The Fareed Zakaria episode and the hypocrisy of American media

There is a pernicious irony in the whole Fareed Zakaria controversy. The messenger has been shot at (suspended, if you will) by the same media fraternity that is supposed to protect him. Worse, he has been shot down (so to say) for questioning a culture that considers shooting people a banal reality of human existence; a culture that displays an adamant refusal to encourage any debate on the practice, no matter what price it pays for it. Or others do.

In a piece Zakaria wrote for Time on gun control after the tragic Wisconsin Gurudwara massacre, he lifted a passage from Harvard University history professor Jill Lepore’s piece on the same issues published in The New Yorker. The plagiarism was caught. Zakaria apologized while his employers – Time and CNN (both, by the way, owned by Time Warner) – promptly suspended him from his duties as editor-at-large and host respectively “pending further review”. The future of one of the brightest intellectuals hangs in the balance.

I have no intention to defend Zakaria’s plagiarism here. But I feel sorry for him. I am also amazed and shocked at the oversight such a celebrated columnist committed by not attributing a small passage to a fellow intellectual. Considering the fact that Zakaria was taking on perhaps the most powerful lobby in the world on an issue that the US loves to be evasive about, I wish he had shown more diligence than he did.

Having said that, I also invite you – the proud third-world consumers of the largest media industry in the world – to have a closer look at the magnificent hypocrisy behind the American mainstream media’s self-righteousness and perceived integrity. Today, Time and CNN are considered the benchmarks of open, ‘objective’ and liberal journalism. They command awe, respect, not to mention a huge global market.        

Ideas and institutions gain respect and currency only when there is a force involved. And power does not want truth. It wants what it considers to be true as the truth so as to create conditions to perpetuate and reproduce that power. Truth, in other words, is the enemy of power. Now that’s an anomaly, because the media, by definition, is supposed to bring out the truth to its patrons. But truth does not get you money and market, proximity to power does. So what you get instead from the American mainstream media, patronized by the dominant powers-that-be, is not truth, but manufactured truths, propaganda, cover-ups, misinformation, concealment of information, and even blatant lies that gradually gain the force of truth simply because, as Hitler once said, they must be repeated ad nauseum.

In other words, the mainstream media in the US has consistently prided itself at being the handmaiden of the dominant powers – political, economic, military and cultural. They have acted as tools to indoctrinate, provoke, preach, misinform, and even numb the Americans towards what perhaps the best-known American intellectual Noam Chomsky calls ‘the manufacture of consent’. It is this consent that has helped the American empire invade, kill, loot and dominate as it wished with absolute impunity.

How else do we explain the blatant lies that the American media spread on the presence of what they call the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? What else explains the blacking out of any proper coverage of the massive Occupy movements across the US against what millions of Americans called crony capitalism? How else do we explain the complete erasure of any critical thought and ideas in the American mainstream media? Why is it that a ‘dangerous thinker’ like Arundhati Roy can be published in the Indian mainstream magazines and newspapers while it’s almost impossible to read anything from a Chomsky or a Howard Zinn or even a Jesse Jackson in the American press? How else do we explain the jokes about George W Bush’s famous IQ and Mitt Romney calling the Sikhs ‘Sheikhs’ while mourning the Wisconsin victims? How else can we explain the tragic ignorance of the Americans on the global affairs, a deliberate ignorance sustained by its media so as to keep them from knowing and thinking? How do we account for a complete consensus among the American minds – and its media – over the virtues of capitalism and consumerism? What else explains the American media’s obsession with sports, celebrities and pop culture? Where has the alternate space gone?        

It is when we try to answer these questions that we realize the hypocrisy behind what happened to Zakaria. It is at that moment that the ‘hallowed’ institutions of great journalism like the Time begin to look hollow and pedantic. Can’t it be easily alleged that the magazine and the news channel acted so promptly only because the issue that Zakaria had touched in his piece threatens the core of the American Inc.? Even after hundreds of shooting incidents all over the country in which hundreds of children, women and other innocents have been killed, it is naïve to talk about gun control in the US. A Michael Moore may cry hoarse after the tragic Columbine shooting or as we see now, one of the most powerful editors in the world may ask for a renewed debate on the issue. But the status quo is important and profitable, and must be sustained by the press. What is at stake is not only a multi-billion-dollar industry, but a culture of violence that helps the American empire make bombing children, millions of deaths and foreign wars a normative American reality which makes the Americans look ‘cool’.     

That explains why any rational voice that challenges the status quo is perceived as dangerous and must be muzzled. That explains why Americans were perhaps more horrified by their popular TV host lifting a paragraph from a historian’s essay and less at the absence of any political or social will to check the proliferation of deadly weapons in their schools, streets, churches, temples and even their bedrooms. To talk of ‘acknowledgment’ and ‘respect’ for other’s writings in a scenario where a crazed racist shoots down six people in cold blood at a small-town Gurudwara only appears as a cruel joke. While Fareed Zakaria is censured in the name of ‘ethics’ and ‘error of judgement’, there has been little talk of censuring a culture that believes in killing people.

As he is silenced the moment he raised that question, I wonder what questions must be coming to Zakaria’s mind now. I bet he is agonizing over what is worse – not attributing a piece of information to somebody who also agrees with your ideas, or being the lapdog – and not the watchdog – of the powers-that-be?
 
What do you think?

Can a 'closed' AMU be a model for Muslims?

If there is one obscure Latin word that the Aligarh Muslim University campus is quite familiar with, it’s ‘sine die’. I think it all started when former bureaucrat Mahmoodur Rahman, after assisting Governor Jagmohan in Kashmir where combing for militants meant forcibly vacating villages, started following the same logic at Aligarh. During the five-year tenure of Rahman (1995-2000), the university was closed at least thrice.

Since then, in my almost 18 years of association with the university, I have witnessed at least seven closures of the campus sine die. The incumbent Vice-Chancellor, P K Abdul Azis, has also closed the university thrice in his tenure. The regularity of its recourse at AMU has made the administration completely oblivious to the harm it does to the students. The unfortunate regularity of sine die closures has made them a rule at the AMU campus. There is an uncritical use of this most insane and insensitive act of closing the university when in fact the administration should have kept it open and resolved the crisis as early as possible. Sine die closure is basically a failure of the administration, and it’s about time they realise it.

The mainstream media too, comfortable with the narrative of two regional student groups firing at each other and thereby forcing the closure of the university, falls prey to certain essential images of a typical north Indian university where the students have easy access to weapons, where law and order remains a daily struggle and where academic pursuit is only incidental. And if it is a Muslim university, then the narrative gets aligned with a larger global narrative of certain essential images of Muslims. In the case of Aligarh Muslim University, its middle name becomes its own nemesis. “They must be like this only” is a common refrain. Well, why not? ‘They’ are like this everywhere in the world! Why should Muslims at Aligarh be any different?

