Urdu poetry, neoliberalism & worship of power—III

Pain, grace & lost humanism of subcontinent

یہ کیا کہ سورج پہ گھر بنانا
پھر اس پہ چھاؤں تلاش کرنا

— احمد سلمان

Part I and Part II of this series explored the evolution of modern poetic consciousness through the works of Majid Amjad, Jaun Elia, Ahmad Salman and Mohsin Naqvi. Their poetry reflected suffering, self-destruction, betrayal and resistance—four distinct responses to the human condition in an age increasingly characterised by alienation, inequality and the worship of power. Yet an important question remains unanswered. Why did the great poetic traditions of the subcontinent transform suffering into wisdom, while modern consciousness increasingly transforms suffering into despair?

Ahmad Salman’s metaphor provides an apt starting point. Modern societies often resemble a people building houses upon the sun and then searching for shade. We create economic arrangements that generate insecurity and then wonder why anxiety has become universal. We construct systems based on debt and speculation and then search for stability. We weaken communities and celebrate individual competition, only to discover widespread loneliness and social fragmentation. The contradiction is not merely economic. It is civilisational.

Few scholars understood this better than Annemarie Schimmel. Her lifelong engagement with South Asian poetry was based on a simple but profound insight: the great poets of this region were not merely writers of verse. They were interpreters of human existence. In Pain and Grace, her study of Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai and Khwaja Mir Dard, Schimmel demonstrated how suffering occupies a central place in the intellectual and spiritual traditions of the subcontinent. Pain was not viewed as an end in itself. Nor was it romanticised. It became a means through which human beings acquired self-knowledge, empathy and moral depth.

This perspective stands in sharp contrast to the prevailing ethos of market fundamentalism. The contemporary world treats discomfort as failure. Every inconvenience must be eliminated. Every desire must be immediately satisfied.

Patience appears outdated. Restraint seems irrational. Consumption becomes the principal measure of success. The great poets of the subcontinent offered a radically different understanding of human fulfilment. Among them, Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai occupies a unique position.

His poetry is populated not by kings and conquerors but by travellers, fishermen, herdsmen and women confronting extraordinary adversity. Sassui wandering through deserts in search of Punhun, Marui resisting the temptations of royal comfort, and countless other characters in Shah Jo Risalo represent something deeper than folklore. They embody the triumph of dignity over temptation.

Marui (also spelled Marvi) is a legendary folk heroine from the Sindh region of Pakistan, in particular, offers a striking contrast to modern consumer culture. She refuses luxury, privilege and power because they require the abandonment of her community and identity. In an age where market values increasingly define success, Bhittai’s heroine reminds us that not everything can be bought. This theme becomes even more pronounced in the poetry of Sachal Sarmast.

Sachal challenged rigid orthodoxy and narrow identities. His poetry celebrates freedom, universality and the unity of human experience. The boundaries separating communities, sects and social categories dissolve before a larger vision of humanity.

In many respects, Sachal’s poetry is a direct challenge to what Wilhelm Reich later identified as the psychological foundations of authoritarianism. Power thrives by dividing people into categories and encouraging obedience to artificial hierarchies. Sachal undermines those hierarchies by insisting upon the primacy of shared humanity. The contrast with contemporary politics could hardly be more striking.

Modern political discourse increasingly depends upon polarisation. Citizens are sorted into competing tribes. Identities become weapons. Fear becomes a governing principle. The great humanist poets of the subcontinent consistently moved in the opposite direction. Their concern was not domination but liberation. Not power but understanding. Not conformity but self-discovery.

This is where the critique of neoliberalism intersects with the region’s poetic heritage. Market fundamentalism encourages individuals to view themselves primarily as consumers. Success becomes synonymous with acquisition. Human relationships are transformed into transactions. Communities become markets.

The consequences are visible everywhere. Economic insecurity coexists with unprecedented concentrations of wealth. Social media promises connection while producing isolation. Political systems proclaim freedom while deepening dependence. The resulting anxiety is then interpreted as a personal failing rather than a structural consequence.

The poets understood something that economists frequently overlook. Human beings require meaning as much as material comfort. They require dignity as much as prosperity. They require belonging as much as freedom. The neglect of these dimensions has produced a peculiar paradox. Technological progress continues. Material abundance expands. Yet despair, loneliness and alienation proliferate.

Erich Fromm warned of precisely this outcome. He argued that societies organised exclusively around production and consumption eventually produce individuals who become estranged from themselves and from one another. The pursuit of possession gradually replaces the cultivation of being. The great poetic traditions of the subcontinent consistently resisted this tendency. Their central concern was the formation of character.

The cultivation of empathy. The mastery of desire. The pursuit of wisdom. This does not mean they ignored worldly realities. On the contrary, they confronted them directly. Poverty, displacement, injustice and suffering appear throughout their works. What distinguishes them is their refusal to reduce human beings to victims of circumstance.

Even in adversity, the possibility of moral growth remains. Even in suffering, the possibility of grace survives. This humanistic vision is perhaps more relevant today than ever before.

Pakistan’s contemporary challenges are not confined to fiscal deficits, debt burdens or economic stagnation. They include a crisis of meaning. Public discourse revolves around power struggles while neglecting deeper questions concerning justice, dignity and collective wellbeing. The result is a society increasingly preoccupied with means while losing sight of ends.

The great poets of the subcontinent remind us that no civilisation can sustain itself indefinitely on consumption, competition and spectacle alone. A society that forgets empathy eventually loses cohesion. A society that worships power eventually loses freedom. A society that abandons restraint eventually loses balance.

The next part of this series will move beyond Sindh to examine two towering figures of Pashto literature: Rahman Baba and Khushal Khan Khattak. One represents humility, moral discipline and self-restraint. The other embodies resistance to domination and imperial power. Together they illuminate a tension running through the entire literary heritage of South Asia—the perpetual struggle between temptation and restraint, submission and freedom, despair and hope.

The discussion may appropriately conclude with Mohsin Naqvi’s reminder that beneath every political struggle lies a deeper human reality:

اجڑے ہوئے لوگوں سے گریزاں نہ ہوا کر
حالات کی قبروں کے یہ کتبے بھی پڑھا کر

وہ آج بھی صدیوں کی مسافت پہ کھڑا ہے
ڈھونڈا تھا جسے وقت کی دیوار گرا کر

اے دل تجھے دشمن کی بھی پہچان کہاں ہے
تو حلقۂ یاراں میں بھی محتاط رہا کر

اس شب کے مقدر میں سحر ہی نہیں محسنؔ
دیکھا ہے کئی بار چراغوں کو بجھا کر

The warning is timeless. Civilisations do not decline merely because of external enemies. They decline when they cease to recognise the difference between power and wisdom, acquisition and fulfilment, temptation and restraint. The poets understood this long before the economists, politicians and ideologues of our age.