Manto and His Aesthetics of Humanism
By Mohammad Ashraf Chaudhry
Pittsburg, CA
“To strive for freedom is fine. I can even understand dying for it. But to turn living people into mere vegetables, without passion or drive, is beyond me. To live in poor housing, shun amenities, sing the Lord’s praises, shout patriotic slogans-fine! But to stifle the very desire for beauty in human! … Students coming out of these madrasas and ashrams look like the udders of a cow from which every drop of milk has been squeezed”. - Manto, “For Freedom Sake.”
Some fifty-seven years ago Manto was lowered into his grave in poverty, in relative obscurity, and with the charges of obscenity written large on his coffin. The government officially did not ban him from the media, but it did make arrangements that he remained so. His friends did not shun him, but they made sure that they stayed as much away from him as possible. Now the judges take pride in presiding over functions held in his honor, once they were the ones who acted as his main tormentors.
This year on August 14, 2012, the government of Pakistan finally chose to recognize Manto as a writer of some worth, and graced him with the country's highest civil award of Nishan-i-Imtiaz. The fact of the matter is, and as is endorsed by Qurratain Haider on his death, “Many barristers and judges of High Court were in his family. So were many highly placed government officials. They all combined could not fix him up”.
The truth is, the entire Pakistan could not feed just one man, called Manto. Government awards and Manto: both could never go together.
Those who knew Manto, knew it well that Manto hated awards. His spontaneous reaction would have been, "Fraud". Manto loved using this word on almost all occasions. If asked why did Meera Jee dress himself so oddly, and held two iron halls in his hands all the time, his answer invariably would be, "It's fraud." Why does Opindar Nath Ashk mix "Saeewian with curry", Manto again would answer, "Fraud". "And what are you then? Would say the irritated ones. His answer again used to be, "Fraud". Manto was "a black swan", something probable and tangible, but highly improbable and unreal at the same time, just like the Google, now a craze, but in the initial phases, best when ignored. The government's gesture of awarding Manto, in the words of Munnoo Bhai appears more apt, “Manto always rejected awards. The government by giving him this award has honored itself more than it has honored Manto”.
Perhaps President Zardari was not fully aware of how politicians figured out in Manto’s estimation! Manto felt no moral qualms when he addressed them as “khatmals, bed-burgs, which could be ridden off only by pouring boiling water of hatred of them”. Patronage of any sort, and especially that of the government or even of an individual, was unthinkable for Manto. It was like a red rag to him. Once Ahmed Shah Bukhari (Patras), in Delhi attempted to address Manto in a somewhat patronizing manner, and said, “Manto, I consider you like my own son”. Manto’s reaction was as expected. “But I do not consider you like my father.” Reports Shahid Ahmad Delvi.
The attempt in this article is to focus on Manto's humanism. Humanism is not just a term; it is an attitude of life; it is an action-oriented way of looking at life. To talk about humanism without fully understanding it is like embroiling oneself in endless misunderstandings, warns Irving Babbitt. A humanist, thus, is one who believes in one life, one earth and one humanity, and who fashions his morality on this principle. He does not deny religion because for him no religion is without humanity; only he fears no hells and seeks no heavens. He simply approaches religion, if any, via humanity. For him life is an art, just as dancing and painting are, pleasurable and enjoyable for their own sake. Life for a humanist is not a task or something burdensome because life for him is for living and not for dying. Thus, for a true humanist, no nomenclature of any sort, be it of religion, caste, nationality, color or status, has a sanction to deprive another human being of his/her basic entitlement to his/her ‘creatureliness’, or deny a person of his/her candidacy to being a human being. Manto hundred percent lived up to this definition of humanism.
Humanism is the main theme running at full gush in Manto’s stories. In his autobiographical story, Sahai, Manto makes a bold statement, “After killing one lakh Hindus, the Muslims think that they have eliminated Hinduism. But it lives on, and will keep living on. Likewise, after killing one lakh Muslims, the Hindus rejoice that they have killed Islam. But the truth is, Islam is alive and is flourishing. What they have actually done in the process, is kill two lakh human beings. Religion lives in the souls, not in the body. How can a butcher’s cleavers, knives and bullets kill the faith”. In almost all of his stories, Manto boldly exposes those tunnel-visioned-religious zealots who confuse or who try to substitute the ulterior outfits and symbols of religion with the very essence and spirit of it.
For example, in Kali Shalwar, we find, KaramBux, a character who avoids the hardships of life, and seeks their resolution in seclusion and in the Khanqahs; in Mozelle, another insightful story, we find a similar character, Tarlochan by name, who risks the life of his fiancée, Karpal Kaur, trapped in the riots with the Muslims doing the job, by refusing to remove his headgear - his turban - a symbol of Sikhism, despite his intense love for her. Religiously, Tarlochan valued his turban more than he valued the life of his fiancée. Manto leaves here for us an open question. ‘What constitutes true religion? Human life or the ulterior symbols of religion?
