"Take not just my land. You may even take away my sky.
My pride, my ego: take these too.
If so required, you may even take my life."
- 1st stanza of poem Zabaan, originally written in Urdu, by poet Shamim Zamanvi
Inquilab Zindabad!
These two famed words, enjoying political revival in India followed by another renaissance in Bangladesh back in 2023, have become the war cry for the Gen-Z movement in most of South Asia.
But much before the latest movements, Inquilab Zindabad has always existed. And it traces quite an interesting historical journey.
The phrase Inquilab Zindabad means “Long Live the Revolution”.
It was popularised in 1929 by revolutionary freedom fighter Bhagat Singh in the face of tear gas shelling during pro-independence protests, before it was thoroughly adopted by his Hindustan Socialist Republican Association.
But the phrase was originally coined eight years earlier by Urdu poet, Indian freedom fighter and one of the founders of the Communist party of India, Maulana Hasrat Mohani in 1921.
The story doesn’t end here. There’s one other important aspect: both “Inquilab” and “Zindabad” have their root words in Persian or Farsi, the language which would go on to influence Bengali, Urdu and Hindi.
Persian itself borrowed heavily from Arabic.
In time, the Persian language seeped into the different sub-continental languages back in the 13th century following the Turkish invasion of India.
With that ponderous segue out of the way, we now get to the meat of the matter. Nestled between these four languages, five as we must include Sanskrit, stands one man in Bangladesh. Meet Shamim Zamanvi.
A noted poet in the literary Urdu poetry circle, Zamanvi has made his name over the years as a poet who dares to defy language itself.
He writes volumes in Urdu, dabbles in Farsi and is adept at Sanskrit as well.
His books, numerous translations from Bengali to Urdu and his just launched “Faaslon ki Qurbat” (roughly translated to Intimacy of Distance), complement an enviable collection of articles and pieces of poetry littered across the literary world – from Bangladesh to India to Pakistan to even Europe and America.
His story remains less told in Bangladesh, owing to the lack of popular interest in the Urdu language, which is where Shamim found his most powerful voice.
But it doesn’t seem to be an issue of contention for the poet. Ask and he shies away from the glare.
“It’s important that you learn the language of where you are. If you speak someone’s language, you build a connection. It’s a bond,” he says, leaning back in his swivel chair at his Al Falah office in the capital’s Mohammadpur.
To explain what he means, Shamim offers a story.
“When I had to go to India just before Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's assassination, I was accompanied by a friend who was a leftist. He warned me not to speak to the Central Reserve Police, who patrolled the carriages. Tensions were high between what was East Pakistan and India at the time. But when I spoke to them in their Bhojpuri-tinged Hindi dialect, it instantly broke the ice. Knowing the language, all the tension melted all of it away.”
But did he find the languages, or did they find him?
"Don’t stop at my sorrows.
Take even my joy."
- 2nd stanza, Zabaan
The small town of Zamania stands near the border of Bihar in India’s Uttar Pradesh. It lies relatively untouched by time, but rich in history -- this is where one of India's most famous freedom fighters, Mangal Pandey, was born.
This is where Shamim Zamanvi was born on a chilly December day in 1950. It’s also where he gets his last name, although not at the start. For Shamim Zamanvi was born Shamim Ahmed Khan. The new name would come much later in his life.
“I picked it as my pen name,” he says with a shy smile as he prepares a helping of betel leaf.
At an early age, around six or seven, he remembers that he began frequenting some mushairas (poetic symposiums), driven purely by curiosity.
“Some of the famous names in poetry would show up at the time,” he says, listing a litany of names, many lost to the haze of time.
“I was quite intrigued and really enjoyed the events. I had a friend, almost my age, Saeed, who would also get on stage and recite poems. It was inspirational for me,” he recalls.
He then adds with a laugh: “But I only found out later that Saeed didn’t write the poems. Another poet, Shareef Ansari, a ‘mystery poet’, did. He gave the ones he didn’t deem good enough to recite himself to Saeed.”
