Iqbal had asked to be granted this wish: “Make my vision common.” This wish, from a pained heart, is sure to come true. But after witnessing it on soap packets, oil tins, hotel bills and laundry lists, it seems to me that though his words have been made common, his vision will take more time. As he himself said:
A diamond may be cut by a flower’s petal but
The naive man isn’t affected by the wise word.
— (Originally published as Yom-e-Iqbal)
A Question is Produced
Manto wrote this piece a few months after Partition. We know this because he refers to Gandhi as having passed away and Jinnah (who died only seven months later in September 1948) as still alive. His fondness for Gandhi, something he felt till the end, and his dislike for Jinnah, is apparent here. It is a slightly surreal piece for those who are unfamiliar with why Manto wrote on the subject of questions. The fact is, the ideological State suppressed the individual by denying him the freedom of speech. Manto took this aspect of Pakistan head on. Something was lost while translating this piece, which uses a recurring pun on the word “paida” (born), but I’ve given it a go anyway.
Respectable ladies and gentlemen (and also less-respectable women and men), your attention please!
You are hereby notified that another question has come up. In fact, from the time of Adam till this day, as many questions have been conceived as there are stars in the night sky. But even so, they keep producing themselves.
What I mean to say is that nobody stands up, or indeed sits down, to say that no more questions should be allowed to be produced.
Allah sends down natural disasters to control population explosion. He encourages us to go to war, He creates Pakistan and Akhand Bharat. In doing this, He teaches humans new and innovative methods of birth control.
For some reason, however, He hasn’t turned His attention to the problem of controlling this question explosion. Questions keep producing themselves every-where and could in fact arise any moment. The thing is very fecund. No particular weather, type of soil, water or fertilizer or plough is needed for one to produce itself.
A child is born after spending nine months in the womb, but a question pops out instantly, needing no midwife, no maternity home and no chloroform. It simply presents itself before us: Hello!
A magistrate is smoking in the court. No question arises. The accused, yours truly, is summoned but doesn’t bow to his Lordship. Immediately, the question of contempt of court is produced.
Another example: you find no work and find it difficult to make ends meet. For two years you have struggled and finally give in and decide to kill yourself. You’re fortunate to have failed in this effort. But now a legal question has been produced: why should you not be punished for making the attempt at suicide?
And another: the government has built a ring road and on its entire stretch didn’t think it necessary to erect a urinal. One day you’re just dying to go. You relieve yourself against a wall when a cop gets you. The question of committing an indecent act in public has now been produced.
Yet another: you’re a local refugee (from west Punjab). You’re running a press in Rawalpindi, and another in Peshawar. You’re living in Lahore, where a third, Hindu-owned press is allotted to you. No question is produced.
But say you’re a refugee from the Indian side of Punjab. You’ve left behind a large press in India. You move to Lahore but can find no press there to be given to you. You’re angry and ask why a third press was given to the local man. The question is produced: isn’t he more deserving than you because he’s accustomed to running presses?
One more: thieves strike six times in your house in one month. You’ve not gone to the police — why bother them with trifles? But they find out anyway. The question now produces itself: why did you refrain from doing an important duty?
Uncomfortable questions have been produced and more will surely be born. In the last century, the question kept arising whether the Mughal state would be overthrown. And so, on every page of its history you’ll find men, great historical figures, with their necks through this noose of a single question: will the Mughal state survive?
In Amritsar’s Jallianwala Bagh, people of all faiths came together for freedom. The question again was produced of overthrowing the State, and thousands of people answered that question with their lives.
Questions are usually dangerous — those that arise in the minds of rulers and in the minds of the ruled.
For the ruler usually only a single question arises (though it can appear in different versions): what can be done to control the ruled? And the question arises whether by doing this, whatever is done, the sentiment of the ruled towards the ruler will be suppressed.
Experience tells us that laws and Acts and such things have always been unsuccessful during suppression. But why? See, another question has popped out.
Of course, it’s not necessary that every question should have an answer. The real question is: what is the proper thing to do? If it is to remain silent, then undoubtedly politicians would not speak. Here the question is whether this silence might provoke seditious talk among some people. But then again, why not just get rid of all such men? And another question comes up. By doing this, which in English is called a “purge”, is it guaranteed that the others will be silenced? Or will the purge produce a reaction in them?
The French philosopher, J J Rousseau was troubled by this question: when man is born free, why is he in chains everywhere? But what became of this line of thought? In cutting off their chains, didn’t the French cut down a few human beings as well. The question is: was such a revolution moral?
And what happened in Russia? The slaves of centuries rose with the question of freedom. And then? They then enslaved the Tsar and his family and finally executed them. The question arises: what right do the ruled have, over some small question, to sacrifice their ruler?
But what is to be done? Whether questions are small or big, thin or fat, the damn things just keep producing themselves. Elders tell us that the questions that are produced in the mind can be answered by the intellect, but not those produced by the body. For example, the question of hunger has come up in a man’s stomach. If you reply to his question with sympathy, dreams of a better future and thoughts of paradise where grapes automatically squeeze their nectar into his mouth, you’ll get nowhere with him. Because the stomach demands an immediate reply to its question about food.
The question here is — when all of us know this, why do we approach the question of hunger and poverty in other ways? It’s a serious question.
And then there are silly questions, which don’t really deserve an answer but have your attention in any case. I was at a saloon the other day getting a shave. While the barber was lathering me up, he came up with this: ‘So do you think Gandhiji shaved himself or got someone to do it for him?’
Whether a man is a barber or cobbler, butcher or baker, millionaire or pauper, these questions will keep producing themselves and there’s no known way of applying birth control to them.