Partition and the Indian Muslim - An Analysis of 'Garam Hava'
Note: The events in the review are not arranged chronologically, but thematically.
Taqseem hua mulk toh dil ho gaye tukde;Har seene mai toofan wahan bhi tha, yahan bhi…
Har ghar mai chita jalti thi; lehrate the sholay,
Har shaher mai shamshan waha bhi tha, yaha bhi…
Gita ki koi sunta, na Quran ki sunta
Hairan sa imaan waha bhi tha, yahan bhi.
The land is divided, lives are shattered; storms rage in every heart,
It was the same here or there…
Funeral pyres in every home; the flames mount higher,
Every city is deserted,
It was the same here or there…
No one heeds the Gita, no one heeds the Quran,
Faith has lost all its meaning,
here or there.
– Kaifi Azmi
The 1973 masterpiece doesn’t lack its accolades; from being the last film Balraj Sahini (playing Salim Mirza) ever acted in to the Indian submission to the Academy Awards, Garam Hava cemented itself as an unforgettable masterpiece of Indian cinema. This adaptation of Ismat Chugtai’s Station Master hits as hard as the heavy-weight writers of the film intended it to. The film is set in the winds of grief, and conflict, but also with a subtle hint of youthful optimism. The grief, months after the assassination of M.K. Gandhi, is not only of – in Nehru’s words – “the light has gone out of” India’s life; but also of the trauma that the land and its people had faced post-partition. The conflict, after the formation of the Muslim state across the border, was fervour in its sectarianism; the othering and marginalization of Muslims who choose to stay in India is what the film centres itself around. And this it does well.
Salim Mirza, the protagonist, is the owner of a shoe-making factory in Uttar Pradesh’s Agra. His elder brother, Halim Mirza, is a reputed leader at the provincial All India Muslim League. Mirza’s family, housed in their ancestral mansion owned by Halim, is principally opposed to migrating to Pakistan. To them, India is home; Salim relies on Allah to make the surrounding climate inclusive, Halim makes it a point in his political campaigning that he will never leave his homeland. Naturally, he stealthily leaves his homeland. His departure happens among a large wave of post-partition migration to Pakistan. These migrations occurred in the backdrop of a political climate in the country that, as discussed later, did not accommodate Muslims in its imagination but also one that did not serve the interests of its working classes. Kaifi Azmi, the writer, brings his experience as a Communist Union Leader1 clear in his depiction of cross-religion struggle of the working class at the Indian equivalent of the Athenian agora – the chai tapri – where Sikander (Salim’s son) sits with young men of his age complaining of the unemployment in the country. Despite its focus on marginalization of Muslims, the film is clear in its acknowledgement of the depressing condition of all working-class Indians.
The chai wallah – roadside tea-seller – also chips in the conversation, saying how his sacrifices for the country during the struggle for independence has only created benefit for the elites of India. Ironically, this conversation is interrupted by a Shoe-maker’s association strike led by the Indian National Congress (INC) member – Salim’s brother-in-law. Salim’s brother-in-law was originally an India Muslim League member, but he left and joined INC to advance his political career. That the representation of India’s largest minority was not a politically viable path was reflective of the nature of how the Muslim identity is asserted post-partition. Such dilution of the assertion of the Muslim identity is seen in Sikander’s job interview, which happened after Salim Mirza was accused (and later acquitted by the court) of espionage on grounds of communication with Halim in Pakistan.
Not only does a Muslim official have to factor in the religion of the applicant to avoid the appearance of bias (something a Hindu official would never need to do, as pointed out by Sikander) he also states that Salim’s communication with his brother was foolish; suggesting that a Muslim in India must live in perpetual test of his loyalty to the country.
