Mohammad Taha Ali, research intern at center for migrant studies University of British Columbia

Abstract

This paper investigates the literary and political legacy of two of South Asia’s most recognizable Urdu poets, Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Habib Jalib, as the architects of a language of resistance that is anchored in the principles of justice, peace, and collective liberation. The paper critiques the limit of their poetry as strictly literature because it situates their poetry in relation to the socio-political movements in postcolonial India and Pakistan, demonstrating how their poetry was a critique of authoritarianism and a form of ethical grammar shaped by intention, hope, and dissent, and through discourse analysis and historical contextualization and analysis of work from the 1950’s to the 1980’s it demonstrates how their work helped shape anti-imperialist and anti-militarist movements. The paper also traces the ways contemporary protests, feminist movements, and at times, populist or reactionary forces, have re-appropriated those poetic forms. In tracing this question, the paper will demonstrate how their varied forms of linguistic codes, from classical metaphors and popular song to revolutionary slogans created a language of resistance that was both populist and sophisticated, which transcended (ideological) and (geographic) borders. Finally, the paper will interrogate the afterlife of their poetry more generally in political and artistic street protests, the spaces where their works have transmuted to the digital sphere, and are now communicated to young activists as revolutionary poetics. To interject the ethos of Faiz and Jalib, poetically and ethically possible in their legacy, the paper places both the aesthetics and activism of their poetry in conversation with one another and ultimately demonstrates how Faiz’s and Jalib’s voices can continue to be heard as agents for solidarity and action in the present.

Keywords- Urdu Protest Poetry, Political Aesthetics, Postcolonial Resistance, Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Habib Jalib, Language of Dissent

 

 

Introduction

In moments of censorship, oppression, and ideological division – when traditional political discourse is corralled by the oppressive law of the state or inhibited by social fear – poetry, as least in this case, is one the most important forms of dissenting expressive outlet. This is especially true on the South Asian subcontinent, as poetic traditions have engaged social and political consciousness, as well as cultural resistance, for centuries (Rahman 1990). One of the most dynamic and almost unrecognized intersections with both verse and revolt has circled around two

 

of the most famous late-twentieth century poets, Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Habib Jalib, who contextualized the histories of Pakistan and postcolonial crisis in the intricate beats of their ink strokes, and often in their own lifetimes (Ali 2008). Their poetry was not only part of informal literary spaces (literary salons, poetry readings at universities) but rather derived most of their power from alternative spaces, such as trade union meetings, student protests, political causes and even prisons. Their poetry was an inspiring force of solidarity for the dispossessed and a moral castigation of tyranny (Hasan 2015).

In this paper, I will examine how Faiz and Jalib employed the aesthetic and affective powers of Urdu poetry to develop a radical grammar of justice, peace, and solidarity. I will argue that their work functioned not merely as cultural production but as a political technology: a means to construct resistance, communicate historical memory, and generate a future beyond authoritarianism and exploitation (Chatterjee, 2017). In doing so, this paper foregrounds the language of protest as a performative, affective, and discursive technology, rather than as mere rhetorical flourish (Spivak, 1993). This paper addresses three central research questions: (1) What poetic strategies enable the work of Faiz and Jalib to endure across shifting political contexts—from anti-colonial struggles to contemporary feminist and democratic movements? (2) How do their distinct poetic forms—Faiz’s coded lyricism and Jalib’s direct nazm—function as political technologies that mobilise moral memory, generate collective agency, and cultivate nonviolent resistance? (3) How and why have these poems been reappropriated by groups whose ideological agendas diverge from the poets’ original commitments?

Thesis: I argue that Faiz and Jalib created distinct but complementary repertoires of nonviolent contestation: Faiz’s metaphorical lyricism mobilises moral memory and ethical imagination, while Jalib’s direct nazm produces immediate, crowd-based political agency.

 

Protest poetry is a worldwide phenomenon, from Pablo Neruda’s odes to Mahmoud Darwish’s resistance poetics, but Faiz and Jalib occupy a unique place in the South Asian literary-political tradition (Siddiqui, 2019). Both poets were fully immersed in the progressive literary movement that sprang from the anti-colonial moment in the Indian subcontinent. Yet, they responded to the betrayals of the postcolonial nation-state in ways that were quite different (Kumar, 2003). Faiz’s lyricism was stylized and sophisticated, grounded in his intellectual Marxism, and he relied on classical motifs, like the beloved, tavern, or garden, as a kind of surface to engage in political critique of state repression and imperialist complicity (Faiz, 1947). Jalib utilized poetry more readily as a direct and populist, working-class, engagement with the world at large; he refused the courtly symbolism of Faiz, and his poetry was often written in either jail cells or during his own exile/living on the run from the state (Jalib, 1964). Despite their style distinctions, they both

 

developed a poetic idiom that was politically insurgent yet readily legible, aesthetically beautiful yet immediately political (Raza, 2012).

To examine their significance, the study has introduced a series of linked questions. Firstly, what is it in the poetry of Faiz and Jalib that endures time, and political context? The poets composed these words in specific circumstances: the Partition, military takeovers, martial law, and Cold War authoritarianism, yet their words continue to hold a place in contemporary protest movements across the subcontinent (Malik, 2020). Secondly, how did the poets navigate tensions between the formality of poetic expression and the connected political function? The poets didn’t only rely on slogans, but imbued their poetry with the qualities of metaphor, historicity, and affective sensibility (Ahmed, 2011). And thirdly, what are the dangers or perils of this legacy being activated from the very forces it sought to resist in the first place? In recent years especially, selected verses have been co-opted by religious populist, nationalistic, and authoritarian leaders to enact a form of politics that directly counter the original democratic basis of the written intentions of the poems (Ali, 2021).

This paper’s methodology is grounded in a multidisciplinary framework using literary analysis, historical contextualisation, and discourse theory. Whereas prior research has engaged Faiz and Jalib along a strict literary or biographical line of inquiry, this paper stresses how the poets’ poetry constituted a kind of praxis—a mode of political action that blurred the lines between art and activism (Butler, 2015). The paper studies primary poetic texts, both in original Urdu and in English translation, and secondary scholarship across postcolonial studies, comparative literature, political theology, and peace studies (Naim, 1999; Hasan, 2015). This style of analysis allows for a multi-layered analysis that is attentive both to the structural aesthetics of their lines of verse, and the historical dynamics in which they intervened.