In perpetuating the ‘violent’ stereotype of ‘those’ Muslims, the media failed to ask certain crucial questions behind the disturbance of the last few days. Let’s look at what actually happened in the last few days that forced the closure of the university. Two senior officials of the university – both related, and one holding the position with dubious credentials – try to get another official removed from the important office he has been holding; i.e. of examinations and admissions. Now it’s a known fact in Aligarh that admissions are one of the biggest ways of making quick money for senior officials. With almost 200 seats in medicine and more than 400 in engineering, not to mention hundreds others in intermediate in sciences, management, and other sought-after academic programmes, we can easily imagine the kind of money we are talking about here. Add to this mix a Vice-Chancellor, himself facing a plethora of corruption charges currently being probed by a two-member committee appointed by the HRD ministry, and you get a situation where the rot begins from the top. Justice A N Divecha and Justice B A Khan have already submitted their reports on March 21, 2011 to the HRD. They have indicted the high functionaries including the Finance Officer, the Registrar and the Vice Chancellor. The CAG report in November 2009 had already indicted them, having found huge financial irregularities. The government, reluctant to intervene in India’s largest minority institution, remains callous, and the V-C is having the last laugh.

The argument is simple. If the situation was really so critical, why didn’t the Vice-Chancellor cut his pleasure trip to Kerala short and take control of the situation? Why has the administration failed in checking certain rogue elements within it that threaten to subvert the functioning of the campus for their own interests? Why are students used as hired mercenaries by a few faculty members? Who will account for the students who only wanted to finish a few papers before joining their dream jobs? How can any sensible administration close the university when the exams are on? 

I am, however, more interested in asking a larger question that emerges out of a crisis like this at Aligarh. Recently, the government decided to open two more campuses of the AMU at Mallapuram in Kerala and at Murshidabad in West Bengal. The decision, in the context of the sorry picture the Sachar Committee report painted of the Muslim community in India, was welcomed by the Indian Muslims as an important step in the affirmative action programme of the UPA government. AMU saw it as another triumph of its national character and hailed the decision for being in line with the university’s historical role of being the intellectual and educational torchbearer of the beleaguered Muslim community. In its misplaced celebration of the decision, the university failed to ask a critically important and introspective question: can AMU really be a model for the community to be emulated at far-off centres like Mallapuram and Murshidabad?

It is a failure of the vision of community – and the university – when it laps up a decision like that. The Congress, in proudly displaying its affirmative programme for the Muslims by inaugurating branches of the university all over India, is only following the narrative of emotive issues of the Muslims which have nothing to do with the real development and upliftment of the community. Like Babari Masjid, Urdu, Waqf and Muslim Personal Law boards, AMU too is an issue which had played a largely emotive role in Muslim politics in India since the independence. In other words, both the government as well as the community feels a sense of fulfillment when AMU is given its due credence, however disputed it may be. Which is precisely why the government is more than happy in making AMU a model for the community, and not for example a more progressive and academically-oriented university like the JNU.

You will find numerous faculty and alumni who boast about AMU being a place where traditions and culture are prioritized over sound academics. It’s a misplaced feudal hangover which has outlived its logic. The realities of the 21st century India are far different from what a section of the Muslim elites in the 19th century had imagined when they founded the university at Aligarh. Myopic vision, inert culture, gender insensitivities and sterile academics hardly make a good model. By making a ‘closed’ AMU an example for Muslim education, the government as well as the community is only interested in sustaining a mediocre academic culture for the community. The university should first clean the rot within before it even dreams of emulation.

And, to begin with, let’s open the university as early as possible.

On the Ritual called AMU Hall Magazines

I hate Hall magazines in Aligarh! Well, most of them.

Surprised? Agitated? I won’t grudge it if you are.

In the spirit of democracy and my inalienable right to express myself, allow me to explain.

I have been following campus magazines in Aligarh ever since I joined as a wooly-eyed teenager in 1993. For various reasons. My love for writing was one, and a general interest in creative endeavours was always there. But a desire to explore the contours of the famous ‘Alig culture’ was the most important reason. And it still is.

Why would I look forward to the magazines every year?

I expected to be introduced to the history of the so-called Aligarh movement, its major protagonists, its limitations and of course, successes. I expected to be guided through the hallowed Aligarh Hall of Fame and be impressed by the distinguished line-up of its alumni. I hoped to read on Aligarh’s ‘contemporary history’ and gain some perspective on the place the university enjoyed in the larger universe of Muslim/minority politics and aspiration. I expected critical writings on the debates and issues within the Muslim/minority question – both national and global.

In fact, I would have been contented had they only contained good Urdu poetry!

In short, I expected interventions – intelligent, informed and insightful, as is natural to expect from a community that indulges in knowledge production and distribution.

But what would I rather get? Well, as I said, most of the times.

I will get the uncritical display of a ritual. The ritual of inviting contributions, of processing them and then putting them together, of publishing them through official funding, and finally, of archiving them – more as some sort of trophies than as dynamic pieces of writing intended to provoke discussions and debates.

It is this fixation with ritual that has been the hallmark of most of Aligarh’s activities. But I am going to limit myself to the Hall magazines and the frequent intellectual apathy they suffer from.

Let me explain the ritual. Open any of the more than a dozen Hall magazines published every year in Aligarh. You will inevitably find a picture of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan staring at you. The same portrait found everywhere on the campus, with an almost divine aura. Then you have the Vice-Chancellor’s portrait, followed by the Editor’s and then the Editorial team with the Provost of the Hall. 

I am yet to see a Hall magazine that dares to break this yawn-inducing and predictable pattern… or an editor who refuses to abide by the ritual.

Go to the contents now. Count the number of times you find Sir Syed there. Not that there is anything wrong in writing on Sir Syed. But it is precisely at such moments of tribute that the process of writing turns into a ritual. Fixation is contagious, and symptomatic of the inward-looking behaviour that Aligarh frequently demonstrates.

Look at the contents carefully. Essays on Sir Syed as a scientist, a journalist, or an architect! It’s amazing to see the different ways the Aligarh community has reinvented its founder, often stretching the eulogy to unreasonable and unfounded theories about his life and work.

In fact, I have a simple thumb rule for it. If the number of writings on Sir Syed exceeds those on other topics, close the magazine.

It is not only the Aligarh fixation with Sir Syed that is a problem here. The content is severely compromised because of a fixation with form. The magazines do not even pretend to engage intellectually. You often find engineering students blabbering on the latest on thermodynamics, or Unani medicine students on the benefits of neem leaves.

