LITERARY NOTES: Ancient Balochi poetry Translation of a magnum opus

Mir Shah Nawaz Khan Bijarani Marri is rightly credited with giving us a revised edition of his father, Mir Khuda Bakhsh Khan Bijarani Marri's translation of Ancient Balochi Poetry, recently launched in Quetta with great pomp and gusto.
Mir Khuda Bakhsh Bijarani Marri Baloch needs no introduction. Born in 1821 in Kohlu, his father Mir Fatah Khan Bijarani was a well-known member of Marri tribe. Mir Khuda Bakhsh was educated in Quetta and Karachi. He went to UK in 1955 and studied at Lincoln's Inn for his barrister's examination.
Upon his return he became an attorney. He was made a judge of the Sindh and Balochistan High Courts in 1969. Later on he was appointed as Governor of Balochistan from 1977-1978. During the Ziaul Haq regime he was asked to take oath as a PCO judge. He declined to do so and resigned from the position of Chief Justice of Balochistan High Court in 1981. He wrote Searchlight on Baloch and Balochistan: A judge may speak and published numerous other articles on Balochi heritage and culture.
Justice Mir Khuda Bakhsh Marri valued Longworth Dames (ICS)'s work on popular poetry of Balochis in 1907. Dames completed this valuable work while serving in Balochistan and collected popular Balochi poems. He couldn't travel to Khuzdar, Makran and Iranian Balochistan. He translated his collected poems. There is no doubt that no other English officer has done such a momentous work for Baloch language and literature as he did.
Justice Khuda Bakhsh Marri thought that Dames' valuable work on Balochi poetry should be rendered in Urdu. He realised the importance of Urdu language because any work translated in Urdu becomes available to Hindi readers as well. I believe all think-tanks of India on Balochistan have benefited from this important work. It removes many clichés and clears many cob-webs. Mir Khuda Bakhsh Marri added quite a few poems from Kohlu, Marri area, which were not accessible to Dames. And thus some 81 poems - from a poem on Balochi Hasb-o-Nasb (Geneology) to Chach-o-Band - are with us in their original and translated form. It is really a treasure which anyone interested in Balochi area, history and poetry will like to possess. The book was published in 1963.
Balochis have entered Balochistan in three major waves, the last being in the 15th century. Their area of origin is Aleppo for most historians but Mir Muhammad Sardar Khan Gishkori Baloch favours Baghdad to be the first home of the Balochis.
After the third wave, the Balochis made the present day Balochistan and Iranian Balochistan, their home. They are proud of their heritage and have never compromised on their national honour. Even a poor Baloch is as proud as his Chief and there seems to be a competition in keeping aloft the banner of Balochi pride regardless of one's social status. They don't let poverty reduce their self-esteem for themselves and for their land.
The need for the reprint of this Urdu classic 'Qadeem Balochi Shaeri,' was strongly felt by Justice Mir Shahnawaz Khan Bijarani Marri, Minister of Culture and Sports of the Balochistan Government. He proved to be his father's son and has made valuable additions to his father's Magnum Opus which has immeasurably helped the Balochi cause for being a people who loved velour, beauty and patriotic fervour and loved to see the same qualities in other people. They are not one-eyed Cyclop type nationalists resorting to distortion of other people's history just for the hack of it.
Now the valuable additions which Mir Shah Nawaz Bijarani Marri has made. First about the origin of Balochis, he thinks that there were three main centres of Balochis - Mount Elberz, Kirman and Bhampur - instead of just one. Elberz the last named center was wrongly cited as Bhanbore. In fact it was Bhampur. The other valuable addition which has come through Mir Shah Nawaz Marri's revised edition is about some folklores which don't figure in the earlier edition. This edition also brings in Darakhshani dialect's poetry along with the eastern and western Balochi poetry in the 1266 - page voluminous book.
Some words have also been corrected and hence their meanings clarified. Also a glossary of Balochi words with Urdu meanings has been given. The revised book "Qadeem Balochi Poetry" has further enriched Urdu being the best work on Balochi poetry.
Munir Badeni as a promoter of literature
The Quetta Writer's Forum has made big strides during the last few years. It organised two National Literary Conferences for better interaction between Balochistan writers with their peers from other languages.
The QEC (for short) holds occasional meetings in Quetta and its efforts are paying dividends. It is also bringing out a journal entitled "Harf" as a front-ranking literary journal. Its Chief Editor is Munir Ahmed Badeni, civil servant and a gem of a writer - perhaps the foremost Balochi fiction writer with 52 novels to his credit besides a perceptive travelogue of China.
Its Editor is Naveed Haider Hashmi, himself a noteworthy poet and someone who is well-abreast of literary currents and writers' rankings in their particular genres. This quality is a must for an editor otherwise he would be facing a lot of hiccups. "Harf" doesn't belong to any particular shade of political thinking but it is truly Catholic in its appeal.
Ever since some Urdu critics led by Dr Narang, have concluded from Bern hard Lewis, Francis Fukuyama and Samuel Huntington that the age of Marxist theory of class struggle was over and all that which remains to be solved were only religious and cultural tensions. This was termed by the author of "End of History" as an end of ideology. The non-progressive critics pounced on the "advice" and we see that some writers accepted it as a gospel truth.
They started pontificating that the ideology is dead without ever knowing that Huntington was ventilating the "wish" of corporate imperialism or the Neo-Liberal new order. As we know that the new order of market economy is so coercive that all third world countries - wallowing in the quagmire of budget-deficits leading them to run helter-skelter for funds. Why? Because the prices of their exportable materials and commodities were going down while the prices of imports going up in a vicious circle seeking further impoverishment of the "poor" by the "rich" in their own country.
One wonders what critic Dr Gopichand Narang and his band of writers hoped to gain by advocating the announcement of the "end of ideology". One would like to know whether the wheel of history has turned backward and the classes, with divergent agenda, have ceased to exist.
I am happy that the writings of "Harf" don't seem to be buying this death prescription. "Harf", as its Chief Editor Munir Badeni has vouchsafed in his writings, is a democratic platform believing in humanism and enlightenment. Quetta Writer's Forum's International Literary Conference, was fully aware of the death trap which post-modernism has laid for the undermining of the foundation of religious, political philosophies and art criticism. Nothing else can be expected from Munir Badeni who is a committed progressive writer and can sift chaff from the grain involuntarily. Balochi literature has had a long tradition of national pride and equitable justice. How could it sacrifice a legacy it has kept close to its chest.