A poet in context: Faiz Ahmad Faiz

Faiz Ahmad Faiz (1911-1984) was an influential left-wing intellectual, revolutionary poet, and one of the most highly regarded poets of the Urdu language, having been nominated four times for the Nobel Prize for literature. A notable member of the Progressive Writers' Movement, Faiz was an avowed Marxist, and the first Asian poet to win the Lenin Peace Prize by the Soviet Union in 1962, Soviet equivalent of Nobel Peace Prize.     
Faiz was born to a landed Kashmiri educated family in Sialkot of pre-partition Punjab. His father Sultan Muhammad Khan was a barrister who worked for the British Government.  Faiz grew up surrounded by literature with a father who was a friend to many writers, including Allama Muhammad Iqbal. His schooling took him to Lahore where he studied Arabic and English literature. His literary studies laid the foundation for him to create a modern Urdu verse that took on larger social and political issues of his times, yet retained the polished style and diction of the ghazal.
Faiz rejected the notion of "art for art's sake". He has been described as a "committed" poet who used his simple verse to probe not only beauty and love but also humanism and justice. His imprisonment was evident in more than his two collections of poems written during his political detention. His translator Shiv K. Kumar sees his imprisonment as a "metaphor that embodies his poetic vision". Aside from poet, Faiz was a journalist, songwriter, and activist.
Although his family were devoted Muslims, Faiz was brought up in a secular tradition of Islam. Following the Muslim South Asian tradition, his family directed him to study Islamic studies at the local Mosque to be oriented to the basics of religious studies. According to Muslim orthodox tradition, he learned Arabic, Persian, Urdu language and the Qur'an. Faiz was also a Pakistan nationalist, and often said "Purify your hearts, so you can save the country...".
His father later took him out of Islamic school as he wanted his son to follow in the footsteps of the great Indian Muslim educationist Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, sending him to attend the Scotch Mission School.. After matriculation, he joined the Murray College at Sialkot for intermediate study. In 1926, Faiz attained his BA with Honours in Arabic language, under the supervision of Professor Mir Hassan from Department of Languages and Fine Arts of the Government College, Lahore. While there, he was greatly influenced by Professor Mir Hassan who taught Arabic language.
Professor Hasan had also taught the renowned philosopher, poet, and politician of South Asia, Allama Muhammad Iqbal. In 1930, Faiz joined the post-graduate programme of the same college, to obtain MA in English literature in 1932. The same year, he obtained a post-graduate degree in Arabic from Punjab University's Oriental College. It was during his college years that he met M. N. Roy and Muzaffar Ahmed who influenced him to become a member of the Communist Party.
In 1941, Faiz became affectionate with Alys Faiz, a British national and a member of Communist Party of the United Kingdom, who was a student at the Lahore Government College  where Faiz taught poetry. While Alys opted for Pakistan citizenship, she was a vital member of Communist Party of Pakistan, played a significant role in Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case when she brought together the communist mass. Together, the couple gave birth to two daughters Salima and Moneeza Hashmi.
During the midst of World War II, he enrolled in the British Army in 1942. He was commissioned and attained the rank of Captain. Faiz served with the unit led by Akbar Khan, a left-wing general. Although, he was kept out of World War II war operations, Faiz was given a desk assignment, when he joined the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) in New Delhi. In 1943, Faiz was promoted to Major rank, and then Lieutenant-Colonel in 1944. In 1947, Faiz opted for the newly-established State of Pakistan. However, after witnessing the 1947 Kashmir war with India, Faiz decided to leave the army the same year.
Faiz was a well-known communist in the country and had been long associated with the Communist Party of Pakistan, which he founded in 1947 along with Marxist Sajjad Zaheer and Jalaludin Abdur Rahim. Faiz had long associated ties with the Soviet Union, a friendship with an atheist country that later honoured him with a high award. Even after his death, the Russian government honoured him by calling him "our poet" to many Russians. However, his popularity waned in Bangladesh after 1971 when Dhaka did not win much support for him. During the 1971 Winter war, Faiz rallied to mobilise the people, writing patriotic poems and songs that opposed the bloodshed during separation of Bangladesh from Pakistan. Faiz and other pro-communists had no political role in the country, despite their academic brilliance.