When writing becomes a ritual, banality creeps in. 

In Aligarh, it’s almost impossible to differentiate between two Hall magazines. That explains why most of them go unread. The ritual lies in collecting them (since you paid for them in your hall dues), but not in engaging with them.

So what is missing? My contention is simple. Hall magazines can – and should – be an exercise in critical intervention and thought. Rather than coming across as dull, boring pieces of literature, they should rather be dynamic enough to provoke discussions, encourage debates, probe the stereotypes, challenge the dominant, and question the present. They should be annual chronicles of political, social, educational and cultural churning that the university went through in the past year. They should live and breathe.

And of course, they should be an exercise in creativity. Not passivity. In short, they should be the barometers of what can be called the Aligarh life.

Anybody listening (or rather, reading)?

I hope somebody does.

The MNIK of My Dreams

I cannot think of a better space to say this. And any stylized articulation will destroy it in my head, for obvious reasons. So here is the reproduction of a dream I just saw, without any efforts of moderation, if at all such a thing is possible.

So I was forced to wake up by a knock on my door five minute ago. I am having one of those freaking night shifts and hence was sleeping in my room. I was completely involved in the most surreal dream that I can 'imagine'.

From the remnants of the impossible dream, here is a peek. So I remember sitting in a theatre with strange seats - they were more like those cane 'modhas' than actual seats - to watch My Name Is Khan. I also found myself on a raised platform which made the theatre look like a valley with a few other balconies protruding at different heights. I remember a very old classmate of mine sitting a few seats away, worried over something. I also remember cheering him up, and in the process, doing something that i cannot otherwise do - not pay attention to what is happening on the screen.

My attention was drawn towards the screen by something bizzare. Two people, an old male and an equally old female, started talking loudly in the passage right in front of our balcony. First i thought they were rude viewers, but they soon turned out to be characters from the film. The balconies on my right also melted away to give space to a raised verandah in a huge house where some women were staring at the characters talking. They nodded in agreement.

They were talking about some elder brother of the main protagonist, Shah Rukh Khan, who had apparently not visited the house (actually had left them in poverty) and now had written from Italy that he will be coming for the wedding. It's obvious by now that nobody likes him in the house. And there are at least 50 people in the haveli, with huge rooms and long corridors.

As the discussion over the elder brother got intense, I suddenly found myself standing in a corner of the huge hall where it was going on. Here is the funny part: I remember telling to myself that this is perhaps the best scene of the 'film' while also marveling at the fat that this is more like a staged play. I remember being impressed at the thought of a Karan Johar with a fairly middle-class family.

The long and amazing discussion among a host of family members ends with absolute darkness in the house. There is light, very bright light, after about 10 minutes, and all the women of the house are dressed for the wedding. I now realize what must have happened is that the light was put out so that the characters can go and change their costumes for the next act, just like a play.

The next act was the wedding. I suddenly realize that the familiar pretty girl I was sitting with is actually there with four or five youngsters from the family, who sit with the bride or groom at the special stage towards which everybody's gaze is directed. Since the family members and guests are trickling it for the wedding, I am soon asked by a family elder to vacate the seat for them. I am pretty sure he knew i am only a spectator while the family needs the space to 'perform'. I leave that central space and stand in a corner. the brightly lit haveli soon starts echoing with the sound of the wedding sangeet.

I decide to take a walk around. I soon find myself in a courtyard where a huge screen is playing the shaadi. It is actually playing the 'film' while the people in the courtyard are also a part of it! I remember seeing that old and menacing-looking elder brother from Italy, dressed in sherwani and pagdi, throwing flowers at the screen.

I walk into the next part of the haveli where it's a morning. And it is there that I see Shah Rukh Khan in a sherwani with red patterns - something of a kind that I now distinctly remember seeing in a random Facebook album. SRK has a sword in his hand, which he now puts in his mouth and it becomes an old, rough-iron version of modern saxophone. He comes towards me, recognizes me immediately and greets me with a hug. Then he presents the same sword to me, and even says: I first thought of giving you the one that had 'power' engraved on it, but the 'idea' one sounded better." I turn the grip of the sword and see 'Idea' written in English on it. Then he takes my hand and does the most amazing thing. He draws a long and elaborately designed autograph on my hand in henna. I swear, in henna. It has his signature in the middle with some strange design around it. I laugh and ask, "You're always prepared for this?", to which he replies with a smile: "You never know."

I walk away from him, thrilled and happy. I find myself at the entrance of a haveli, with media and police jostling with eager visitors. There is a green carpet at a distance, and I distinctly remember seeing a familiar couple walking towards the haveli, hand in hand. The man got married recently; his wife, who I know is very thin, is quite curvy in the dream.

As I see them, I hear a knock. I get up with a start, rush to the door angrily and open it to find a man asking for some cable TV money that the earlier tenant had not paid. What a waste.

I cannot help but think of two things as I conclude. One, I wish Freud had read this! And two, where the heck is Kajol?

From a location to absolute dislocation

The blog got resurrected yesterday, after two long years.

For those not familiar with Urdu, 'nawa-e-sarosh' means 'whispers of angel'. For those familiar with the language, the attribution to poet Mirza Ghalib is immediate.

The transition is unsettling. Jhumritilaiya was a comfortable space. It had history, both as a place and as a myth. It was tangible, and hence, materially and intellectually comforting. The place was a readymade template for imagination, with its diverse associations as well as mythology. It was familiar.

'Nawa-e-sarosh' is a new territory. Like one of those forbidden rooms in a forgotten castle, this blog suddenly becomes, to coin a word, a 'strangeland'. The thoughts in my mind suddenly resemble the abandoned street urchins who care a damn about a direction or purpose. They are enigmatic and attractive. I try to pin them down to an idea or a tyrannical reason, and they escape the mind like the blushing beloved who escapes the seductions of her lover.

I have little choice but to continue to woo the elusive thought in this space.

