Mandi Is No Alternative To Socialism: Kaifi

The Telegraph, Kolkata, recently reproduced on May 17 excerpts from an exclusive interview, which late Kaifi Azmi had given Anil Grover of the paper on October 11, 1996. According to the paper, this was Kaifi’s last interview to any paper before his death on May 10, 2002. Below we publish, courtesy The Telegraph, excerpts from this interview.

Kaifi Saab, pardon us, but could we ask your age?

AAP poochh to sakte hain, main bata nahin sakunga. I was born in a small village in Azamgarh and nobody kept birth registers. All my elders left for Pakistan; I alone stayed back in Hindustan. Now I answer queries about my age thus: I was born in Ghulam Hindustan, am living in Azad Hindustan, and will die in Socialist Hindustan.

Yeh koi deewaane ki baat nahin hai. I say this because the struggle for socialism which is going on, I am not only a spectator of that, but have been a participant. My poetry has been for that, my life has been for that. And whatever has happened so far has strengthened my belief that other than socialism there is no other route to salvation.

  If there has been some setback in Russia or some European countries, that is not a permanent setback. The situation will turn over again very soon and socialism will return without the defects…. defects like the bit of bureaucracy which had taken root. Socialism will return. This free mandi is not the alternative to socialism.

  There has been a setback, but we have been able to learn from the mistakes too. I am a member of the CPI. Long ago in the Palghat congress we had passed a resolution that whenever we came to power we would allow an opposition. We are against any form of dictatorship, there will be democracy in our socialism. And that phase has already begun.

  But things look very bleak…

  It seems like there is darkness all round. That is because our sights are limited to the city. Our intellectuals seem to think that Hindustan is the name of Calcutta or Bombay or Lucknow. No.

  Hindustan gaon mein hai. And the villager even today is totally secular, under any government.

  At this age I have left Bombay and returned to my village and am doing as much as possible for my village. I have done something, there is more to be done. The villagers are pitching in, so is the Uttar Pradesh government.

  But from your personal front to the hawaala, do you see any light? That problem, you faced in a communal riot in Bombay, January 1993, for instance….

  That news about the attack on me in the bazaar in Phulpur village was totally false. There was trouble there, but I wasn’t even in Bombay then. That was totally false. It was payday on that day and I had gone to the bank to withdraw money for the villagers’ salaries. While I was on the way to the bank, I was stopped by someone and told that there was a Hindu-Muslim riot ahead. I just laughed and asked if Phulpur had progressed so much that now there were Hindu-Muslim riots here, too!

  I still went ahead, I saw the entire staff of the bank who had abandoned their seats and were standing on the street, watching the drama. But they saw me, and opened the gates. I was sitting in my car still and someone from a Hindi newspaper took my photograph. That’s all. There was no attack on me. People saw the picture and presumed that I had been attacked, and also began condemning the attack!

Would you call yourself an optimist or a pessimist by nature?

Optimist.

Even in this Dark Age? How have you been able to retain that zindadili?

Pessimism meri zindagi mein nahin hai.

Do you ever feel like a voice in the wilderness with so much intolerance and impatience that has come into our lives? And then this TV revolution..…

Aa gaya hai, to chala bhi jaayega.

But your voice is being suppressed by the voice of the chat show hostess. It is more important to listen to the voice of Luke Kenny than to the voice of Kaifi Azmi..…

That voice has not been subdued and we haven’t fallen silent either. We are continuing to do our work. There are others, too, who are raising their voice against all this. There are enough reasons to feel without hope, but we should not. We should raise our voice against it, we should fight it. Woh ladaai jaari hai. It’s not as if we have all surrendered arms.

You have been to Calcutta about 10 years ago. We have been having communist rule since 1977 here. Have you noticed any changes?

I will say with pride --- see how many years have we been independent. Congress said it was the strongest and biggest party. There is no doubt that it is the biggest. But you cannot present a single example in the entire history that in any state, any one leader has continued to govern for so many years as a chief minister as Jyoti Basu. There hasn’t been an absence of conspiracies to topple him, but the people have been with him --- and with reason.

Or take the hawaala scam: it stripped everyone naked. But there was no name of any communist leader.

So it is the only party not corrupt? Hasn’t absolute power corrupted it  any? Has it been free of corruption from 1977 to 1996?

It seems our party is unsullied so far. And when I say our party, I mean CPI(M) too….. 

What is that Ghalib sher you like to recite with your own changes to it?

Whenever I get a chance, specially in Delhi, I recite it. Ghalib had said:

Hazaaron khwahishen aisi ki har khwahish pe dum nikle,

Bahut nikle mere armaan, lekin phir bhi kam nikle.

I recite it thus:

Hazaron kursiyan aisi ki har kursi pe dum nikle

Jo is pe baith kar khud se uthe hon, aise kam nikle.

All of them have to be evicted from the chair, they don’t vacate it themselves. Except for V P Singh………

But general public knows you better as a film lyricist…..

Yes, the general public may know me better as a film lyricist, but they should also know that I don’t go gambolling on the streets, singing songs.

Then can we talk about your own song, a song that was most fulfilling? We have a few in our mine….

Bus, whichever you like then, woh mere naam kar dijiye.

Par ek gaana jisse aap jo sub se zyaada sukoon mila?

Sab se zyadda sukoon us gaane mein milta hai jis mein paise bahut achhe milte hain!

Now you are talking like a pessimist!

Well, Guru Dutt's film Kaagaz ke Phool had all my songs. Among them Waqt ne kiya, that is one song I don’t feel ashamed to say is mine. Haqeequat and the other Chetan Anand-Madan Mohan combinations have been good because both of them were fond of poetry and had a poetic sense.

You wrote one in Haqeeqat: Ab tumhaare hawaale watan saathiyo. You said that about 25 years ago. Has that hope been fulfilled?

Dekhiye, ab to main hawale ka naam hi nahin loonga!

Ab to dar yeh hai ki yeh Hindustan ko kisi ke hawaale na kar dein.