Following Halim’s departure, and a steady outflow of Muslims from Agra, Salim was facing institutional pressure to leave. The government took his ancestral property since it was demarcated as evacuee property owing to Halim’s ownership; when on the lookout for rental property, Salim found the aversion of landlords to renting to Muslims, the inclusion of dietary preferences as a proxy for rental discrimination is particularly enlightening and persistent.[2]
The lack of trust for Muslims, even those who were regular patron of services, is further reflected in the hindered access to credit. Salim, whose business is struggling due to non-compliance with union demands and a host of other reasons, is forced to go to informal sources of credit.
All this while, Salim’s daughter Amina’s marriage with Halim’s son Kazim is unable to go through as Kazim is deported to Pakistan owing to the lack of a passport. She courts with Shamshad, the son of Salim’s Brother in Law, who also leaves for Pakistan but promises to come back for Amina. However, Amina is betrayed yet again when Shamshad is married off to a well-connected Pakistani family. Amina’s arc throughout the film is shown to represent the inhumanity of breaking the life-long connections and networks due to migration. Amina’s heartbreak is reflective of the breaking apart of relations at the border and the brutality of the cultural exclusivity post-partition. Amina’s death by suicide after Shamshad’s betrayal is emblematic of the death of relations.
Among the social and institutional pressures on the Mirza’s to leave India; the last straw was the disrespect and isolation Salim Mirza faced after the baseless accusations of espionage. The last optimist for the Indian Muslim was forced to leave the country; his son, who had joined his friends to protest for working class rights of roti-kapda-makan (food-clothing-shelter), opposed this decision in words similar to the optimist Salim Mirza at the beginning of the film. Yet, the family leaves on the horse-ridden carriage for the train to Pakistan that Salim had sat on several times to say goodbye to his friends and family leave. On the way, a protest for the rights of the working class jams the path to the station. Sikander asks his father if he can join the protest; Salim allows him to go and returns to the optimism of the start but in a fundamentally different form. He realizes that his isolation is not due to his physical distance from his family, it is because of his inaction to marginalization and his distance from the free assertion of his Muslim identity. He no longer relies on just Allah as mentioned earlier, he walks into the crowd joining the protest symbolizing the nature of Muslim identity in India that has survived the majoritarianism of the country through active and adamant assertion of its identity and its refusal to give way to exclusionary notions of India as a country by leaving it.
The film began by a couplet by Kaifi Azmi; it was one written in the past tense. The horrors of partition ‘was the same here and there’ noting the mutually shared reality of the partition for both new-found nations; a reality that was over.
He ends the film with another couplet – this one in the present tense. The film ends with the aforementioned acceptance of the country and the struggle the times demand from Mirza (and by extension, the Indian-subcontinent Muslim) and a sense of optimism for what the nation can become; this was a reality to come.
Jo door se toofan ka karte hai nazara, unke liye toofan vahan bhi hai yahan bhi… Daare me jo mil jaoge ban jaoge daara, yeh waqt ka ailaan vahan bhi hai yahan bhi
To those who see the storm from afar, it looks the same on this side and that side too… If you join the stream, it becomes a mighty torrent, this is the call of the times the same on this side and that side too.
– Kaifi Azmi
References
- Chishti, S., 2019. Remembering Kaifi Azmi, the people’s poet. [online] The Indian Express. Available at:
https://indianexpress.com/article/express-sunday-eye/peoples-poet-5594273/ [Accessed 1 May 2022]. - Thorat, S., Banerjee, A., Mishra, V. K., & Rizvi, F. (2015). Urban rental housing market: Caste and religion matters in access. Economic and Political Weekly, 47-53.
https://www.hlrn.org.in/documents/
Housing_Discrimination_Study_by_ICSSR.pdf
→ The remastered film is available for viewing at https://youtu.be/eHfrHDBxCFU
Appears in —
Seth
Seth is a student of economics and spends an unhealthy amount of time on internet research rabbit holes as a hobby. He loves brewing coffee more than he likes drinking it, and owning books more than reading them.
Enjoyed the writing? Share it and support the writer.
more from this issue —
Note: The events in the review are not arranged chronologically, but thematically.
