Edited by Madiha Tahir - Dispatches from Pakistan

Print edition first published in 2012.

E-book published 2016.

LeftWord Books

2254/2A Shadi Khampur

Ground Floor

New Ranjit Nagar

New Delhi 110008

INDIA

www.leftword.com

LeftWord Books is a division of

Naya Rasta Publishers Pvt. Ltd.

Individual essays 2012, respective authors

This collection 2012, LeftWord Books

ISBN 978-93-80118-42-0 e-book

Where with violence waters flow and beasts abound
Where even through sailors, waters depth cannot be found,
Where furious beasts of water howl and roar,
Where whole boats are sunk without a trace,
Not a sign, no piece of their board remains:
Where from whirlpools mysterious, none ever come back,
There, lord, to those who cannot swim render thy help.

Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai

Habib Jalib
Pakistan ka Matlab Kya?

Roti, kapda aur dawa
Ghar rehne ko chhota sa
Muft mujhe talim dila
Mein bhi Musalmaan hoon wallah
Pakistan ka matlab kya
La Ilaha Illalah...

Amrika se mang na bhik
Mat kar logon ki tazhik
Rok na jamhoori tehrik
Chhod na azadi ki rah
Pakistan ka matlab hai kya
La Ilaha Illalah...

Khet waderon se le lo
Milen luteron se le lo
Mulk andheron se le lo
Rahe na koi Alijah
Pakistan ka matlab kya
La Ilaha Illalah...

Sarhad, Sindh, Baluchistan
Teenon hain Panjab ki jaan
Aur Bangal hai sab ki aan
Aai na un ke lab par aah
Pakistan ka matlab kya
La Ilaha Illalah...

Baat yehi hai bunyadi
Ghasib ki ho barbadi
Haq kehte hain haq agah
Pakistan ka matlab kya
La Ilaha Illalah...

What Does Pakistan Mean?

Bread, clothes and medicine
A little house to live in
Free education given to me.
I have always been a Muslim.
What does Pakistan mean?
There is no God, but God.

Do not beg for American alms.
Do not mock the people.
Do not stop the democratic struggle.
Do not abandon the road to freedom.
What does Pakistan mean?
There is no God...

Confiscate the landlords fields.
Confiscate the robbers mills.
Redeem the country from the blind.
Dont let the vermin remain.
What does Pakistan mean?
There is no God...

The Frontier, Sind, Baluchistan:
These three are dearest to Punjab.
Bengal is their splendor.
No anguish among them.
What does Pakistan mean?
There is no God...

This is the basic thing:
Ruination for the liars.
Those who have seen the Truth speak rightly.
What does Pakistan mean?
There is no God...

Tr. Vijay Prashad and Raza Mir

Habib Jalib (1928-1993) was a Communist poet who was a frequent guest of Pakistans prisons and who refused to compr-omise with the reality around him. From his landmark poem Dastoor, written to pillory the military dictatorship of Ayub Khan, to his revolutionary anthem for the 1969 film Zarqa , Raqs zanjeer pahan ker bhi kiya jata hai :

Tu kay nawaqif-e-aadab-e-ghulami hae abhi
Raqs zanjeer pehan kar bhi kiya jata hai

Unaware of the protocols of the Kings Court
Sometimes one must dance with chains on

Madiha Tahir, Qalandar Bux Memon and Vijay Prashad
Introduction:
Pakistans Futures

Main Zinda Hun

Main ahbi Zinda Hun

Tum ne sang bari ki

Mere pekar ko

Diwarow ke qalib men chuna

Nagon se daswaya

Salibon per charhaya

Zehr pilwaya

Jalaya

Phir bhi main sach ki tarh painda hun

Main zinda hun

Mere Chehra, meri Ankhen, mer bazu

Mere lab

Zinda hain sab

Main shahab-e-shab

Hazaron bar

Tuta aur bikhra

Phir bhi main raqsinda-o-rakhinda hun

I am Alive

I am still alive.

You stoned me

Entombed me

Crucified me

Poisoned me

Burned me

Yet, like the truth

I am alive, eternal

My face, my eyes, my arms

My lips

Are all alive;

I, the meteor of the night

A thousand times

shattered and scattered,

Yet I go on dancing, shining.

Ahmad Faraz

Ahmed Faraz (1931-2008) was a progressive poet, brave in his denunciations of military rule and of the theft of the elite class. Going into exile during the Zia years, Ahmed Faraz, like his mentor Faiz, wrote some of his best poetry from afar, including the standards Muhasara and Khwab Marte Nahi .

Pakistanis are alive. Sold by governments who should save them, killed by secret agencies who should guard them, bombed by American drones, structurally adjusted into starvation, beaten, rendered, tortured and disappeared, and yet, inscrutably, immutably, even joyously, they are still alive.

In other places, other times, that may not be much. In Pakistan, thats an extraordinary feat. It is, after all, a place so thoroughly reviled that the world watched pitilessly as a quarter of the country drowned in summer 2010 in one of the worst floods in memory. The great deluge swallowed up lands and homes and livelihoods, but the international response was deplorably tepid. Pakistanis, the world seemed to say, were bad Muslims, and if some of them were destroyed, so much the better.

Its a country used to living on its own charity, by its own wits. Thats what it did. Students, bankers and businessmen started flood drives. Government workers donated their paychecks for flood relief. Neighbourhoods hired trucks to send food and medicine to the affected. There wasnt a street without flood relief work. For those of us who were in America when Hurricane Katrina ravaged Louisiana, the contrast was marked. Pakistanis do not wait for their government to help. They do not wait for the international community to help. They know they will die waiting.

Survival is a technique, living is an art, and Pakistanis have become masters at both.

Despite what the media may tell you, they also dont bother much with what the world thinks of them. Theres too much else to do: lives to give birth to, lessons to learn, a living to make, food to cook, rolling blackouts to endure, friends to see, unions to build, prayers to offer, gifts to receive, loves to start, arguments to finish, and the night to live through. The explosions in the distance are just the staccato soundtrack.