TREASONER's SCREED Farooq Ahmed

TREASONER’S SCREED Farooq Ahmed KAZI IN NOMANSLAND Naeem Mohaiemen 77 � — — — — � — � � — � — — � � � � � � � � � � � KAZI IN NOMANSLAND Naeem Mohaiemen � Udayan reminds me, as we walk to the train, that Nazrul is the only person to appear on the stamps of all three countries. — —That’s not right, can’t be right. There must have been others. —None, I’m sure. — —Gandhi? — —On the Pakistan stamp...? What do you think?! — � —Hmm...what about Nehru? No, I suppose not. Wait there must have — � � been someone. —No really, he was the only one. — � —Are you sure? — —Arre bhai, oversure! I did my research, I know Nazrul’s story. — � Months later, in Dhaka central post office, I’m in a parallel argument. This time I’m the one—“oversure.” But the Post Master General is not convinced. He calls his kerani in and asks him to search the library. The kerani returns fifteen minutes later, with a Philately Souvenir Booklet. The director turns to page 22. He has a seminar essay there. He insists, gently, that I read it all the way through. � The essay is all about Pakistani stamps. It seems there were 328 stamps issued by Pakistan from 1947 until the 1971 liberation of Bangladesh � (or “breakup of Pakistan,” depending on your perspective). Only one of these � featured a Bengali, poet Kazi Nazrul Islam. His assistant interjects: —But, Sir, there was also the 1956 stamp that had ‘two anna’ in Bengali script. —Yes, but that one had distorted Bangla. Bhool Bangla, bujhlen? Later, Salam the stamp shop owner pulls out his reference notebook to also dispute the 328 number. He shows me Pakistan’s “Pioneers of Freedom” � series, each face drawn in bas relief: Suhrawardy, Fazlul Huq, Khaza Nazimuddin, Sir Salimullah. But a phone call to another stamp store reveals that this series came out in the 1990s. The 1 for 328 statistic stays intact. Nazrul ended up spanning all three countries. After Partition, he refuses � to leave India for Pakistan. Or to be precise, his family makes the decision for � him, Nazrul has already lost the ability to speak. The mysterious disease that � enveloped him is already in its second year. In this manner he becomes an uneasy new icon: the Muslim poet who refuses Pakistan, or rather resists the � � way territory is being redrawn. India embraces this decision, and structures a moral around it: Muslims have a home in India after all. Perhaps Maulana Azad serves the same function as well within the new Indian state? All the � token Muslim refuseniks. At the midnight hour, the Partition of India begins. As new flags go up, 79 � � � � � ি� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � — � KAZI IN NOMANSLAND Naeem Mohaiemen familiar modes of belonging are broken and reborn. The geographical � � impossibility that is the new country of Pakistan: “two Wings a thousand miles apart, that fantastic bird of a place, two Wings without a body, sundered � by the land-mass of its greatest foe, joined by nothing but God” [Salman Rushdie, Shame, 1983]. � Yes, the two Pakistans are ‘united’ by religion but divided by language, � ি� culture and everything else that really matters. In 1952, the central state’s � clumsy attempt to impose Urdu as an all-Pakistan language goes very badly. � Language riots, four deaths, and the birth of a Bengali nationalist movement � � in the Eastern half. By the 1960s, Pakistan is increasingly concerned about � � ‘losing’ the restless Eastern province. The language riots killed one idea, but a newer one takes its place—culture as cohesion. Bengali culture, appropriately � modified and “Islamized,” as the scaffolding for “national unification.” � � Two Koreas, Two Germanys, and finally, now, a line is drawn. Here, “we” won’t allow Two Pakistans. Enter Nazrul into the Pakistan project, � passing onto the national stamp. To be used on letters or postcards, perhaps even some to be mailed to our lost families across the border. Reading parts of his story, a friend tells me of an appropriate Derrida quote: “No, the stamp is not a metaphor, on the contrary, metaphor is a stamp.” Slowly, steadily, Nazrul is rebranded as an exclusively Muslim poet, to be � used as a counterpoint to the dominance of Bengali literary lion and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. After all, Tagore is a “Hindu,” Brahmo Samaj or not. The cultural fascination with his songs must be wiped out at all costs. (Tagore has the last laugh, his songs end up as the national anthem for two � countries: India, and later Bangladesh) Finally, after 1971, when Pakistan is broken and Bangladesh emerges, � Nazrul becomes a third token, a symbol of independent Bangladesh. But how willing are all these transfers? More on that later, kromosho prokash... LEFT FOLLOWING PAGES Naeem Mohaiemen Naeem Mohaiemen Kazi in Nomansland (stamps) Kazi in Nomansland (slivers) � 2009 2009 1.5 inches × 2 inches each 25 inches × 3.3 inches each — � stamps and glue digital C print & wall text Courtesy of the artist and Green Cardamom, Courtesy of the artist and Green Cardamom, for Lines of Control (Dubai, Karachi, London) for Lines of Control (Dubai, Karachi, London) and Granta Pakistan