That summer of 2003

(Published July 13, 2003 in the Indian Express) Minority Report

As Ayodhya looms Sagarika Ghose travels through the Hindi heartland and discovers a tense, anxious and depressed Muslim community. Photographs by Mustafa Quraishi

Pampered & appeased? Below 40 per cent: Overall literacy among Muslims; 34 per cent: Literacy among Muslim women (National Family Health Survey 2001); 12 per cent: Strength of Muslims in government service since 1947; 62 per cent: Muslim males unemployed or underemployed (India Human Development Report 1998); 10 per cent: Work participation rate of Muslim women EVERY afternoon, the shadow of Delhi’s Jama Masjid falls across twin pyramids of ladies underwear in the Meena Bazaar outside. In the bazaar of the grand mosque, Mohammad Shamim and Mohammad Salauddin hawk their wares all day. On some nights, the police rushes in and dumps their merchandise into sewers. ‘‘If you protest, anything can happen: POTA, or NSA or SIMI.’’ They know the legalese: even if you’re an illiterate Muslim vendor selling panties outside the Jama Masjid, you better know the law. ‘‘Nothing but a masjid at Ayodhya!’’ thunders Hafiz Mohammad Javed who runs a madrasah nearby, ‘‘from earth to sky there is only masjid.’’ So what do Shamim and Salauddin want, a mandir or a masjid? They are unanimous: ‘‘We want more people to buy our underwear.’’ One community, a thousand different voices. Voices fearful and hushed after five-and-a-half years of a government which doesn’t like them. Voices that have become fiercely militant and hate-filled. Voices that have forgotten how to laugh, or how to file an FIR, voices that are tired of apologising for being Indian. Lucknow Naseem Iqtidar Ali Member, AIMPLB “Muslims have become so timid. In Gujarat during the recent rath yatra they stood in line with their heads bowed and hands folded.” Professor Shamim Ahmad, ex-VC of Aligarh Muslim University had his electricity and phone lines cut on charges that he was a Pakistani. It later transpired the police had been mistaken on his identity. In a residential colony in Lucknow, all boys between 15-25 were imprisoned without proper charges and one of them has become insane after his experiences in jail. In Barabanki, a young timber merchant found his name struck off the municipal electoral rolls. In Lucknow, a student who won a motorcycle race was only given the second prize after the jury discovered he was a Muslim. Ram Advani, who has been running the legendary Ram Advani Booksellers in Lucknow for the last 40 years, was stopped and questioned by the police because he had a beard. In the old Sabzi Mandi in Faizabad, all Muslim shops have been demolished by a district magistrate who has publicly declared that he belongs to the RSS and hates all Muslims. Mohammad Waseem, a property dealer in Faizabad, says if a Muslim prospers in his business, he has to pay hafta to numerous functionaries and if he delays on payments by even a day, his doors and windows are ripped up and taken away. In Faizabad, butchers are still in jail on trumped-up charges that they’ve slaughtered cows. The son of Noor Mohammad, former member of the Faizabad Nagar Palika, was imprisoned after he refused to bribe a policeman. “Hamari Rozi roti mar chuki hai,”says Mohammad Rais Khan, a tailor in Ayodhya, and “on top of that there is constant fear. We are scared to file an FIR. Scared to report a robbery. Just keep your head down and don’t make a noise.” ‘‘The Muslim community is searching in darkness, in the wilderness, lost and confused,’’ says former MP Syed Shahabuddin. ‘‘For the first time, the law is no protection. The secular parties can’t help. Urdu is dying. Muslim monuments are in ruins. Our size and variety is our problem as we cannot unite.’’ The dream is dead Faizabad Mohammed Waseem Property Broker “If a Muslim prospers in his business he has to pay hafta to many officials. If he delays on a debt, they harass him. And rip up his doors and windows and take them away.” ‘Secular Family Restaurant’ serves hot samosas and tea on the G.T. road from Delhi to Aligarh and is owned by a Muslim. ‘‘Before ’87, that was the time of dreams,’’ says Shireen Moosvi, dean of the History department at Aligarh Muslim University, ‘‘we would all be Nehru’s new Indians. We would wage war on mass poverty. We would defy religious orthodoxy. But the dream is dead.’’ AMU looks forlorn and deserted as this is vacation time. The huge sandstone Faiz gate has looked down for a century-and-a-half on Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan’s dreams of creating an enlightened Muslim professional middle-class that would be forward-looking and progressive. ‘‘The Aligarh movement aimed at creating a progressive Muslim opinion is being exterminated,’’ says Nadeem Asrar, the last elected student president of the university. ‘‘This is because every time you paste a pamphlet, there is a show-cause notice. If you gather in a group of five you may be charged under NSA.’’ In AMU and Jamia Milia Islamia, students’ debates are sternly discouraged. Moosvi, who has twinkling eyes and a sudden mischievous grin, once played a trick on a group of sadhus visiting her neighbour’s home. The sadhus declared they wouldn’t eat from the neighbour because he was a bania, so Moosvi immediately volunteered to serve them. ‘‘I fed them so much that they were almost breathless and the sadhus kept looking at me and saying, ‘naak nakshe se Brahmin ladki hai. Brahmin ladki hai! (By her looks, she’s a Brahmin)’ Little did they know who I really was!’’ She read Pandit Brij Narain Chakbast’s Ramayan in Urdu and was astounded when her colleagues expressed shock that she wanted to live in Vikram Colony in Aligarh. ‘‘You? You want to live in Vikram Colony?’’ they asked her. It hadn’t occurred to Moosvi that Aligarh’s ghettoisation is now almost complete and Hindus and Muslims live in completely separate areas. Paradise in wilderness Ayodhya Mohammed Rais Khan Tailor “Hamaari rozi roti mar chuki hai. We are scared to file an FIR, scared to report a robbery. Just keep your head down and don’t make a noise.” The accommodation available for Muslims in Turkaman gate bypass or Shahjamaal in Aligarh might make Omar Khayyam question his lyrics about wilderness and paradise. Avalanches of filthy water gush past fetid tenements. Piles of refuse swell in front of every door. Children drink water flavoured with speckles of excrement. There have been two cases where small children have actually drowned in the water flowing past their homes in Shahjamal. In contrast, Hazratganj in Lucknow is bathed in amiable twilight. Greetings are exchanged, tunde kebab is eaten and Ram Advani’s bookshop is a centre of many addas. In the genteel old Lakhnavi homes with their open courtyards, climbing bougainvillea and the sweet scent of khus, you’ll find the sweetest language in India. Urdu is never more compassionate or more intimate than when spoken by the aristocratic, bespectacled Naiyer Masud, whose stories have been published in English, Finnish and German. His huge room where he reclines on a divan is lined with black-and-white portraits. Leather-bound books reach upwards to the high ceiling. On the terrace, the railings have been