That’s where Shamim’s passion took shape. Just as his interests grew and he began to find his voice a big change transpired - migration.
My self-awareness, my consciousness – take these too.
Leave me with darkness, take even my light.
- Continuation of second stanza, Zabaan
In 1967, Shamim found himself in Chattogram, where he enrolled in the seventh grade in a madrasa.
A move to Khulna the same year meant another change. His elder brother found a new school for him to attend.
But there was a catch. Shamim had been taught in Arabic all his life, with some Hindi and Sanskrit. The choice between Bengali-medium and Urdu-medium schooling meant a transition into a new world either way.
Shamim, a student of Khulna Zilla School, began to learn in Urdu, a language he had heard but never read properly. His skill with the Arabic language helped.
“My teachers would teach us lessons in Urdu. I would take notes in Hindi. See, the languages are similar so I could understand,” Shamim says.
Back home, he would copy the lessons in Urdu again, to try to improve his grasp of the language. It was a tedious effort, but that is what it was going to take.
Once, he strayed into a Sanskrit class at the school, where the students were being taught basic grammar. As they recited the lessons, Shamim joined them, filling in blanks faster than other students. His teacher was astounded.
The school asked if he would like to choose Sanskrit instead of Arabic. Shamim declined.
“Sanskrit wasn't widely used even back then. It was limited to some families,” he says of his decision.
But the moment displayed the zeal with which this prodigious talent could pick up languages.
Back to lessons, Shamim was determined to improve. That’s when he turned to Ibne-e-Safi, a novelist who wrote the Urdu spy stories known as the Imran series.
“Those books taught me the language. I would devour those books. Similar to how the Bangla-language audience had Masud Rana; Imran series was our Masud Rana,” he says.
As he progressed in the language, his appetite for it only grew. But it wasn’t just a hunger to consume. It was also one to create.
I will give up my heart’s peace, the serenity.
Within this cage, I will surrender my passions.
To quench all desires, I will drain my blood.
- 3rd stanza, Zabaan
While enrolled in Azam Khan Government Commerce College in Khulna, Shamim had already adopted his pen name and was writing and collecting poetry for different Urdu magazines and newspapers.
His big break came in 1967, when the All-Pakistan Poetry Conference was held.
At the time, there were few notable poets in then East Pakistan.
The conference organisers, aiming to bring together poets also from Dhaka, Chattogram and Khulna, then turned to Shamim’s contacts. At his college, Shamim had established a literary organisation, which would prove to be useful in this case.
“I was asked to open the recitation,” he says with a gleam in his eye. But then Shamim quickly checks himself and retreats into his shy shell.
“They made the weakest poets do the opening. The top ones would come later,” he adds with another touch of humility.
“So I opened the mushaira. It was my big moment. And it was a big moment. The programme was huge. Back then it was 10 rupees [around 500 rupees in today’s prices] for the entry ticket. Can you imagine?”
Shamim, however, doesn’t speak much about his big debut. Instead, he wants to recall a funny incident – the battle of poets.
“There was a famous poet who began reciting and immediately started getting wah wahs [cheers] and Mukarrar Irshad [repeat], but mostly from the female section. The sections were divided -- men sat on one side and women on the other.”
According to Shamim, the poet was so enamoured with this fan base that he turned to face the female section and began reciting exclusively for them.
After a few minutes, the president of the association which organised the event, stood up and went to the stage. The president was renowned Urdu poet Qamar Jalalvi, a towering figure, in the literary sense.
Taking the microphone from the poet, Jalalvi conjured a verse instantly --four lines heaping sarcastic praise on the performer for turning towards the women. The lesson was learned, for no lyrical rebuttal could match Jalalvi’s prowess in Shamim’s estimation.
In those years, between 1967-1969, Urdu literature was also growing.
Noted poet Ahmed Ilias, one of Bangladesh’s most famous Urdu poets, worked in Urdu daily Pasban.
