1857: In words of Mirza Ghalib

Story by  ATV | Posted by  Aasha Khosa • 2 Years ago
A painting of Mirza Ghalib
A painting of Mirza Ghalib

 

Saquib Salim

In popular discourse Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib is considered a romantic poet with no political opinion. The idea is entrenched to a degree that while talking about him we often overlook the fact that Ghalib lived in Delhi during the first war of national independence in 1857. No wonder, he was not unaffected.

Mirza Ghalib was living in the house of Hakim Mahmood Khan in Ballimaran when the British captured Delhi from the Indian freedom fighters. For two days after the fall of Delhi, Ghalib and his wife remained locked in the house without food or water. They were saved on the third day by the soldiers sent by Maharaja of Patiala. However, all the valuables and jewelery of his wife were robbed by the British soldiers. Most of their friends or relatives were either killed or imprisoned by the British.

In one of the letters written to a friend Ghalib noted, “Here in this city with my wife, I drown in a sea of blood. I haven’t stepped over my threshold. Neither have I been neither caught, thrown out, imprisoned; nor killed.”

Prevailing situations in Delhi did not allow him to support the Indian cause publicly and he showed ‘loyalty’ in the face of the British. But, in private letters, he lamented the ‘defeat’ of Indian forces. Ghalib wrote to Hakim Ghulam Najaf Khan on 26 December, 1857, “Think of my situation. I am writing, but what can I write? Can I really write anything, and is it proper to write? This much is true: you and I are still alive. Neither of us should say anything more than that.”

Still we find a poem written by Ghalib lamenting the defeat of Indians at the hands of the British in a letter written to his brother-in-law Alauddin Ahmad Khan. The poem reads;

Bas ke fa’aal-maa-yuriid hai aaj

Har silah-shor inglistaa.n ka

Ghar se bazaar me nikalte hue

Zehra hota hai aab-e-insaa.n ka

Chowk jisko kahe.n wo maqtal hai

Ghar bana hai namuna zindaa.n ka

Shehr-e-dehli ka zarra zarra khaak

Tishnaa khoon hai har musalmaa.n ka

Its translations is:

Today, every English soldier is behaving like the almighty

 While going to market from the house, the courage is tested of a man

Chandni chowk has become a slaughter house and house is an example of prison

Each dust particle of Delhi is thirsty of Muslim blood.

In another letter to Alauddin Khan he writes, “O my dear, it is not the same Delhi where you were born, it is not the same where you used to get tuitions from me at Shaban Begh’s house. It is not the Delhi which I have witnessed from the age of seven. It is an army camp. The male members of the royal family who were not killed are getting Rs. 5 as monthly pension. Among women, the older ones have become maids and young are all prostitutes now.”

(Saquib Salim is a historian and a writer)