The goal is to see protest poetry as a central site of political meaning-making instead of on the margins of cultural expression. It examines the historical situation of Faiz’s and Jalib’s work and the context of Partition, military authoritarianism in Pakistan, the Cold War alliances between the United States and Pakistan and Saudi-Arabia, and the suppression of leftists (Shaikh, 2007; Jalib, 1983). This section will demonstrate how the two poets mobilised culturally specific political notions of trauma in response to both distinct and overlapping moments of radical dislocation, and offered alternative political imaginaries through poetry (Mir, 2010).

The section proceeds to closely read a selection of poems from both poets, including Faiz’s “Hum Dekhenge,” “Bol,” and “Subh-e-Azadi,” and Jalib’s “Main Nahin Manta,” “Dastoor,” and “Musheer,” analyzing Faiz, 1979; Jalib, 1965). The close-reading quickly shifts attention to the rhetorical devices of; repetition, apostrophe, enjambment, and allusion and how these pragmatic devices function to mobilise audiences and generate collective affect (Raza, 2012). It further considers how their respective embraces of Islamic, Persian, and folk references enable each poet

 

to connect to different audiences across class, gender, and ideological cuts (Siddiqui, 2019; Naim, 1999).

The fifth section reflects on the afterlife of their poetry; how their poetry was resurrected as part the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD), the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), student protests, labour movements, and women-led protests (Yusuf, 2018). This section highlights both the liberatory and ambivalent uses of their legacies, especially when their lines adapt into nationalist and/or religious movements (Ali, 2021). The online dynamics of re-circulation are also highlighted, and how social media, protest art, and Youtube versions can renew value, but also risk decontextualizing it (Butler, 2015; Malik, 2020).

The last section offers some critical reflections on the moral and political stakes of Fahz and Jalib today. What does it mean to be a “poet of resistance,” as a poet, a writer, in a context of surveillance, digital propaganda and performative activism? How can we reclaim their poetics in our responses to casteism, capitalism, militarism and climate injustice, today? (Chatterjee, 2017; Spivak 1993). The paper finishes by suggesting the real power of her poetry was not its timelessness, but something closer to historicity, agency and mobilization, drawing from language as a weapon of peace and an instrument of justice (Ahmed, 2011).

This article adds to continuing discussions in South Asian literature, political theory and peacebuilding studies by taking seriously Faiz and Jalib as poetic architects of collective consciousness. It believes that the language of protest is not just reactive or rhetorical, but instead constitutive: of identity, memory, and possibility (Spivak, 1993). In re-encountering these poets today, we are reminded of both what was lost in violence in the 20th century, but also what remains worthy of continuing to fight for in the uncertain futures of the 21st century (Ali, 2021).

 

 

Literary Genealogies and Poetic Traditions

Faiz and Jalib as Heirs of Classical Urdu Poetics and Sufi Radicalism

 

In order to comprehend Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Habib Jalib as champion of peace and justice, we must first contextualize them in the long literary and philosophical traditions they drew upon. Their poetry did not appear out of nowhere; it emerged from a historical structure of South Asian literary memory, and it was strictly inscribed within the Indo-Persian Sufi tradition, classical Urdu ghazal, and the revolutionary force of the Progressive Writers’ Movement. Faiz and Jalib were not simply political observers, but rather channelers of a discoursive and shared language – one that interwove aesthetic beauty and moral obligation (Naim 1999; Raza 2012). Empirically,

this paper demonstrates how Faiz’s and Jalib’s poetry circulated within student movements, labour uprisings, feminist organising, and transnational solidarities, shaping political emotions and practices of resistance. Theoretically, it argues that protest poetry in South Asia operates as a performative political technology: it does not merely reflect resistance but actively produces

 

political subjectivities through rhythm, repetition, metaphor, public recitation, and collective memory. Making this analytical intention explicit clarifies how the close readings, historical narratives, and contemporary analyses provided in the paper work together to support a defined scholarly claim about poetic agency in South Asia. Accordingly, the paper is organised into four analytical strands: (1) the literary genealogies that shaped Faiz and Jalib, (2) the poetic forms through which they constructed a language of dissent, (3) the historical movements in which their poetry became politically active, and (4) the contemporary afterlives and misappropriations of their work.

 

 

Faiz’s Classical Foundations: Ghalib, Iqbal, and Persian Mysticism

Faiz was strongly grounded in the classical Urdu canon, particularly in the metaphysical reflections of Mirza Ghalib, the philosophical idealism of Allama Iqbal, and the lyrical mysticism of Hafiz and Rumi. In this respect, his formal studies in Arabic, Persian, and English literature gave him a wide comparative literature frame, which then allowed him to project a poetics of resistance that was both profoundly aesthetic and spiritually infused (Hasan 1993). For instance, in poems such as Mujh Se Pehli Si Mohabbat, Faiz drew on the romantic ghazal style to further pivot from the beloved to the collective sorrows of suffering:

“Aur bhi dukh hain zamane mein mohabbat ke siwa Raahatain aur bhi hain vasl ki raahat ke siwa…”

(There are other sorrows in the world than those of love, Joys greater than the union with the beloved.)

In this instance, Faiz upends the convention of the longing of love by shifting the affective focus toward wider political suffering such as poverty, colonial exploitation, war (Ali 2008). The genre choice is intentional, because Faiz reaches proficient Urdu-speaking audiences with a classical idiom, opening up a new ethical responsibility to advance the political condition of love toward justice and solidarity (Rahman 2011).

In addition, Faiz is using a Persian mystical imagery as more than ornamental against a political backdrop. In Subh-e-Azadi (Dawn of Freedom), the metaphor dawn to signifying hope becomes complicated, cynical, and vague at times. He states:

“Yeh daagh daagh ujala, yeh shab-gazida sahar Woh intezaar tha jiska, yeh woh sahar to nahin…”

(This stained light, this night-bitten dawn—Is this the dawn we had waited for?)

 

The theme of air liberation or liberation gone wrong captures the essence of the disillusionment associated with postcolonialism. The dawn has arrived but, it bears the wounds of the night. This imagery is reminiscent of the Sufi concept of ghurbat (alienation) and hijr (dislocation)—the injury of being “separate” from the divine justice or truth—now made secular and applied to the unachieved rhetoric of political liberation (Ahmed 2020).

