The figure of Vladimir Lenin – born 151 years ago today – exercises a talismanic hold on revolutionaries everywhere, across time and space. While Lenin’s signal achievement – the Bolshevik Revolution, whose centennial was celebrated in 2017 – is richly represented in Urdu literature, writings on Lenin himself, whether poems or fiction, are few and far between.
This year also marks the birth centenary of the great Progressive poet Sahir Ludhianvi. Thus, on the occasions of the end of Lenin’s 150th birth anniversary celebrations today, and Sahir’s centenary this year, it would be timely, useful and instructive to highlight Sahir’s poetry on Lenin.
Sahir Ludhianvi devoted two poems to Lenin, one of which is a standard ode to the latter as the leader of the victorious revolution of 1917.
‘The world divided into classes was for centuries beset by affliction
Griefs dripped from inhabited desolation
The luxury of one bloomed from the poverty of millions
To the accounts of Nature could be attributed this condition
Morals were afflicted, civilization was harassed
By the evil ‘highnesses’, ‘sirs’ of bastardly disposition
With the veils of the skill of the churchmen
The crimes were covered up by the cunning administration
You liberated the destiny of Man
From the deceits of religion, many a royal depredation.’
The second poem, written on the occasion of Lenin’s birth centenary on April 24, 1970, more than fifty years ago, opens with the uncertainty which many in the communist world were also confronting regarding the division and disunity in the communist camp:
Kya jaanen, teri ummat kis haal ko pohanche gi
Badhti chali jaati hai taadaad imamon ki
Sahir refers obliquely to the events in Moscow following the death of Stalin and the split in the communist movement, before which present enemies and ‘revisionists’ were once comrades. In closing, Sahir raises the apprehension that sects rather than class maybe the basis of a new division:
Tabqon se nikal kar hum firqon men na batt jayen
Ban kar na bigar jaye taqdeer ghulamon ki
(Where will your community go, how are we to know
The leaders continue to grow in enumeration
In every corner of the West, in every Eastern region
Of your messages now, there is a different explanation
Those who till yesterday called each other a companion
Are after each other’s names, bent on humiliation
The appearances of the inexperienced politics are spoiled
Roiled are the breaths of many a young institution
Pray we do not divide by sects rather than classes
In that fortune does not favour the slaves’ predestination.)
This year also marks the birth centenary of the great Progressive poet Sahir Ludhianvi. Thus, on the occasions of the end of Lenin’s 150th birth anniversary celebrations today, and Sahir’s centenary this year, it would be timely, useful and instructive to highlight Sahir’s poetry on Lenin.
Sahir Ludhianvi devoted two poems to Lenin, one of which is a standard ode to the latter as the leader of the victorious revolution of 1917.
‘The world divided into classes was for centuries beset by affliction
Griefs dripped from inhabited desolation
The luxury of one bloomed from the poverty of millions
To the accounts of Nature could be attributed this condition
Morals were afflicted, civilization was harassed
By the evil ‘highnesses’, ‘sirs’ of bastardly disposition
With the veils of the skill of the churchmen
The crimes were covered up by the cunning administration
You liberated the destiny of Man
From the deceits of religion, many a royal depredation.’
The second poem, written on the occasion of Lenin’s birth centenary on April 24, 1970, more than fifty years ago, opens with the uncertainty which many in the communist world were also confronting regarding the division and disunity in the communist camp:
Kya jaanen, teri ummat kis haal ko pohanche gi
Badhti chali jaati hai taadaad imamon ki
Sahir refers obliquely to the events in Moscow following the death of Stalin and the split in the communist movement, before which present enemies and ‘revisionists’ were once comrades. In closing, Sahir raises the apprehension that sects rather than class maybe the basis of a new division:
Tabqon se nikal kar hum firqon men na batt jayen
Ban kar na bigar jaye taqdeer ghulamon ki
(Where will your community go, how are we to know
The leaders continue to grow in enumeration
In every corner of the West, in every Eastern region
Of your messages now, there is a different explanation
Those who till yesterday called each other a companion
Are after each other’s names, bent on humiliation
The appearances of the inexperienced politics are spoiled
Roiled are the breaths of many a young institution
Pray we do not divide by sects rather than classes
In that fortune does not favour the slaves’ predestination.)