iberal discourse amongst the people falling under the unfortunate gaze of the Pakistani state have never faced a deeper crisis. The crisis is not that Salmaan Taseer has been murdered. He has fallen martyr to their ideals. The crisis is that he has fallen an apostate – an apostate for opposing a ‘man-made’ law. The liberal has been declared an apostate in the imagining’s of religious discourse. The crisis of the liberal is how to speak and be heard. The problem that the liberal intelligentsia has always faced has been of incommunicability. Today the crisis is deeper. The space which he owned is itself being encroached upon. It has been thrown into a situation where every pro-
in religious memory. This is where the crisis begins: can we challenge this articulation? Can we do so meaningfully? The Asiya Bibi case is where the matter began to boil. She was sentenced on November 9. Her death sentence under charges of blasphemy boiled us. Taking its locus from a small village, Itanwali, en route to Nankana Sahib, the case first became a debacle at the Nankana Sahib Bar. A number of those seated around the bar found their hearts attached to the case, as I found when I got a neat, catalogued case file of the
the Blasphemy Law was being attempted, the discourse supporting it began to gather strength and public momentum. Contextual debate lost meaning. This was the true moment of crisis. But the crisis was complete when on January 4, Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer was assassinated by a guard assigned by the Elite Force to protect him. The guard gave himself up, in a classic Ilam Din stereotype. The religious ‘right’ had found its new hero. If historical reincarnations are anything to go by, it is not long before Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri is lauded Continue on page 3
Digesting Salmaan Taseer’s assassination
Sunday, 09 January, 2011
the review
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By Hashim Bin Rashid
ponent stands by his stance under a threat to his life. Malik Mumtaz Qadri is already a hero. Not to me – and not to ‘rational’ others. He has committed no great deed. Rather he is even flawed in terms of his own logic. But the flowers and showering of praise upon him at his first hearing at the Rawalpindi Kutchery shows a much more pervasive force. ‘The Muslim cannot tolerate an insult to Islam,’ has been the character being bandied out by its self-appointed spokesmen. ‘The Muslim cannot tolerate an insult to Islam – except the one he does to it by his actions,’ is what the truth of this construction is. In a press conference at the Lahore Press Club condemning blasphemy convict Asiya Bibi and Salmaan Taseer, I took out a private moment from the rather esteemed speakers to ask them, ‘Have you read the Asiya case?’ A strange gaze was the response. A strange gaze followed by a condemnation of her. They were sure, without reference to any evidentiary grounds, that she was Rajpal’s incarnate. And during the press conference they had warned us, ‘Ilam Din will arise from every home.’ Lo and Behold! Ilam Din incarnate Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri presented himself. The long awaited ghost of Ilam Din had returned. There has been no apology. Nay the attack has gotten stronger. The religious ‘representatives’ have disowned responsibility. ‘See what happens when a Muslim’s sentiments are hurt,’ are the words they utter. ‘There is still time to mend your ways,’ they say. And, I do not misqoute. Now, rather, it is exactly now that is the time to speak up. Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri has become Ilam Din reincarnate. The truth behind his placement in Taseer’s security force on January 4, 2011, whatever it may be, shall always remain mired in controversy. A simpler version of it, the one that has already begun to be articulated, shall become etched
Asiya Bibi case from a stamp seller at the bar. Before Salmaan Taseer’s visit, we had both reported the judgment and been able to interview Asiya Bibi in the Sheikhupura District Jail. Matters were brewing. Amidst our attempt to understand the case, I was driving to Itanwali when a reporter called to inform that Salmaan Taseer was in Sheikhupura Jail and going to pardon Asiya. November 19 was the date. It was here that Salmaan Taseer called the Blasphemy Law a ‘black’ law. On November 24, the Aalmi Jama’at Ahle Sunnat had issued a fatwa declaring the Punjab governor an ‘apostate.’ Protest photographs and stories were filed every day leading up to the December 31 shutter down strike. The strike received a unanimous response from traders and transporters. The religious right had announced its New Year’s resolution: no amendment to the Blasphemy Laws will be allowed. The daily projection of the threat to the Blasphemy Laws had begun to reshape the contours of public discourse. The grip of the challenge to Prophetic respect from those opposed to the laws began to manifest itself. Every form of critical discourse attempted during the period was being rendered meaningless. The Blasphemy Laws are an abused law. This is not hyperbole. This is fact. The Blasphemy Laws religious creden- tials are questionable. Again, this is not hyperbole. It is fact. This is exactly what we in our ‘liberal’ frame of mind articulated. But while this attempt to rationalize and transform
