Absurd and funny: Javed Akhtar on terming Faiz's 'Hum Dekhenge' poem as 'anti-Hindu'
Mumbai/IBNS: Reacting to the terming of legendary poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz's poem 'Hum Dekhenge' as "anti-Hindu" by some faculty members of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, lyricist Javed Akhtar called the incident "absurd and funny", media reports said.
Akhtar also added Hum Dekhenge was written by the legendary poet against the then Pakistan government under President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq.
The faculty members complained that the students who took out a protest march against the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, and in solidarity with assaulted Jamia Millia University students on Dec 17 sung the lines of the poem which hurt sentiments of other communities.
Following the complaints, the IIT Kanpur constituted a panel to decide whether the poem is "anti-Hindu" or not.
The lines which have come under the scrutiny are, "Jab arz-e-Khuda ke Ka’abe se, sab buut uthwaae jaayenge / Hum ahl-e-safa mardood-e-haram, masnad pe bithaaye jaayenge/ Sab taaj uchhale jaayenge, sab takht giraaye jaayenge/ Bas naam rahega Allah ka, hum dekhenge.”
The translation put out by rekhta.org as quoted by The Times of India reads, "When from the sacred square of the Kaaba / Idols of false Gods will be uprooted / When to us rootless and unwanted / Seats of power will be granted / All crowns will be tossed into the air / All thrones ground to dust / Only the name of Allah will prevail / We will see!"
Students of various colleges, universities across the nation took to streets to protest against the CAA over the last few weeks with some protests even turning violent.
The CAA, if implemented, will grant citizenship to Hindu, Sikh, Christian, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi but not Muslim refugees who came to India from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan before 2015.
While majority of protesters are accusing the government of hurting the secular fabric of the nation by choosing religion as the basis of the law, agitations in Assam broke out against granting citizenship to any community in the state.
The Centre argued that the law is aimed at granting citizenship to all religiously persecuted minorities of the three nations.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah stated no Indian Muslims need to worry about the their citizenship.--
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