Opinion Faiz teaches us to question. His work shouldn’t be erased from syllabus
Chapal Mehra writes: The removal of Faiz’s poetry from school textbooks, along with other content about humanism, democracy, and diversity, defeats the whole purpose of education
Recent news reports tell us that the revised Class X CBSE textbooks have bid goodbye to Faiz, along with chapters on “democracy and diversity”. 
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Late one evening, over lukewarm tea, in the middle of discussing gay history and rights in South Asia, noted historian Saleem Kidwai quoted a Faiz Ahmad Faiz nazm (verse) to me. Its famous first line was “Aaj bazaar mein pa-ba-jaulan chalo”, quite literally meaning “Let us walk in the market in chains”. He explained that Faiz wrote this nazm while being taken in chains from prison by the military dictatorship at the time in Pakistan. It spoke about how we would all need to walk openly wearing the chains we are bound in by society until we achieve freedom.
Years later, it surprised me, pleasantly, that this very nazm was being taught to young CBSE students. Another line from this nazm is even more inspiring, as it tells its readers that it is “not enough to shed tears, to suffer anguish, not enough to nurse love in secret…Today, walk in the public square fettered in chains”.
In these troubled, divisive times, reading Faiz is balm to our frayed nerves. Teaching it to our kids, well, now that’s asking for trouble. After all, don’t we want our kids to cooperate, to comply, and to fit in this new world? Don’t we want them to follow rules and not question the status quo? Why, then, teach them about freedom or protest? Why should we let them read Faiz?
Recent news reports tell us that the revised Class X CBSE textbooks have bid goodbye to Faiz, along with chapters on “democracy and diversity” that documented social division and inequalities in India. Along with these deletions, two chapters on “popular struggles and movements” and “challenges to democracy” have been dropped as well. It’s unclear whether these will be replaced or entirely obliterated from the textbooks.
This is not all. Those in Class XI and XII will no longer read about the Non-Aligned Movement, the Cold War era, the rise of Islamic empires in Afro-Asian territories, the chronicles of the Mughal courts or the industrial revolution. One wonders how, then, will they make sense of India’s foreign policy, its current stance in the Ukraine war or understand the depth of the influence of Mughal India? It’s confusing as we don’t know if what arrives in its place will inform these students more eloquently about these concepts.
Perhaps, all these deletions and exclusions are good news. This is the order of our days. In today’s times, ideas, especially those of diversity, struggles and non-alignment, are dangerous for young minds. What if they begin asking questions? What if they refuse to hate, or grow up unprejudiced? What if they turn to seek a path of protest? The entire purpose of education would be lost. They, then, are unlikely to fit in anywhere while discussing such ideas or reading Faiz.
So it’s not surprising that many think the consequences of these exclusions are insignificant. We grew up reading everyone from Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Agyeya, and Mahadevi Varma, alongside Faiz. Our ideas of dissent and freedom were informed as much by the material we read in textbooks as by the poetry we quoted — albeit in jest as we were still too young to comprehend its depth of meaning.
But the poetry stuck with us and does till today. We argued and questioned the rules, refusing the hate that society and the media handed out to us. Faiz and his friends did indeed ruin us.
So, for us ruined folks who grew up believing in the idea of a Subcontinental culture that sweeps across what we now recognise as independent countries, Faiz and other exclusions seem a deep cut. But it comes as no surprise, either. Faiz, whose words surround us in the popular culture of the Subcontinent, has always troubled the minds of smaller men. His poetry is remembered and reinvented every few years enrapturing us, yet again.
Erasure, of Faiz, or the ideas of humanism, democracy, and diversity is not possible. But do ask what these exclusions will cost our future generations. What will our children learn about the ideals on which the world’s largest democracy brought together peoples of different languages, cultures, food habits and faiths? People who struggled together against oppression in action, poetry and song. And yet always found enough common ground to live together, irrespective of the many divisions of caste, class, gender, language and faith.
Reading Faiz in these times — when your religion, not your culture, is your identity, when the choice of what to wear, what to eat, what music to listen to is curtailed — is certainly needed. But who will argue for him to be read by our children?
Meanwhile, despite these deletions, Faiz, the poet, though long gone, continues to fervently ask questions. Someone mentions Faiz, someone sings him, someone quotes him. And then, he comes back again, rudely, uninvited, into the room and the conversation. With him creep in ideas of freedom, democracy, dissent, diversity, and exclusion. And then someone quotes another nazm. This time, it’s the familiar “Hum dekhenge”. We shall see…
This column first appeared in the print edition on April 28, 2022 under the title ‘Faiz is in the room’. The writer is a public health expert
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