A good number of people in Pakistan still would like to see Manto either stoned, or killed, rather than have him being honored with Sitara-i-Imtiaz, for , “peering at poor woman’s armpits and describing them in gory details”, the way he did in his most powerful story, Saghundhi. Writer Haniff suggestively raises the point when he says, “As a storyteller we wish you were here, as a citizen we are glad you are gone.” Manto through his stories conveys the message that it is so easy to live as a Muslim, a Hindu, a Christian or a Sikh, but it is so difficult to live as a human being.
To the charge of obscenity, Manto himself furnishes the answer. ‘You find my stories bitter and sour. But what has humanity gained from the sweetness that has till now been dished out to it? The leaves of neem may be bitter, but they do purify flood.” Manto was for those who could think positively, and who would not search for filth in others because they belonged to a different religion, or had a different caste or opinion; for Manto, a little introspection would reveal that enough filth is lying stocked in each person's own self. ‘My stories are for healthy people, for normal people, who take a woman’s breast for a breast and don’t go further than that”. He wanted people to view man-woman relationship with amazement, with awe, and not in a mood of morbidity. For him, literature is not a cure to a malady, but a response to a malady - a measure of the temperature of the county, of the nation. “We tell others of what they are suffering from, but we do not run a pharmacy shop.”
Just as a house without the provision of a rest-room , be it even the White House or the Buckingham Palace, is inhabitable, the same way a society, no matter how much outwardly advanced and embellished, can ever be without its fund of filth (latrines - outlets for catharsis), mental as well as sexual. Manto was clearly referring to the presence of whorehouses. They exist not because of women, but because of men. Like drugs, you cannot end them without ending their consumers. Women are prostitutes because of men. Manto’s sin was that he tried to visualize these “bad women” as human beings, having a heart and soul, not as some radioactive stuff.
Manto also did not present these so-called “bad women” as Mehboob would present Nargis in ‘ Mother India”, slavishly docile to men, loyal hardworking and as embodiment of forbearance and fortitude, always willing to find virtue in silent sufferings. That is not how Manto perceived women. He presented them as he presented his men, capable of doing good and bad, conceivable or inconceivable. His Sagundi in his story Hatak, and his Khushia in the story of the same title, are basically the two sides of a human beings: man and woman. A simple “Ooh” of rejection for Sagundhi from a customer was enough to prick her sense of pride, and awaken in her all her femininity and her pride as a female; same way, a simple phrase of Kanta, a prostitute for whom Khushia had worked for nine years as a pimp, was enough to go straight like a dagger into his heart, awakening in him, his dormant sense of “manlihood’ when she asked him to step inside while she was almost naked, “Come on, after all, you are Khushia, our own Khushia.” Manto here presents a rare streak of humanism present in people least suspected of having it.
Manto accepted these marginalized characters as a reality of life, and tried to dig out their almost forgotten sense of respectability, by reminding them of their authentic entitlement to humanity. He urged them to make a demand on the society for a good treatment. When he peeped deep into their inner souls, what he found there was something very amazing. And he shared it with people through his stories. He discovered, “A whorehouse is itself a dead body carried by the society on its shoulders. Unless they bury it somewhere, it’s going to be talked about. The body may be rotten, stinking, impure, horrible, and dirty, but there is no harm in seeing its face. Aren’t we its relatives and friends.?, he said so in “Safed Jhoot.” Good cannot shine without the presence of evil.
Manto boldly targeted the so-called elites and titled people whom the society often so befittingly allots an exaggerated sense of importance whereas, in reality, they are so monstrous. His story “Shaadan” is about a respectable, retired and titled person known as Khan Bahadur Mohammad Aslam Khan. There is in no shortage of such elites in any society. Khan Bahadur got arrested on a charge of raping his teenage servant, Shaadan, for a crime he was physically incapable of committing as was endorsed by the doctor and his wife. His incapacity to perform sex did not take away from him the inner muck and perversion that had been present in him. What he did to Shaadan, no healthy man would even think of doing. He hurt her fatally with a miswaak. So parents with daughters: beware of the uncles and trustworthy elderly men, because all humans are born with the feet of clay and are fully capable of committing any sin imaginable.
