Frank Islam speaks with Salima Hashmi, artist, educator, peace activist, founder member Sapan

South Asia Monitor

1 year ago

Frank Islam speaks with Salima Hashmi, artist, educator, peace activist, founder member Sapan | Washington Calling

Transcript

00:00This is Frank Islam, Chairman and CEO of FY Investment Group, and your host of Washington

00:23Calling, where we interview leading voices from business, politics, from art and culture,

00:28and explore the topics that impact you to the viewer. Today our guest, we are fortunate

00:34to have a guest, and her name is Salima Hashmi. And she is a daughter of renowned poet Faiz

00:44Ahmed Faiz, which is a wonderful story, and a professor of art for 30 years at the National

00:50College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan. She is currently the Dean of the School of Visual

00:57at Beacon House National University in Lahore. She works to bring about Indo-Pakistani reconciliation

01:04by developing artistic projects that go beyond the two countries' borders.

01:09She is a human activist and a painter. So, welcome to our show, Salima, and thank you

01:18for coming to our show. And so, welcome to our show. Looking forward to seeing you.

01:25Thank you so much for inviting me. Yeah, you're most welcome. Well, you are a daughter of a

01:31renowned poet. As a result of that, we have a lot of admiration and respect for you.

01:38As I understand, you are an artist, author, feminist, civil rights activist, and a champion

01:43of South Asian peace and harmony. You have indeed a very impressive profile. You seem to wear many

01:51hats. So, I'm wondering, how do you juggle many things and be effective? Well, I think being a

02:00woman helps, because I think women, from the very early time of their lives, learn to juggle many,

02:08many things. We very often don't give them credit for it. But the fact remains, if you go into any

02:13of our rural areas, and you see what women have to do, I mean, child rearing is just one very small

02:21part of it. You know, they are tending to the animals, they're looking after everything that

02:26happens in the household, and they're out in the fields at harvest time, or if it's not harvest

02:32time, they're taking the meals out to the men who are working in the field. I've even seen,

02:37in recent years, that very often it's the women who are tilling the land, simply because I think

02:44so many men have left the country to go and look for work abroad. And there's also now a growing

02:52desire for women to get education. And therefore, you find the droves of young women from all over

03:01the country who are coming into universities and excelling. And that is something that I at least

03:09take great pride in. But I'm also highly inspired because, you know, I'm a very ancient lady.

03:15You're not an ancient lady, you're a wonderful lady.

03:18And I've seen the sea change in women's lives in South Asia, not just in Pakistan. It's happening

03:27all over because I do travel to other parts of South Asia. I've seen how the numbers have changed.

03:34I've seen how women have struggled and, you know, taken up positions which they were not

03:40considered for earlier. They've entered the workforce for a very large number of reasons.

03:47So for me, to wear many hats is just something that becomes part of your life. You don't plan

03:54it that way, but because you're engaged with everything that's going on, you become a human

04:00rights activist, you become a women's rights activist, you become a child right activist.

04:06All the time you are being creative. For me, my teaching has been the anchor. I've taught

04:13at the National College of Art for 30 years and after I retired, a new university started.

04:20So they asked me to start all over again, which I did. But in fact, I stepped down from being a

04:26dean. I'm now professor emerita there. But that doesn't mean you stop mentoring artists.

04:33And I mentor artists, not just Pakistani artists, but artists who come from other parts of South

04:39Asia to study in Pakistan. So it's a holistic life. I have been an actor.

04:50So you have undertaken the task of recording the life and work of female artists in Pakistan

04:55in a book. You wrote a book. What made you do that?

05:01Well, you know how political and social events, they alter your life. And I think artists,

05:09perhaps more than anybody. And when I say artists, I mean people in the creative field. I mean poets,

05:15I mean musicians, I mean filmmakers, I mean theater people. They're much more sensitive and

05:22they act like the radar in a society. So when the worst martial law occurred in Pakistan of

05:31General Zia-ul-Haq, and new laws which targeted the minorities and targeted women and targeted

05:38vulnerable sectors of society happened, I reacted. I reacted and got together other women like

05:47myself who are artists and had a meeting. And we wrote out something called the Manifesto for

05:54Women Artists of Pakistan. And it was a secret document because at that time we couldn't make

06:00it public. But basically we said that our work and our artistic endeavor must be to bring our

06:09people greater awareness into their struggle. It must reflect women. And that's what made me think,

06:16you know, I looked around and I saw, well, my male friends were making compromises,

06:24but my women friends were not. And I thought, okay, this is an interesting story here.

06:30Let's think about writing something on the women artists of Pakistan. So I set about, I interviewed

06:38a large number of artists of various generations, starting from those who were my teachers.

06:45And because they were the first generation, I was lucky enough to have

06:50interviews with them. And most of them have now passed away. So it's an important document.

