poem “We Shall
See” too talks about bringing a revolution, where the oppressed will throw away the
rulers “with crackling lightening/ and thunder roars” and the “crown will be thrown off-
and over turned will be thrones” (np). And then, the masses- the common people whom
Faiz calls the people of God “will rule”:
Then the masses, people of God will rule
Who I am too

and so are you
There will rise one cheer- I am God!
Who I am too
and so are you. (np)
As the ‘People’s Poet’, Faiz was a humanist to the core: “…Faiz’s poetry stands
for the humanity and he sang for the common man” (Lall 60). Faiz has a universal
appeal because the theme of his poems were universal and rose from the experiences of
life. His poetry has the essence of love and life. Through his poetry, he hopes for a
world of peace. Freedom without peace and prosperity has no meaning according to
him. This is exactly what he highlights in his poem “The Dawn of Freedom”. He is
hopeful that the turbulent times will vanish and the wounds will heal some day:
The pain will cease
Do not wail, do not weep,
Friends will return, the heart be at peace,
The wound will heal, the day will dawn,
Clouds will disappear, darkness fail.
The season will change—do not wail, do no”. (qtd. in Lall 62)
Like Mahatma Gandhi, Faiz was a messenger of peace for humankind and
celebrated love and life. In the words of Edward Said:
The crucial thing to understand about Faiz ... is that like Garcia Marquez he was read
and listened to both by the literary elite and by the masses. His major-indeed it is
unique in any language-achievement was to have created a contrapuntal rhetoric and
rhythm whereby he would use classical forms (qasida, ghazal, masnavi, qita) and
transform them before his readers rather than break from the old forms. You could hear
old and new together. His purity and precision were astonishing, and you must imagine
therefore a poet whose poetry combined the sensuousness of Yeats with the power of
Neruda. He was, I think, one of the greatest poets of this century, and was honoured as
such throughout the major part of Asia and Africa.” (qtd. in Ali 131-32)
3.3 “THE DAWN OF FREEDOM”: THE TEXT
Translated for the Urdu by Baran Farooqi
This light, smeared and spotted, this night‐bitten dawn
This isn’t surely the dawn we waited for so eagerly
This isn’t surely the dawn with whose desire cradled in our hearts
We had set out, friends all, hoping
We should somewhere find the final destination
Of the stars in the forests of heaven
The slow‐rolling night must have a shore somewhere
The boat of the afflicted heart’s grieving will drop anchor somewhere
When, from the mysterious paths of youth’s hot blood
The young fellows moved out
Numerous were the hands that rose to clutch
the hems of their garments,
Open arms called, bodies entreated
From the impatient bedchambers of beauty—
But the yearning for the dawn’s face was too dear

The hem of the radiant beauty’s garment was very close
The load of desire wasn’t too heavy
Exhaustion lay somewhere on the margin
It’s said the darkness has been cleft from light already
It’s said the journeying feet have found union
with the destination
The protocols of those who held the pain in their
hearts have changed now
Joy of union—yes; agony of separation—forbidden!
The burning of the liver, the eyes’ eagerness, the heart’s grief
Remain unaffected by this cure for disunion’s pain;
From where did the beloved, the morning breeze come?
Where did it go?
The street‐lamp at the edge of the road has no notion yet
The weight of the night hasn’t lifted yet
The moment for the emancipation of the eyes
and the heart hasn’t come yet
Let’s go on, we haven’t reached the destination yet
(*Source: https://penguin.co.in/subh-e-azadi-an-anguished-evocation-of-the-pain-of-
partition/)