Faiz believed in Internationalism and emphasised the philosophy 'global village'. In 1948, Faiz became vice-president of the Pakistan Trade Union Federation (PTUF). In 1950, Faiz joined the delegation of Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, initially leading a business delegation in the United States, attending the meeting at the International Labour Organisation at San Francisco. During 1948-1950, Faiz led the PTUF's delegation in Geneva, and became an active member of World Peace Council.
Faiz spent most of the 1950s and 1960s promoting the cause of communism in Pakistan. During the time when Faiz was editor of the Pakistan Times, one of the leading newspapers of the 1950s, he lent editorial support to the party. He was also involved in the circle lending support to military personnel. His involvement with the party and Major General Akbar Khan's Rawalpindi conspiracy plan led to his imprisonment. These were commuted after the assassination of Liaquat Ali Khan in 1951.  
Faiz's literary work was posthumously publicly honoured, when the Pakistan Government conferred upon him the nation's highest civil award, Nishan-e-Imtiaz, in 1990. There are many awesome gazals and nazams by Faiz, posting one of my favourite ones here tilted: Gulon Mein Rang Bhare. "How I wish flowers take new colours!/ And the breeze brings fresh winds of change./ I plead you, come to me now, my love,/ Maybe, if you come, my garden may bloom again./ My caged body is cheerless today,/ Someone please fill hope in the morning breeze./  For god's sake! don't let it not go empty,/ Let it carry with it the story of our friends./ When will we wake into the morning,/ To the sweet sound from your lips,/ And when in the evening will we rest,/ Taking in the scent of your hair./ Strong is the bond of pain,/ though we are weak and poor,/ When we hear your call,/ We, all your friends, will come together./ We went through hell, but all right./ Once this evening of separation is over,/ Our tears would have,/ Cleaned you for your next life./ O' Faiz, in my exile, no place,/ Gave me any pleasure,/ After I left my circle of friends,/  I found solace only in gallows of death".
Faiz was a good friend of Soviet poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko who once said, "In Faiz's autobiography... is his poetry, the rest is just a footnote". Faiz was a humanist, a lyrical poet, whose popularity reached neighbouring India and Soviet Union. Indian biographer Amaresh Datta, compared Faiz as "equal esteem in both East and West". Throughout his life, his revolutionary poetry went against the tyranny of military dictatorships and other forms of oppression. Faiz himself never compromised on his principles despite being threatened by the right-wing parties in Pakistan.
At the Lenin Peace Prize ceremony, held in the grand Kremlin hall in Moscow, Faiz delivered an acceptance speech, which appears as a brief preface to his collection Dast-i-tah-i-Sang (Hand under the rock): "Human ingenuity, science and industry have made it possible to provide each one of us everything we need to be comfortable, provided these boundless treasures of nature and production are not declared the property of a greedy few but are used for the benefit of all of humanity… However, this is only possible if the foundations of human society are based not on greed, exploitation and ownership but on justice, equality, freedom and the welfare of everyone… I believe that humanity which has never been defeated by its enemies will, after all, be successful; at long last, instead of wars, hatred and cruelty, the foundation of humankind will rest on the message of the great Persian poet Hafez Shiraz: 'Every foundation you see is faulty, except that of Love, which is faultless...."
Faiz began his career in 1947 as the editor of the leftist English-language daily, Pakistan Times, as well as the managing editor for the Urdu daily, Imroz. After the miltary coup led by Zia Ul Haq in 1979, Faiz lived in self-exile in Beirut writing for the Afro-Asia Writers Association journal, Lotus, until his return to Pakistan in 1982. His death in 1984 was a loss to the Urdu literary world.

The writer is a retired Professor of Economics,  BCS General Education Cadre.Email: [email protected]