Manzar Ahtesham’s original Urdu work “ Sukha Bargad” has been called a
modern classic and has been ably translated into English under the
title “ A Dying Banyan”. Set in the late seventies and early eighties
when Islamic tendencies are on their rise in Pakistan and Zulfiquar Ali
Bhutto has been hanged while in India, Mrs. Gandhi has lost the
elections and the Janata Party has come into power bringing in its wake
the erstwhile Jan Sanghis¬.
The book tries to follow the life of Suhail, the son of a middle class
and secular minded lawyer and his devout tradition minded wife as
observed by Rashida, Suhail’s sister. Along the way, through Suhail’s
experiences, it tries to trace the search for identity for a Muslim in
post partition India. Suhail and his family live in Bhopal, a city that
has always been Muslim in character and ruled by a Nawab; but in
independent India, its character slowly changes as it is rechristened
as the capital of the modern state of Madhya Pradesh.
Slowly as the
Muslim identity erodes and many of the Muslims of means emigrate to
Pakistan, questions arise in the minds of those who stay back- or
circumstances force them to ask questions. The book touches upon the
wars of the 1965 and 1971 and the peculiar tests the Muslims were put
to.
Every one – the Hindus and the Muslims listened clandestinely to Radio
Pakistan; but if the Hindus listened in, they were merely listening in
to discover what the “other side” was saying; but if the Muslims did
so, they were traitors who tuned into the “enemy” for the news. And yet
with so many blood relatives in Pakistan, the Indian Muslims had valid
reasons to listen to Radio Pakistan, not because they were traitors but
because they had legitimate concerns about the welfare of their
families.
Sukha Bargad also traces the silent beginnings of communalism
in post British India and the some what clumsy attempts of Muslims to
adapt and adjust. Some like Suhail’s lawyer father held on to their
secular ideals; but they had passed their prime and they were left
undisturbed but Suhail, his son attempted to follow in his footsteps;
he very quickly found that the going was not too easy and that under
the veneer of secularism, distinctions flourished and barriers
continued to be erected. Muslims react in different ways; some migrate
out – that is what seems best for a time till Zia ul Huq comes to power
in Pakistan, hangs Bhutto and starts promoting a distinctly unpalatable
style of Islam; a few retreat deeper into their obscurantist tradition
and ghetto culture and a few like the politician Rajab Ali are rank
opportunists – courting the Jana Sangh one day and giving clarion calls
about Islam being in danger the next day.
The ultimate message of the book is perhaps captured best by the
relentless downslide of Suhail’s life – unable to make peace with
traditionalists, distrusted by the liberal as well as the communal
Hindu, he finds succor only in drink and decay even as his sister,
Rashida, the narrator looks on helplessly. The ultimate message of the
book in the translator –Kuldip Singh’s words is to peep into the heart
of minorities, wherever they may be and empathize with their
alienation, fears and insecurities – and society’s fundamental
questioning of any one who is different- in look, in though and in
belief and the unending agni pariksha that they have to go through – in
every generation.