Manto’s most pungent story, “Siraj”, is about an ordinary, coy and bashful girl who avenges her lover in the most unusual way. Though in the flesh-business for some time, Siraj had always managed to escape molestation as is confirmed by her pimp, Dhondo. She had saved her virginity for wreaking revenge on her lover with whom she had eloped, and who had forsaken her for being a coward. Here, unlike Sakina of Khol Do, or Budhia of Prem Chand’s Kafan, we do not find a girl trapped in a state of utter helplessness; on the contrary, and to our shock, it is her lover whom we find lying in such a state, totally humbled - dead or senseless - covered by the burqa, an outer cover which Siraj had bought when she embarked herself on her mission to find out her lover who had deserted her. Once the mission was accomplished, we find Siraj thrusting herself head-on in the flesh-business like all whores do. Manto once again raises the basic question: “Who made Siraj a whore? She herself, her lover, or the society?!”
Manto in another beautiful story, “Mustaqim, presents a dilemma that we all often confront as human beings. For Manto, mere wishful thinking is not an acceptable substitute for a good, practical action. The world needs action-oriented service, not just hollow and empty slogans delivered on the theme, "We should help others". Mehmooda of this story, became a prostitute, notwithstanding all her efforts to stay as a good house wife, because of two so-called good intentioned individuals: one was her husband who after failing in his role as a husband begins to seek refuse in religion as Khuda Bux of Kali Shalwar had done; and the second was Mustaqim, a married person, who inwardly kept eyeing for her (Mehmooda’s eyes always haunted him), but practically he did nothing but plan and suggest remedial ways for her welfare. In practical terms, he did nothing to stop or even help slow down Mehmooda’s slip into the sinful world. Manto through the character of Mustaqim, exposes all those who intend well, but are never able to translate their good intentions into meaningful actions.
Humanism is all about doing good before looking good. Manto, once again, asks this question in a loud voice: who precisely drove Mehmooda, a good housewife into the flesh business? Poverty, her good-for-nothing husband, or her silent lover, or all the three? Self-imposed inaction and incapacitating paralysis due to one consideration or another, for Manto is more dangerous than the presence of an outright evil.
Manto did not inhabit his world with saints or angels. His is a world which is populated by bad people, and incidentally, these bad people are also human beings. It is a world in which an abducted daughter walks over her mother, when she spots her in a refugee camp. The mother, however, keeps thinking, "Nobody can think of killing her daughter... nobody will kill her daughter because she is so beautiful" (The Dutiful Girl). These marginalized and shady people are not totally devoid of the residue of humanity. In Kali Shalwar, we find how Sakina, a hard-working bad woman keeps sticking to her faith, a redeeming factor, in spite of all the odds, and keeps maintaining her total respect forMoharram, which for people in normal circumstances can never as exacting a task as it was for Sakina. In Manto’s world, we meet people, “Who dare to sin”, as would say Mumtaz Shirin, and who also possess the ability to redeem themselves.
Manto’s characters are powerful because they keep on haunting us and never go away. This is so because they are so real. Prem Chand’s Budhia and Gisu, Bedi’s Lajwanti; Krishan Chander’s Street boys in the Irani Palau, Ismat Chughtai’s women under the Lahaaf, all visit us but from time to time. Manto’s Mozelle, Siraj, Isher Singh, Bishin Singh, Sakina, Mangu, Mustaqim, Gurmukh Singh and Baghbari and many more are so real that we often find ourselves sitting in their midst.
Manto as a humanist and pacifist, believed that a killer is a killer, whether he kills for the sake of the glory of the country, or in the name of his gods, or in self-defense. We see this theme boldly presented in Akhri Salaam and The Dog of Tatwal. In Manto’s book of life, nothing justifies inhumanity, cruelty or an act of taking life. That is one reason that in the butchery of 1947 Partition, Manto found no heroes except those who showed some traces of humanity, even if casually or accidentally. To hold on to such a level of neutrality and detachment in the name of humanity sounded somewhat too idealistic and too un-nationalistic to quite a few in Pakistan.
Manto after the Partition, never used the word ‘Independence’, because for him, real independence always remained elusive on both sides of the border. As summed up by Faiz in his famous poem, The Dawn of Independence, the real dawn never took place in Pakistan. Freedom did not liberate people of their prejudices, biases, sectarian hatred, and divisiveness. Manto sums up this theme beautifully in “For Freedom’s Sake”:“ A person should stay the way God has made him. He does not need to shave his head, wear saffron-color clothes, or cover his body with ash to do good works, does he?”
To conclude we can say that humanism is all about human needs, and about our response to them. Hypocrisy, and compromise of it with truth is one way to meet these needs; taking a stand for what is right is another. Manto did not choose the first path and he suffered greatly because of that. “My life is a wall whose plaster I keep scratching with my nails. Sometimes I wish to erect a building on this rubble, I keep thinking of this…I love life. I like dynamism. I don’t mind being hit by a bullet in my chest while I am moving around. But I don’t want to die like a bed bug in a prison…But if my head is wounded in a Hindu-Muslim riot,, each drop of my blood will cry out.” This is how Manto viewed life - a life that was free of hatred and violence.
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