Hamid Mir
Sir Allama Muhammad Iqbal’s last collection of Urdu and Persian poetry, “Armaghan-e-Hijaz”, was published sometime after his death. A poem included in it became very famous, titled “Badhe Baloch Ki Advice to His Son”. Many of the poems in this poem show the way out of many of today’s problems and crises. For example, Iqbal said.
دیں ہاتھ سے دے کر اگر آزاد ہو ملت
ہے ایسی تجارت میں مسلمان کا خسارا
Last week, I happened to watch an intercollegiate poetry competition at Islamabad Model College for Girls, F-62. Only Allama Iqbal’s poems were to be recited in this competition. The mastery and accessibility of Iqbal’s poetry by teams of female students from different colleges was a pleasant surprise for me. A female student recited this poem.
افراد کے ہاتھوں میں ہے اقوام کی تقدیر
ہر فرد ہے ملت کے مقدر کا ستارا
As soon as I heard this poem, one of the judges of the poetry competition blurted out involuntarily. “Badhe Baloch Ki Nasheed” is the most popular poem here. Hearing this, I was thinking that Allama Iqbal talked about Balochistan and the Baloch from his sermon in Allahabad in 1930 to his last book. The Baloch intellectuals who used to go to Lahore to consult Allama Iqbal for freedom from British colonialism are today unaware of the relationship between Iqbal and Balochistan. When the competition was over, before the distribution of prizes among the winners, renowned researcher and Iqbal scholar Dr. Khurram Elahi delivered a speech. The students’ heartfelt affection and love for Allama Iqbal warmed their feelings so much that they became naked swords against Iqbal’s enemies and in one breath they gave a full answer to many objections raised against the poet of the East.
یہ نکتہ خوب کہا شیر شاہ سوری نے
کہ امتیاز قبائل تمام تر خواری
Dr. Khurram Elahi’s talk revealed that today there is a campaign against Allama Iqbal on social media based on baseless allegations. When he challenged the accusers to bring evidence, the accusers disappeared. After the prize distribution ceremony, the teachers at Islamabad Model College for Girls F6-II and Dr. Khurram Elahi had a detailed discussion on the campaign against Allama Iqbal on social media. A similar discussion took place a few days ago after the Kashmir seminar held at Fast University Islamabad, where Mushahid Hussain Syed and Sardar Masood Khan were also invited besides me. Here, a teacher asked me regarding the book of a Punjabi nationalist intellectual that Sher Shah Suri was the enemy of Punjab, why did Allama Iqbal support Sher Shah Suri in his poetry? In fact, Hazrat Iqbal said at one place.
I asked the teacher that Iqbal praised Sher Shah Suri’s point that discrimination based on tribes leads to nothing but humiliation. Where did the hostility towards Punjab come from? I asked that if Iqbal was an enemy of Punjab, why did he write a poem titled “Nanak” for Guru Nanak, which is included in Bang-e-Dara? I also asked that Iqbal and Quaid-e-Azam had also openly supported Bhagat Singh, the great hero of the freedom struggle against the British government, but some biased intellectuals of Punjab deliberately ignore this aspect. Then I also had to tell him that I have also read the book referred to, and the real reason for the criticism of Allama Iqbal in this book is that when he became a member of the Punjab Assembly in 1926, he demanded the implementation of agricultural tax because he was against the landlords and the majority of the landlords were members of the pro-British Unionist Party. The opposition to the Unionist Party was described as opposition to Punjab, just as today, if Maryam Nawaz’s government is criticized in Punjab, this criticism is described as hatred of Punjab. This conversation spread to Balochistan and a professor from Fast University said that you are absolutely right because the provincial government of Balochistan also considers every political opponent of its own as an opponent of Pakistan. I told him that during the Asma Jahangir Conference in Lahore a few days ago, there was applause during Akhtar Mengal’s speech, which made some powerful people in Islamabad angry with him. Akhtar Mengal had only said that Balochistan has gone far beyond the point of no return, so now you should raise the slogan of Udhar Tum Udhar Hum because you had raised this slogan earlier too. He meant Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, to whom this slogan is attributed. Akhtar Mengal also mentioned the 50-year-old disappearance of his brother Asadullah Mengal and said that the Missing Persons Inquiry Commission disposed of my elder brother’s case by saying that the address and mobile number of the relatives of the missing Asad Mengal could not be found, so this case was disposed of. Akhtar Mengal said in his speech that you have registered several cases against me and have included me in the exit control list. It is surprising that you do not know my address and phone number. The most noteworthy point is that former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto mentioned the disappearance of Asad Mengal in his book “Afwaah aur Haqiqat” which he wrote in jail before his death.
I have mentioned this book many times. In 1976, Asad Mengal was arrested from Karachi. The Prime Minister came to know about the disappearance of Attaullah Mengal’s son through newspapers. The then Army Chief General Tikka Khan told the Prime Minister that Asad Mengal was injured during the arrest and later died. His body was buried near Thatta. When the Prime Minister said that the body should be shown to his family, the Army Chief gave the message of his fellow generals to the Prime Minister that you should tell him that Asad Mengal had fled to Afghanistan. Asad Mengal’s father Attaullah Mengal was not given the address of his son’s grave until his death. He had never raised the slogan of separation. My last meeting with him was in Dubai. The old Baloch had told me that remember, we will not break Pakistan. If this country is damaged again, the same people who called us traitors yesterday and still call us traitors today will be responsible.