Taqseem hua mulk toh dil ho gaye tukde;Har seene mai toofan wahan bhi tha, yahan bhi…
Har ghar mai chita jalti thi; lehrate the sholay,
Har shaher mai shamshan waha bhi tha, yaha bhi…
Gita ki koi sunta, na Quran ki sunta
Hairan sa imaan waha bhi tha, yahan bhi.
The land is divided, lives are shattered; storms rage in every heart,
It was the same here or there…
Funeral pyres in every home; the flames mount higher,
Every city is deserted,
It was the same here or there…
No one heeds the Gita, no one heeds the Quran,
Faith has lost all its meaning,
here or there.
– Kaifi Azmi
The 1973 masterpiece doesn’t lack its accolades; from being the last film Balraj Sahini (playing Salim Mirza) ever acted in to the Indian submission to the Academy Awards, Garam Hava cemented itself as an unforgettable masterpiece of Indian cinema. This adaptation of Ismat Chugtai’s Station Master hits as hard as the heavy-weight writers of the film intended it to. The film is set in the winds of grief, and conflict, but also with a subtle hint of youthful optimism. The grief, months after the assassination of M.K. Gandhi, is not only of – in Nehru’s words – “the light has gone out of” India’s life; but also of the trauma that the land and its people had faced post-partition. The conflict, after the formation of the Muslim state across the border, was fervour in its sectarianism; the othering and marginalization of Muslims who choose to stay in India is what the film centres itself around. And this it does well.
Salim Mirza, the protagonist, is the owner of a shoe-making factory in Uttar Pradesh’s Agra. His elder brother, Halim Mirza, is a reputed leader at the provincial All India Muslim League. Mirza’s family, housed in their ancestral mansion owned by Halim, is principally opposed to migrating to Pakistan. To them, India is home; Salim relies on Allah to make the surrounding climate inclusive, Halim makes it a point in his political campaigning that he will never leave his homeland. Naturally, he stealthily leaves his homeland. His departure happens among a large wave of post-partition migration to Pakistan. These migrations occurred in the backdrop of a political climate in the country that, as discussed later, did not accommodate Muslims in its imagination but also one that did not serve the interests of its working classes. Kaifi Azmi, the writer, brings his experience as a Communist Union Leader1 clear in his depiction of cross-religion struggle of the working class at the Indian equivalent of the Athenian agora – the chai tapri – where Sikander (Salim’s son) sits with young men of his age complaining of the unemployment in the country. Despite its focus on marginalization of Muslims, the film is clear in its acknowledgement of the depressing condition of all working-class Indians.
The chai wallah – roadside tea-seller – also chips in the conversation, saying how his sacrifices for the country during the struggle for independence has only created benefit for the elites of India. Ironically, this conversation is interrupted by a Shoe-maker’s association strike led by the Indian National Congress (INC) member – Salim’s brother-in-law. Salim’s brother-in-law was originally an India Muslim League member, but he left and joined INC to advance his political career. That the representation of India’s largest minority was not a politically viable path was reflective of the nature of how the Muslim identity is asserted post-partition. Such dilution of the assertion of the Muslim identity is seen in Sikander’s job interview, which happened after Salim Mirza was accused (and later acquitted by the court) of espionage on grounds of communication with Halim in Pakistan.
Not only does a Muslim official have to factor in the religion of the applicant to avoid the appearance of bias (something a Hindu official would never need to do, as pointed out by Sikander) he also states that Salim’s communication with his brother was foolish; suggesting that a Muslim in India must live in perpetual test of his loyalty to the country.
Following Halim’s departure, and a steady outflow of Muslims from Agra, Salim was facing institutional pressure to leave. The government took his ancestral property since it was demarcated as evacuee property owing to Halim’s ownership; when on the lookout for rental property, Salim found the aversion of landlords to renting to Muslims, the inclusion of dietary preferences as a proxy for rental discrimination is particularly enlightening and persistent.[2]
The lack of trust for Muslims, even those who were regular patron of services, is further reflected in the hindered access to credit. Salim, whose business is struggling due to non-compliance with union demands and a host of other reasons, is forced to go to informal sources of credit.
