Faiz Ahmad Faiz (; 13 February 1911 – 20 November 1984) was a Pakistani poet and author of Urdu and Punjabi literature. Faiz was one of the most well-known Urdu writers of his time and remains influential in Pakistan and India. He was also a teacher, military officer, journalist, trade unionist, and broadcaster.Sisir Kumar Das, History of Indian Literature: 1911-1956, struggle for freedom : triumph and tragedy, Sahitya Akademi, 2005, p. 476
Born in the Punjab Province, Faiz studied at Government College and Oriental College in Lahore and went on to serve in the British Indian Army. After the Partition of India, Faiz served as editor-in-chief of two major newspapers — the English language daily Pakistan Times and the Urdu Daily Imroze. He was also a leading member of the Communist Party before his arrest and imprisonment in 1951 for his alleged part in a conspiracy to overthrow the Liaquat administration and replace it with a left-wing, pro-Soviet government.
Faiz was released after four years in prison and spent time in Moscow and London, becoming a notable member of the Progressive Writers' Movement. After the downfall of military dictator Ayub Khan's government, and the Independence of Bangladesh, he worked as an aide to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, but exiled himself to Beirut after Bhutto's execution at the hands of another military dictator Zia ul-Haq.
Faiz was a well-known Marxist and is said to have been "a progressive who remained faithful to Marxism." Critics have noted that Faiz took the tenets of Marxism where Muhammad Iqbal had left them, and relayed them to a younger generation of Muslims who were considered more open to change, more receptive to egalitarianism, and had a greater concern for the poor. However, literary critic Fateh Muhammad Malik argues that while initially Faiz was more of a secular Marxist he eventually subscribed to Islamic socialism as his life progressed, as some of his poems displayed a more religious tone over the years, even suggesting that Faiz ultimately aimed for an Islamic revolution, having endorsed the 1979 Iranian revolution. One of his most famous poems, "Hum Dekhenge", was a tribute to the Islamic revolution of Iran.
Faiz was the first Asian poet to be awarded the Lenin Peace Prize (1962) by the Soviet Union and was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was posthumously honoured when the Pakistan Government conferred upon him the nation's highest civil award—the Nishan-e-Imtiaz—in 1990.
Early life
Family background Faiz Ahmad Faiz was born on 13 February 1911 in Kala Qader, in the Narowal District of the Punjab Province of British India (present-day Faiz Nagar, in the Narowal District of Punjab, Pakistan) into a Punjabi family belonging to the Sidhu clan of Jats.
Faiz hailed from an academic family that was well known in literary circles. His father, Sultan Muhammad Khan, was a prominent barrister and an autodidact who worked for the British Government, and also served as ambassador of Emirate of Afghanistan to the United Kingdom. He worked as a shepherd as a child but was ultimately able to study law at Cambridge University. Khan was a polyglot fluent in Urdu, Punjabi, Persian, Arabic, English, Pashto and Russian. He wrote and published the biography of Amir Abdur Rahman, an Emir of Afghanistan. His home was often the scene of a gathering of local poets and writers who met to promote the literacy movement in his native province.
Sultan Muhammad Khan was also associated with Allama Mohammed Iqbal and was known to be a part of intellectual meeting of Iqbal and other prominent thinkers of that time. Khan had four children, all sons: Tufail Ahmed, MSc in Physics from Aligarh; Faiz Ahmed; Inayat Ahmed, a barrister, and Bashir Ahmed, who died in infancy.
Education Following the Muslim tradition, Faiz's family directed him to study Islamic studies at the local mosque to be oriented to the basics of religious studies by the Ahl-i Hadith scholar Muhammad Ibrahim Mir Sialkoti.Andreas Rieck, The Shias of Pakistan: An Assertive and Beleaguered Minority, Oxford University Press, 2016, p. 57 Following the Muslim tradition, he learned Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and the Quran. Faiz was also a Pakistan nationalist, and often said, "purify your hearts, so you can save the country..." His father later pulled him from Islamic school because Faiz, who went to a madrasa for a few days found that the impoverished children there, were not comfortable having him around and ridiculed him. Faiz came to the madrasa in neat clothes, in a horse-drawn carriage, while the students of the school were from very poor backgrounds and used to sit on the floor on straw mats.Faiznama Faiz's close friend, Dr. Ayub Mirza, recalls that Faiz came home and told his father he was not going to attend the madrasa anymore. His father then registered him at the Scotch Mission School which was managed and run by a local British family. Faiz almost started doing Quran hifz and then left it due to eyesight issues. He later in his life regretted leaving the hifz in between.
Faiz attended Murray College at Sialkot for intermediate studies (11th and 12th grade). In 1926, Faiz enrolled in Department of Languages and Fine Arts of the Government College, Lahore. While there, he was greatly influenced by Shams-ul-Ulema, Professor Mir Hassan who taught Arabic and Professor Pitras Bukhari . Professor Hasan had also taught Dr. Muhammad Iqbal, a philosopher, poet, and politician of South Asia. In 1926, Faiz attained his BA with Honors in Arabic, under the supervision of Professor Mir Hassan. In 1930, Faiz joined the post-graduate program of the Government College, obtaining an MA in English literature in 1932, and wrote his master's thesis on the poetry of Robert Browning. The same year, Faiz completed a first-class degree at Punjab University's Oriental College. It was during his college years that he met M. N. Roy and Muzaffar Ahmed who influenced him to become a member of the Communist Party. In addition to Urdu, English, and Arabic, Faiz was also fluent in French and Persian.
