Farooq Sulehria in his column, ‘The vulture king’ (May 3, 2014) cogently laid bare the discourse of irrationality in Bano Qudsia’s novel ‘Raja Gidh’, which was written at a time when General Ziaul Haq introduced a regressive ideology to perpetuate his power.
Much has been written about the collusion of clergy with power to cast self, state and society in an intolerant and irrational frame. However, our obsessive focus on the single actor/factor of mullah has resulted in total ignorance about other entities that have contributed to the inculcation of irrationality in society and formation of an anachronistic worldview.
People like Qudrat Ullah Shahab, Bano Qudsia, Ashfaq Ahmed, Wasif Ali Wasif, Prof Ahmed Rafiq Akhter, etc, belong to a league of Sufi intellectuals who sugar-coated irrational views in mystical nomenclature. Most of these writers belong to the post-WWII period, which witnessed the emergence of different trends and movements.
Being a part of the educated milieu of a premier seat of learning in the Subcontinent, Bano Qudsia was well aware of the trends and thoughts that were liberating the self from the clutches of organised culture and state. A discursive analysis of the novel provides cues that help us understand the dominant attitude of society and the writer’s approach towards the body that burst forth into the public domain from the private sphere under a process of rationalisation in a conservative social setting.
Instead of tackling the issue of the body in the public domain, sufi writers in Pakistan took the onus of saving society from depravity and the influence of the soulless west on their pens by portraying stock characters that harbour sullied souls in corrupt bodies. Though the challenges faced by the writer of ‘Raja Gidh’ are modern in nature, her intellectual stance is deeply rooted in the moral framework of mysticism developed in different times. That is why the body gets a deterministic treatment in the novel. In the eugenic scheme of Bano Qudsia the haram genes recur in descendents till eternity.
Readers of Raja Gidh get the impression that the writer justifies the kind of treatment meted out to characters whose bodies and souls are rendered asunder by the metaphysical pathos generated by individual alienation in the modern age. The rebellion of body/flesh was a part of the bigger changes that occurred at the cosmic level. Instead of looking at cataclysmic ruptures in society from holistic and cosmic perspective, the writer has targeted the body for metaphysical castigation. It is around the body that she weaves a metaphysical web. Whoever is trapped within the web is delineated as the one who gets redemption.
On the other hand, those outside this web are doomed to eternal damnation through eternal vivification of illegitimate genes in posterity. That is why every sinful character in the novel meets his/her nemesis or is redeemed from sinful existence through some divine punishment or prayer (dua) respectively. Amtal, a woman from the red light area, is killed by her deranged son. Qayyum resorts to Sufi solutions of ‘Sain jee’ to cure himself of ‘pagal pan’ (insanity).
The walled city of Lahore provides peeps into the dynamics of social change and its impact on morality. Despite leading a lascivious life, Qayyum marries a girl from the walled city because unlike westernised and educated western girls like Seemi Shah, Roshan is deemed chaste owing to the space she inhabits.
Change of space enables one to break the fetters of history. Those who migrate from the inner city to posh localities outside have been successful in upward social mobility. However, people who preferred to stay within the confines of city walls were frozen in time and space. In the novel, elites – like Aftab – of the walled city moved into the posh area of Gulberg. They succeed in finding a niche in new power arrangements, whereas the souls inhabiting the wall city cater to intermittent religiosity of the outsiders.
Like the mullah, the sufi character of Sain Jee in Raja Gidh provides metaphysical justification for physical acts. In the character of Sain Jee, Qudsia Apa portrays the sufi as a redeemer of anguished souls and sinners. In reality, the sufi saviour is full of the tricks of the trade typically associated with pirs.
Contrary to Qudsia Apa’s intentions, Sain Jee’s techniques and shenanigans in the novel give the impression that saints have lost their sacred way of life in the profane labyrinths of modernity. Unable to address the questions and tackle the challenges begotten by cosmic and microcosmic changes, the sufi master simply escape reality, as happens with Sain Jee who ‘disappears permanently’.
Sulehria has succinctly defined the crux of the theory of haram and halal acts in the novel. “Pagal pan (madness)”, writes Sulehria, “is caused by haram genes. Once one is condemned to carry haram genes, s/he is destined to live the life of a ‘vulture’ – a bird that lives on dead meat.” The genealogy of this line of argument is related to the moral framework elaborated by the famous dervish Sheikh Saadi in his popular books ‘Bostan’ and ‘Gulistan’. Historically, his ethical framework was supported by the Muslim ashrafia (elites) because it resonated with their perception about them vis-à-vis the rabble.
In order to convince the reader of his didactic message, Saadi narrates an anecdote about a group of Arab brigands who were killed by the king, but his vizier saves a boy of a slain dacoit. The boy is fostered by the vizier. After two years a band of robbers in the locality joins the boy, and he kills the vizier. Thereupon, the king pronounces words that well-reflect the elitist frame of mind and morality.
Through the king’s mouth Saadi expresses his view: “At last a wolf’s whelp will be a wolf, although he may grow up with as man.” Saadi further elaborates: “The rain, in the beneficence of whose nature there is no flaw, will cause tulips to grow in a garden and weeds in bad soil.” By proclaiming it, Sheikh Saadi rejects the Mu’tazilites idea that human beings acquire character and knowledge through nurture, not nature. He simply appears to be more deterministic than a proponent of Mu’tazilite rationality.
Saadi’s ethical framework still informs the moral precepts of Muslims. If the discourse of Raja Gidh is analysed within the backdrop of the fight between conservative and progressive forces, then it can be deduced that writers of the mystical persuasion in Pakistan are also guilty of inculcating irrationality and conniving with the ruling elites. Raja Gidh is an attempt to keep the paradigm of traditional sufism intact from the onslaught of rationality.
In the particular social context and cultural ethos of Pakistan, the continuous relegation of the question of the body into the unconscious has created enormous libidinal energy. The suppression of issues regarding the body results in overpowering of the suppresser by the suppressed – the unconscious. It is this suppressed energy that has enabled our country to produce the largest number of voyeurs on the internet.
Foundational literary texts play an important role in the formation of self, society and state. Therefore, it is indispensible to re-evaluate and divulge ideological biases and irrational elements embedded in them. Only by deconstructing foundational texts can we construct a new self and an open society.