“The Dawn of Freedom” or “Subh-e-Azadi” is a narrative poem that speaks

about the horrors of Partition. It captures the failed dream of a subcontinent ravaged by
the maelstrom of Partition. The poem was written on the first day/morning of Pakistan
after it was carved out by partitioning India in 1947. The partition of India was first
announced on June 3, 1947 and since then until the D-day, undivided India under the
British rule saw nothing but bloodshed and killings. The poem “Dawn of Freedom”
illustrates Faiz’s deep pain and agony at the partition of India, an event that changed the
history of the Indian subcontinent and its people. The explicitly talks about a freedom
that has never really been achieved in the real sense.
This light, smeared and spotted, this night‐bitten dawn
This isn’t surely the dawn we waited for so eagerly
This isn’t surely the dawn with whose desire cradled in our hearts
We had set out, friends all, hoping
We should somewhere find the final destination
Of the stars in the forests of heaven
In these lines, the poet-narrator Faiz is referring to a light that has been stained.
People in undivided India struggled for independence from the white colonial rule of
the Britishers. This freedom however, came at a cost for the British India was divided
into two- India and Pakistan. Everyone was waiting for the dawn of independence but
people certainly did not envision a kind of dawn that would lead to violence and
multiple killings. This is not the kind of dawn that the poet-narrator, his friends and
people migrating to other side of borders had desired for- for they were hoping to find a
“final destination/Of the stars in the forests of heaven”.

The slow‐rolling night must have a shore somewhere
The boat of the afflicted heart’s grieving will drop anchor somewhere
When, from the mysterious paths of youth’s hot blood
The young fellows moved out
Numerous were the hands that rose to clutch
the hems of their garments,
Open arms called, bodies entreated
From the impatient bedchambers of beauty—
Here the poet-narrator describes the night as “slow-rolling”. The night indeed is
“slow-rolling” for it is filled with grief and sorrow of the afflicted. The poet-narrator
hoped that the aggrieved hearts wandering in search of “the final destination” will find
a shore; a final place somewhere. However, the “young fellows moved out” when they
saw the “mysterious paths of youth’s hot blood” and they were “entreated” by
“numerous hands” from “the impatient bedchambers of beauty”.
But the yearning for the dawn’s face was too dear
The hem of the radiant beauty’s garment was very close
The load of desire wasn’t too heavy
Exhaustion lay somewhere on the margin
The poet-narrator here talks about the yearning of people for the dawn of
freedom that was too dear to them. The burden of this desire to have freedom was not
heavy however, for their exhaustion was side-lined by their desire of freedom. This thus
highlights the deep desire of the common people, who were eagerly waiting for the
dawn of 14 August 1947 to celebrate Pakistan’s first day of Independence. Sadly,
though the dawn of realisation happens much later and as highlighted by Faiz in the
concluding lines of the poem, the real dawn of independence is yet to come.

It’s said the darkness has been cleft from light already
It’s said the journeying feet have found union
with the destination
The protocols of those who held the pain in their
hearts have changed now
Joy of union—yes; agony of separation—forbidden!
These lines inform us that darkness has been partitioned from light and the
displaced and wandering people have finally found their place of solace. However, the
protocols have now changed and people are only allowed to celebrate the “joy of
union” and forbidden to narrate their agonies “of separation”.
The burning of the liver, the eyes’ eagerness, the heart’s grief
Remain unaffected by this cure for disunion’s pain;
From where did the beloved, the morning breeze come?
Where did it go?
The poet-narrator here throws light on the injured hearts and agonies of people,
who are still yearning for the beloved. The “beloved” here refers to the freedom that
was denied to the people. The poet-narrator here like the other people is still looking for
the freedom that will uplift the common citizens from their miserable condition and
usher in an era of peace, love and Freedom in the real sense of the word.
The street‐lamp at the edge of the road has no notion yet
The weight of the night hasn’t lifted yet
The moment for the emancipation of the eyes
and the heart hasn’t come yet
Let’s go on, we haven’t reached the destination yet

