If dasht-e-tanhai is identified with the ghazal singer, this one is even more so. Faiz would often be asked to recite “wo Iqbal Bano wala – Ham Dekhenge”, perhaps the most overtly political nazms of his.

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was overthrown by Zia Ul-Haq in 1977 in a coup, who soon unleashed fascistic terror in the name of Nizam-e-Mustafa, thrusting his bigoted vision of fundamentalist Islam on Pakistan. Faiz was forced into exile in Beirut.

In 1979, Faiz turned to the Surah-e-rahman in the Quran to come up with the imagery – and the title – in which the description of qayamat, the Day of Reckoning is turned into the day of revolution.

It did not take much reading between the lines to understand that Faiz’s reading of the Quran had subversively invoked the “removal of idols from the Kaaba” and the “reinstallation of outlaws” to refer to the day of restoration of democracy and the ouster of Zia.

Iqbal Bano’s singing of this immediately turned the nazm into an articulation of defiant protest. Faiz died in 1984. By then the sari too had been banned by Haq’s puritanical regime. On his first death anniversary in 1985, Iqbal Bano turned up in a black sari to sing the song that had already become an iconic anthem, rousing the Lahore audience to start chanting ‘Inquilaab zindabad’. The military intelligence that was monitoring the concert cut off electricity, but Iqbal Bano sang on defiantly, her voice reaching a crescendo, eventually facing the wrath of the brutal regime that severely restricted her performances thereafter.

ham dekheñge
lāzim hai ki ham bhī dekheñge
vo din ki jis kā va.ada hai
jo lauh-e-azal meñ likhkhā hai
jab zulm-o-sitam ke koh-e-girāñ
ruuī kī tarah uḌ jā.eñge
ham mahkūmoñ ke pāñv-tale
jab dhartī dhaḌ-dhaḌ dhaḌkegī
aur ahl-e-hakam ke sar-ūpar
jab bijlī kaḌ-kaḌ kaḌkegī
jab arz-e-ḳhudā ke ka.abe se
sab but uThvā.e jā.eñge
ham ahl-e-safā mardūd-e-haram
masnad pe biThā.e jā.eñge
sab taaj uchhāle jā.eñge
sab taḳht girā.e jā.eñge
bas naam rahegā allāh kā
jo ġhā.eb bhī hai hāzir bhī
jo manzar bhī hai nāzir bhī
uTThegā anal-haq kā na.ara
jo maiñ bhī huuñ aur tum bhī ho
aur raaj karegī ḳhalq-e-ḳhudā
jo maiñ bhī huuñ aur tum bhī ho

First rough draft: Sundeep Dougal

We shall witness
It is imperative that we too shall witness
The day that has been promised
That has been written in the tablet of eternity
When the heavy mountains of tyranny
Will blow away like cotton
When under the feet of the oppressed
the earth shall shake with loud thuds
When over the heads of the rulers
The lightning will crackle uproariously
When from the abode of God
All the idols shall be removed
We the pure who have been kept out of the sacred places
Shall be seated on the high cushions
When the crowns would be knocked off
And the thrones overturned
Only the name of God will remain
Which is absent too and present too
Which is spectacle too and spectator too
As the slogan of I-am-Truth is raised
That is me too and so are you too
And the creation of God shall rule
That is me too and so are you too