The invention of a new crime
‘Blaspheming’ against the Blasphemy Laws
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ill in the Blank: ‘Salmaan Taseer’s purported crime was to utter derogatory remarks against the _________ .’ Provide the answer purely on the basis of statements issued by those condoning his killing. Salmaan Taseer was not killed because he blasphemed. Our dear bearded friend who has been chanting the great slogans of Islam upon his first appearance in the Rawalpindi katcheri has been mislead. The image Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri offers is powerful. His self-belief is relentless. Little does the poor man know he did not kill the Punjab governor in lieu of an existing punishment in the Pakistan Penal Code. Salmaan Taseer’s crime has only just been created. The turning of the calendar to 2011 has produced a new religious consensus. According to that consensus, uttering derogatory remarks against the Blasphemy
Laws makes one ‘wajib ul qatl’ (liable to murder) and ‘murtid’ (outside the fold of Islam). The consensus around this new crime is such that leading Salmaan Taseer’s funeral prayer was refused by three khateebs: the Badshahi mosques, the Data Darbar’s and the Governor House’s. Each cited his own excuse – but what is clear is that, at a minimum, for political expediency, the khateebs had accepted the truth of Salmaan Taseer’s crime. They had shown through their action that they accepted that Taseer was outside the fold of Islam. In the television debate that has followed, rarely has a cleric not begun without subtly saying, “What befell upon the Governor was his own doing.” To the question of what the Governor actually said, “He called the Blasphemy Laws ‘black.’” Going purely by what they say, or, what the murderer says, Taseer never uttered anything blasphemous. In modern-day Pakistan a new crime has been created: blaspheming against the blasphemy laws. It is to this new crime which Taseer gave up his life. –Hashim bin Rashid
2 The legend through his daughter’s eyes 3 Of Faiz and his poetry 4 Dumped into oblivion
Malik Mumtaz Qadri’s assassination of the Punjab Governor for challenging the Blasphemy Laws creates a new question: how do we re-create the room for free speech?
the review Illustrated & Designed by Babur Saghir
Sunday, 09 January, 2011
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The legend through his ‘My father used to say that I do what I do because I know your mother will be there to look after you if something ever happened to me’ flows from peace.
By Fatima Zehra Naqvi
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aiz Ahmed Faiz is a legend, nay, veritably a great. Having picked up the baton from Iqbal, and with his innate poetic genius soon established himself in the pantheon and was universally acknowledged as the fourth great (after Mir, Ghalib, and Iqbal) of Urdu poetry. With a diction that was most remarkable in its range and sweep, and prodigious in its coinage, Faiz’s poetry for a very large part is in undertones, yet very poignant and powerful at the same time. But Faiz was not just a poet. He was a thinker, a writer, a newspaper editor, a trade union activist and much more – a persona that was uniquely wholesome and overwhelming. And since he had the courage of conviction to stand up to forces of tyranny and obscurantism, he had to suffer two long jail terms, the first on sedition charges. This year marks his 100th birth anniversary and a man of his stature deserves a befitting celebration. As legions of fans the world over gear up to commemorate Faiz’s legacy this year, Pakistan Today brings you an exclusive insight into the life and events of the most acclaimed poet since Iqbal through his beloved daughter’s eyes. Salima Hashmi, presently dean of Visual Arts School at Beaconhouse National University, a former professor and principal at National College of Arts, painter, writer and anti-nuclear weapons activist, through this interview reminisces about the personal, professional and social life of her famous father. Excerpts. Q. What events have you planned to mark Faiz’s 100th birth anniversary? A. Faiz Foundation Trust has chalked out a program that will take place partly during the anniversary week. It includes a mushaira and conference-cum-colloquium. We will also be organising various functions at Faizghar. People are coming from
over the world. The idea is to make it as participatory as possible. People ask us what we are doing, but we in turn ask them to do something independently. The DC of Narowal, Faiz’s place of birth, said they’re planning something big – like a best speech contest in colleges among other activities. In addition, there are at least six to seven books coming out. Faiz’s family is going to launch a book that is about my father’s letters from prison to my mother; one side will have the original handwriting, the other its English translation. The book will also include pictures, as well as letters that my sister and I wrote to him. Q. What to you were the major factors that influenced and inspired Faiz’s poetry? A. I think that the sort of versatility and breadth his poetry is characterised with came from his influence of his father on him, his love for learning and his love for all the arts; but most