“His Every Word Became Poetry”: Lenin in Urdu Literature - I

The figure of Vladimir Lenin – born 150 years ago earlier this week -  exercises a talismanic hold on revolutionaries everywhere, across time and space. The year 2017 was celebrated as the centennial of the Bolshevik Revolution, leading to the establishment of the first socialist state presided over by Lenin and marking an important moment in history.

Likewise, Urdu literature is also rich in writings about the Bolshevik Revolution. However, writings on Lenin himself, whether poems or fiction, are few and far between.

Readers may be surprised to know that despite a long progressive tradition in Urdu literature inspired by the events of 1917, not much poetry exists with Lenin as the subject. Thus, on the occasion of Lenin’s 150th birth anniversary this week, it would be both useful and instructive to survey – which is by no means exhaustive -  whatever has been produced on Lenin in Urdu since he was born.

Perhaps the most celebrated poem on the founder of the Russian revolutionary state was Allama Muhammad Iqbal’s Lenin, Khuda ke Huzoor Mein (Lenin in God’s Presence) written soon after the revolution took place in Russia. Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky’s Conversation with Comrade Lenin, written in 1929, is also another notable attempt at a fictional dialogue with the great revolutionary leader. Iqbal was among the first Urdu writers to be influenced by the world’s first socialist revolution in Russia. He was already 40 when the Bolsheviks seized control of Moscow. His trilogy of poems in his collection Baal-e-Gibreel (Gabriel’s Wing) is the clearest indication of Iqbal’s admiration of Lenin and the Bolshevik experiment. In the first poem of this trilogy, the aforementioned Lenin, Khuda ke Huzoor Mein, Lenin complains to God about injustice. This poem includes the verse which has now achieved the status of an aphorism,

“Hen talkh bahut banda-e-mazdur ke auqat”

(The hours of the working man are very distasteful)

The second poem Farishton ka Geet (Song of the Angels) is a highly rhythmic recitation by angels of what they have witnessed on Earth, corroborating Lenin’s complaints.

Urdu literature is rich in writings about the Bolshevik Revolution. However, writings on Lenin himself, whether poems or fiction, are few and far between

Lenin holds his ground. Meanwhile, God is not at all upset with Lenin’s impertinence. Instead, in the third poem, Farmaan-e-Khuda Farishton Se (God’s Command to the Angels) in response to his diatribe, He calls upon his angels to effect a few changes in the organization of the world at large. Wouldn’t you have liked to be a fly on the wall during that exchange? Thanks to Iqbal, you were.

Uthho meri dunya ke ghareebon ko jagaa do
Kaakh-e-umaraa ke dar-o-deevaar hila do
Garmaao ghulaamon la lahu soz-e-yaqin se
Kunjishk-e-phiromaayaa ko shaheen se lada do

Sultaani-e-jamhoor ka aata hai zamaana
Jo naqsh-e-kuhan tum ko nazar aaye mita do

Jis khet se dah-qaan ko mayassar nahi rozi
Us khet ke har khosha-e-gandum ko jala do

Kyun khaaliq-o-makhlooq mein haayal rahen parde
Peeraan-e-kaleesa ko kaleesa se hata do

Main naakhush-o-bezaar hoon marmar ke silon se
Mere liye mitti ka haram aur bana do

Tahzeeb-e-naveen kaar-gah-e-sheesha-garaan hai
Aadab-e-junoon shaayar-e-mashriq ko sikha do

(Go bid the wretched of my earth to awake
The foundations of elite palaces should quake

Roil the blood of slaves with the pain of belief
Sparrows should challenge eagles, make no mistake

The moment of democracy is at hand
Signs of the old order I bid thee to break

Burn every ear of wheat of that field from which
The farmer is not permitted to partake

Distance between God and humans is futile
Remove the bishops from the church; they are fake

Build me a simple house with sand, for I hate
Those marble edifices. That’s a mistake.

The new world is but a brittle glass palace
Poet of the East, learn obsession and heartache.)

This poem used to be learnt by heart by the generation of South Asian leftists coming of age in the 1950s.

Following Iqbal, his great contemporary Maulana Hasrat Mohani, the Islamic socialist, who was also one of the founders of the Communist Party of India, wondered aloud:

“Gandhi ki tarah baith ke kaateinge kyun charkha,

Lenin ki tarah denge na duniya ko hila hum?”

(Why waste time with Gandhi’s spinning wheel,

And not usher a revolution with Lenin’s zeal?)

(to be continued)

Note: This is the first in a series of articles and reviews commemorating Lenin’s 150th birth anniversary. All translations from the Urdu are by the writer, unless otherwise stated. Raza Naeem is a Pakistani social scientist, book critic and award-winning translator and dramatic reader currently based in Lahore, where he is also the president of the Progressive Writers Association. He can be reached at: razanaeem@hotmail.com