These lines inform us that people have not yet realised that the darkness and
weight of the dreadful night is far from over. The moment of true emancipation and
freedom that people were yearning for is yet to arrive. The poem however, ends on a
positive note with the poet-narrator urging everyone to continue moving on with their
struggle for freedom because they have not reached the right destination yet.
Faiz Ahmed Faiz is a poet par excellence. A friend of Pablo Neruda, Faiz
changed the face of Urdu poetry with his lyrical and narrative style. His poetry had
romance but with a touch of unconventionality. Most of his poems are also political in
nature that narrates tales of human suffering and injustices. His poem “The Dawn of
Freedom” is one such poem that expresses his deep anguish and pain at the partition of
India in 1947. The poem with its prosaic and Marxist nature revolves around the poet’s
concern for people who left their native places and migrated to the other side of the
border due to Partition. Faiz is concerned not just for the people of Pakistan but for the
people of India too.
The partition of India was a cataclysmic event that brought tremendous changes
to the Indian subcontinent, consequences of which people on both sides of the border
are still facing. India was partitioned on religious grounds in the hope that there will be
freedom not only from the British colonial rule but freedom for two religious groups to
freely practice their religion in the hope that it will usher in an era of peace and
contentment. But did such an era saw the light of the day? Was ‘freedom’ ever
achieved? The poem thus is Faiz’s attempt to find answers to these questions.
The first stanza immediately presents to us a chaotic and depressing visual. The
people had looked forward to this day- the dawn of freedom of 14 August 1947 with
new hopes and desires. But sadly, when this dawn of freedom actually came, people felt
cheated for that was not “the dawn [they] waited for so eagerly” (np). The dawn here
refers to the freedom of Pakistan and a kind of freedom and land where Pakistanis
would flourish and prosper. It was a kind of dawn that people dreamed of and “cradled

in [their] hearts” (np). It is for the yearning of this dawn that compelled people to leave
their native places in search of their “final destination/ Of the stars in the forests of
Heaven” (np). People were migrating with heavy hearts but there was a hope that their
“anchor” will drop “somewhere” but sadly the “young fellows moved out” from the
“impatient bedchambers of beauty” (np).
At every step of the poem, Faiz draws us to the painful reality and wakes us up
from a deep comatose sleep induced by the political establishment that gave the people
pills of false freedom and a new land of peace, prosperity and equality. But how will
the land and its people have peace and enjoy joy of union if protocols are changed and
people are forbidden to narrate their agonies of separation? In this context then, the
dawn of freedom is nothing but a farce for its people are forbidden to express their pain
and agony. The people thereby are not free and are yet to achieve their real dawn of
freedom. It may be the first day of Pakistan and people are busy in celebrating its new
found freedom but Faiz being a humanist and an advocate of peace and friendship was
deeply troubled about the cost paid for freedom especially by the common people on
both sides of the border of India and Pakistan. The bloodshed and mayhem of violence
during and after the Partition is not what the common people had asked for.
Freedom should not be at the cost of innocent civilians. It for this reason Faiz
points out that the real “moment for emancipation of the eyes and the hearts” has not
arrived yet. People are yet to be free from evil thoughts and hatred. Hence, Faiz urges
everyone to carry on with their search for the place of final destination, where people
achieve the dawn of freedom in the real sense.
The poem thus is a scathing attack on the political establishment and highlights
the sufferings of common people. More than political independence, Faiz was
concerned about the independence of people from evil thoughts, cruelties and
tyrannical rule. He was anguished by the deplorable state of humanity and as a
messenger of love and friendship wanted a peaceful world for everyone. Probably this
is the reason why Faiz is loved across oceans and continents for his verse has the poetic
ability of transcending borders, cultures and religions through its themes of universal
love and brotherhood.

3.7 LET US SUM UP
In this unit, we learn about Faiz’s life and his communist ideals. He believed in equality
irrespective caste, class, gender, etc. He was deeply moved by the partition of the
Indian subcontinent. He was influenced by poets all around the world and it was
reflected in his poems. For Faiz, love and revolution were two sides of the same coin.
We further discussed the summary and critical analysis of the poem “The Dawn of
Freedom” which was written on August 15, 1947.
1. Write a brief note on Faiz’s writing style.

……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
2. Which ‘light’ is Faiz referring to in his poem? Why is it tainted?
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………

3. How does the poem attack the political establishments?
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
4. Write a note on the imagery in the poem.
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
5. Explain the following line from the poem: “But the yearning for the dawn’s face was
too dear.”
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………