sculpted to read ‘Live and Let Live’. ‘‘There is an aimlessness, a goallessness. Muslims have remained uneducated because they have traditionally looked down on professionals and looked down on education,’’ Masud says. In the slums behind the old family homes, 12-year-old Mohammad Mir and 16-year-old Noor Mohammad work 15-hour days binding books and get Rs 40 per day. Their work is seasonal, but when they get it, they leave school. Their father is a tailor and their mother looks after their six siblings. When their eldest brother went for a job as a typist, he was rejected after he didn’t satisfy his interviewers with the answers he provided on Kashmir. Noor mutters that many of his brothers have joined the tabligh; in Lucknow government officers whisper about the rising numbers of youth joining SIMI in Bahraich and Gonda. The Muslim faces an ‘integration’ versus ‘assimilation’ dilemma. Naseem Iqtidar Ali, the only woman member of the AIMPLB executive committee, says she was shocked at the way Gujarati Muslims bowed their heads and folded their hands during the recent rath yatra in Ahmedabad. ‘‘Why have Muslims become so servile to Hindus?’’ she asks. “The Muslim riot victim in Gujarat has been far less assertive about their rights than for example, the Sikhs of Delhi,” says historian Salim Kidwai, “this is because anti Sikh riots probably won’t happen again. But violence against Muslims will always recur.” Hafiz Abdul Hafeez, ulema of the Jamaat-i-Islami, says Muslims can never agree to the uniform civil code. He believes women should remain within the Koranic ‘circle’ and not try and adopt the unnatural ambitions of trying to be like a man. ‘‘Integration, yes, assimilation, no,’’ says Shahabuddin. The age-old competitiveness with the Hindu remains among those whose collective memory is of ruling India. In isolation Yet the Muslim today, more than ever, is imprisoned in a water-tight self-enclosed universe. In Barabanki, Abdul Mahboob Rizvi, an advocate, says he only serves a Muslim clientele and no Hindu ever comes to him. In Lucknow, Irfan Siddiqui’s journal is only read by Muslims. Mohammad Nadeem, descendant of the Firanghi Mahal ulema now studying for an MBA and once employed in a call centre, says even if he wanted to marry a Hindu girl, he would not be allowed. Moosvi says students at AMU crave protection so much that they huddle in the safe ghetto of the university and meet the same people all their lives. Shahryar, poet and lyricist of Umrao Jaan and Aligarh resident, says the Muslim is far more intolerant than the Hindu. ‘‘No Muslim, for example, will ever say that Babri Masjid is a non-issue.’’ Syed Jalaluddin Mohammad Matin, ulema of the Firanghi Mahal in Lucknow, is a character out of Shatranj ke Khiladi. He lives in a crumbling old home in the inner rooms of Firanghi Mahal. Dressed in flowing white complete with fez and beard, he’s now teaching himself Bengali because he loves Calcutta. He says pan-Islamism is ‘‘humbug’’ and the only thing that matters to him is that he’s from Lucknow. ‘‘Every Holi and Diwali, after the formal ceremonies, Hindus and Muslims would eat together in Lucknow. Now these young unemployed bearded fanatics think that qawaali is un-islamic. Hindus and Muslims are more similar than they think. We even have a caste system. No sayyid will ever marry a kasai’s daughter, let me tell you that!’’ he retorts. The fact is, that there’s never been a communal riot in Lucknow. ‘‘You won’t find people like Matin miya today,’’ says Nasir Abid, a documentary filmmaker. ‘‘Now young boys are all growing beards.’’ Gunned town Barabanki Abdul Mabood Rizvi Advocate “I serve only a Muslim clientele. It is almost unthinkable for a Hindu to come to me or ask for my advice.” If Lucknow is soft velvet, then Azamgarh is hard stone. This is a crowded chaotic town, with ruined buildings, unpainted walls and vomit stains on bazaar walls. A flourishing hawala market rages in the streets. In Abu Salem’s hometown, there are 7-8 murders every day and several youths are recruited for the underworld. Taj Azmi is a streetside poet. He says his friends are ‘‘angry’’ and many are taking the ‘‘wrong path’’. The SP of Azamgarh lives in a fortress, in a house with high gates and divisions of armed guards. Most homes are barricaded with walls although Mohammad Rahimatullah, teacher at Shibli Nomani College, insists that Azamgarh is still a centre of learning. Yet gun-making is lucrative here. The katta (country-made pistol) -making village at Bamhaur on the outskirts of Azamgarh is a thriving industry. The gun that killed Gulshan Kumar had ‘Made In Bamhaur’ written on it. ‘‘There are very fine guns in Bamhaur,’’ says Qazi Abdul Wafi, who runs Qazi Gun House, ‘‘excellent 303s are available.’’ Among the believers Aligarh Nadeem Asrar Former president, AMU Students’ Union Driving from Azamgarh back towards Lucknow via Gorakhpur and Basti, the road wanders into a fairy tale landscape. The monsoon has sprayed the fields with thick green. Rising up ethereally from the shining rice paddies are many new whitewashed madrasahs. One here, another there, a third up the road. Many parts of UP have become madrasah country. There is an anxiety to prove that the madrasah is simply a religious school but at the Deoband Dar-ul-Uloom, parent seminary of the Taliban, Osama bin Laden is a hero. There is anger and frustration that Muslims cannot join the army or get mainstream jobs and boys demand to know exactly what India has done for them. ‘‘The ulema of the madrasahs have always fought for India,”says Maulana Abdul Khaliq Madrasi, deputy VC of the Deoband Dar-ul- Uloom, “because the British wanted to make us Christian in heart and mind. Not a single graduate of any madrasah has done anything against India so far.’’ Madrasi says he’s a Gandhian. He says the Mussalman and the chamar are the two baels (bullocks) carrying the cart of Hindustan. Classrooms spill onto a neem and moolsari tree-lined courtyard. Boys from Bengal and Bihar mull over their books. ‘‘These boys are so poor that they sometimes don’t even want to go home because there’s no food there. Madrasahs are nothing but the Muslim welfare state,’’ says Maulana Khalid Rashid of the Lucknow Idgah. ‘‘Graduates either join AIR or some small embassies. There is no ISI here.’’ But some of the boys are more blunt: ‘‘Hindu ki hukumat khatam karna hi hoga.’’ Something about the word ‘Mussalman’, `Muslim’, `Mohammedan’. A word to be uttered under the breath, a different sort of a word. And no one is more oppressed by this word than the Muslim himself. He is fearful, he clings to the hope and belief that the liberal Hindu is on his side. But others, such as the youth of Bahraich and Azamgarh, have given up on India and turned to fanaticism. The ulema remain fiercely orthodox and the liberal Muslim is being snuffed out. He loves his mazhab as much as he loves Lucknow and Aligarh, but for the first time he finds his existence threatened not just by his neighbours but by the state itself. In spite of this, there are teachers like Shireen Moosvi; timid slum-dwelling workaholics like Mohammad Mir; bon vivants like Matin miyah. And there are those others who take the road to Azamgarh to buy themselves a katta.

