Recitation of Faiz’s Hum Dekhenge ‘unsuitable to time, place’, find IIT-Kanpur committee

The six-member committee set up by Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur has concluded that recitation of Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s ‘Hum Dekhenge’ by students protesting against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) on campus in 2019 was “unsuitable to the time and place”, reported The Indian Express

The committee also found out that role of five teachers and six students, who had taken part in the protest, “to be less than desirable”. It was recommended that the institute should “counsel” them.

The inquiry committee was set up by IIT-Kanpur after a faculty member complained that the poem that was recited during the march was 'anti-Hindu' in nature and spirit.

The complaint against the students was filed by Vashi Mant Sharma, who is part of the 'INSPIRE' faculty at the IIT-Kanpur.

Describing the march at IIT-Kanpur on December 17, Sharma on his website said he confronted the students and 'knew the poem'.

"I knew the poem. So I objected instantly. Few others joined me too. We outshouted the mob of 300. Since then, everybody is teaching us the context of these revolutionary lines," he said.

The Urdu poet from Pakistan's Sialkot - a communist and an atheist - was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1963. He used religious metaphors in his poetry to attack the establishment.

Faiz Ahmad Faiz was jailed several times for his writings. He wrote "Hum dekhenge... (We will see)" - one of his best remembered compositions - in New York in 1979. It was a mark of protest against the Pakistani dictator Zia-ul-Haq, who declared himself the President of Pakistan after overthrowing Zulfikar Ali Bhutto government.

In 1986, the song assumed an iconic status after Pakistani singer Iqbal Bano sung the poem of defiance against the martial law in Lahore in front of a 50,000-plus crowd.