of all from his humanistic nature as he believed that everything stemmed from love. He studied the Holy Quran from religious scholars as a very young child and memorised it by the age of four. So he had a very wide reading of the Quran and his understanding of Islam was very vast. In fact it made it very easy for him to accept the socialist message which, after all, is very egalitarian. The traditions fed into his poetry were classical traditions; he started reading English romantic poets when he was an eighth grader. He began writing poetry when he was in grade nine or ten. He used to love to read. Also, he used to feel very bad when he was all dressed up in school while his class mates were poor. That stayed with him through life and he grew up with a strong aversion to social stratification. So whether he was talking to the postman or to the prime minister, he was indifferent and his demeanour was the same. Q. What qualities do you think make his poetry appeal across borders and generations? A. His poetry mirrors his unwavering belief in peace. He believed everything
Q. Which is your favourite verse or poem? A. They change with time depending on hasb-e-haal. When I’m angry I read one thing but when I’m meditative I read something else. People say there is enough in his poetry to explain life. As your experiences and age alter, you choose poems accordingly. I am a painter and I believe that some of his poems are pure visual poems – they spread out as a canvas as you read them. One of my favourites is ‘Shaam’. He was a very visually acute person. Some of his best friends were painters. Q. How would you define his simultaneous adherence to Sufism, communism and Marxism? A. He didn’t see a contradiction in them. He was basically a humanist. He grew up in a time when the world around him was changing radically. His own father had a very colourful career. He started off as a peasant boy, went off to Afghanistan, slowly rose in rank and became secretary to the king and tutor to the king’s sons; and then he went off to Cambridge. So Faiz’s father was a self-made person who had a passion for learning and this was absorbed by his son. Q. What was his reaction on receiving a Nobel nomination? A. He was nominated for the Nobel peace prize shortly before his death and we knew that because of his passion for Palestine he would not win it. But he took it extremely lightly and sort of laughed it off. Q. What was Faiz’s equation with Allama Iqbal? A. Faiz’s father was a friend of Allama Iqbal. So when he brought his son, my father, to Lahore, he asked Iqbal to take care of him. Abba revered them both. Q. Faiz was imprisoned for his ‘political views’. What was the actual reason? A. People, especially the youngsters, do not know why Faiz went to prison. There were political reasons of course. He, along with 13 of his loyal supporters, was jailed for five years. At the end of that, the constituent assembly actually overturned the law under which they were tried and sentenced – so they actually spent five years (19511955) for nothing because the law was considered invalid by the assembly. The trial was secret and the accused, lawyers and wit-
nesses were never allowed to speak about it. It was a political stunt. The government saw the whole group as a threat. Q. How did your family cope during the time he was in jail? A. We were very young. I was eight and my younger sister Moneeza was four. It was something that I suppose, with hindsight, taught us what it is to be ostracised by the society. Nobody wanted to talk to us, our phones were tapped and nobody came to see us. He was kept in Hyderabad jail so we could not go there that often. The trial was held inside the jail by judges who had already decided that they were guilty. Q. In the mid 1970s after the Zia martial law, why did Faiz decide to go into selfimposed exile? A. We were being harassed. There was always a police jeep outside the house, our mail and phone were tapped and we couldn’t go anywhere without being followed. He decided that a person of his stature need not face such undignified treatment, so he left for Beirut and worked with the PLO. He returned when Israel attacked Beirut. I used to go meet him in the summers with my children. Q. How was Faiz as a father and as a person? A. He was the best father because he never interfered (laughs). He was very mild, never raised his voice, never got angry and never laid down the law – my mother was there for that. He was always humorous and chuckled a lot. He was very curious about what we wanted to do. He was very supportive and extremely proud. He was more of a friend. If he were doing something he would ask us “acha tumhara kya khayal hai?”. He wanted input about what we thought or how we would respond to something. There wasn’t much money in the house but he always wanted to spread happiness. My mother was a real disciplinarian but he was the complete opposite. He said rules had to be internal not external. He himself was highly disciplined. No matter what time he went to bed at night, he was up early in the morning, dressed, shaved and bathed. He would read through all the newspapers. He was tremendously hard working. Whether it was his desk at home or his office he would sit down and work very hard. Q. Please share an interesting childhood incident with us.