Another famous Urdu poet in Bangladesh, Naushad Noori, was the editor of the Weekly Roodad and the daily Jaridah, which came out of Dhaka. Dhaka had another daily called Tamasha and an Urdu-Bangla daily called Chitrali, which also had literature pages.
In the poetry sections of most of these, the poems of Naushad Noori and Ahmed Ilias got top billing, deservedly so, according to Shamim. He recalled keeping all the literature pages in a library at his college.
Meanwhile, Shamim also managed to secure a few reports and poets using his name in the byline.
These bylines would result in fateful encounters in the near future.
For now, the heady days were about to be paused. Independence was brewing and those associated with Urdu were about to be caught in the crossfire.
"If I utter even a word of complaint,
You may hang me.
Give me a punishment,
More severe than any the heavens could devise."
- 4th stanza, Zabaan
When the issue of Bangladesh’s independence is brought up, Shamim tells it just as he saw it.
“Sheikh Mujib won the election. We all saw it. The people supported him overwhelmingly.”
He also says the decision to make Urdu the national language was a frightening and unnecessary concept. His opinions were clear, but what was his experience?
For the first time in the interview, Shamim casts a downward glance. The gleam in his eyes dulls.
“I lost a lot of relatives,” he says.
Shamim is caught between two worlds, once again. But even here, language was to be his salvation.
“Before independence, I would speak in Bangla and Urdu with my friends, given what they were comfortable in. But after independence, my Bangalee friends began speaking to me in Urdu.”
Shamim recalls that at first this change frightened him. Were they trying to “out” him as a traitor?
But his mind was soon put to ease. “I asked them why they were speaking in Urdu. But they told me it was nothing to worry about. No one would touch me because as they said, now they were ‘freer’”.
His friends found an abandoned house for Shamim to set up his Urdu poetry club. He was made the secretary. But it came with a condition.
“It was Ramadan time. Before Sehri, Urdu songs were sung to rouse those asleep. My friends told me I had to write a new Urdu verse for each day for Ramadan.”
Shamim got to work. And in the newly independent land of Bangladesh, he honed his Urdu skills, out in the open, for all to see.
"And as you would an error of writing,
Go ahead, erase me."
- 4th stanza, Zabaan
Post-independence, Shamim was still hard at work, honing his craft.
His network of poets grew, as did his profile.
“We didn’t have a printing press, so we brought out handmade newspapers. There was Parwaaz, which reported on Stranded Pakistani camp situation and Gazal, which had eight pages, mostly with poetry."
Back in Khulna, Urdu-medium schools had closed, putting the fates of many students up in the air, especially for those above class five.
Shamim and his friends decided to start a night coaching institute to help the students continue their education in a new language, owing to his own past experiences.
There were nine teachers for over 100 students. As it was, most of the students came from impoverished families.
For around five years, these students were taught for the princely sum of two cups of tea each for the teachers, thanks to a cigarette-seller who had his son enrolled in the coaching centre.
“We kept one subject in Bangla and the rest in Urdu. Our thought process was that if repatriation didn’t take place, these kids would learn enough Bangla to cope. But it would be hard. See, the standard of education in East Pakistan was much higher than West Pakistan,” he says.
Urdu literature had also taken a backseat at the moment for Shamim.
In 1971, the top Urdu writers and activists, including the earlier-mentioned Ahmed Ilias and Naushad Noori converged at a meeting in Dhaka.
Two years earlier, the writers had sat to chalk out the Mohajir Convention in Rangpur to make a resolution for their participation in the coming national elections.
Maulana Bhasani of National Awami Party (NAP) signed a statement supporting the pro-freedom Urdu voices, urging them to forge unity with the working class of the country. The Weekly Roodad published the statement on the eve of the Mohajir Convention, and it was later picked up by all major newspapers in the then East Pakistan and West Pakistan.