The Incomprehensible India

I just saw the notoriously flamboyant Samajwadi Party politician Amar Singh shooting for a Bengali film in Kolkata! Interesting? Of course. Wait, as the plot further thickens. He is shooting for a film that tells the story of a woman who, after being victimized by the 'system', takes the help of Naxalites for her revenge and justice. Guess who is playing the woman? His party colleague and one of the most beautiful faces of both Indian politics as well as cinema, Jaya Prada.

This is one of the many examples of an incomprehensible India for me. In a way, I celebrate this incomprehensibility. Things that get fossilized into a fixed meaning or signification are, for lack of a better word, dangerous. Republican or Democrat is dangerous, as is the hugely expensive farce of an American democracy. East or West is dangerous, and so is Black or White. India, on the other hand, with its myriad contradictions, comes as a relief to me.

That explains my strange sense of comfort at seeing Amar Singh or Jaya Prada act in a film that glorifies Naxalism. In Parliament, they might sit in their 'fixed' corners and among their fellow partymen. In elections, they will stand for their own party and its candidates, never failing to smear their opponents, especially if they are from the extreme left of the Naxal kind. In an India that projects itself as the next economic superpower and divides itself into a new category of SEZs and non-SEZs land, Naxalism and its brand of politics has to be disgusting. But a film? Oh, that's a different territory, quite literally. I have a strong feeling that these two actors-cum-politicians will even get away with the act, with no mainstream media interested in this heartening contradiction.

This explains why Congress resembles BJP at certain times and places. Or worse still, CPM resembles BJP and Congress at other places (called Nandigram and Singur for the uninitiated). That explains why a hardcore Dalit politician called Mayawati gets away with the most astonishing flip-flop of India's political theatre and becomes the darling of Brahmins in Uttar Pradesh. It even explains how a slogan like 'Chak De India', created explicitly to challenge the imperialism of cricket in India and restore its national game, becomes the war-cry of cricket-crazy fans when Yuvraj hits sixes. No questions asked... no eyebrows raised... the spectacle called India continues.

I can think of numerous other examples. How about a nation with the largest number of female Gods as well as one of the most dismal records of gender justice? How about the contradiction of all contradictions - one India contradicting the other? As Amitabh Bachchan says in one of his many celebratory spots on 'India Shining' - "there is one India that dreams, and the other India that hopes"!

The incomprehensibility continues, no matter which side you choose.

On Aligarh's recent crisis

http://www.indianexpress.com/sunday/story/219928.html

THREE MURDERS, A RAPE AND VIOLENCE

Posted online: Sunday, September 23, 2007 at 0000 hrs IST

‘A university is a university first, a cultural artefact later’

Nadim Asrar
AMU, 1993-2000

The events of the past week at the Aligarh Muslim University have been upsetting. But what has been most distressing is the draconian decision of the administration to close the university sine die. It would have made some difference had they stayed together and pondered over the concerns and confusions that mark AMU today. Closing the university at a moment of crisis, and hence any possibility of a dialogue, is at the root of what ails the institution today.

Having hinged my argument at the literal and figurative closing of the university as its fundamental predicament, I want to pull myself back from the immediate context of three murders and a rape within an outrageously ridiculous span of six months, and try and probe the larger questions that such unfortunate incidents raise. Why is AMU like any university in Uttar Pradesh or Bihar today? What went so drastically wrong that an institution that boasted of its historical-political significance for more than a century is now a hotbed of chaos, crime and mediocrity?

I firmly believe in the idea of a university, Muslim or otherwise. For me, an academic institution is defined by its inherent logic of intellectual freedom. Any credible academic pursuit has to have such an ideal as its cornerstone. In this case, AMU finds itself in a strange spot. On the one hand, it has to be celebrated as the assertion of more than a century of struggle by the largest minority in India in a majoritarian state. In doing so, notions of the community and its cultural exclusivities are amplified to the extent that they become a parallel ideal within the campus. Anxiety over preserving a particular identity forces the community to resort to “traditions” and “culture” as the sacrosanct concepts, against which even academic excellence is often compromised.

It is this apparent contradiction that has been AMU’s greatest misfortune. How can an institution pursue academic and intellectual goals if it simultaneously puts an embargo on certain questions that can never be asked? Why is it that Islam, for example, as a social formation can never be put to any humanist academic enquiry in the campus? After all, historically speaking, there is not one Islam. People moving from the more culturally specific ‘’Khuda Hafiz” to the Wahabi totalising “Allah Hafiz” have to realise this shift, if not question it.

By limiting discourses within the campus, the University is bound to find itself outside the academic mainstream, and thus deprived of its dynamism. It is for this reason that the largest Muslim institution in India has continuously failed to come out with authoritative or groundbreaking researches on the status of Muslims of India.
The academy here has been largely unsuccessful in responding to phenomena like the rise of the Hindu Right or the globalisation of the Indian economy. Internal assertions like caste-conflicts within Muslims have been hardly addressed within the academy in Aligarh. In fact, the glaring silence of the campus during the period when Gujarat graduated from being a state to a statement is the best example of the institution’s academic sterility and a failure of its vision. As a witness to that episode, I have to say that an extravagant dinner on Sir Syed’s birthday succeeded in doing what Gujarat could not do in 2002, i.e. constitute Aligarh as a community. It is this myopia and a suicidal obsession with its past that blinds AMU on its way to progress and enquiry. It is like Bush’s violent closing of the dialogue: “You are either with us or with them.” The binary has no opening. It forecloses any alternative. You are either a slave of the dogmatic AMU mentality, or you are an enemy of Muslims belonging to anywhere from the Hindu Right to the evil West (or if they are a little kind, then you must be a Communist!). The schizophrenia of minorityism can have strange effects.

Against this backdrop comes the question: how can AMU be reclaimed as a brand? While I am uncomfortable with the idea of a brand that the New Economy of India dreams of turning every entity into, I do realise the intent behind such a question. To begin answering this question, let me state the obvious—a university is a university first, and a cultural artifact later. This is not an inane statement. History best serves its purpose when it shows us the way ahead. The ideals of a movement that Aligarh proudly declares itself to be premised upon have to be perpetually internalised and acted upon, instead of them remaining some hollow slogans reserved for certain jingoistic occasions. The movement that Aligarh was is not over; it cannot be allowed to be either declared dead (or accomplished depending on how you see it) or hijacked by the self-seeking satraps of the campus.

The students have the highest stake in the institution. Their politics has to rescue the university, and hence the movement, from the self-seekers. Simultaneously, they have to be conscious of their historical role in representing a community that needs immediate attention from its intellectuals. Justice Sachar committee report is only the most recent damnation of India’s scorecard, a nation well on its way to be a superpower. The university has to come out of its self-imposed exile and start relating. The faculty and administration in AMU have to respect dissent, for there is no other way to sustain academic discourse. Conditions for dialogue and debates have to be created. Gender parity and justice is absolutely essential. In short, it has to live up to its claims of being a vanguard of Muslims. Merely claiming the status will not do.