The lack of trust for Muslims, even those who were regular patron of services, is further reflected in the hindered access to credit. Salim, whose business is struggling due to non-compliance with union demands and a host of other reasons, is forced to go to informal sources of credit.
All this while, Salim’s daughter Amina’s marriage with Halim’s son Kazim is unable to go through as Kazim is deported to Pakistan owing to the lack of a passport. She courts with Shamshad, the son of Salim’s Brother in Law, who also leaves for Pakistan but promises to come back for Amina. However, Amina is betrayed yet again when Shamshad is married off to a well-connected Pakistani family. Amina’s arc throughout the film is shown to represent the inhumanity of breaking the life-long connections and networks due to migration. Amina’s heartbreak is reflective of the breaking apart of relations at the border and the brutality of the cultural exclusivity post-partition. Amina’s death by suicide after Shamshad’s betrayal is emblematic of the death of relations.
Among the social and institutional pressures on the Mirza’s to leave India; the last straw was the disrespect and isolation Salim Mirza faced after the baseless accusations of espionage. The last optimist for the Indian Muslim was forced to leave the country; his son, who had joined his friends to protest for working class rights of roti-kapda-makan (food-clothing-shelter), opposed this decision in words similar to the optimist Salim Mirza at the beginning of the film. Yet, the family leaves on the horse-ridden carriage for the train to Pakistan that Salim had sat on several times to say goodbye to his friends and family leave. On the way, a protest for the rights of the working class jams the path to the station. Sikander asks his father if he can join the protest; Salim allows him to go and returns to the optimism of the start but in a fundamentally different form. He realizes that his isolation is not due to his physical distance from his family, it is because of his inaction to marginalization and his distance from the free assertion of his Muslim identity. He no longer relies on just Allah as mentioned earlier, he walks into the crowd joining the protest symbolizing the nature of Muslim identity in India that has survived the majoritarianism of the country through active and adamant assertion of its identity and its refusal to give way to exclusionary notions of India as a country by leaving it.
The film began by a couplet by Kaifi Azmi; it was one written in the past tense. The horrors of partition ‘was the same here and there’ noting the mutually shared reality of the partition for both new-found nations; a reality that was over.
He ends the film with another couplet – this one in the present tense. The film ends with the aforementioned acceptance of the country and the struggle the times demand from Mirza (and by extension, the Indian-subcontinent Muslim) and a sense of optimism for what the nation can become; this was a reality to come.
Jo door se toofan ka karte hai nazara, unke liye toofan vahan bhi hai yahan bhi… Daare me jo mil jaoge ban jaoge daara, yeh waqt ka ailaan vahan bhi hai yahan bhi
To those who see the storm from afar, it looks the same on this side and that side too… If you join the stream, it becomes a mighty torrent, this is the call of the times the same on this side and that side too.
– Kaifi Azmi
References
- Chishti, S., 2019. Remembering Kaifi Azmi, the people’s poet. [online] The Indian Express. Available at:
https://indianexpress.com/article/express-sunday-eye/peoples-poet-5594273/ [Accessed 1 May 2022]. - Thorat, S., Banerjee, A., Mishra, V. K., & Rizvi, F. (2015). Urban rental housing market: Caste and religion matters in access. Economic and Political Weekly, 47-53.
https://www.hlrn.org.in/documents/
Housing_Discrimination_Study_by_ICSSR.pdf
→ The remastered film is available for viewing at https://youtu.be/eHfrHDBxCFU
Appears in —
Seth
Seth is a student of economics and spends an unhealthy amount of time on internet research rabbit holes as a hobby. He loves brewing coffee more than he likes drinking it, and owning books more than reading them.
Enjoyed the writing? Share it and support the writer.