06:55And then there were my peers, and then there were the younger generation and then the absolutely

07:00new generation who are now quite internationally well-known. So it was a saga which covered

07:0750 years of our story. And it's called unveiling the visible lives and works of women, Pakistani

07:16women artists. Very well said. Would you be able to shine a bright light on India-Pakistan

07:21reconciliation, especially through art? You engage in this because you were born in India

07:27or because of the other reason, and you are also against nuclear weapon and especially

07:33nuclear weapon that's produced in India and Pakistan is because you believe that we should

07:42be fighting against hunger and disease, not nuclear weapons. Am I correct to assume that?

07:48Absolutely. And that is precisely what has made me an anti-nuclear weapon activist.

07:55But before that, before the two countries were, I would say idiotic enough to test their weaponry,

08:02long before that, I think I inherited this desire to see peace in the subcontinent,

08:10because my father was very much a proponent of peace in South Asia. Where was your father born

08:16in India? My father was born in what is now Pakistan. He was born in Sialkot.

08:23So, the same, the home. Yes. So, the hometown of Allama Iqbal, he shared that

08:32place of birth with him. So, he was very much a Punjabi, like Allama Iqbal. And he was one of

08:41those people who believed that development and all the things that we aspired to in the freedom

08:51struggle would only be achieved if there was peace in South Asia, in the subcontinent. And so,

08:58he was somebody whose poetry never dwelt on sort of empty nationalist slogans. There was love of

09:08the land, but it was not based on hatred of the other. And this is something that I inherited.

09:18I remember as a little girl, I was four years old when I was partitioned. And my mother was bringing

09:27us back from Kashmir into Lahore. And there was a lot of killing in a place called Mari. And my

09:34mother and other women got together, and they took out a peace demonstration. And as a little girl,

09:39I was put in the front on a donkey. So, I sat there and I had a white flag in my hand as a

09:49little girl. And I've been carrying that white flag ever since then. And this is something that

09:57I have inculcated in my students also, that our job as artists, as creative people, is not to bring

10:06about hatred between other human beings, but to think about what makes life saner

10:14and much more beautiful. And that has to do with peace, because humanism is the basic value.

10:20And so, I've been doing it, you know, forever. I was one of the people who organized the first group

10:28that went to India of artists and artistic teachers in 1986. We were a group of 40,

10:38the biggest group that had ever been. And I remember, you know, I was wondering, okay,

10:44these students who I'm taking, they're the generation who's been brought up on anti-Indian

10:48rhetoric, you know, everything in the media and the newspapers and blah, blah, blah.

10:54And so, all I said to them that, you know, you're ambassadors of your country when you

10:59cross the border. And the lovely thing was, you know, as soon as we got across, we got into Delhi,

11:04we went by train. The first thing I said, okay, what do you want to see? Madam, we want to go to

11:09a mandir. We want to see a temple. The curiosity was so much about the other. And they just loved

11:18being there. We went to Jaipur, we went to, of course, Agra. And, you know, everywhere they went,

11:24they would sit down and they would start singing and draw a crowd around them.

11:30And what was wonderful was the fact that they were devoid of any feeling of sort of hatred

11:41or something in which they felt that, okay, these people are difficult to get on with.

11:46It was one of the most illuminating experiences for them. And I must say that their art reflected

11:53that. So, this has been my belief. As President Kennedy says, art engages us,

12:00connects us. It is the city and the hill. Absolutely. Absolutely.

12:08I want to talk to you a little bit about your work. You work for a number of South Asian

12:13organizations such as SAPAN, what's the name, Bina Sarwar, and South Asia Foundation. What makes

12:22you so optimistic about the future of South Asia, considering the fact, the friction and mistrust

12:30between India and Pakistan? And by the way, I love your thoughts on going to the temple,

12:41being inclusive, and we can help shape a better future for America and for the world

12:46if we are in this together. Absolutely. And I feel that especially young people who have not

12:56been tainted by propaganda, they are far more open and they're far more curious to know about

13:04the lives of others. So, if you don't hold them back and if you allow them that voyage of

13:11discovery, you will find that they will always respond both with warmth and they'll also be,

13:19you will find that they will discover things that are in common. And they don't mind the

13:26things that are different because they too are things that they can think about. At the end of

13:31the day, you know, we are human beings, all of us, and we have the same needs. And those people

13:38who are creative, and we know that because we've experienced the great affection that people in the

13:46subcontinent have for poetry, for music, for films, for dance. So, it's really these cultural bonds

13:57which make it so easy to forget that there are differences. Art, as President Kennedy once said,

14:04art nourishes the roots of our culture. Absolutely, absolutely. And you're also a human

14:11rights activist, particularly women's rights, and you live right next to Afghanistan.

14:16Afghanistan does not have any women's rights, they question that. And they are, my question to you is,

14:23how do you go about, there's no equality in Afghanistan for the male as well as the,

14:32well, for the female counterpart, which is the male counterpart as well. My question is why?

14:37Why is that? And how do you make sure that doesn't happen again?

14:44Well, as you know, this is the darkest time ever. It is the darkest time.

14:49For the women in Afghanistan. I mean, it's not much better for the men either.

14:54But for women in particular, and I feel deeply, deeply disturbed by it, because over the last

15:0120 years or so, it has been my good fortune to have students, women and men from Afghanistan

15:09coming to study art in Lahore at Beacon House National University, not just from Afghanistan,

15:16but actually across South Asia. So we've had students from Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh,

15:24Sri Lanka, and believe it or not, even from India.