daughter’s eyes A. Well, he was a tremendously busy man so whenever I had the opportunity to have his attention I would just soak it in. He was a great storyteller but he hardly had time for that. But I remember this incident on chaand-raat when I was six and he was telling me a story – he was home early from office – when suddenly everyone in the house jubilantly announced“chaand nazar agaya!”. He said, “Let’s go,” but I said, “No, I’m not going anywhere.” He was pretty amused that I wasn’t interested in looking at the moon and he continued with the story. When he was done, I said now I will look for the moon but it was dark by that time (laughs).
Q. What kind of rapport did Faiz have with his wife Alys? A. My father had such faith in her that he used to say that I do what I do because I know your mother will be there to look after you if something ever happened to me. My mother looked after his health because he was a very heavy smoker. There was always a phadda(fight) going on about how many cigarettes he was smoking. She threatened to leave him if he didn’t stop smoking but he was least perturbed and would carry on (laughs). She looked after him hand and foot, although, one might say, she was an Englishwoman. She really shielded him from overwork and absolutely worshipped him. As a husband, he was such
an accommodating person that she felt she was perhaps one of the luckiest women on earth. Ideologically my parents shared the same views, politically speaking. She was a very politically aware person and shared his ideas. She was a teacher, a journalist, a human rights activist and very clued in to the political struggle, which is why she believed in his ideas and his politics. Q. As busy a person as he was, did he take out time for any hobbies? A. Hobbies and life for him were all intertwined. But the things he enjoyed were films and music. He asked me to bring music of all kinds when he was in Beirut. He was involved in filmmaking himself. He
scripted Pakistan’s first international awardwinning film and also wrote the lyrics. He also scripted ‘Door Hai Sukh Ga Gaon’ which was made but not completed. We are hoping to publish all of these works. Q. What traits of his have you inherited? A. I know some of my behaviour comes from being Faiz’s daughter; but I have a lot of Alys in me also. But there are things that you imbibe when living in a certain environment. I think – in fact I hope – have inherited his sense of humour and his calm in the face of adversity. Q. With Pakistan going through such turbulent times, what message would he
Of Faiz and his poetry Faiz transformed the ghazal into a medium of high aesthetic apperception together with a profound concern for humanity at large without altering its traditional artistic format
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By Syed Afsar Sajid
aiz Ahmed Faiz (1911-84) ranks among the doyens of modern poetry, let alone Urdu. He embarked upon his eventful journey to creative stardom from the rural interior of Sialkot district and shared with Allama Iqbal the honour of being a pupil of Shams-ul-Ulama Syed Mir Hassan (18441929). Pitras Bokhari, Sufi Ghulam Mustafa Tabassum and Moulvi Muhammad Shafi were also his teachers while Hasrat Mohani, Josh, Hafeez Jalandhari and Akhtar Sheerani served as his poetic inspiration besides Dr. M.D. Taseer, Maulana Abdul Majeed Salik, Maulana Charagh Hassan Hasrat and Pandit Hari Chand Akhtar who constituted as it were, Faiz’s literary camaraderie After completing his postgraduate studies at Government College, Lahore he served as lecturer in English at MAO College, Amritsar and Hailey College, Lahore, had a short stint in the Indian Army (in its Public Relations department) and then adopted journalism as a career by joining The Pakistan Times as its chief editor. He had to suffer the ordeal of prolonged imprisonment (1951-55) for his alleged involvement in the Rawalpindi Conspiracy case. Two of his popular verse collections Dast-e-Saba and Zindan Nama were the product of this period. Faiz was a supporter of the progressive writers’ movement pioneered among others, by Syed Sajjad Zaheer (1905-73), a leading leftist intellectual and writer, in the early nineteen thirties. His ideological commitment to the communist philosophy earned him the coveted Lenin peace prize in 1962. Among magazines, he edited the monthly Adabe Latif(Lahore) the weekly Lailo-Nihar (Lahore) and The Lotus (Moscow, London and Beirut). He was also associated for some