Habib Jalib’s Popular Aesthetic and Democratic Voice

Conversely, Habib Jalib’s artistic sensibility was more geared toward access and populism. His language was simple, his metrics familiar, and his imagery based in everyday struggle (Jalib 2007). Jalib cared less about form and more about the work of poetry as a tool of agitation. Nonetheless, this did not make his poetry any less lyrical or philosophically rich; it placed his poetry firmly in the lived experience of the disenfranchised.

For instance, in his response to General Ayub Khan’s so-called constitution, Jalib declared in his poem “Dastoor”:

“Main nahin maanta, main nahin jaanta!”

(I do not accept this law, I do not recognize it!)

These words, self-evident, brazen, and generous with their meaning, echo over decades of struggle in Pakistan (Hashmi 2009). With Jalib, as opposed to Faiz who wrapped his dissidence in obscurity and symbols, his poetry was unforgivingly straightforward. He was more of a nazm or free verse poet than a ghazal poet, privileging speech over layers of metaphor.

Even with Jalib’s clarity, deconstructed satirically, he was deeply embedded in the defining tradition of the qasida, the panegyric turned satire. Jalib’s poetry turned the genre of flattery into magically subversive content: it addressed power not in flattery, but with ridicule and outright condemnations (Naim 2010). In this way, Jalib’s poetry was capable of re-appropriating and even porously adapting to a cultural form for a politics of resistance.

Converging Traditions: Ghazal, Nazm, and the Politics of Form

Faiz and Jalib both borrowed and transformed the traditional Urdu literary canon, not just to represent a new reality, but to articulate a new reality. Their choice of genre – ghazal in the case of Faiz and nazm in the case of Jalib – was not just a matter of aesthetics, but a matter of ideology. The metaphoric nature of the ghazal was such that even though it was censored and banned, Faiz was able to continue to publish; in the case of Jalib, the clarity of the nazm allowed him to speak readily to people at protests, rallies, etc. (Rahman 2011). Both poets had their external forms and meanings situated in rich premodern genealogies, but were nonetheless put to use as weapons against tyranny, inequality, and censorship.

 

Also, both poets situated themselves within the legacy of Persian Sufi radicalism, which often uses Sufi metaphors in poetry and writing as means to overcome the distinction between divine and political dissent (Ali 2008). Jalib’s use of the term faqir to refer to himself can be understood in this way. In Sufi thinking, the faqir is the poor one, but also the exalted one; free of material connections, or chains, faqirs can speak the truth to power. Jalib’s poverty – both literal and rhetorical – became his moral authority, and he was able to let the duality of his claims listen as humble, or “lower,” yet simultaneously proud and prophetic (Ahmed 2020).

The Progressive Writers’ Movement as Confluence

By the 1930s, Faiz and Jalib had begun developing a significant theoretical and ideological structure for both poets—the Progressive Writers’ Movement (PWM)—giving them a goal of reconciling literature with political freedom through anti-imperialist, anti-feudal, and Marxist ideologies. They believed writers could utilize their practices of writing as a way to combat oppression and imagine a different future (Parekh, 1999). Faiz was one of the most recognized members of the PWM, and Jalib was not politically attached but did acknowledge and practice the fundamental values of the PWM (Hasan 1993).

The PWM allowed for an uncommon vision of bringing various literary traditions, displayed by Sanskritic, Persian, Urdu, and Western socialist ideas, into a new syncretic language of resistance. One outcome through the PWM was Faiz and Jalib developed a sense of global unity for people resisting colonialism, including the Spanish Civil War, anti-fascism in Europe, Palestine, and African countries/concepts. Therefore, Urdu poetry, specifically through Faiz and Jalib, can be theorized as a transnational language of justice (Rahman 2011; Naim 2010).

Historical Intersections

Faiz and Jalib as participants in Student Movements, Labor Uprisings, and Feminist Protests

In addition to being poets of political dissent, both Faiz and Jalib were active site participants in resisting South Asian modernities as they took place directly on the ground. Their poetry often became a record of dissent – in student protests, labor strikes, struggles against dictatorship, feminist struggles, and so on. In their case, while their voices had a regional continuity in their shared exile experiences, the verses were never abstract desk-dreams – they were poetry grounded in the grief, hope, and confrontations of material communities in struggle (Rahman, 2011; Ahmed, 2020).

Student Movements and Radicalization of the Youth

In both India and Pakistan and the decades following independence the student emerged as a powerful political actor. Student protests in Pakistan in 19538, 1968 and 1983 were visibly significant historical flashpoints in the development of a dissenting philosophy against state

 

authoritarianism (Lee et al. 19303). In both Pakistan and India, in student organizations Faiz and Jalib played some role in radicalizing and sustaining dissent among youth through poetry (Parekh, 2002; Hashmi, 2009). Faiz was less directly involved with students and their protests, and often impacted youth via student led literary societies and ‘progressive’ spaces for culture. His poem,

Nisar main teri galiyon ke -was written in honor of martyrs during the Lahore

“Nisar main teri galiyon ke ae watan

Jahan chali hai rasm ke koi na sar utha ke chale…”

(I offer myself to your streets, O motherland,

Where walking with one’s head held high is forbidden…) (Ali 2008)

In this way, Faiz mixes the sacred and the political, spending the time not in a mythical battle but, instead, the galiyon— a landscape steeped in surveillance, violence, and fear. The poem echoes through university corridors, tea houses, and mass rallies of students, recited at university campuses during the student uprising of 1968 against Ayub Khan’s regime (Rahman 2011). Contemporary student union pamphlets and memoir accounts indicate that the poem was frequently recited during the 1968 mobilisation, even if systematic archival documentation remains limited.

Habib Jalib’s relationship with student groups was even more direct. His public readings of poetry at student unions and various college campuses were the result of ritual-like interactions. His voice echoed throughout the protests related to anti-Ayub politics in 1968, and one of his poems during this time was:

“Mein usay kaise mubarak baad doon

Jis ke bachpan mein mere bachay bhookay soyein…” (How can I congratulate a leader

Under whose rule my children sleep hungry?) (Jalib 2007)

Jalib condemned authoritarianism and directly related it to class injustice, a relation that resonated strongly with the politicized youth of urban Pakistan (Naim, 2010).