15:27That's wonderful. I'm so glad. What part of India?

15:34Yeah, it's a very visionary person called Madanjit Singh, who was a UNESCO ambassador.

15:40And he left this endowment. He believed in peace in South Asia. He believed in SAARC.

15:49And so he set up this foundation and made it possible for students from all of the SAARC

15:55countries to go. So you have a program of water management in Sri Lanka. You have one of law in

16:05Bangladesh. You have journalism in India. And the students go, except it's so difficult to get

16:12visas. We know all that, but somehow I've managed. So I've had these wonderful Afghan girls,

16:18who in these 20 years have matured into artists who become internationally well known. One of

16:26them, Kubra Khademi, who had to run from Afghanistan. She had to be evacuated with

16:32the help of the French embassy, the UNESCO did that. And so they have been, she is now,

16:42when the Taliban took over two years ago, three and two and a half years ago, we had to evacuate

16:48some of our former students. We had networks of artists in these 20 years. You know, these young

16:57people who studied in Lahore, they've built their own networks everywhere. And they helped them

17:04evacuate from Afghanistan. They are now in different parts of the world, Australia and

17:09Europe and Switzerland, everywhere. And the work they're producing is amazing. So I'm never

17:18pessimistic. I always feel even if one person through their art can tell the story,

17:26we have succeeded. That's a good way to put it, because the fact that the

17:31one person can make a difference and meaningful difference. Yes. You are a daughter of the

17:38legendary South Asian poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz. My question to you is, I hope you remember some of

17:45the lines from his, from your father's poem. Can you recite some? Well, they are, you know,

17:52at different times in my life, there have been different favorites. And, you know, sometimes

17:57somebody will come up to me and they'll say, you know, so and so is my favorite poem of Faiz. What

18:03is your favorite? And at that moment, I have to quickly think of something. And I've noticed that

18:09over years, my favorites have changed. And there is one poem that keeps coming back to me. And

18:17that's a poem that he wrote in 1947. Oh, my God. At the time of partition. And it's called

18:28Morning of the Birth of Freedom, the Dawn of Freedom. And it starts in this sad way.

18:47And, you know, translated roughly, it's that, you know, this leprous brightness,

19:04this dawn which reeks of night. This is not the one, the long awaited morn. This is not the

19:11shining light that beckoned us, beckoned us men ever onwards to go on seeking the final starry

19:18destination in the heavens, the final edge where ends the endless night. But, you know,

19:25at the end of the poem, he says, you know,

19:42the dark weight of night is not lifted yet. And the heart and the eye have not found their rest.

19:50Let us press on for the culmination is not yet. So, you know, when this is a poem that keeps

19:58coming back to me, especially when things look bleak. And these days, you look around the world

20:04and my God, is it a bleak time? It is. And then I think, you know, then I think,

20:09yeh daakh daakh hujala, yeh shab ghazeeda sahar, woh intazaar tha dhikha, yeh woh sahar toh nahi.

20:15I tell myself, you know, ki nahi, chale chalo. That's a good way to put it.

20:23Do you know Aligarh Muslim University? Sorry?

20:26Aligarh Muslim University. Of course, I've been there. Yes, I've been there. I visited it.

20:32When did you visit? Oh, well, it was a very long time ago,

20:36at the time when visas were easier to get. 1980s.

20:41Yes. No, I went in, I think it was 2011 when it was my father's centennial and they celebrated it.

20:50Oh, that's wonderful. So, yeah. So, it was wonderful because they

20:55celebrated it in Delhi also. The President of India celebrated his 100 years and Aligarh

21:03Muslim University celebrated it and they celebrated it.

21:08Who was the White Chancellor at that time? I don't remember. It was so long ago.

21:14General Shah was the White Chancellor. No, I think he came later. He came later.

21:19I'm not sure. I can't remember exactly. But it was a very nice ceremony.

21:24My nephew came with him, Dr. Ali Hashmi, who's written a biography of my father. So,

21:31very nice. And, you know, they had young poets also reciting. They had a Mushaira also.

21:37It was wonderful. It was very emotive. Yes.

21:41I was born in Aligarh. Really? Aha, okay.

21:45And I came here when I was 10 years old to United States.

21:48Aha, right. Okay.

21:50And there's several things in Aligarh that energize us. Frank and Debbie Islam Management

21:56Complex and Auditorium and there's many things that we have given several million dollars

22:02to have what I consider not to get our name but to make sure that the Innovation Center,

22:08this Entrepreneurship Center, people can be energized by our contributions and who we are.

22:15Absolutely. And it is only through, I feel, through the passion that we put into education.

22:22And commitment. Actually, and the commitment that you put there

22:27that we can hope to build a better human being.

22:31Well, it's wonderful. And thank you for watching the show. This is Frank Islam

22:36wishing you a great week. And thank you, Salma. Thank you.

Frank Islam speaks with Salima Hashmi, artist, educator, peace activist, founder member Sapan | Washington Calling

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