It is high time AMU refused to be an island.

The writer, a MacArthur Fellow and research scholar at the University of Minnesota, US, was president of the AMU Students Union in 1999.

‘The university was the site of mushairas; they don’t happen any more ’

MUSHIRUL HASAN

AMU, 1964-69

In an ideal world a vice-chancellor should devise plans for the growth and expansion of the university. Instead, the head of the Aligarh Muslim University is forced to seek the Central Government’s intervention and the presence of paramilitary forces to control violence and unruly student lumpenism. Syed Ahmad Khan, the founder of the MAO College, expected a renaissance of sorts to occur in Aligarh. Maulana Azad described the university as “the visible embodiment of the victory of the forces of progress”. One wonders if it is the same today. The VC’s appeal is symptomatic of what ails a premier centre of learning.

In the late 1960s, we lived in the shadow of some outstanding scholars. One of them was Mohammad Habib. Few teachers of history and political science could ever have so many pupils who were later to win distinction as scholars. His son Irfan Habib was, of course, the rising star on the intellectual firmament. He used to ride a bicycle then, as he does now. His colleagues rewarded him by denying him an Emeritus professorship. So much for Azad’s “victory of the forces of progress”.

I remember Moonis Raza, an exuberant man who seemed to put all his strength into whatever he said or did; his brother Rahi Masoom Raza, the scriptwriter for B.R. Chopra’s television series Mahabharata, was then a bohemian, radical and revolutionary. Both wrote my English and Urdu speeches for the debates in the university. Interestingly enough, left-wing scholars manned the Arabic and Islamic Studies department: one of them had been a leading light in the Progressive Writers’ Movement. Today, of course, one can merely bemoan the dead legacy of the firebrand Hasrat Mohani—the first to introduce the ‘Complete Independence’ Resolution in 1921—Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, Sardar Jafri and Sibte Hasan, all Aligarians.

Although the Tyabji family was probably the first to break away from established family traditions in Bombay, only a handful of middle class families in north India, mostly from the qasbas (small towns) of what was formerly Awadh, educated their girls in colleges and universities. Women teachers and students, therefore, could occupy the cultural space in Aligarh. The presence of the three Zaidi sisters, as they were known, brought the much-needed relief on a campus that could be stifling at the best of times. They symbolised Aligarh’s break with its past in so many ways. One of their colleagues was Ghazala Ansari; her brother Ziaul Hasan worked with the Patriot for years.

Kennedy House, with its imposing mural by M.F. Husain, was the hub of cultural activism. One could listen to Beethoven and Mozart or Indian classical music. My brother took the part of Tiresias in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, the lead role in Galsworthy’s She Stoops to Conquer and acted the Gentleman Caller in Tennese William’s Glass Menagerie. Lest I forget, the star performer then and later was Naseeruddin Shah. He and I took part in a Mock Parliament Session in Delhi, and in a debating competition held in Jaipur.

The university was the site of several mushairas; they don’t happen any more. I recall Makhdoom Mohiuddin reciting Ek Chambeli ke Manwa tale; Firaq Gorakhpuri prefacing his ghazal with ‘Bhaiyya-re’; and Akhtar-ul Iman, the poet from Anglo-Arabic College (now Dr Zakir Hussain College in Delhi) and Aligarh-educated, reciting the following lines from his poem ‘The Footprint’ or Naqsh-i Pa:
Where have life’s travellers gone?/Nobody knows/What is this world?/No beginning, no end/The shackles of time yet bind it so fast/Where can I stand free of those chains?

Yet, Aligarh had its pitfalls. Facilities at the university were excellent; yet, with few notable exceptions, the institution did not produce scholars or scientists of excellence. Most people were obsessed with the preservation of the university’s ‘minority’ character, and their conversations centred on the future of the minorities.
There were no bookshops, except the Naya Kitab Ghar, run by Kishen Singh, an enthusiast communist. Social life too was restricted. There were no restaurants and no decent cinema halls, except for Tasvir Mahal, which screened English films only on Sundays. With limited avenues for self-expression, faculty members developed lazy habits. Comfort and leisure was all that mattered to them.

Segregation of boys and girls was maintained in lecture rooms-though the winds of change were beginning to alter attitudes. More and more young students from the Women’s College would hop on a rickshaw and travel to the campus to take part in cultural and literary activities. The forces of traditionalism were entrenched but hardly visible to us.
I had a taste of their strength much later in 1968, when the traditionalists, accusing me of being a communist and a pseudo-secularist, mobilised their resources to defeat me in the Student’s Union election. Of all persons, Muzaffar Alam, a Deoband alim and now Professor at the University of Chicago, issued a fatwa in my support. Whether this or the hard work put in by my liberal/secular friends tilted the balance in my favour or not is hard to tell. What brought comfort to all of us was the narrow margin of my defeat. Liberal and left-wing teachers, who had predicted my defeat by a huge margin, expressed much joy at my performance.

Dr Zakir Hussain, the vice-chancellor, claimed in 1955: “The way Aligarh works, the way Aligarh thinks, the contribution Aligarh makes to Indian life … will largely determine the place Muslims will occupy in the pattern of Indian life.” For this to happen, Aligarh needs to be shaken out of the ennui that has set in. With India’s largest population of educated, intelligent Muslims collected in one place, the university can provide, by its example and its ideas, the lead to the rest of the community.

- The writer is Vice-Chancellor,
Jamia Milia Islamia, New Delhi

One of the comments on my story:

The Editor,
The Indian Express Online Media (Pvt) Ltd
Express Building,
9&10, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg
New Delhi-110002
India

Respected Sir,

The Sunday Express has published two articles on the affairs of the Aligarh Muslim University (September 23, 2007) Both two writer are former students and represent different fields. Dr. Mushirul Hasan's write-up is almost balanced and invites no comments but Mr. Nadim Asrar in his zeal of proving himself ultra secularist certainly deserved to be countered.

Nadim Asrar has based his arguments on few points. He is aforesaid that the cultural shift from 'khuda hafiz' to ' allah hafiz' is dangerous and "historically Islam is not one". Both comments are in poor taste and have no standing as far as the current turmoil of AMU is concerned. In fact AMU's history should be understand before making any comments.

AMU was established by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan to enhance education among Muslim masses in india. He was a product of failed mutiny of 1857 and his educational philosophy was a by product of that bygone era. He emphasized that education itself is not sufficient to develop on individuals personality. Manners and etiquettes should be also a part. AMU has tradition of well manners and respect foe [sic] seniors.

Against this background, the AMU started its journey. As far as present situation is concerned, no doubt three murders have taken place in the campus. No doubt student violence thereafter has tarnished the fair name of the institution but just by there [sic] unfortunate incidents, the AMU cannot and should not be labelled in dark colours.

