Hum Dekhenge ( - In english ''We shall see'') is a popular
Urdu
Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...
nazm, written by the
Pakistani
Pakistanis (, ) are the citizens and nationals of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Pakistan is the fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the second-largest Muslim population as of 2023. As much as ...
poet
Faiz Ahmad Faiz. Originally written as ''Va Yabqá Vajhu Rabbika (And the countenance of your Lord will outlast all)'', it was included in the seventh poetry book of Faiz -- ''Mere Dil Mere Musafir''.
Background
The nazm was composed as a medium of protest against
Zia Ul Haq's oppressive regime. It gained a rapid cult-following as a
leftist
Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social hierarchies. Left-wing politi ...
song of resistance and defiance, after a public rendition by
Iqbal Bano at
Alhamra Arts Council[Iqbal Bano ghazal personified](_blank)
Dawn (newspaper), published 22 April 2009, Retrieved 21 June 2018 on 13 February 1986,
ignoring the ban on Faiz's poetry.
[, Retrieved 21 June 2018]
Themes
Faiz employs the metaphor of traditional Islamic imagery to subvert and challenge Zia's fundamentalist interpretation of them;
Qayamat, the Day of Reckoning is transformed into the Day of Revolution, wherein Zia's military government will be ousted by the people and democracy will be re-installed.
In popular culture
Media
The song was recreated in
Coke Studio Season 11 on 22 July 2018, under the aegis of
Zohaib Kazi and
Ali Hamza. In the movie
The Kashmir Files (2022), it was depicted as being sung by students of a left-leaning Indian university to as a song of protest
Protests
The poem gained importance in protests against
Pervez Musharraf
Pervez Musharraf (11 August 1943 – 5 February 2023) was a Pakistani general and politician who served as the tenth president of Pakistan from 2001 to 2008.
Prior to his career in politics, he was a four-star general and appointed as ...
in the early 2000s.
During the
Citizenship Amendment Act protests in India, faculty members of
IIT Kanpur took issue with ''Hum Dekhenge'' being sung by protesting students in the campus, and alleged it to be "anti-Hindu". The IIT instituted a commission to look into the issue. The student media body rejected the charges as being misinformed and communal, which divorced the poem from its societal context.
During the same period of early 2000s
Madan Duklan a prominent actor, director and poet in Garhwali language translated 'Hum Dekhenge' in Garhwali language. Encouraged and directed b
Dr. Sunil Kainthola local artists who were participating in a production orientation workshop for
Mukhjatra sang th
in front of the Uttarakhand movement's martyrs monument in the court compound at Dehradun.
*
Notes and references
Notes
References
External links
* For a translation and more on the IIT protest:
{{authority control
Poetry by Faiz Ahmad Faiz
Ghazal songs
1985 songs
Pakistani songs
Faiz Ahmad Faiz
Asim Azhar songs