Excerpts from Qaid-e-Farang
Hasrat Mohani
Introduced & translated by
Maaz bin Bilal
DOI:https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23585256
Abstract: Hasrat Mohani is an understudied Urdu writer, poet, literary critic, journalist-editor, political thinker, politician, and freedom fighter who has earned many accolades. He was the first person to propose complete independence, ‘mukammil āzādi,’ at the Ahmedabad Congress session of 1921, much prior to the accepted declaration by the Indian National Congress of ‘pūrna swarāj’ in 1930. Hasrat also gave us the invaluable slogan, ‘Inquilab Zindabad,’ Long Live Revolution, at a Calcutta rally in 1928, which has ever since been the hallmark of protest and justice in South Asia. The slogan itself is a unique and wonderful coinage deriving ‘inquilab’ or revolution from ‘qalb,’ the heart. Hasrat was also a critical member of the Indian Constituent Assembly. While he was a member of the Muslim League and was nominated by them to office, he opposed the formation of Pakistan and split from them. Hasrat was also a founding member of the Communist Party of India. As a poet, he gave us the inimitable ghazal “Chupke Chupke rāt din āñsū bahānā a yād hai,” (I can recall crying softly through day and night) immortalized in the voice of master ghazal singer Ghulam Ali. As a journalist and editor, he founded, wrote for, and edited the magazine Urdu-e-Mu’alla (exalted Urdu) from Aligarh that set the bar for literary creation and criticism and created an appropriate social and political consciousness for its time.
Notes:
See the essay “Forgotten by the Left — How Muslim Organizers Built Labour Movements and Were Written Out,” Outlook India, 12 December 2025, https://www.outlookindia.com/national/forgotten-by-the-left-how-muslim-organisers-built-labour-movements-and-were-written-out.
Urdu-e-Mu’alla (literally Exalted Urdu, part of the original name for the language of the capital of Delhi, zubān-e-Urdu-e-mu’alla-e-Shāhjehānābād) was a magazine launched by Hasrat Mohani in 1903 from Aligarh. With articles on literature and politics, society, and history, it sought to create political and social consciousness as well as literary tastes and standards. The sedition case against Urdu-e-Mu’alla was for an article that condemned British policies in Egypt, whose authorship Hasrat refused to reveal in court, and he received punishment as editor of the magazine.
“man” in Urdu, anglicized as maund, unit of weight equal to 37 kgs.
This is probably a reference to the Morley-Minto Reforms that were under discussion since John Morley’s appointment as Secretary of State for India in 1906 and were enacted eventually in 1909. The Congress Moderates under the leadership of Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866–1915) supported the governmental reforms, while Extremists such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856–1920) opposed it.
Literally ’ilm-dost or “knowledge-friend”.
kach-bandhiya or “loin-cloth wearer”, probably referring to ati-shudra or the untouchable caste.
teli¬ is the oil-making and selling caste.
Davar, Hon’ble Sir Dinshaw Dhanjibhai, K.T. (1912) Judge, High Court, Bombay; b. 1886; Educ; Proprietory High School, and the Elphinstone College, Bombay; proceeded to England and joined the Middle Temple, 1877; called to Bar at the Trinity Term, 1880: admitted as Advocate, Bombay High Court, the same year; was a particularly clever Cross-examiner in Criminal cases, Junior Counsel to Sir G. Evans in the great partition case known as the “Moolji Jehta Case”; fought for the equality of Indian and European barristers; appointed Judge of the High Court of Bombay, 1908. Offg. Chief Justice, 1914. Address: Bombay, India. (Indian Biographical Dictionary 1915, 116)
Rubai: a genre of four-line Urdu poetry where the first, third, and fourth lines rhyme.
There is a pun here, as “daavar” in Urdu also means judge, arbiter, God, or sovereign.
“bar-‘aks nihand nām-e-zangī kāfūr” is an idiom in Urdu taken from Persian to imply “a person whose actions belie their name, Hercules in name but a coward in fact” (rekhtadictionary.com). “kāfūr” is camphor though, and “nām-e-zangī” will mean name of the dark-skinned person, adding a second layer of possible meaning with anti-colonial critical possibilities, where the dark-skinned person behaves like a white colonizer, theorized by mid-twentieth century by Frantz Fanon in his Black Skins, White Masks (1952), among others.
Maaz Bin Bilal is a Visiting Scholar at SOAS University of London. His latest translation Allah Miyan’s Workshop has been longlisted for the Ramnath Goenka Sahitya Samman Debut Award 2027.
Email: maaz.bilal@gmail.com
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4074-7446.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