Asrar, perhaps unintentionally has also discussed Gujarat-2002 and
comments that, "the glaring silence of the campus during the period when Gujarat graduated from being a state to a statement is the best example of the institution's academic sterility and a failure of a vision" I am unable to understand the logic behind such a generalised comment was Asrar expecting a bloodshed after the genocide of Muslims in Gujarat? As far as academically discussion is concerned that is going on in the campus ever today but Asrar's wish to indulge academicians into street fighters is nothing short of dream. As far as vision is concerned, AMU is trying hard to have it, restore it, and embark upon the fulfilling the mission set by its founder under the able guidence of present Vice Chancellor Prof. P.K. Abdul Azis.

When Prof. Azis took charge of the AMU, it was left by the former V.C. Naseem Ahmad like a sinking ship. As soon as he took over, he introduced several corrective measures in administrative and academic arena both. He emphasized on academic excellence. Hence, i [sic] feel that every body including Nadim Asrar should come forward to support Prof Azis instead of criticizing him or blackening the AMU.

I agree with him that," space for decent [sic]" should be there. But that space should not be enlarged to criticize each and every thing including religious beliefs.secondly that spare should not give liberty to any individual to use it for fathoming his or her own agenda. Perhaps Asrar has something in mind while penning the article in discussion. He also uses today's fashionable ward, "gender parity" what he means by that , i cannot say. But perhaps he will be aware that in the history of mankind, it was Islam who advocated gender parity far the first time. It by gender parity, he means by nakedness of the west, then i am sorry , AMU do not need it but if he means by that rights for the women, then certainly Islam has sanctioned it and it must be
understood in clear terms that AMU campus is an example of gender parity.

submitted for Condition by all readers.

Thanks

Jasim Mohammad

Research Scholar
Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh
email: jasimmd@gmail.com, thembmc@gmail.com
Cell no. 9997067778, 9319597135

ghazal...

jism faulaad ka, majnu ka jigar rakhte thhe

hum bhi takht-o-taj palatne ka hunar rakhte thhe

koi kya humko roke, koi kyun aansu bahaaye

jo nikle ghar se to seene pe pathhar rakhte thhe

dushwariyan safar ki kyunkar ho mahsoos

hum to manzil pe apni nazar rakhte thhe

rah-e-inqalaab ki shab taareek se thhi rindaan

aankhon mein apni chhupaye khwab-e-sehar rakhte thhe

ae pyaar, tujhe dekh ye khayaal aata hai...

shauq-e-fitna hi sahi, hamein na malaal aata hai

dil ko kyunkar magar ye sawal aata hai

hum soyen to soyen kaise, khwab-e-visaal aata hai

ae pyaar tujhe dekh ye khayal aata hai

ek mujassim zere-e-chashm lahrata hai

ek ehsaas jo lahu mein dauda jaata hai

ek nasha jo zehan pe chhata jaata hai

ae pyaar tujhe dekh ye khayal aata hai…

woh dudhiya si roshni, haye uss badan ka jamaal

rang-o-naqsh-o-taab aur woh bikhre se baal

aankhon ko dhundhlati ada-e-kamaal

ae pyaar tujhe dekh ye khayal aata hai…

dil kahta hai hosh behosh karun

uss shokh ko apne ham-aghosh karun

pyaar itna karun ki rooh ko madhosh karun

ae pyaar tujhe dekh ye khayal aata hai…

kaam aajaye ye meri beqaraari ke bas

chha jaye mujhpe woh khumari ke bas

kat jaye un shanon pe raat saari ke bas

ae pyaar tujhe dekh ye khayal aata hai…

zaanon pe mere woh sar rakh dein ke bas

syaah zulf seene pe bikhra dein ke bas

loriyan gaakar hawayen sula dein ke bas

ae pyaar tujhe dekh ye khayal aata hai…

badhke rukhsaar ko chum lun ke bas

un lab-e-izhaar ko chum lun ke baas

bebaak tere ishq mein jhum lun ke bas

ae pyaar tujhe dekh ye khayal aata hai…

ye shauq-e-dil aur ye faasle hamaare

kam na kar dein kahin hausle hamaare

kitni sehraon se guzrenge abhi qaafile hamaare

ae pyaar tujhe dekh ye khayal aata hai…

aah bharti hai yahan tanhayee meri

dasti hai mujhi ko haye angdai meri

jaan leti hai ab ye be-ikhtiyari meri

ae pyaar tujhe dekh ye khayal aata hai…

in khwabon ko sajaakar kyun na rakhun

teri yaad seene se lagakar kyun na rakhun

tere naam ka diya jalakar kyun na rakhun

ae pyaar tujhe dekh ye khayal aata hai…

teri yaad mein jalkar dhuan ho jaoon, aa

khushbu bankar tujhmein rawan ho jaoon, aa

isse pahle ki ishq mein fana ho jaoon, aa

ae pyaar tujhe dekh ye khayal aata hai…

aa ke bejaan jism ko zindagi mil jaaye

aa ke benoor khayal ko roshni mil jaaye

aa ke ghutti saanson ko taazgi mil jaaye

ae pyaar tujhe dekh ye khayal aata hai…

aa ke tujhmein khokar saara jahan bhula dun

shauq-e-bahaar kya, shauq-e-samaan bhula dun

aa yun ki muddat ki saari dooriyan bhula dun

ae pyaar tujhe dekh ye khayal aata hai…

aa ke rooh ko kuchh chain mile, qaraar mile

aa ke bhatke raahi ko manzil ki pukaar mile

aa ke pyaase honton ko bas pyaar hi pyaar mile

ae pyaar tujhe dekh ye khayal aata hai…

aaj yun mil jayen ke dil ka veeraan khil jaaye

jaise zameen se jhukkar kahin aasmaan mil jaaye

aao milein aise ki do badan, ek jaan mil jaaye…

ae pyaar tujhe dekh ye khayal aata hai…

kya kehna...

husn ka woh aaftaab kya kehna

woh jalwa-e-benaqaab kya kehna

woh mera junoon-e-ishq, aur

woh unka hijaab, kya kehna

mere giraft mein unka hona

haye woh shabab, kya kehna

woh neend un gudaaz baahon ki

wasl ke woh khwab, kya kehna

jiska har warq khushboo mein ho basa

mere haathon mein woh kitaab, kya kehna

woh meri sau minnatein pyaar ki

woh unka bas ek jawab, kya kehna

haye woh larazna unka aaghosh mein

haye woh bechain saans, kya kehna

woh chalna unka balkhate hue

woh qadmon ka hisaab, kya kehna