Rasul Mir

He is a Kashmiri poet, often referred to by local scholars as the John Keats of Kashmir. He formally inaugurated Gazal to Kashmiri poetry.

Early life

Background

Rasul Mir was born in Dooru Shahabad, an administrative unit in Anantnag district of Kashmir. The only thing certain about his early life is the name of the place and the era he lived in. His year of birth and death, remains a debatable subject. According to oral traditions, the poet lived in Mirmaidan area of Dooru or in a house adjacent to Khanqah Faiz Panah, a mosque constructed by Mir Mohammad Hamadani, the son of Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani. The house has since been demolished, and a vegetative garden can be found in its place there. It is widely believed that he had attended a local traditional makhtab (an academy), where he was introduced to the Persian language. He descended from a family of zamindars (landowners), who used to be the village heads in Mir Maidan at Dooru. Oral traditions describe his appearance as typically wearing a turban and maintaining a long moustache.

The poet's well known contemporary Mahmud Gami was also a native of Doru Shahabad. Gami was much older than Rasul Mir. The first attempts at scripting the ghazal form in Kashmiri have been revered to him but literary critics note stylistic differences compared to the structure later established by Mir. In Mahmud Gami and Rasul Mir's legacy, two parks and a cultural library namely Mahmud Gami Rasul Mir Bazm-e-Adab have been inaugurated as a token for these poets.

The Mughal Garden at Acchabal, the deep woods of Kokar Nag and Vernag Lake, are not far from the place where Rasul Mir lived. The poet, with his romantic bend of mind, must have been influenced by the abundance of natural beauty all around him. He was often seen mentioning the name of these picturesque places in several of his poems. Rasul Mir's life spans the reigns of three different sets of rulers in Kashmir - Afghan, Sikh and Dogra empire. He was born during the later years of Sikh rule over Kashmir. The Afghan rule had begun in the year 1752 lasting till 1819 with the Sikh conquest of Kashmir in the Shupian Battle. Of the three sets of rulers, the Afghans were the worst. Their rule over Kashmir had begun immediately after the second Great famine of 1748- following the Great famine of 1723. Their rule was a period of relentless persecution, ruthless economic exploitation of the masses and, politically, a period of continuous instability. Though, in his adolescent-youthful days, the poet has mentioned Kandahar, the former capital of the Afghan Empire, in his love-longing lullaby Bal Maraeyo:

Sharmandà kärthas āftābo
Qandhārich zūn
Käji chāni gäjisäy
läjisày daräy
Bāl màräyo

Translation:

I, the full moon of Qandahar’, am ashamed
Of your brilliance, my sun.
Waiting, wilting in your remembrance,
I will wither away young.

As Lawrence suggests, the Sikh rule, though mild in degree, was no better than the Afghan rule. The first ruler of the Sikh empire, Ranjit Singh, had banned Azaan (the Islamic call for prayer) and the gathering of Muslims in Jama Masjid, Srinagar for 21 years. The Sikhs enacted a number of anti-Muslim laws, which included handing out death sentences for cow slaughter too. The Sikhs ruled for twenty-seven years- the years of Rasul Mir's youth and manhood.

The above reference from this poem could be felt as an expression of departing away from the Beloved (or the Shahid, pious self).

While some are of opinion he was referring to the famous Kashmiri poet Habba Khatoon, "whose name was Zun, the Kashmiri word for the moon. She was born in Chandrahar village" says K. N Dhar while quoting Mahjoor.

It was also during the Sikh rule in 1831 that Kashmir experienced another great famine. Godfrey Vigne, who visited the valley in 1835 after the great famine, writes:

The villages were fallen in decay. The rich-ground was uncultivated for want of labour and irrigation. Shupian was a miserable place, and Islamabad was but a shadow of its former self

The Sikh rule ended in 1846 when, under the Treaty of Amritsar, Kashmir was handed over by the British to the Dogra ruler, Gulab Singh, in return of seventy-five lakh (7.5 million) Nanakshahee rupees and some political concessions. With the accession of Dogras to the throne of Kashmir there was, however, a change for the better. Though, the fourth-time, valley had to approach another Great famine in 1877, wiping or migrating out 30–40% of the population.

It was in a milieu like this that Rasul Mir spent his life. He must have seen the worst prevailing tyranny and exploitation as he belonged to the countryside, where the rule of law seldom prevailed. Mir was himself a muqdam (village chieftain), he must have sometimes acted as a convenient instrument of all-pervasive tyranny and exploitation but, what is surprising, his poetry shows little or no trace of the surroundings in which he lived. Though, Rasul Mir was fond of wandering around and visiting different places. Almost every year, he would take a trip to Pogul Paristan, Ramban and return after long intervals to live at the place to which he returns again and again with tenderness and affection is his native area- Dooru, Shahabad. The geographical features of the valley, such as the springs of Verinag and local gardens, heavily influenced the imagery in Rasul Mir's poetry. The famous stone carrying its name was also quarried there. The Persian translator of Rajatarangini, Mulla Muhammad, who had translated Rajatarangini in Persian, entitled Behr-ul-Asmar, (or the sea of tales), at the behest of Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin (1421–1472) A.D of Kashmir, was from Dooru, Shahabad. The colonial Indian-Pakistani writer Saadat Hasan Manto's family had also originated from Dooru, Shahabad.

Poetic tradition

The tradition to which Rasul Mir belongs is quite a complex one. Essentially rooted in folklore and folk sensibility, the tradition has been widened and enriched by influences from diverse sources; particularly Persian poetry. From this point of view the most remarkable Persian poets are Sadi, Hafez, Nizami, Rumi, Attar, Firdausi, Bedil and Ghani Kashmiri. Sadi's works - Gulistan, Bostaan and Pandnamah (popularly known as Karima)- constituted the first formal syllabus of conventional education in Kashmir, besides the religious texts. This was the education that Rasul Mir had in his childhood and boyhood.

Rasul Mir's poetry is something that is to be sung not read. Primarily a singer, Mir led a singing party, moving from place to place and singing chakhri and rouf (wanwun), the most popular form of singing during Rasul Mir's day and continued to retain some of its popularity till the beginning of insurgency in 1987 following Kashmir conflict. Another form of communal singing prevalent in Kashmir was nende baeth (songs sung while de-weeding paddy fields). Such communal singing was a common feature of 19th century Kashmir. Every village had one or more such singing companies. The aesthetic underlying this kind of poetry suited the feudal ethos. The singing companies would usually sing during the night in large gatherings. The social value of these musical concerts was to wash away care and anxiety from laden hearts through nights of singing and revelry. Rasul Mir is always alive to the musical possibilities of language and exploits them to the maximum. Most of his songs were composed for occasions of singing and would surely have been different if written with some different purpose. His poems, "Dil hai nyunam tsuri lo lo", "Chaw mai jami jamai", "Kout goum" and "Rind posh maal" are metrically what they are because they were written for certain occasion of singing.

In his poetry he also repeatedly refers to the places which he would often visit- Achhabal, Khannabal, Mattan, Nishat-Shalimar, Sona Lank- to name only few.