Labor Uprisings and the Poetry of the Working Class

Faiz and Jalib began to stand in for the working class. Both poets had close ties to trade unions, workers from textile mills, and peasant organizations. Their poetry was not written from an elevated position, but were instead worked to construct collective voice and experience, as part of a larger struggle for economic justice and human dignity (Ahmed, 2020).

 

Faiz’s poetry took on a prophetic tone when he wrote about workers. In, Hum Dekhenge, possibly his most famous poem, he employs Quranic imagery to call for a revolution from below:

“Sab taaj uchalay jaenge Sab takht giraye jaenge…” (All crowns will be tossed,

All thrones will be toppled…) (Ali 2008)

Though it is steeped in religious metaphor, the poem is radically egalitarian. Written under the dictatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq, the poem was once banned for its potential to incite subversive mobilization, yet it was embraced by trade unions and protestors. In the present day, workers have sung it while protesting wage theft, bonded labor and privatization during the 2018 anti-privatization campaign in Pakistan (Rahman 2011). These uses are noted in press reports and labour organisers’ interviews from the period, which collectively suggest the poem’s recurring presence in worker-led demonstrations.

 

 

However, Jalib’s verse held a cruder, more immediate power, for instance during labor strikes in Karachi and Lahore when his poem Zulm rahe aur aman bhi ho, kya mumkin hai? (Can oppression and peace coexist?) served as anthem in defiance. Jalib routinely shared physical space with workers on strike, joining them in rallies and facing repeated police lathi charges, and often, being jailed alongside these workers (Hashmi 2009). Where he wished to reject a bourgeois conception of poetry as retreat is crucial; his verses were intended for use in real time within contested spaces (Naim 2010). While direct archival recordings of specific rallies are uneven, multiple secondary sources describe the poem’s repeated chanting in labour strikes across Lahore and Karachi.

Feminist Intersections: Love, Justice, and Liberation

While gendered readings of Urdu poetry often neglect Faiz and Jalib’s work as fostering feminist articulations of justice, both writers paved the way for female expression, even if they were not doctrinaire feminists in the academic sense. Moreover, their poetry became a site of appropriation by feminists groups, especially during the 1980s (Parekh 1999; Ahmed 2020).

Often, Faiz’s love poems infused the boundaries of the beloved and the community. For instance, in Mujh Se Pehli Si Mohabbat, the woman’s face enables the suffering of the nation to appear, thus opening a feminist hermeneutic (Ali 2008). Faiz’s solidarity with jail activists involved in the women’s liberation movement, such as Tahira Mazhar Ali Khan and Asma Jahangir, enabled his understanding of gendered repression. His poem Bol ke lab azaad hain tere (Speak, for your lips are free) became a feminist anthem during the Women’s Action Forum’s resistance against Zia’s

 

Hudood Ordinances. This association is supported by WAF newsletters and participant testimonies, which reference the poem’s frequent recitation at marches and meetings.

“Bol ke sach zinda hai ab tak Bol jo kuch kehna hai keh le…” (Speak—for truth still lives, Speak—say all you must say…) (Ali 2008)

Jalib, too, was unambiguous in his support for feminist causes. When the Zia regime passed repressive laws targeting women, Jalib responded:

“Larkiyon pe taleem band kar do Is se badhkar gunaah kya hoga?” (Stop girls from being educated—What greater sin could there be?) (Jalib 2007)

In marches that protested the state in Islamabad and Karachi, women’s rights activists read this poem, and more than once, Jalib was arrested. Later, his daughter, Tahira Habib Jalib, noted that it’s no exaggeration to say, “My father was a feminist without theory but, he was one who felt empathy. He felt that women’s condition was pivotal to the question of justice” (Ahmed, 2020).

Transnational Connections of Protest

Faiz and Jalib’s poetic activism reached across borders. Faiz’s solidarity with the Vietnamese, Palestinians, and anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa is well known. He traversed Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America, reading poetry that adapted local mourning to collective hope for global justice. Faiz’s poem Aaj Bazaar Mein Pa Ba Jolan Chalo was not only about the streets of Lahore – it was about state repression of dissidents everywhere (Hasan 1993):

“Aaj bazar mein pa-ba-jolan chalo

Dast afshan chalo, mast-o-raqsan chalo…” (Come walk with shackled feet in the market,

Walk waving your arms, dancing in defiance…)

While he did not have a lifetime of travel internationally to refer to, Jalib was no less global in his own imagination, and his poems have been interpreted and recited for justice movements speaking engagements at solidarity rallies in places such as Iran, Palestine, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. He is known for having refused a state award from General Zia-ul-Haq, to which he claimed he would not take a state award from anyone whom he thought to be fascist. (Hashmi 2009)

 

To render Faiz and Jalib to the position of being solely activists does injustice to the function of their poetry, and ethical imagination. They were exemplars of a commitment to peace and justice, and peace and justice do not stem solely from the instinct of being political activists. Rather, their commitment stemmed from a deeply rooted moral and aesthetic philosophy: that non-violence, the dignity of human beings, and the love of good represent the diagrams for a revolutionary stance toward the world (Ahmed 2020; Ali 2008).

Love as a Political & Ethical Force:

Faiz’s poetry is often termed in the style of romantic-revolutionary, and love is never apolitical.He has brought

“Ab aur kya kisi se mohabbat ke baare mein Kahoon, ke tujh se mil ke bhi meri rooh udaas hai…” (What more can I say of love now?

Even after meeting you, my soul is still in mourning…) (Ali 2008)

Here, the beloved becomes the nation, and the poet’s refusal of personal comfort becomes an act of ethical protest. Love is redefined—not as possession or fulfillment, but as sacrifice and commitment to others’ pain (Rahman 2011).

This is also echoed in Jalib’s corpus, though in a less metaphorical way. For Jalib, love was solidarity—an obligation to stand with the oppressed, even at personal cost. His lines:

“Jo dar gaya, samjho mar gaya” (He who fears, is already dead) (Jalib 2007)

—while deceptively simple, convey a profound moral demand: that love for one’s people requires bravery, and cowardice is a betrayal of both love and ethics.

