The following is the foreword to Varavara Rao’s translation of Kazi Nazrul Islam’s Bengali poems into Telugu, Vidrohi. It has been edited for style, grammar and clarity. The volume is being published by the Hyderabad Book Trust.
In what is called the second freedom movement in Bangladesh against the autocratic Sheikh Hasina government, the state police’s guns aiming at the students and the students singing the poem and songs of Kazi Nazrul Islam is the hair-raising moment for all people who aspire for and dream of freedom. The streets of Bangladesh were reverberating with the poem of Nazrul:
Karar oi louho kopaat
Bhenge phyal kor re lopaat
Rokto jomaat shikol pujar pashan bedi
Destroy those iron gates of prison,
demolish the blood-stained stony altars
of chain worship!
As a teacher teaching in a government run-minority institution (madrassa) barely three-kilometres away from the Bangladesh border, and as a Bengali myself, this incident affected me deeply.
Coincidentally, I was about to start a new chapter in class on one of those days and the first question I asked my Class 5 students was, “Do you know Kazi Nazrul Islam?”. The students went silent. It was so disheartening. When on the other side of the border, the Bengalis were celebrating and drawing strength from the songs and poems of Nazrul, on this side of the border, Nazrul is not being discussed much. I returned to the teacher’s room after the class and spoke to my colleague about the incident. The colleague asked, “Which Nazrul? Is he not from Bangladesh?” This broke my heart once more.
In the nineties, everyone in my community and society was aware of Nazrul Islam. But now, the children studying in English medium schools are fast becoming oblivious to his contributions. Others, who are still dependent on the public education system, are victims of inequality due to the deteriorating public educational infrastructure. All thanks to capitalism.
On the one hand, the upheaval of the Hindutva fundamentalism of the majority, and on the other hand, the rising conservative elements inside the minority community are occupying the space of resistance and the dream of a revolution that Nazrul talks about.
Does a poet have a nation? Does a poet have a country? A true rebel poet who fought his entire life for the marginalised, for the downtrodden is now being compartmentalised into a particular place, a particular nation.
When Varavara Rao informed me that he was going to translate the poems of Nazrul Islam, the immediate thought that came to my mind was – who could be a better translator than VV? A revolutionary translating the poems of another revolutionary – readers and dreamers like us have nothing to be more joyous over. VV, as we fondly called him, called me and was very clear from the beginning that I have to write the foreword to the book. As a young poet I felt deeply honoured but at the same time, I was in doubt if I am the right person to write it. But VV’s faith in me and Nazrul’s unchained words led me forward. I couldn’t resist.
Nazrul is a poet who was very much instrumental in the fight against the British regime. The wilful act of erasing Nazrul from our conscience and our discourse is not an aberration, this is a rule in a cruel regime. A time when a poet like Varavara Rao has to spend most of his life in jail. And how free he is now? He still can’t travel outside Mumbai, far away from his home in Warangal. But just as Nazrul Islam is still relevant for dreamers who dream of change, Varavara Rao is breathing, living hope for us, the dispossessed, the marginalised, the downtrodden, the nameless, and the people who are only numbers in the eyes of the state.
When a revolutionary translates the poems of another rebel poet, he touches all the strings, the words behind the words and the emotions behind every poem. How similar their poems are in spirit and their dedication to the idea of the revolution. In the poem, Bidrohi, Nazrul writes,
I am the unutterable grief,
I am the trembling first touch of the virgin,
I am the throbbing ten,
I am the wildfire of the woods,
I am Hell’s mad terrific sea of wrath!
I ride on the wings of lightning with joy and profundity,
I scatter misery and fear all around,
I bring earthquakes to this world! “
(Source: Wikipedia)
And with the same spirit, Varavara Rao writes in his poem, Chains Write Now,
Even your shadow may not tell you the truth.
It may be saying what you want to hear.
But you are alone in the outside world.
Here inside, I am among countless people.
I am with the strength of my beliefs
With the power of people, like a volcano
That will erupt lava and fumes in the future
Even if it appears silent today.
In this long, silent imprisonment
I am sharpening my thoughts.
Dictator, now my chains are writing
Tomorrow I will sing full-throated in freedom.
This undeterred faith and dream for freedom guides the essence of the works of Nazrul Islam and Varavara Rao. Their hell-bent determination towards the idea of a free mind and soul and their fearless advocacy for the peasants and labourers landed them in jails. But who doesn’t know this rule? History has witnessed that those who are in power are always afraid of the unchained and strong voice. Nazrul’s Bisher Banshi (The Flute of Poison) was banned by the British. In this book, he called for rebellion against the British Raj.
