Update: If you’re on Twitter please help make #Ghalib trend @ Twitter India – Tweet his sher’s!
That is what it has come down to. DNA reports that according to Maharashtra police, a Ghalib couplet on a piece of paper is proof the Students Islamic Movement of India is into the business of mass violence:
Of the several affidavits — filed in court asking for the ban on the group to continue — accessed by DNA, one by inspector Shivajirao Tambare of Vijapur Naka, Solapur, cites a Ghalib verse — as part of evidence — to show how dangerous SIMI (Students Islamic Movement of India) is.
Mauje khoon ser se guzer hi kiyon na jay, Aastane yaar se uth jaein kaya! A loosely translated Marathi version in the affidavit concludes that these lines speak of bloodshed and animosity.
Khalid Mehmood, the head of Jamia Millia Islamia’s Urdu department, however, has a different take. He told DNA that the lines, in fact, have a positive meaning: “Whatever be the circumstances, we will not leave the place (country or home of the beloved) even if our heads are chopped off…”. [DNA]
There’s more there. The Maharashtra police thinks SIMI is working for the secession of Maharashtra from India. I thought the Thackeray clan was doing that?
To quote the terrorist ideologue himself:
Bazeecha-e-atfal hai duniya mere aage,
Hota hai shab-o-roz tamasha mere aage.
The world is my play ground,
I see the game all around.
High time the Union of India charged Mirza Ghalib with sedition.
From Kafila archives:
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 
This terrorist by name “Mirza Ghalib” deserves Bharat Ratna – India’s highest Civilian award.
LikeLike
’Huvi muddatt ki Ghalib marr gaya’, achaa huva yaroo,
jo hota gar who zinda aaj to, Tihar main pada hota .
LikeLike
hui mudat k ghalib mar gaya par yad ata hai
wo us ka har bat par kehna k youn hota to kia hota
LikeLike
Does not his being a Muslim, ‘naturally’ qualify him to be a ‘terrorist’ ?! After all, all Muslims are NOT terrorist BUT every Terrorist was, is and will be Muslim !!!
LikeLike
Wow, what a great logic! You contradicted yourself there in the second sentence, mate.
LikeLike
fully wrong statement and highly biasdness
LikeLike
@ Minorities Today — So Hindutva terror is not terrorism? Any man randomly killing innocents is not terrorism? And according to you only Muslims go crazy and start killing? Or is it that you only call an act of unjustified murder terrorism when a Muslim is involved? How about looking up the word ‘terrorism’ in the dictionary? Does it say that you have to be of a certain religion for an act of cruelty to be called terrorism?
LikeLike
I think @Minorities Today is just being sarcastic. Guys, please pay attention to the air quotes.
LikeLike
@minorities : how are u so sure of the will and is ? please expand your horizon a little bit
LikeLike
Zindagi apni jab is shakl mein guzri Ghalib
hum bhi kya yaad karenge ke khuda rakhte thay
yun hi gar rota raha Ghalib to ay ahl-e-jahan
dekhna in bastiyon ko tum ke veeraan ho gayin
LikeLike
thi khabar garm ke ghalib ke urenge purze
dekhne ham bhi gaye the pe tamasha na huva
huve mar ke ham jo rusva huve kyon na gharq e dariya
na kabhi janaza uthta na kahin mazaar hata
LikeLike
Thank God, I’m not in Maharastra else I would have been stamped as a terrorist ..
For I travel everyday with Diwan-e-Ghalib!
LikeLike
What is happening to muslims in a democratic country .
LikeLike
“Kabhi Jo Yaad Bhi Aata Hoon Main To Kahte Hain
Ke Aaj Bazm Main Kuch Fitna-O-Fasaad Nahin” – Ghalib
:)
LikeLike
Perhaps he might disarm the authorities with this?
“Maine maanaa ki kucch naheen Ghalib / Muft haath aaye to buraa kyaa hai?”
Or teach them something with these from the same Ghazal?
“Ham ko unse wafaa ki hai ummeed / jo nahiin jaante wafaa kyaa hai.
Haan bhalaa kar teraa bhalaa hogaa / aur darvesh ki sadaa kyaa hai.”
LikeLike
Humko maloom hai ‘secular’ India ki haqeeqat lekin,
Dil ke khush rakhne ko Ghalib ye khayal acha hai !
LikeLike
Touche!