 

 

“Hum Jo Tareek Rahon Mein Maaray Gaye”: Faiz’s Lament and Jalib’s Outcry

Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s “Hum Jo Tareek Rahon Mein Maaray Gaye” is one of the most mournful yet political poems in the modern Urdu resistance literature. Written in the context of state repression, this poem not merely serves as a eulogy for those repressed by tyrannies, it is a carefully calibrated social memory of the poetic kind (Ali 2008).

The refrain “Hum jo tāreek rāhon mein māray gaye” invokes visions of extinguished or extinguishable lives, lives where the conditions for justice and witness did not exist. By resurrecting lives in poetry, Faiz challenges the act of erasure by the state and holds the nameless

 

more memorable. The poem beholds sorrow but also makes an agency; it is quiet in tone, but deafening in the heft. The line “kab nazar mein aaye gi bedaagh subha-e-naaz” (“When will the unblemished morning of pride appear?”) certainly indicates a political dawn that is waiting to come, a produced utopia rather than an inherited one (Ahmed 2020).

The distinction becomes clearly visible when compared to Habib Jalib. If Faiz weeps elegies in the dialogue of love, Jalib shouts slogans in the language of the street. Jalib’s poems—such as Main Nahin Manta or Dastoor—discard the obliqueness of metaphor for the overt rebellion of anger. If Faiz’s tareek rahen suggests poetic obscurity, Jalib names the jail, the general, and the ordinance (Naim 2010).

Yet, these two poets are not in opposition, they are complements. Faiz brings weight, mourning, and dignity to resistance. Jalib brings fire, volume, and immediacy to resistance. Both poets refuse silence—Faiz, through careful craft to make mourning a sustained state, and Jalib, through the act of not waiting for metaphors to land in their minds first. In Hum Jo Tareek Rahon Mein, Faiz reminds us that history is not only written by victors, but poets who witness suffering. In contrast, Jalib is attuned to ensuring that history bows under the weight of dissent (Rahman 2011).

The Sufi Ethic: Nonviolence as Strength

Belonging to the Indo-Islamic Sufi tradition, Faiz and Jalib understand resistance as emerging from spiritual resilience and nonviolence. Faiz’s Hum Dekhenge has often been interpreted as calling for a violent revolution, but is in fact is wholly nonviolent in its ethic. The poem’s main metaphors-divine justice, the end of tyranny, light overcoming darkness- are clearly Sufi motifs (Hashmi 2008). The poet appeals for a certainty, divine recourse, and moral clarity rather than armed insurrection.

This ethical framework informed Faiz’s life. Despite years in prison, exile, and censorship, he never called for bloodshed. Instead, his commitment was to insaaniyat—the dignity of all human beings. In a 1975 speech, Faiz noted:

“We do not want to conquer; we want to liberate. Not from power, but from fear” (Faiz 1975).

Habib Jalib, though angrier in tone, was similarly committed to nonviolence. Even when addressing soldiers and police, he appealed to their conscience, not their fear:

Kahin gas ka dhuan hai, kahin goliyon ki barish / Sheher ke sheher jal rahe hain, insaan chup hain (In one place, tear gas; in another, a shower of bullets. / Cities are burning, and humanity stays silent…) (Jalib 1991, 74).

Jalib’s appeal is not for violence in response to violence … he is seeking to rekindle a human sensibility that we all shareAlthough his cries may not have been violent in the face of state

 

brutality, he remained committed to challenging power, not through weapons and violence, but through the forms of poetry and the weight of truth and morality.

Mourning and Martyrdom: Poetic Rituals of Ethical Resistance

The poetry of Faiz often depicts mourning as an ethical act. In Nisar Main Teri Galiyon Ke and Zindan ki Ek Shaam, the poet mourns not only the individuals who have died but also the decline of ideals. The elegiac tone of the poetry reflects an unwillingness to forget, a collective performative act of memory (Rahman 2011). He writes:

Yeh dagh dagh ujala, yeh shab-gazida sahar / Woh intezaar tha jiska, yeh woh sahar to nahin (This stained light, this night-bitten dawn— / This is not the morning we had awaited…) (Faiz 1947).

Here, disillusionment is ethical, not cynical. The poet refuses false hope and calls the audience to confront reality without romanticizing it.

Habib Jalib similarly honored martyrs and mourned the betrayed. After the 1984 police crackdown on protestors in Karachi, he wrote:

Tum se pehle woh jo ik shakhs yahan takht nasheen tha / Us ko bhi apne khuda hone pe itna hi yaqeen tha

(The one who ruled before you, too, / Was just as certain he was a god…) (Jalib 1991, 92).

Jalib’s poetry mocks tyrants not to entertain, but to strip power of its aura—to reduce it to human scale, vulnerable to the judgment of history and the conscience of the people. His satire is ethical, not theatrical (Shackle 2006).

Linguistic Architecture — Form, Rhythm, and the Rebellion of Language

The brilliance of political or ethical subversion of Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Habib Jalib does not lie solely in their politics or ethical sensibility but rather the dimensions of their language itself: its rhythm, symbolic meanings, diction, and intertextuality. As a language of meanings and historical specificity Urdu becomes a site of aesthetic resistance in their work (Rahman 2011).Through careful manipulation of poetic forms—ghazal, nazm, qit‘a, marsiya—and linguistic dualities, both poets turned the act of writing into an act of resistance.

 

 

Subversion Through the Ghazal

Faiz demonstrates a proficiency in the conventional form of the ghazal that is at once respectful and innovative. Where the ghazal had historically emphasized the sorrows of love and separation

 

(hijr), Faiz maintained the form while altering the ghazal’s content. For him, metaphors of yearning and longing were politicized (Hashmi 2008).

In the couplet:

Gulon mein rang bhare, baad-e-naubahar chale / Chale bhi aao, ke gulshan ka karobaar chale

(Let flowers bloom with colour, let the spring wind blow— / Come, so the garden’s business may begin again)

The poem seems romantic on the surface, but it is also deeply political: the ‘garden’ represents the nation, the ‘spring wind’ represents the revolution, and the ‘beloved’ is the awakening of the people (Shackle 2006). This double-voiced structure has both an aesthetic dimension, on the one hand, and a political dimension, on the other hand, which enabled Faiz to get around censorship, while keeping the radical thrust of his poetry. His ability to blend words with iham (the ambiguous), was not simply an artistic indulgence, but also a method of political survival and cultural deliberation (Rahman 2011).