Career
Academia
In 1935 Faiz joined the faculty of Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh, serving as a lecturer in English and British literature. Later in 1937, Faiz moved to Lahore to reunite with his family after accepting the professorship at the Hailey College of Commerce, initially teaching introductory courses on economics and commerce. In 1936, Faiz joined a literary movement, (PWM) and was appointed its first secretary by his fellow Marxist Sajjad Zaheer. In East and West-Pakistan, the movement gained considerable support in civil society. In 1938, he became editor-in-chief of the monthly Urdu magazine "Adab-e-Latif (lit. Belles Letters) until 1946. In 1941, Faiz published his first literary book "Naqsh-e-Faryadi" (lit. Imprints) and joined the Pakistan Arts Council (PAC) in 1947.
Faiz was a good friend of Soviet poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko who once said "In Faiz's autobiography... is his poetry, the rest is just a footnote". During his lifetime, Faiz published eight books and received accolades for his works. Faiz was a humanist, a lyrical poet, whose popularity reached neighbouring India and Soviet Union. Indian biographer Amaresh Datta, compared Faiz as "equal esteem in both East and West". Throughout his life, his revolutionary poetry addressed the tyranny of military dictatorships, tyranny, and oppression. Faiz himself never compromised on his principles despite being threatened by the right-wing parties in Pakistan.
Faiz's writings are comparatively new verse form in Urdu poetry based on Western models. Faiz was influenced by the works of Allama Iqbal and Mirza Ghalib, assimilating modern Urdu with classical. Faiz used more and more demands for the development of socialism in the country, finding socialism the only solution of country's problems. During his life, Faiz was concerned with more broader socialists ideas, using Urdu poetry for the cause and expansion of socialism in the country. Urdu poetry and ghazals influenced Faiz to continue his political themes as non-violent and peaceful, opposing the far right politics in Pakistan. Faiz consistently faced political persecution for his revolutionary views and ideologies and was especially targeted by the religious and conservative press due to his lifelong advocacy for the rights of women and workers.
Military service On 11 May 1942, Faiz was commissioned in the British Indian Army as a second lieutenant in the 18th Royal Garhwal Rifles. Initially assigned as a public relations officer in the General Staff Branch, Faiz received rapid promotions in succession to acting captain on 18 July 1942, war-substantive lieutenant and temporary captain on 1 November 1942, acting major on 19 November 1943 and to temporary major and war-substantive captain on 19 February 1944. On 30 December 1944, he received a desk assignment as an assistant director of public relations on the staff of the North-Western Army, with the local rank of lieutenant-colonel. For his service, he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire, Military Division (MBE) in the 1945 New Year Honours list. Faiz served with a unit led by Akbar Khan, a left-wing officer and future Pakistan Army general. He remained in the army for a short period after the war, receiving promotion to acting lieutenant-colonel in 1945 and to war-substantive major and temporary lieutenant-colonel on 19 February 1946. In 1947, Faiz opted for the newly established State of Pakistan. However, after witnessing the 1947 Kashmir war with India, Faiz decided to leave the army and submitted his resignation in 1947.
Internationalism and communism
Faiz believed in internationalism and emphasised the philosophy of the global village. In 1947, he became editor of the Pakistan Times and in 1948, he became vice-president of the Pakistan Trade Union Federation (PTUF). In 1950, Faiz joined the delegation of Prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan, initially leading a business delegation in the United States, attending the meeting at the International Labour Organization (ILO) at San Francisco. During 1948–50, Faiz led the PTUF's delegation in Geneva, and became an active member of World Peace Council (WPC).
Faiz was a well-known communist in the country and had been long associated with the Communist Party of Pakistan, which he founded in 1947 along with Marxist Sajjad Zaheer and Jalaludin Abdur Rahim. Faiz had his first exposure to socialism and communism before the independence of State of Pakistan which he thought was consistent with his progressive thinking. Faiz had long associated ties with the Soviet Union, a friendship with atheist country that later honoured him with high award. Even after his death, the Russian government honoured him by calling him "our poet" to many Russians. However his popularity was waned in Bangladesh after 1971 when Dhaka did not win much support for him. Faiz and other pro-communists had no political role in the country, despite their academic brilliance.
Although Faiz was a not a hardcore or far-left communist, he spent most of the 1950s and 1960s promoting the cause of communism in Pakistan. During the time when Faiz was editor of the Pakistan Times, one of the leading newspapers of the 1950s, he lent editorial support to the party. He was also involved in the circle lending support to military personnel (e.g. Major General Akbar Khan). His involvement with the party and Major General Akbar Khan's coup plan led to his imprisonment later.
Later in his life, while giving an interview with a local newspaper, Faiz was asked by the interviewer if he was a communist. He replied with characteristic nonchalance: "No. I am not, a communist is a person who is a card carrying member of the Communist party. The party is banned in our country. So how can I be a communist?...".
Rawalpindi plot and exile