LikeLike
Doston, Maharashtra Police is right, what right did Ghalib have to write such a ‘Sher’ Did he seek any permission from ‘Nandan Nilekani’ or ‘ Montek Singh Ahluwalia’, see, you need to understand, our country is highly secure…..hist, I mean secular, and we cannot allow anybody to write, read or think otherwise, if anybody did write anything in the past they should be counted as terrorist or the same.
We as true Indian citizens should stand up against any philosophy to malign our countries reputation, we all should think on the line of our great, great prime minister ‘Manmohan Singh’ everything else is against the best interest of the country. So, beware of reading anything which does not bear the stamp of congress party at the bottom, BJP, some other national and regional parties like, TMC, BSP, RJD, JDU etc. will also do, but otherwise don’t read it just report it to the Police or better Home ministry. OK.
LikeLike
THEY HAVE CREATED A NEW VISION…HAHAHA….NO ONE EVER SIGHTS DEEWAAN E GHALIB AS LIKE THAT…..REALLY IM SHOCKED
LikeLike
So much for Ghalib being a Muslim when he says “Ek din sharaab na pee ho to kaafir hoon aur agar ek bhi din roza rakkha hoon toh musalmaan hoon”.
Ghalib was much abobe ANY religion. He like Mir Taqi (Kaska khencha, dair mein baith kab ka tarq Islaam kiya) were HUAMNISTS.
Aise shaayar sadiyon mein paida hote hain as Mir said “Mat sehal hume jaano, firtaa hain falaq barson tab zemeen ki khaaq se Insaan nmikalte hain”.
Khair…Now that one stupid Inspector has dragged Ghalib into religion let us (all Ghalib’s fans) need not “bark back”!
LikeLike
How correctly expressed! Well, if Mirza Ghalib was a terrorist, then so was Harivansh Rai Bachchan, who in Madhushala says:
dharm granth sab jala chuki hai jiski antar ki jwala
mandir masjid girje sab ko tod chuka jo matwala
pandit momin padariyon ke fandon ko ko kaat chuka
kar sakti hai aaj usi ka swagat meri madhushala.
These people, through their poetry, gave us the wisdom of the ages. Instead of drinking deep from these fountains, we have absolute idiots who brand them terrorists! How low can you fall?
LikeLike
Sorry friends. I did not know, you will take it seriously. I just was sarcastic but unfortunatally that is what belivied widely.
Here is two posts of mine on the subject.
1. What does it mean to be a Muslim in India today?
http://kafila.org/2011/03/21/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-muslim-in-india-today-mahtab-alam/
2. The burden of being Muslim
http://infochangeindia.org/human-rights/features/the-burden-of-being-muslim.html
LikeLike
Even commenting on such idiotic interpretation appears to be ludicrous. This is proof of sheer intellectual bankruptcy and lowbrow view of life.The couplet shows the height of love where the lover speculates even self effacement. The stress is on the intensity of love which will continue even at the cost of life and limb. Sublimity of love is the reality while the ‘mauj-e-khoon’ is imagined extent of atrocity he is ready to face for his love. This love can be for the beloved’s ‘aastan’ or the land where he lives.
LikeLike
Very interesting. A policeman got worried that Mirza Ghalib had been inspiring terrorism.
On being requested to take an Urdu book to a relative in India, a friend declined, saying that in both the US and Indian airports, a book in the Urdu script could cause delays if not serious trouble.
But coming back to Ghalib, he did live during violent political turmoil, and in the end, became sympathetic towards the view of colonialism as an agency for progress. Today, in a different context, that view holds dominance in Pakistan’s English language newspapers. But for his language, and script, alas, Ghalib is a potential subversive in several theatres of the “war on terror.”
This fine piece will become part of Kafila archives. It will also become a part of the older Kafka archives.
Best wishes, tariq
LikeLike
This is nothing. Had it been Delhi, they would have had Ghalib’s confession among the affidavits.
LikeLike
Recently while reading a book on Ghalib’s letters came across this shair, thought would share here:
Hum muwahid hain, humara kesh hai tark-e-rusoom,
Millatein jab mit gayeen,ejzaae imaan ho gayeen.
{ We believe in One God, rituals we renounce,
Creeds when dissolved, merge into One faith.}
~Ghalib
LikeLike
He was really a great poet. And gave Urdu poetry world a norm to think it as interest. The Urdu world will always remember him.
Here is also a great collection of his work http://rekhta.org/poets/mirza-ghalib
LikeLike