time with the Pakistan Arts Council, the National Council of the Arts and the Lok Virsa. Finally he settled down in Karachi in 1964 and joined the Abdullah Haroon College as Principal. Northrop Frye (1912-91) discusses ‘the myths of concerns and myths of freedom in literature’ whereas Faiz’s narrative, to cite Munir Saami, is the ‘narrative of freedom’ –freedom from ignorance, tyranny, dogma, injustice and imperialism. The archetypes and metaphors that the latter has chosen for his work are those of love, peace, harmony and hope. The renowned Chilean poet and Nobel Laureate Pablo Neruda (1904-73) and Faiz were contemporaries. Both of them are masters of art and craft but despite their overwhelming revolutionary ideas, they ‘never allowed ideological epiphany to burden their poems with shoddy rhetoric’. Apart from ‘the power of Neruda’, Edward Said has noted ‘the sensuality of Yeats’ (18651939) in Faiz’s work. Names of Adonis (b.1930), a Syrian-Lebanese poet and Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008), a Palestinian poet, have also been suggested for comparison of Faiz’s work. Iqbal’s poetic inspiration came from Nietzsche and Rumi; Faiz found his inspiration in Marx and Ghalib. Faiz’s major poetic works include Naqshe-Faryadi (1941), Dast-e-Saba(1953), ZindaN Nama (1956), Dast-e-Tah-e-Sang (1965), Sare-Wadi-e-Seena (1971),Sham-e-Shahr YaraN (1979), Mray Dil Mray Musafir (1981) and Ghubar-e-Ayyam (1984), Nuskhahai Wafa (1984) being a miscellany of his verse. Meezan, a collection of literary articles (1956) and Pakistani Culture (English & Urdu) are his noted prose works. Faiz stood for the downtrodden and the disadvantaged. He transformed the ghazal into a medium of high aesthetic apperception together with a profound concern for humanity at large without altering its traditional artistic format. Though a
firm ideologue, he refrained from assuming the persona of a self-righteous propagandist in verse. His imagination effects an apt synthesis between experience and its lyrical expression in verse. Despite its diction’s heavy tilt towards Darri Persian, his verse deeply moves the reader and enthrals his sensibilities. He thought that a true creative artist restraining himself within the bounds of his art, had to explore his self, his people and the past, present and future of his age with a view to gauging his knowledge as well as perception on the canvas of contemporaneity. Dr. Mosadeq Hossain, a Faiz enthusiast, thinks that Faiz’s thought is revolutionary in character: he (Faiz) ‘feels’ as a lover, speaks in the language and accent of a poet and contemplates human existence as a mystic. ‘To introduce Faiz Ahmad Faiz in a very short time is, as William Blake said, to put the world in a grain of sand, or as Ghalib said, is like squeezing the ocean into a drop of water’. (Munir Saami) Admittedly Faiz’s scholarship in English lent an international dimension to his creative work which has been translated into many languages the world over.Victor Kiernan, Naomi Lazard, Andrew McCord, Agha Shahid Ali and Dr. Riz Rahim are some of his eminent translators in English aside from Mir Gul Khan Nasir, a well known Balochi poet, who translated Sar-e-Wadi-e-Seena into Balochi. The motto of creativity that he set for himself should serve as a perennial source of inspiration, and also emulation, for writers and poets of all classes and creeds:
Hum parwarish-e-lauh-o-qalam kartay rahe.ngay Jo dil pay guzarti hai raqam kartay rahe.ngay (We would continue to nurture the writing implements (paper and pen) so as to be able to keep a record of what is happening to our heart.)
have given to the youth? A. A lot of his poetry deals with turbulence. Similar to that turmoil in our country’s history which resulted in the creation of Bangladesh, we will lose part of our country if we don’t put our act together. That is something we have not learnt from – from the division of our country because of civil war; because our army went to conquer another of its parts and butchered our own people. Q. What is the most important lesson you have learnt from him? A. Pursuit of social justice. Also that money is no criteria for anybody’s value. It’s not a worthy objective to pursue.