UNIT 4: WORKS CITED
Ahmed, Feroz. “Faiz Ahmed Faiz.” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 19, no. 49,
1984, p. 2071.
Ali, Agha Shahid. “The True Subject: The Poetry of Faiz Ahmed Faiz.” Grand Street,
vol. 9, no. 2, 1990, pp. 129-138.
Faiz, Ahmad Faiz. “A Prison Evening”. PoemHunter.com, 3 Aug. 2006,
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-prison-evening/.
_________. “Stanza”. PoemHunter.com, 4 Aug. 2006,
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/stanza-3/.
_________. “When Autumn Came”. PoemHunter.com, 4 Aug. 2006,
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/when-autumn-came/.
_________. “Speak”. PoemHunter.com, 1 Aug. 2006,
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/speak-4/.
_________. “We Shall See”. PoemHunter.com, 4 Aug. 2006,
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/we-shall-see/.
Lall, Inderjit. “Faiz—Poet of Vitality.” Indian Literature, vol. 18, no. 4, 1975, pp. 58-
62.
Lazard, Naomi. The True Subject: Selected Poems of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, translated and
introduced by Naomi Lazard, Princeton UP, 1988.

Rahman, Sarvat. “Poet of love and rage.” India International Centre Quarterly, vol. 26,
no. 3, 1999, pp. 105-118.
Rahman, Sarvat, translator. “Nocturne”. By Faiz Ahmad Faiz. In “Poet of love and
rage.” India International Centre Quarterly, vol. 26, no. 3, 1999, pp. 113.
_________, translator. “Don’t Ask Me Now, Beloved”. By Faiz Ahmad Faiz. In “Poet
of love and rage.” India International Centre Quarterly, vol. 26, no. 3, 1999, pp. 113-
114.

BEG DSE 03 Block 02

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

BEG DSE 03 Block 02

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

BACHELOR OF ARTS (HONOURS) IN

Unit 1: W.H. Auden “Partition”

Unit 2: Agha Shahid Ali “Learning Urdu”

Unit 3: Faiz Ahmad Faiz “Dawn of Freedom”

Course Writer Course Editor and Formatting

Cover Page Design

After reading this unit, the learner will be able to:

1.1 ABOUT THE POET

Born on 21 February 1907, Wystan Hugh Auden was a popular British-

Odisha State Open University, Sambalpur Page 1

1.2 AUDEN’S WRITING STYLE

Odisha State Open University, Sambalpur Page 2

Auden’s approach to literature is well reflected in The Enchafèd Flood (1950)

Odisha State Open University, Sambalpur Page 3

Reflecting on Auden, Spender in World Within World: The Autobiography of

There can be no art without a convention which certain aspects of experience as

Odisha State Open University, Sambalpur Page 4

Being a critic himself, Auden highly revered polemics. Polemics according to

1.3 AUDEN AND THE THEME OF WAR AND POLITICS

central themes of his poetry.

Odisha State Open University, Sambalpur Page 5

A land laid waste, with all its young men slain,

Its women weeping, and its towns in terror. (“Embassy” np)

Waves of anger and fear

Circulate over the bright

And darkened lands of the earth,

Obsessing our private lives;

The unmentionable odour of death

Offends the September night. (stanza 1)

Odisha State Open University, Sambalpur Page 6

Though language may be useless, for

No words men write can stop the war

Or measure up to the relief

Of its immeasurable grief... (“New Year Letter” np)

Odisha State Open University, Sambalpur Page 7

The mass and majesty of this world, all

That carries weight and always weighs the same

Lay in the hands of others; they were small

And could not hope for help and no help came:

What their foes like to do was done, their shame

And died as men before their bodies died. (Stanza 6)

1.4 “PARTITION”*: THE TEXT

Unbiased at least he was when he arrived on his mission,

Having never set eyes on the land he was called to partition

Between two peoples fanatically at odds,

With their different diets and incompatible gods.

Odisha State Open University, Sambalpur Page 8

For mutual reconciliation or rational debate:

The only solution now lies in separation.

The Viceroy thinks, as you will see from his letter,

So we've arranged to provide you with other accommodation.

Shut up in a lonely mansion, with police night and day

Patrolling the gardens to keep the assassins away,

He got down to work, to the task of settling the fate

Of millions. The maps at his disposal were out of date

And the Census Returns almost certainly incorrect,

But there was no time to check them, no time to inspect

Contested areas. The weather was frightfully hot,

And a bout of dysentery kept him constantly on the trot,

But in seven weeks it was done, the frontiers decided,

A continent for better or worse divided.

The case, as a good lawyer must. Return he would not,

Afraid, as he told his Club, that he might get shot.