Bhikari: Nawshad Noori's protest

Nawshad Noori

On the occasion of tenth death anniversary of renowned Urdu poet Nawshad Noori, I intend to trace out those circumstances that had influenced the late Urdu poet to write his most popular, famous and fabulous Urdu poem Bhikari (Beggar) in 1949.
Nawshad Noori was born in Bihar in 1926, at a time when Bihar was considered to be the most backward Indian state in the social and economic context. Due to this backwardness frustration was growing among the common people and the young educated class was getting influenced by various political movements. Against that background the thoughts and images of the poet developed, to enrich his writings.
Nawshad Noori was ten when the well-known Sajjad Zaheer formed the Progressive Writers Association in Lucknow in 1936. Earlier in 1930, the Communist Party was founded in Tashkent. One of its founders, M. N. Roy, initiated the establishing the offices of the party in India.
Noori completed his graduation from B. N. College, Patna, and joined the Progressive Writers Association, where Urdu poets and writers like Sohel Azimabadi, Akhtar Orainwi, Mukhtar Uddin Arzoo and Kalam Haideri nurtured his progressive views. Nawshad Noori now began taking part in the programmes of the Communist Party, which had already adopted a new policy to support the leadership of Pandit Nehru in leading the democratic movement on behalf of the peasants and the downtrodden. But at the same time, the Communist leaders and progressive writers were demanding a system similar to that in the Soviet Union by replacing the capitalist-industrialist system in India.
When US President Harry S. Truman invited Prime Minister Nehru to Washington in October 1949, Indian capitalists asked the latter to accept the invitation and seek American aid to avert the grave economic crises in India in the offing at the time. Obviously, the Communist Party and progressive Indian writers could not favour such a visit at that juncture. The Communist Party organized a huge public meeting in Patna to protest against Nehru's to the US. At that meeting Nawshad Noori read his poem Bhikari.
The vocabulary of this poem is different from Nawshad's other poems. Instead of Urdu and Persian, the poet used many Hindi and Sanskrit words and phrases in this poem, keeping in mind that his audience at the public meeting would not be Urdu poets and writers. Most of his audience would be rural Indians, peasants, workers and daily wage earners. He wanted to convey the message of his poem to the poor. The poem begins thus:
A beggar has come to your door from far away
He has brought with him the horrible tale of his sufferings.
Famished Bharat Mata salutes you, O King
Please give us aid in the name of Sita and Ram
The above stanza refers to the economic crises that India faced after World War II. In Bengal 30 lakh people died in a famine. The drought in Assam caused the death of thousands in the post-independence period. India had inherited a collapsing economy from the British colonial government. In contrast the US market was prospering and its economy was booming. Nawshad Noori has painted this contrast in the next stanza of the poem:
Your warehouses are stocked up with gold and silver
God may bless you; bless us and the entire world
We were happy in our house with plenty of food
But, O brother, drought has befallen us
Nehru was not a communist, but a democrat and socialist. His ideological contradiction has been dwelt upon by the poet in the following verses:
Meri junta dukh such sab mey geet sunaney wali
Terey naqsh-e-qadam par Raja paon badhaney wali
Tum ho pacchim, hum hain purab phir bhi aik hai jaan
Bharat Mata dey gi apney bhai ko balidan
Raj sanbhaley muddat biti lekin phir iss saal
Bhooka hai Punjab ray bhai bhooka hai Bengal
Karti bhooki Bharat mata Raja ko parnaam
De dey Ram diladey dey Ram, deney waley Sita Ram
My people always sing songs in happiness and sorrow
And when they walk, they follow your footprints
You are west and we are east but we both have the same soul
Bharat Mata will give sacrifice for her brother
I am ruling my country for a long time but this year again
Punjab and Bengal are facing starvation
Hungry Bharat Mata salutes you, O King!
Please give us aid in the name of Sita and Ram
Nawshad Noori had learned from the great Hindi poet Ram Dhari Singh Dinkar the art of how and where to use Hindi words in poetry. In the last stanza of his poem, Noori has reached the art of poetic composition at its highest. This stanza is the conclusion of the compassion under which the poem was composed:
Dar par terey door kahin sey aik Bhikari aya hai
Apni nangi Mata ko wo London sey ley aya hai
Such hai bhai desh mey merey her shay payee jati hai
Jhoot hai Raja un key badley goli khayee jati hai
Jhoot key bhooki ma balak ko doodh nahi dey pati
Jhoot key chalni goli sey hai mahilaon ki chati
Jhoot key bhookey nangon par hai Birlaon ka Raj
Jhoot key Tata loot raha hai mazdooron ki laaj
Bharat jug mey sab sey uooncha uoonchi hai santaan
Hath pasarey kab sey khadha hai bhooka Hindustan
Washington ki galyon mey hai Bharat ka neelaam
De dey Ram diladey dey Ram, deney waley Sita Ram
The authorities in Bihar issued a warrant of arrest against Nawshad Noori for reciting Bhikari in Patna. To escape arrest, he migrated to Dhaka in 1951. He got a job in the Military Audit and Accounts Department and was posted in Quetta. In 1952, he wrote another extraordinary poem "Mohenjo Daro" in Urdu. In this poem he in a beautiful poetic style protested the move by Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan, to impose Urdu as the only state language of Pakistan. For this poem Nawshad Noori was asked to resign from the public service and he did so.