From Page 1
Digesting Salmaan Taseer’s assassination as a hero in the Urdu press. Ilam Din, was openly condemned by vernacular newspapers till he received his first death sentence at the Sessions’ Court in May 1929. Only a ‘few dozen’ supporters outside the court were reported. But by the time Jinnah took on his appeal in the Lahore High Court, the first poetic lauding of him had begun to appear in the same newspapers. By the time, his appeal was rejected and he was transferred to the Mianwali jail, he had been labeled Ghazi. By the time, he was hanged in Mianwali, he became Ghazi Ilam Din Shaheed and received, what is remembered as, one of Lahore’s biggest funerals. If I were to read out the list of luminaries that ‘graced’ the occasion it might even get this article banned. I shall no one else but Allama Iqbal and his comments as central to the imagination of the funeral’s legacy. His comments you may search the web, find and verify. Buried at the Miani Sahib graveyard in Lahore, his body is today housed in a shrine which receives over a hundred visitors every day. If history is anything to go by, how do we react to the threat of Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri’s martyrdom? Ilam Din’s fame and myth became powerful after his death sentence was carried out. Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri has already found himself in the national imagination. His demeanor is disturbing. His confidence is disturbing. It is clear that he has not killed Salmaan Taseer for blaspheming against a religious sacrament. Or, perhaps, we are to realize today that the Blasphemy Law itself has become a sacrament. If this be true it is a disturbing moment. It is a moment that leaves no answers, only questions. And as I conclude this article I list those that occur to me: Can we allow Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri to become a martyr? Can we allow the Blasphemy Laws to remain? Can we change what is projected as Islamic sentiment? Can we digest Salmaan Taseer’s assassination? At the moment it is hard for me to answer either of the four questions.
Sunday, 09 January, 2011
the review
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Dumped into oblivion Baghsar situated so picturesquely upon its tree-covered knoll in this western extension of the Siwalik Hills was by-passed by history – built to be dumped into oblivion
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By Salman Rashid
ometime ago, I tried to get to Baghsar fort, north of Bhimber and within tickling distance of Indian bunkers and soldiers. I was told of a roundabout procedure to be followed in order to be permitted in the restricted area. I called a friend in a high place and asked what I was required to do. ‘You want to go to Baghsar, so you just go!’ said my friend. And so it was that I was put on a jeep in Jhelum with a talkative driver, a native of Kashmir, who also spoke a smattering of Chinese and was quite a man of the world. Down the Grand Trunk Road we went through Kharian in Punjab to Bhimber in Kashmir by a road I did not know existed. At one point I was assigned a ‘Conducting Officer’, a young lieutenant from Lahore whose unit was deployed around Baghsar. As we drove up the hills, the lieutenant mentioned a caravanserai he had visited not far from Baghsar. Caravanserais mean old routes and this road that now ended at the Pakistan-India border would once have carried right on. I knew if this were the past and another country, we could have gone on and fetched up at Srinagar eventually. Of the several routes leading up into Kashmir from the Punjab plains, this was the Bhimber route. It had been in use for hundreds of years when the Mughals began going by it to Kashmir. So did uncounted trading caravans as well, until partition put an end to it: from being a way-station in the heart of a country, the Saeedabad caravanserai suddenly became an outpost at the edge of our part of Kashmir on the border with an ‘enemy’ country. And so, as we came to a fork in the road, and we took the one going left. The village of Saeedabad now grows part inside and part out of the walls of the serai. The serai itself is no ordinary one, for the massive walls and turrets leave you in no doubt about this being the royal halting place. A high, imposing gate leads into a large courtyard where they would have corralled the elephants and horses. Today it was an enclosed cornfield. But the residential part of the serai (entered via another grand gateway) has been
heavily encroached upon by the ever-increasing population. One can now hardly explore the old serai without entering people’s homes and not wishing to raise hackles unnecessarily, I opted against intruding. My guide in this area was William Finch, an English merchant who travelled up and down the Grand Trunk road in the first two decades of the 17th century. His account is part of a book titled Early Travels in India and despite being utterly confusing at times, it makes for good reading. Finch did not take this road to Kashmir himself but wrote of it from hearsay. Not surprising then that he has some odd place names. He says the stage after Bimber (sic) is ‘Joagek Hately’ followed by ‘Chingesque Hately’. Now, we know that Finch’s Hately is actually the Punjabi haithli or lower. And we also know that Chingas Hatli was