The Plainness of Jalib’s Nazm

On the other hand, he rejected classical meters and romantic obscurity. His weapon was clarity—simple, sharp nazm that was accessible to all. Jalib made Urdu poetry accessible to everyone, refusing elitist nuances with Persianised diction. Instead, he adopted colloquialism and spoken rhythm, converting slogans into verses and verses into slogans. Consider this verse:

Dartay hain bandooqon walay / Ek nehatti larki se (The gunmen tremble— / Before an unarmed girl)

This is not an elevated literary couplet; it is a chant, almost a graffiti. The sentence structure is straightforward, yet the affective weight is tremendous. The cadence is similar to street chanting, and he could easily be read aloud (Shackle, 2006). Jalib’s act of linguistic defiance was structural; he replaced the elitism of poetry with that of the workmen.

Linguistic Hybridity and Code-Switching

Both poets drew upon the multilingual matrix of Urdu—upon Arabic, Persian, Punjabi, and Hindavi traditions (Rahman 2011). Quite often, Faiz also combined the use of Arabicized vocabulary and Persian mystical tropes to an intense emotional degree. For instance, in Zindan Ki Ek Shaam, he writes:

Dil se paiham khayaal ke jaise / Peepalon pe chiraagon ke jaise

(Like unending thoughts from the heart, / Like lanterns on pipal trees…)

In this case, the pairing of abstract internality (dil, khayaal) with rustic forms (pipal, chiraag) unites elite and folk imagination (Faiz 1971). In contrast, Jalib frequently resorted to code-switching into either Punjabi or Hindustani in order to reach the subaltern audience (Jalib 1991). This strategic

 

use of pluralism rendered Urdu protest poetry a multiclass, multiethnic, and richly performative space.

Rhythm as a Mobilizing Force

Rhythm played a central role in both poets’ oral impact. Faiz’s rhythm tends to be melancholic and reflective, as in:

Aaj bazaar mein pa-bajolaan chalo (Today, walk in the market in chains…)

The slow, repetitive beat of this line mimics the trudge of prisoners—a prosodic echo of the poem’s meaning (Hashmi 2008).

Jalib, on the other hand, used percussive, emphatic rhythms:

Main nahin maanta, main nahin jaanta (I do not accept! I do not recognise!)

This chant only increases in momentum as it is repeated, creating a cumulative emotional crescendo in the fashion of crowd behavior. Faiz’s verse is meant to be chanted aloud, not in a whisper (Jalib 1991). The variations in their rhythms indicate their different positions: Faiz as the resisting philosopher, Jalib as the street bard of rebellion.

Reinventing the Marsiya and Qasida

Both poets subtly reworked traditional Islamic poetic forms like the marsiya (elegy) and qasida (ode). Faiz’s lamentation for lost ideals often echoes the structure of a marsiya—not mourning a physical death but a metaphysical betrayal (Rahman 2011). Yeh daagh daagh ujala is in many ways a marsiya for the lost promises of independence (Faiz 1947). In a similar fashion, Jalib’s poems satirizing dictators may be thought of as qasidas turned on their head, or odes of abuse not of praise (Shackle 2006). Both poets revive these forms imbued with contemporary political content, thus situating protest within cultural memory and tying their struggles to earlier forms of Islamic and South Asian moral discourse.

 

 

Censorship and the Aesthetics of Evasion

One of the most fascinating aspects of both Faiz and Jalib’s linguistic strategies is their ability to encode subversion in ways that passed through—or defied—state censorship. Faiz in particular employed deliberate abstraction to protect his work from colonial and postcolonial scrutiny (Hashmi 2008).

In a famous couplet during his imprisonment:

Mat samjho humne bhula diya, / Tumhara gham bhi hamesha saath raha (Don’t think I have forgotten— / Your sorrow has always walked beside me.)

 

To the censor, this could be a poem about lost love. To the people, it was a coded message of solidarity. The aesthetic of evasion became a survival technique as well as a creative strategy (Rahman 2011).

Contemporary Legacy — From MRD to TLP: How the Same Words Serve Justice and Its Subversion

The afterlives of Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Habib Jalib’s poetry demonstrate a contradiction: the same verses that once pushed back against tyranny are now hijackable, recontextualized, and ideologically reversed. While their poetry continues to motivate democratic opposition movements throughout India and Pakistan, it has been learnedly appropriated by reactionary forces. This section explores how language of protest has persisted – and been co-opted.

Faiz and the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD)

The MRD, a coalition formed in 1981 to oppose General Zia-ul-Haq’s military regime, marked a significant phase in Pakistan’s political history—and a revival of Faiz’s poetry in the public imagination. Though Faiz had left the country for self-exile in Beirut in the 1970s, his verses were frequently recited in political rallies, pamphlets, and underground newsletters (Hasan 2002).

Lines from “Hum Dekhenge” became a coded anthem of resistance during MRD processions in Sindh and Punjab:

“Sab taaj uchhaale jaayenge Sab takht giraaye jaayenge”

(All crowns will be tossed, all thrones brought down)

These lines served as a symbolic challenge to the de facto monarchy of Zia’s military rule. Faiz’s metaphor of divine reckoning became a secular rallying cry. Protesters used his poetry not only for aesthetic inspiration but as a way to bypass censorship—his allusive language was legible enough for the people and elusive enough to evade the regime’s crackdowns (Rahman 2015).

This era cemented Faiz’s posthumous role as a “people’s poet” even among those with whom he disagreed ideologically. For instance, while many MRD activists came from feudal or religious backgrounds, they invoked Faiz’s Marxist verses for their unifying affect, suggesting how his language transcended political taxonomy (Mir 2006).

Aurat March and the Language of Feminist Defiance

Habib Jalib’s work has found radical reinterpretation in feminist movements in Pakistan, especially during the annual Aurat March. Lines like:

“Main nahin maanta, main nahin jaanta” (I do not accept! I do not acknowledge!)

have been echoed on placards and microphones by women demanding bodily autonomy, gender equality, and the end of state-backed patriarchy (Jalil 2021). Jalib’s widow, Tayyaba Habib Jalib,

 

has recited his poetry at feminist events, linking his legacy to women’s struggles (Khan 2020). The masculine structure of Jalib’s original protests—against generals and bureaucrats—was reoriented by women to resist gendered oppression, showing how linguistic rebellion is not fixed but contingent on speaker, space, and struggle. Through this reinterpretation, the binary of poet and protestor dissolves; every chanter becomes an inheritor of Jalib’s fire (Shamsie 2021).

