Mahtab Alam 
Earlier last week while delivering the judgment in a matter related to arbitrary demolition of properties of people accused of a crime, Justice B.R. Gavai of the Supreme Court began his verdict with the following couplets of Kavi Pradeep:
“Apna Ghar Ho, Apna Angan Ho
Is Khwaab Mein Har Koi Jeeta Hai
Insaan Ke Dil Ki Ye Chahat Hai
Ki Eik Ghar Ka Sapna Kabhi Na Chhoote”
Meaning, in everyone’s heart lives a dream to have one’s own home, one’s own courtyard. It is a longing that never fades and they never lose the dream of a home.
Justice Gavai goes on to note that, “It is a dream of every person, every family to have a shelter above their heads. A house is an embodiment of the collective hopes of a family or individuals’ stability and security.”
Hence, “if a citizen’s house is demolished merely because he is an accused or even for that matter a convict, that too without following the due process as prescribed by law, in our considered view, it will be totally unconstitutional for more than one reason,” the apex court declared.
Reading the judgment, one was reminded of another poet and some of his couplets. In fact, over the last few years, especially with advent of ‘bulldozer justice’, I have been time and again reminded of noted Urdu poet Bashir Badr and his following couplets:
Log Toot Jaate Hain Ek Ghar Banane Mein
Tum Taras Nahi Khate Bastiyan Jalane Mein
(People break their backs making a house
You don’t think twice burning down colonies)
Bade shauq se mera ghar jala, Koi aanch tujh pe na aayegi
Ye zabaan kisi ke khareed li, Ye qalam kisi ka ghulam hai
(Burn my house with pleasure, you will hardly face any repercussion
Someone has bought this tongue, and this pen has also been enslaved)
While it is not known what prompted Kavi Pradeep, who is best known for one the most famous patriotic song, “Ae Mere Wattan Ke Logon”, there is a tragic story behind Badr penning down these couplets, which are part of two separate Ghazals. Currently suffering from dementia, Badr is one of the most quoted Urdu poets in popular culture and politics. His couplets has been often used by leaders across the party-line to settle political scores. And the leaders include Narendra Modi, Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav, to name a few.
In February 2018, while participating in the debate on the motion of thanks to the President’s address in the parliament, Prime Minister Modi quoted poet Badr to attack the Congress. Modi chose the following couplet by the Urdu poet for the occasion:
Jee bahut chahta hai sach bolein
kya karein hausla nahi hota
(My heart want to speak only what’s true
But courage fails, what can I do)
He was responding to Congress leader Kharge, who had recited Badr in the parliament to hit out at the Modi government on the previous day. Kharge, quoting the Urdu poet, said:
Dushmani jamkar karo lekin ye gunjaish rahe,
jab kabhi hum dost ho jaayen toh sharminda naa ho
(Keep pursuing bitter enmity but let there be a little scope,
That when we become friends, we must not feel ashamed)
Notably, this couplet was written in the context of the Partition and was quoted in 1972 by the then President of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the presence of Indira Gandhi, the then prime minister of India, during the signing ceremony of the Shimla Agreement, a peace treaty between India and Pakistan.
Also read: ‘Executive Cannot Become Judge’: Supreme Court Continues Onslaught Against Bulldozer Justice
In December 2016, while addressing a public rally in Almora (Uttarakhand) Rahul Gandhi used the following couplet of Badr to attack the demonetisation exercise by the Modi government.
Log toot jaate hain eik ghar banane mein
Tum taras nahi khate bastiyan jalane mein
(People break down while trying to build one house
You don’t feel sorry for burning entire settlements)
It is this couplet of Badr which kept coming to my mind every time I heard of an arbitrary demolition.
According to a study on forced evictions in India, more than half a million people (five lakh) were evicted in India in 2023 alone, the highest in the last seven recorded years. The study notes that a large number of affected persons belonged to historically marginalised groups such as Dalits, Adivasis, OBCs, nomadic communities, migrant workers, Muslims and religious minorities. Another study notes that the authorities in four BJP-ruled states and one Aam Aadmi Party-governed (AAP-governed) state punitively bulldozed 128 structures, mostly belonging to Muslims, between April and June 2022.
Badar wrote the above couplet after his house was burnt down during the communal violence of Meerut in 1987. Apart from his other belongings, Badr lost his unpublished poems in the communal fire. According to filmmaker and music composer Vishal Bhardwaj, “Bashir sahab was very upset and went into depression after losing his unpublished poems.”
It was Bhardwaj, who helped him to rewrite most of those poems as he had heard/ read them and remembered most of it by heart. “I wrote down 90% of those ghazals and gave him back. In those days, I was one of the two people who had privilege to have access to his company. As a matter of routine, he would recite his poems to me. Therefore, his poetry was preserved in my memory,” recalled Bhardwaj, during a session at Jashn e Rekhta 2015.
However, Badr was so traumatised by the event that he left the city thereafter and settled in Bhopal for life.
His another couplet, “Bade Shauq Se Mera Ghar Jala, Koi Aanch Tujh Pe na Aayegi…” features in popular film Dedh Ishqiya (2014), whose screen play was co-written by Bhardwaj. It is nothing but unfortunate that Badr’s couplets written almost four decades ago are still equally relevant even today. The only apparent difference is bulldozing has replaced burnings and the state authorities have occupied the role, earlier performed by the communal mob.
With the Supreme Court warning that if these directions are flouted, the officials responsible will be liable for contempt of court and prosecution, one hopes that we won’t be forced to be reminded of Badr’s words, expressing helpless of the victims of burning and bulldozing.