an important staging post on this route to Rajaori via Islamabad. But other than those early Europeans maps which based their information on Finch and marked Joagek Hatli, we do not hear of this place. Finch places this mysterious place at fourteen kos from Bhimber which may well be a slight miscalculation for the distance to Saeedabad. This is understandable for Finch was writing from hearsay. In any case, fourteen kos or some thirty-five miles is a bit of a punishing stage, especially on a winding hill road. Frederic Drew, a geologist who worked for the Maharaja of Kashmir about the middle of the 19th century wrote (The Jummoo and Kashmir Territories) that the stage after Bhimber was Saeedabad. It may therefore be that Finch got Saeedabad terribly mixed up. Strangely enough, neither Finch nor Drew says a word about Baghsar which stood only five kilometres to the east of the caravan stop and was obviously meant to guard the route. We drove back to the fork in the road and took the other one leading on to Baghsar. The road winds through thick groves of pines on the far side of which Baghsar rears majestically on a hill: double defensive walls and octagonal turrets. The latter strongly recall the forts of Muzafarabad in Kashmir and Ramkot, which now falls inside the Mangla reservoir. We drove around the hill and right up to the southwest side of the fort and entered via a low doorway that was perhaps meant for the servants. A whole chunk of the battlement on this side has disappeared: bombed by the Indians in a past engagement. Past this ruined section we went around to the north side to inspect the main entrance. Inside the gateway was a lavish foyer with a raised platform on the north and east side. If the exterior of the fort had seemed to be 17th century, the multi-cusped arches above the platform were clearly much later. In fact, it was now clear that the entire fort had been renovated and upgraded a number of times. The dominance of Vedic elements of architecture and ornamentation indicate the fort’s
association with the Dogra rulers of Kashmir. In the absence of maintenance, the ground outside and below the gateway had completely eroded away. But even when it was in top fettle, no charging horseman could have entered the fort at speed. Firstly because of the steep incline and then for the dogleg created by placing the exit into the fort at an angle of ninety degrees to the entrance. And even when entry was forced, the attackers would only have attained the narrow corridor between the outer and inner bastions. Here any attacking force would have been wiped out by the cross-fire of defenders on the inner and outer bastions. We retraced our steps to the gate leading into the enceinte. In its time Baghsar was prepared against assault by war elephants: the timber doors were reinforced with iron braces that had sharp spikes sticking out of them. A battering elephant would have been sorely handicapped against this entrance. But even before the mahouts directed the elephants against the spiked gateway, they would have been watching out for the machicolations with rounded, cupola-shaped hoods among the crenels of the turrets whence boiling water or oil would have been poured down on attackers below. Inside the compound a stepped well, over-filled by recent rains, once provided water to the garrison. All around the ramparts were rooms for the soldiery and in the centre a large mound of limestone blocks. The lieutenant did not know what the jumble of stones was and we concluded this could have been the residence of the Keeper of the Fort, the darogha. When and how it became a heap may have been forgotten long ago.
I was led into a large hall under the south wall. Accessible by a narrow staircase it was typical of audience halls built during the Sikh and Dogra rule that I have seen in havelis as far away as Gujranwala and Lahore. Like those in Punjab this one too had jharokas at the upper level. But while the jharokas seen in Punjab were accessible, these had no way of being reached except by ladder from the hall itself. This was most peculiar and I concluded that the jharokas were mere ornaments. We climbed up the rampart to grand vistas all around. The pine trees descended to the valley floor thinly sprinkled with houses and the ridge barely a few hundred metres away to the north was India. Behind us, to the south, was fold after fold of hills with villages nestling between them. The lieutenant said Baghsar was so much of a tourist spot that it should be swamped by visitors. But we know that for many years it may not for it sits smack on the border where ordinary non-local mortals are not permitted. Postscript. Though the emperors Akbar and Jehangir both passed this way en route to Kashmir, neither deemed it fit to comment on Baghsar. In fact, it features in no major historical work. Dr Saifur Rahman Dar, the well-known archaeologist, points out that it does find its way into a couple of local histories. This means that Baghsar situated so picturesquely upon its tree-covered knoll in this western extension of the Siwalik Hills was by-passed by history. It was built to be dumped into oblivion. Salman Rashid is a travel writer and photographer who has travelled all around Pakistan and written about his journeys. He is rated as the best in the country. Pics by the Author