But in 1971, the cause was different. As the writers met in a quiet house in Mirpur, they decided to form the Non-Local Central Repatriation Committee (NCRC).
The names that made up the group and those who threw their weight behind it comprisedthe who's who of Bangladesh's literary scene at the time, not limited to a particular language.
"Only mark these words:"
- Bridge line, Zabaan
Never one satisfied with the love for any one language, Shamim began searching for something new.
It was Farsi which drew his attention.
For eons, the subcontinent had been obsessed with Persia, inspired no doubt by its collection of literature and cultural influences.
For Shamim, it was the language he considers among the best.
The transition to Farsi was made easier by his knowledge of Urdu and Arabic. And so Shamim began to write in a language he could not share with anyone else at the time.
But it’s a topic he is very hesitant about. Asked if he is the only Farsi poet in Bangladesh, Shamim prefers not to answer directly.
“I don’t know. Farsi is taught in universities here. They could have poets, but I haven’t met any or known of any.”
Prodded a bit more, he then shares a snippet from one of his Farsi poems.
“I showed this one to a Farsi poet once during a conference. He corrected only one word,” he says, the shine returning to his face.
He is proud. But wants to hold back.
Shamim, who taught himself most of the languages he knows, still doubts that he, himself, is a great tutor.
He says he has written a number of Farsi poems, some even as a ghostwriter, which have been published.
It’s here in Farsi, where one must hark back to Inquilab Zindaban. Two words forged by many languages.
And it is the confluence of these languages – Urdu, Hindi, Sanskrit, Bangla, Arabic – which forms the Farsi Shamim so loves.
But it’s not something he feels full confidence in yet. For the poet in his heart, there’s still time to come.
The future, however, may not be as hopeful for Urdu.
"Take all my possessions, but don’t take away my tongue.
For my language is the only legacy of my culture."
- 5th stanza, Zabaan
Naushad Noori, Ahmed Ilias, Asad Chowdhury, Kamal Lohani -- among others Shamim names as the pioneers and torch-bearers of the Urdu language are all gone.
The names that birthed such passion in Shamim in those early years in Ghazipur are also ghosts lost to the haze of time.
Where were the ones who started it all with him?
Shamim says a calligrapher, who worked in one of their Urdu magazines, was still alive.
He names three other poets who he thinks might still be around.
But then he reclines slightly on his swivel chair, and looks up.
“I think after a few years, Urdu literature will die out here,” he says, resigned to a fact he knows.
But then he lights up. One last hurrah? One last lap? One last dance?
He straightens his posture.
“But the Urdu language will never die out. Look at the cultural aggression from India. Do you know that of what they speak, maybe 10% is actual Hindi? The rest is Urdu; it’s a much easier language to comprehend in comparison,” he says.
He then points to the children of Naushad Noori – son Haikal Hashmi and daughter Shabana Naved – who now carry the torch of the language.
But what about his new book? Is there a market for it here?
“No. There is no market for Urdu books in Bangladesh. A few of our books are sold in India, UAE, America, Europe and Pakistan. But it’s important to have your own book,” he says.
So in another life, would Shamim Zamanvi prefer to be born elsewhere?
“No. I don’t like the attitude of others. I am down to earth. We all are, here.”
He then adds, with a sly smile and a touch of his trademark humility, “If you were to name Urdu poets of Pakistan, my name wouldn’t be in the top 10. But in Bangladesh? I would make that list.”
Would he like to end with a poem? He would.
“This is my poem on Language. Naushad Noori had a famous one, Moejodaro. But I have shown this poem of mine to many people. It’s my favourite. It’s called: Zabaan.”
For more than one reason, Zabaan may just be yet another chapter in the illustrious life of Shamim Zamanvi.
"My language is the my inheritage.
My language is for my people.
It is my identity."
- Akhri Band or final stanza of Zabaan written by Shamim Zamanvi
The poem Zabaan has been translated from Urdu to English by Fatema Biviji with some minor alterations made by the Waadaa editorial team.