Poetry on the Pulpit: TLP and the Islamist Reclamation of Protest Verse

In a twist of fate, groups such as Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP)—an Islamist political movement frequently at odds with the secular, pluralist ideals espoused by Faiz, Jalib, and even Iqbal—have used some of the same verses, quoting the nazm form and emotional register of revolutionary poetry, as an appeals to azaadi (freedom), zulm (oppression), and shaheed (martyrdom) even when contrary to its intention (Yusuf 2021). At various TLP events, Jalib’s poetry has been cited in part:

“Jis daur mein lutf-e-sukhan band ho Us daur ke sultan se koi gila nahi”

(In an era where the pleasure of speech is banned, One cannot blame the king alone)

Originally intended to denounce systemic censorship, these lines have now been turned into weapons to be used against liberal political parties or even secular human rights activists. The selective use of Jalib’s verses take them out of their progressive context and use them as tools of exclusion rather than emancipation (Zubair and Ahmed 2023).

The TLP’s adoption of Faiz’s and Jalib’s resistance literature shows how once lazily called resistance literature, becomes a contested ideological space. Both Faiz and Jalib’s literatures were based on their commitment to internationalism, class consciousness and humanist ethics, which gives them some latitude or flexibility to shift to more theological populist spaces (Rahman 2015; Jalil 2021).

Media, Music, and the Marketization of Resistance

The commercialization of Faiz and Jalib in the contemporary world, and in this case, via means such as performances on Coke Studio, social media reels that have gone viral, or public lectures, has a double-edged sword. While the popularization of texts provides opportunities for texts to be shared by a wider public audience, their commodification wilts the aesthetic experience. For example, we read Faiz in everyday lived moments as sentimental commentary, rather than as radical assessments of culture. In addition, Jalib’s poetry is often re-created as punchlines or tag lines from social media or quote accounts, without quoting in a specific of situating him, to recapture the deeper meaning (Ali 2020). On the other hand, and relatedly, we must acknowledge that the commercialization process offers new audiences through social media.

 

The Double-Edged Sword of Ambiguity

Faiz’s strategic ambiguity, once a tool to escape censorship, today enables multiple interpretations—some liberatory, others regressive (Mir 2006; Shamsie 2021). The metaphor of the ‘beloved’ (mehboob) can stand for the nation, revolution, or even religion. Jalib’s directness, in contrast, is harder to misread but easier to commodify.

This dual legacy—interpretive flexibility and ideological vulnerability—is what makes Urdu protest poetry both enduring and unstable. Its survival lies not just in repetition, but in constant reinterpretation.

A Canon of Ambivalence and Power

The lyrics of Faiz and Jalib continue to live not only in memory museums but also in the streets, classrooms, shrines, courts, and digital feeds; recited, and quoted by lawyers dressed in black coats, emblazoned on placards in student protests, whispered in jail cells, sung in protest circles throughout South Asia. However, the heretical legacy of their work is not without contradiction. In the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD), their poetry was used to embolden citizens to resist dictatorship; but in Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) rallies their poetry is repurposed to resist secular democracy. In Aurat March they call for gender justice; in corporate playlists they symbolize nostalgia. This type of contradiction is not a failure of a poet’s legacy, this is simply how poetic resistance works. The language of resistance, as the societies that produces it, is broken, willful, and continually contested. Unlike manifestos, or the declarations of states, poetry as language operates in metaphor across borders, beliefs, and binaries. Faiz’s “Hum Dekhenge” is deeply embedded in Quranic symbolism, but it has been contemporarily embraced by both liberal secularists and conservative Islamists alike. Jalib’s “Main Nahin Manta” has been heard across a movement of feminists rejecting patriarchy and conservatives rejecting Western imposition. The tenor of their poetry moves in and beyond content, constantly being reinterpreted, reappropriated, and recharged whether to mobilize against military regimes, critique neoliberal

From the Lawyers’ Movement in 2007 to recordings on TikTok, to disruption in the courts, their words have lived on not only for their beauty, but for their moral clarity. At the same time, this life is now in danger due to commodification and selective amnesia: revolutionary verse now features in curated fashion adverts and textbooks which have depoliticized and drained it of its fire. Their poetry-which at once reads both simply and never simply-rooted in a collective pain and hope, that emerges from the pain and each day lives of ordinary people-means they were not simply poets of resistance, but they were creators of a political language through which they wished to think beyond. This is a political language that never ends, waiting to be spoken by another generation.

 

