Javed Akhtar: Calling Faiz Ahmed's poem anti-national is absurd

Kanpur: Bollywood's famous lyricist Javed Akhtar termed the latest controversy over the recitation of renowned Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz's noted poem 'Hum Dekhenge' at the IIT-Kanpur campus as "absurd and funny".

Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur (IIT-Kanpur) set up a panel to investigate if Faiz Ahmed Faiz's iconic poem 'Hum Dekhenge' is "anti-Hindu" when the poem was recited and gathered controversy.

Javed Akhtar said at the University that even speaking about an issue like this is difficult, as calling Faiz Ahmed Faiz's poem anti-Hindu is highly "absurd and funny."

The lyricist said, "Faiz Ahmed Faiz wrote 'Hum Dekhenge' against Zia ul Haq's communal, regressive and fundamentalist regime. Faiz Ahmed Faiz was like a leading star of the progressive writers who emerged in undivided India," Javed Akhtar said.

Javed Akhtar added that Faiz Ahmed Faiz wrote poems when India got independence and the partition took place to express his sorrow over the division of the country and now his work is being termed as anti-national.

"The man who wrote a poem to express his sorrow over the division of India is now being termed as anti-India. He lived half his life outside Pakistan, he was called anti-Pakistan there," Akhtar added.

Controversy loomed in the top engineering college campus when an IIT-K student sang the poem 'Hum Dekhenge' by Faiz against which a complaint was filed by Dr Vashimant Sharma, a temporary faculty member, and about 16 others including faculty members and students.

The written complaint filed by them with the IIT Director states that the poem had some wordings that could hurt the sentiments of Hindus.