In the poem Coolie Mujur which has been translated by Varavara Rao and included in the collection, Nazrul writes,
On the rail-way once I saw
A lord pushes down a man for being a coolie.
My eyes burst with tears;
Will the weak be beaten this way Throughout the world?
The steam-vehicle was made of Dadhichi’s bones;
The lord got on it;
The coolies had fallen underneath.
Do you say that you have paid wages?
Shut up, great liars!
The above translation from 2017 is by Sayeed Abubakar.
This ability to feel human pain and see the inequality around us are the driving forces of Varavara Rao’s poetry too. So he writes,
The death of a human unsettles me.
Call him a martyr or say that he turned into a star.
Humanity is gagged
Nevertheless when a human dies.
Today, when the distinction between truth and lies is also being constructed by those who are in power, to find the truth, we have to go to the ground, to the people. Both Nazrul Islam and Varavara Rao are people’s poets. They defy words of exaggeration, they defy set norms, they defy the popular narrative and they set a realm of dreams through people’s movements and struggles.
Nazrul was a stern critic of imperialism. He never stopped at criticism, like Varavara Rao. In the poem Kandari Hushiyar (Captain Beware), Nazrul writes,
The hapless nation drowns, for a swim,, it cannot
O Captain! Today you shall be watched
For determination and love
Hindu or Muslim? Wait! Who asks?
Captain! Proclaim: My Mother’s children are drowning, Human all!
Varavara Rao has been charged in over 30 separate cases and has survived many attempts on his life. As Nazrul was the chronicler of his time, so was VV. From Emergency to Operation Green Hunt to the oppression of the common mass and Adivasis, VV’s pen has flared up against every injustice.
In this translation collection, Vidrohi, VV has translated 64 poems of Nazrul. The title of the book itself is ‘resistance.’
Why this is the need of the hour
People often argue about the relevance of Nazrul’s poems. When our jungles, rivers, mountains, and lands are being occupied by a few billionaires and the government works as a facilitator for the smooth transition of the occupation; when gig workers are working like slaves of the neoliberal market economy; when our children are the worst victims of the climate crisis, the relevance of Kazi Nazrul Islam and the relevance of Varavara Rao’s poetry can never fade. We need them more than ever before.
The main cultural project of a fascist regime is to wipe out history and the legacy of rebellion. A rebel poet’s words can give the masses the needed strength and zeal to rise and fight back. In the post-90s economic liberation and the rise of Hindutva neoliberalisation, the common people have forgotten the idea of a mass struggle, the idea of freedom. The jungles are being handed over to giant companies and democracy has been turned into a corporate-funded rule. Brilliant minds and sharp tongues are being put behind bars. The neoliberal education policy makes the younger generations the slaves of the market. The hard-earned eight hour working policy is being removed. Every day, religious fanaticism and binaries push minorities of all types – gender, lingual, sexual, and so on, to the verge of precarity. A narrative is set in a Hindutva laboratory and is circulated immediately by WhatsApp universities. The income gap between the haves and the have-nots has never been so wide. Class politics is being weakened by deep state-funded identity politics when we need to embolden class politics by taking identity politics under its ambit. The translations of Nazrul’s poems would give young Telugu readers the hope and the strength to fight against a corporate regime when civil rights are being curtailed.
Nazrul was always vocal about class politics. His poems testify to that.
The translation is also important as the birthplace of Nazrul, West Bengal, is in a state of limbo. An upper class bhadralok hegemony of the left movement that is completely based in Kolkata is failing to make the new generations dream of a better world and of resistance. In a time when fascism is at its peak with neoliberalisation and capitalism working as its midwives, this collection of Nazrul’s translation will embolden us poets who are caught in the vortex. Some pundits downplay the significance of Nazrul Islam’s works, citing a lack of craftsmanship, but this idea of craftsmanship is also an idea of supremacy, which people of the upper class cultural elite often create, to be able to negate the voices of dissent.
Varavara Rao’s translations of the legendary Nazrul Islam’s poems will save the latter from going into the darkness that the regime wants.
This is not a mere work of translation; this is the confluence of two great poets who defied the oppressive states of their respective times. It is a work that says how they negated the desire to be validated by the establishment and became the people’s voice. This translation is the passing of the baton to us, the younger generation of poets, dreamers, and thinkers who have still not given up. We must thank Varavara Rao for this. Telugu readers will surely find hope and the power of resistance in this collection.
Moumita Alam is a poet from West Bengal. She has two published collections of poetry. Her works have been translated in Telugu and Tamil.