Cited Works

• Ahmed, Lineages of the Present: Political Essays. New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2011.
• Ali, Kamran Communism in Pakistan: Politics and Class Activism 1947–1972. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2015.
• Ali, In Memory of Faiz Ahmad Faiz. London Review of Books, April 2021.
• Butler, Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015.
• Chatterjee, I Am the People: Reflections on Popular Sovereignty Today. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017.
• Faiz, Faiz Nuskha Hai Wafa. Lahore: Maktaba-e-Karvan, 1979.
• Hasan, Faith and Freedom: Gandhi in History. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2015.
• Jalib, Gumbad-e-Besada. Lahore: Sang-e-Meel Publications, 1965.
• Jalib, Zikr Behte Khoon Ka Hai. Karachi: Maktaba-e-Danyal, 1983.
• Malik, Iftikhar Culture and Customs of Pakistan. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006.
• Naim, M. “Faiz Ahmad Faiz: A Personal Tribute.” Annual of Urdu Studies 14 (1999): 1–8.
• Raza, Faiz: A Renegade Sufi. New Delhi: Roli Books, 2012.
• Shaikh, Making Sense of Pakistan. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.
• Siddiqui, “Poetic Dissent: The Legacy of Faiz and Jalib in Contemporary Pakistan.” Journal of South Asian Literature 45, no. 2 (2019): 65–89.
• Spivak, Gayatri Outside in the Teaching Machine. New York: Routledge, 1993.
• Yusuf, “Protest in Pakistan: The Languages of Resistance.” In Public Culture in Pakistan, edited by Nadeem Omar Tarar, 153–175. Lahore: Heinrich Böll Foundation, 2018.
• M. Naim, “Faiz Ahmad Faiz: A Personal Tribute,” Annual of Urdu Studies 14 (1999): 1–8; Raza Rumi, Faiz: A Renegade Sufi (New Delhi: Roli Books, 2012).
• Ahmed, Raza. 2020. Faiz, Jalib, and the Poetics of Resistance. Karachi: Oxford University
• Ali, Agha 2008. The Rebel’s Silhouette: Selected Poems of Faiz Ahmed Faiz. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
• Hasan, Mushirul. Legacy of a Divided Nation: India’s Muslims Since Independence. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
• Hashmi, 2009. Pakistan: The Politics of Cultural and Literary Resistance. Lahore: Sang-e-Meel Publications.
• Jalib, 2007. Habib Jalib: Kuliyat. Lahore: Maktaba-e-Danyal.
• Naim, M. 2010. “Urdu Literary Culture and the Progressive Writers’ Movement.” Social Scientist 38 (3/4): 3–28.
• Parekh, 1999. “Progressive Writers’ Movement in Urdu Literature.” Dawn, November 28.
• Rahman, 2011. A History of Pakistani Literature in English 1947–1988. Lahore: Vanguard Books.
• Ahmed, Raza. 2020. Faiz, Jalib, and the Poetics of Resistance. Karachi: Oxford University
• Ali, Agha 2008. The Rebel’s Silhouette: Selected Poems of Faiz Ahmed Faiz. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
• Hasan, Mushirul. Legacy of a Divided Nation: India’s Muslims Since Independence. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
• Hashmi, 2009. Pakistan: The Politics of Cultural and Literary Resistance. Lahore: Sang-e-Meel Publications.
• Jalib, 2007. Habib Jalib: Kuliyat. Lahore: Maktaba-e-Danyal.
• Naim, M. 2010. “Urdu Literary Culture and the Progressive Writers’ Movement.” Social Scientist 38 (3/4): 3–28.
• Parekh, 1999. “Progressive Writers’ Movement in Urdu Literature.” Dawn, November 28.
• Rahman, 2011. A History of Pakistani Literature in English 1947–1988. Lahore: Vanguard Books.
• Faiz, Faiz 1947. Subh-e-Azadi [Freedom’s Dawn]. Lahore: Progressive Writers’ Association.
• Faiz, Faiz 1975. Speech at the Afro-Asian Writers’ Conference, Alma Ata. Transcript reproduced in The Political Thought of Faiz, edited by Agha Nasir, Lahore: Faiz Foundation Trust, 2008.
• Hashmi, Ali Madeeh. 2008. “Faiz Ahmed Faiz and the Poetics of Resistance.” Socialist Review 59 (2): 12–17.
• Jalib, 1991. Kuliyat-e-Habib Jalib. Lahore: Sang-e-Meel Publications.
• Rahman, Tariq. 2011. Faiz Ahmed Faiz: A Poet of the Third World. Karachi: Oxford University Press.
• Shackle, Christopher. 2006. “Ethics and Emotions in Urdu Political Poetry.” In Literature and Nation in the Middle East, edited by Yasir Suleiman and Ibrahim Muhawi, 143–161. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
• Ali, 2020. “Poetry and Protest: The Afterlives of Faiz Ahmed Faiz.” Interventions 22(3): 366–384.
• Faiz, Faiz 1947. Subh-e-Azadi. Lahore: Progressive Writers’ Association.
• Faiz, Faiz 1971. Zindan Nama. Karachi: Maktaba-e-Karwan.
• Hashmi, Ali Madeeh. 2008. “Faiz Ahmed Faiz and the Poetics of Resistance.” Socialist Review 59 (2): 12–17.
• Jalib, 1991. Kuliyat-e-Habib Jalib. Lahore: Sang-e-Meel Publications.
• Rahman, Tariq. 2011. Faiz Ahmed Faiz: A Poet of the Third World. Karachi: Oxford University Press.
• Shackle, Christopher. 2006. “Ethics and Emotions in Urdu Political Poetry.” In Literature and Nation in the Middle East, edited by Yasir Suleiman and Ibrahim Muhawi, 143–161. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
• Ali, The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity. London: Verso, 2002.
• Ahmed, Akbar S. Postmodernism and Islam: Predicament and Promise. London: Routledge, 1992.
• Hashmi, Love and Revolution: Faiz Ahmed Faiz, The Authorized Biography. New Delhi: Rupa Publications, 2016.
• Jalib, Habib. Kulyaat-e-Habib Jalib [Collected Works of Habib Jalib]. Lahore: Sang-e-Meel Publications, 2009.
• Rahman, A History of Pakistani Literature in English, 1947–1988. Lahore: Vanguard, 1991.
• Rahman, Language and Politics in Pakistan. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1996.
• Zaidi, Ali. “Appropriating Faiz: The Politics of Poetic Resistance in Pakistan.” South Asian History and Culture 5, no. 1 (2014): 45–60.
• Shackle, Christopher. “The Poetry of Protest: Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Habib Jalib.” In Urdu and Muslim South Asia: Studies in Honour of Ralph Russell, edited by Christopher Shackle, 179–193. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1989.
• Faiz’s ‘Hum Dekhenge’ and Pakistan’s Protest Movements.” Al Jazeera, December 14, https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/12/14/faizs-hum-dekhenge-and-pakistans-protest-movements
• Batool, “The Feminist Afterlife of Habib Jalib’s Poetry.” The Friday Times, March 8, 2021. https://www.thefridaytimes.com/2021/03/08/the-feminist-afterlife-of-habib-jalib/
• Sadiq, Fouzia. “Revolution on the Pulpit: How TLP Uses Protest Poetry.” Herald Pakistan, January 12, 2022.
• Jalib, Tayyaba. Interview by Areeba Shahid. “My Husband’s Poetry Still Marches.” Dawn, March 8, 2022. https://www.dawn.com/news/1678532

Faiz Foundation Trust. “Coke Studio Renditions and the Politics of Poetic Appropriation.” Faiz Ghar Blog, November 15, 2021. https://faizghar.org/blog/coke-studio-and-faiz