issue and Granta Pakistan issue 81 � � � � � � � � � � � � ি� � � ি� � � ি� � � � � � � � � � �� — � � � � � � � � � � � � — � — � — � — � — � — � � � — � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � (NAZRUL1_CLR.tif) Memory (NAZRUL1_CLR.tif) Memory (NAZRUL1_CLR.tif) Memory (NAZRUL1_CLR.tif) Memory � � � � KAZI IN NOMANSLAND Naeem Mohaiemen � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � ি� � � ি� � � ি� � � � � � � � � � �� — � In 2008, I wanted to build little stamp towers out of the Nazrul stamps. A tower for each country, each a different height. But glue curls and moisture modified those plans, reduced my ambition (thankfully). The Dhaka General � Post Office had exactly� 19,538 of the 1977 Nazrul commemoratives in stock. � With the clockwork efficiency of an automaton inside a bad bureaucracy, the � kerani informed me� of this number after consulting his book. I noticed, how- � ever, that he did not correct the number after I was finished with my purchase. In one week, I bought 3,000 of these stamps. Now collectors were wonder- ing what was going on. My colleague joked that I was causing a tiny tsunami in the stamp market. “Better not be planning any more limited editions.” Meanwhile, Salam the obsessive philatelist had been tracking me. —Bhaiya, did you go to the Post Office to buy vintage Nazruls? You should � have come to me. Their stamps� have been in the godown, totally damp! � —Don’t worry, for Pakistan and India stamps I still have to come to you. — � — � GPO is for Bangladesh only. — � But he doesn’t actually have that many of the India and Pakistan Nazrul — � stamps. They are harder to get, more expensive. Fifteen times face value, or — � even more. When I explain my idea, he offers an alternative. For the India — � � stamps,� the base can be made out of a 1977 birth control commemorative. — � � � Same dimensions and same amount of dirt on serrated edges, no one will be � � able to tell the difference. I pause while I think through the ethics of the wall � � � labels. But for Pakistan he offers a clincher. The only Pakistan stamp that fits � � � in size with Nazrul are the multi-hued generics of his theoretical nemesis: � � � � Pakistan’s� founder Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah. Only stamps of Iqbal could have � � � � � topped this juxtaposition. Nazrul would appreciate this little irony—on par � � � � with everything� else in his life. � � � � �In the list of reasons why Sarzamin broke apart into Pakistan and � � � Bangladesh, there are multitudes of economic and cultural statistics. � � � � Stamp politics is only a small ‘p’ in that schema. � � � � � (NAZRUL1_CLR.tif) Memory (NAZRUL1_CLR.tif) Memory (NAZRUL1_CLR.tif) Memory (NAZRUL1_CLR.tif) Memory � � In New York, I met a psychologist whose uncle had been in Ranchi asylum with Nazrul. � Memory. Now researchers say it may have been Pick’s disease that caused dementia. I can only imagine � Ranchi snapped the remaining wires. 83 � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � — � � � � � � � � � � � � (NAZRUL1_CLR.tif) Memory � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � KAZI IN NOMANSLAND Naeem Mohaiemen � � � � — � � � � � � � � � � � � (NAZRUL1_CLR.tif) Memory � I am a saint, a soldier of music � I am the prince in disguise With the dress of a hermit-mystic. I am a Bedouin, a Chengis the brute It is none, but me, I salute. � � Nazrul’s poetry is innovative, flowing, a new ferocious form in Bengali � language. A decisive break with the genteel parlor modes and bucolic imagery of imagined village idylls of previous generations, especially the Hindu bhodrolok litterateur. But his writing is not yet, not fully, directed at the British. The experience of being a temporary loyalist, a soldier in the 49th Bengal Regiment of the British Indian Army, pushes things towards a decisive break. His poetry and songs accelerate, becoming more radical and confrontational, � bleeding out faster and faster after his demobilization. In civilian life he finds the meter of rebellion. � I am thunder From the God Iswan’s pipe, I am the mystic Omker � Alas! from the bugle of Israfil, I am the roar danger. � I am Bishyamitra’s disciple, Durbasha the furious I am the fury of forest fire Nazrul by now has little patience for Gandhi’s non-cooperation andolon, � or even the Indian Muslim Khilafat movement. Instead he models his politics after Turkey’s Kemal Ataturk, expressing his admiration in the poem “Kamal Pasha.” Standing apart from both Hindu and Muslim mainstream political � movements, he argues that the ouster of British rule must be accompanied by the creation of a secular and modern state. For the sake of a united movement � � � that already has popular support, Nazrul joins with the broader non-coopera- � � tion movement. But a sharper edge still spills out in his lyrics. � I will burn to ashes this universe. I am the heart opening laughter I am the great anti-creation terror � � I am the Eclipse of the twelve Suns of the final disaster. � [“Bidrohi (Rebel Warrior)”]1 � Nazrul’s essays and poems land him on repeated police watch.

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