The cross-border solidarity of Amrita Pritam and Fahmida Riaz, the student movement, and peacemongering today

Posted on January 28, 2024 by beenasarwar
Poster for the event honouring Amrita Pritam and Fahmida Riaz. Courtesy PIPFPD

The latest Southasia Peace Action Network (Sapan) newsletter we put out highlighted a commemoration in Delhi for two iconic feminist poets of Pakistan and India: How the friendship of two cross-border feminist poets symbolises our work; upcoming events, and more

Radical love, epitomised by the late Amrita Pritam and Fahmida Riaz is ‘one of the seeds of the revolutionary thought process’, to quote the Pakistan India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) stalwarts who organised the event – Vijayan MJ, Tapan Bose, and Dr Syeda Hameed. Their consistent work over the decades for peace and justice is truly inspirational, and I feel privileged to know them personally.

I was also privileged to know one of the late poets personally, Fahmida ‘Khala’ (aunt) to me, who was close to my father Dr. M. Sarwar. He led the Democratic Students Federation (DSF), Pakistan’s first student movement while at Dow Medical College in Karachi, 1949-54.

I’ve uploaded archives about the movement here: drsarwar.wordpress.com. Principles of that struggle continue to show the way, like the importance of coming together across divides for a minimum common agenda. For DSF, it was student rights. For Sapan, it’s Southasia Peace. We need it now, for the sake of the people of the region, and beyond. 

The Videos section of the Dr Sarwar blog includes a playlist of video clips from the event held at the Karachi Arts Council in January 2010 to commemorate DSF and the student movement, a few months after my father passed on.

Compered by the actor Rahat Kazmi, the event featured speeches from young activists, students, and academics like Amar Sindhu, Alia Amirali, Ali Cheema, and Varda Nisar, as well as veterans like I.A. Rehman, besides the singer Tina Sani, Taimur Rahman and his band Laal, and Fahmida Riaz.

Fahmida Khala recited her poem ‘Palwashey Muskurao’ (Palvasha, smile), dedicated to daughter of late Afzal Bangash of the Mazdoor Kissan Party (Workers’ and Peasants’ Party), and the followers of other late leftist leaders. They may no longer be on this earth, but their principles and aspirations for human rights and dignity continue to show the way.

Fahmida Riaz reciting her poem ‘Palwashey Muskurao’ (Palvasha, smile), Jan. 2010, Karachi.

(ends)

Filed under: Art and activism, Dr M Sarwar, Pakistan-India, Progressive politics, Resistance | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

From the Zia dark years in Pakistan to the ‘hijab row’ in India

Posted on February 28, 2022 by beenasarwar

I was initially hesitant to add my two bits to the ‘hijab row’ in India about which so much has already been written. But I’m glad I did – gained a lot of insights and info that I tried to share with a wider audience. Thanks to Ullekh NP, Executive Editor at Open Magazine in India for prodding me. Published 25 Feb with the headline Hijab Row in India: Just Like Us, with a powchaerful illustration copied below. I’m thrilled that my SAWM sisters, the South Asian Women in Journalism, liked it enough to share it on their website under Article of the Day category. Posting the essay below with materials not used in the Open article, including my 1983 (or was it ’82?) piece in The Star with my own illustrations, HUNDRED AND ONE USES OF A CHADDAR, and link to Fahmida Riaz reciting her poem.

Illustration by Saurabh Singh for Open Magazine

WOMEN ACROSS SOUTH Asia and beyond have for centuries loosely covered their heads and bosoms, regardless of religion, shielding themselves from unrelated men as well as from the hot sun.

Those entering the work force in urban areas have been quicker to shed traditional attire. Those who find these changes threatening sometimes find ways to keep women in their place. Religion offers a convenient pretext.

The more conservative Muslim women in South Asia also traditionally wore a burqa, more all-enveloping than a chaddar or dupatta. My grandmother in Allahabad, U.P., used to wear a brown burqa that she discarded eventually in Karachi.

Growing up in Pakistan under the military dictatorship of Gen. Ziaul Haq, 1977-88, women like me have first-hand experience of such tactics. We watch in horror as shadows of the ZIa dark years seem to spread across the border into India.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Pakistan-India, Progressive politics, Violence in the name of religion | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »