On 10 May, India remembers one of the finest poetic voices of the twentieth century — Kaifi Azmi, the revolutionary-romantic whose words transformed not only Urdu poetry but also the language of Indian cinema. Poet, lyricist, scriptwriter, activist and public intellectual, Kaifi belonged to that extraordinary generation of progressive writers who believed literature must not merely decorate society but challenge it.

Even twenty-four years after his passing, Kaifi Azmi remains astonishingly contemporary. His poetry still speaks to fractured times, to inequality, loneliness, love, resistance and human dignity. Few poets managed to combine ideological conviction with lyrical tenderness as effortlessly as Kaifi did. Whether in mushairas, political meetings or cinema halls, his words carried the same emotional intensity and moral clarity.

Born Syed Athar Hussain Rizvi on 14 January, 1919, in Mijwan village in Uttar Pradesh’s Azamgarh district, Kaifi emerged from a deeply traditional Shia family but soon gravitated toward radical politics and literature. According to accounts in his memoirs and biographies, he wrote his first ghazal at the age of eleven and stunned audiences when he recited it at a local mushaira. The matla of that youthful composition became prophetic of the turbulence and passion that would later define his literary life:

“Itna to zindagi mein kisi ki khalal pade,

Hansne se ho sukoon na rone se kal pade.”

(“May someone disturb life so deeply,

That neither laughter brings peace nor tears bring relief.”)

The young poet soon joined the Progressive Writers’ Movement and later became associated with the Communist Party of India. Unlike many literary figures who remained confined to elite circles, Kaifi immersed himself in workers’ movements, trade union activism and struggles for social justice. For him, poetry was not an escape from reality; it was a weapon against injustice.

The poet of revolution and compassion

Kaifi Azmi’s poetry carried the fragrance of romance but also the fire of rebellion. His celebrated nazm “Aurat” remains among the boldest feminist poems written in Urdu literature. Addressing women not as passive symbols of beauty but as equal participants in history, he wrote:

“Uth meri jaan mere saath hi chalna hai tujhe.”

(“Rise, my beloved, you must walk beside me.”)

In an era when patriarchy dominated both society and literature, these lines sounded revolutionary. Kaifi challenged the romanticised suffering imposed upon women and envisioned companionship built on equality. The poem remains strikingly relevant in contemporary conversations around gender justice.

His poetry also reflected deep empathy for the marginalised. In poems like “Makaan”, written after observing construction workers building luxurious homes they themselves could never inhabit, Kaifi exposed the cruelty of class divisions:

“Aaj ki raat bahut garam hawa chalti hai.”

(“Tonight, fierce winds rage through the city.”)

The “wind” in Kaifi’s poetry was often symbolic — the storm of exploitation, communal hatred or political betrayal threatening ordinary lives.

Yet Kaifi was never merely a slogan-driven poet. His genius lay in combining political consciousness with extraordinary emotional depth. His verses could move seamlessly from revolution to heartbreak, from collective suffering to intimate longing.

Bringing Urdu Poetry Into Indian Cinema

If Sahir Ludhianvi intellectualised Hindi film lyrics and Shakeel Badayuni infused them with classical grace, Kaifi Azmi brought to cinema the sophistication of modern Urdu poetry. He transformed the vocabulary and emotional texture of film songwriting.

Beginning with Buzdil in 1951, Kaifi gradually became one of the defining lyricists of Hindi cinema. His collaborations with filmmakers such as Guru Dutt, Chetan Anand and Khwaja Ahmad Abbas produced some of the most unforgettable songs in Indian cinematic history.

Who can forget the haunting melancholy of:

“Waqt ne kiya kya haseen sitam,

Tum rahe na tum, hum rahe na hum.”

(“What beautiful cruelties time has inflicted;

You are no longer yourself, nor am I myself.”)

From Kaagaz Ke Phool, the song remains one of the greatest expressions of loss and doomed love in Indian cinema. Sung by Geeta Dutt with heartbreaking tenderness, Kaifi’s lyrics elevated cinematic music into pure poetry.

Equally immortal is his patriotic elegy from Haqeeqat:

“Kar chale hum fida jaan-o-tan saathiyon,

Ab tumhare hawale watan saathiyon.”

(“We have sacrificed our lives and bodies, friends;

Now the nation rests in your hands.”)

Written in the aftermath of the 1962 India-China war, the song transcended propaganda and became an enduring meditation on sacrifice and nationhood.

Kaifi also gave Hindi cinema some of its finest songs of loneliness and existential despair. In Heer Raanjha, for which he wrote the entire dialogue in verse — an extraordinary achievement in Indian screenwriting — he penned:

“Yeh duniya yeh mehfil mere kaam ki nahin.”

(“This world, this gathering, are not meant for me.”)

The line became an anthem for generations alienated by modern life.

The literary brilliance behind the screen

To reduce Kaifi Azmi merely to a film lyricist would be a grave injustice. His literary contributions to Urdu poetry remain immense. Collections such as Aakhir-e-Shab, Jhankar, Awara Sajde and Iblis Ki Majlis-e-Shura established him among the leading Urdu poets of modern India.

His nazms combined conversational simplicity with profound philosophical depth. Unlike heavily ornamented classical poetry, Kaifi’s writing spoke directly to ordinary people while retaining literary sophistication.

One of his most powerful poems emerged after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992. Deeply disturbed by rising communal hatred, Kaifi wrote “Ram Ka Doosra Banbas”, imagining Lord Ram returning to India only to find his ideals betrayed:

“Paon dhoye bina Sarju ke kinare se uthe,

Ram ye kehte hue apne dwaare se uthe.”

(“Without washing his feet in the Sarju, Ram rose from the riverbank,

Saying these words as he departed.”)

The poem was not an attack on faith but a lament for the erosion of India’s pluralistic ethos. It revealed Kaifi’s lifelong commitment to secularism and communal harmony.

The activist who never forgot his roots

Kaifi Azmi’s commitment to social change extended far beyond literature. After suffering a paralytic stroke in the 1970s, he returned to his ancestral village Mijwan and dedicated himself to rural development. Roads, schools, educational initiatives for girls and vocational programmes emerged through his relentless efforts.

Years later, his daughter Shabana Azmi would carry forward this legacy through the Mijwan Welfare Society. Kaifi believed true patriotism meant empowering the most neglected citizens.

Despite severe health struggles, he continued writing with astonishing resilience. Those who knew him often recalled his sharp wit, warmth and refusal to surrender to despair.

Cinema, poetry and immortality

Kaifi Azmi also left a lasting imprint through films like Garam Hawa, widely regarded as one of the greatest films on Partition. Writing its screenplay, dialogues and lyrics, Kaifi captured the anguish of Indian Muslims caught between memory, identity and displacement after 1947. The film remains painfully relevant in today’s climate of polarisation.

His later songs for Arth displayed unmatched emotional maturity:

“Tum itna jo muskura rahe ho,

Kya gham hai jisko chhupa rahe ho.”

(“You smile so much —

What sorrow are you hiding?”)

Or the unforgettable:

“Jhuki jhuki si nazar beqarar hai ke nahin.”

(“Your lowered gaze — is it restless or not?”)

These were not merely film songs; they were psychological portraits rendered in poetry.

Kaifi Azmi passed away on May 10, 2002, at the age of eighty-three. Yet poets like him do not really die. They survive wherever language resists hatred, wherever poetry speaks for justice, wherever love and rebellion coexist.

In an increasingly noisy age, Kaifi’s voice still arrives with rare moral elegance. He taught generations that poetry could be beautiful without becoming escapist, political without becoming shrill, and deeply human without surrendering to cynicism.

Perhaps no lines describe Kaifi Azmi himself better than his own immortal verse:

“Main dhoondta hoon jise woh jahaan nahin milta,

Nayi zameen naya aasman nahin milta.”

(“I keep searching for that world, but cannot find it;

Neither a new earth nor a new sky appears.”)

Kaifi spent his life searching for that better world — and through his poetry, he brought humanity a little closer to it.

~Hasnain Naqvi is a former member of the history faculty at St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai

The elevation of Suvendu Adhikari as the first Bharatiya Janata Party Chief Minister of West Bengal marks one of the most dramatic political transformations in contemporary Indian politics. Few leaders embody the shifting ideological and moral landscape of Indian electoral politics as sharply as Adhikari — a politician who rose through anti-establishment mobilisations, built his career under regional secular politics, and eventually emerged as the principal face of aggressive Hindutva politics in Bengal.

His political journey is not merely the story of one individual’s ambition. It is also a commentary on the collapse of ideological consistency in Indian politics, where corruption allegations, political violence, and inflammatory rhetoric cease to matter once electoral utility takes precedence.

Adhikari’s ascent to the state’s highest office symbolises both the BJP’s long-awaited breakthrough in Bengal and the transformation of the state’s political culture from ideological contestation to hyper-polarised identity politics.

A Congress Legacy, A Trinamool Rise

Adhikari did not emerge from the ideological ecosystem of the BJP or the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. His political roots lie in the Congress tradition of coastal Bengal. Following the footsteps of his father, veteran politician Sisir Adhikari, he joined the Congress in the mid-1990s and became a councillor in Kanthi municipality.

When Mamata Banerjee broke away from the Congress to form the All India Trinamool Congress in 1998, the Adhikari family shifted loyalties with her. It proved politically decisive.

Suvendu Adhikari soon emerged as one of the most influential organisers in East Midnapore. Unlike many drawing-room politicians in Kolkata, his strength came from cadre management, rural networks and street mobilisation. His defining moment arrived during the Nandigram anti-land acquisition movement of 2007.

As a leading face of the Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee, Adhikari helped galvanise resistance against the proposed Special Economic Zone project backed by the then Left Front government. The movement transformed Bengal politics permanently. It shattered the moral legitimacy of the 34-year-old Left regime and propelled Mamata Banerjee into the national spotlight as a symbol of peasant resistance.

Ironically, the same movement that was once projected as a struggle for farmers’ rights and democratic resistance later became the foundation for a new politics of muscular territorial dominance in the region.

The BJP’s Former “Corrupt TMC Leader”

Before his defection to the BJP in December 2020, Adhikari was among the very leaders most aggressively targeted by the BJP itself.

During the Narada sting controversy, BJP leaders repeatedly cited videos allegedly showing several TMC leaders, including Adhikari, accepting cash in exchange for favours. BJP spokespersons routinely portrayed the sting operation as evidence of the “institutionalised corruption” of the TMC regime.

The BJP’s campaign machinery circulated those videos extensively on social media and in election rallies. Adhikari was portrayed as one of the central figures of Bengal’s alleged “cut-money culture.” The phrase “syndicate raj” became a constant BJP attack line against leaders operating in districts under his influence.

Similarly, in the aftermath of the Saradha Chit Fund Scam, BJP leaders repeatedly accused senior TMC functionaries of proximity to chit-fund operators. Adhikari was questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation in connection with the matter. At the time, the BJP projected these investigations as proof of deep-rooted corruption within the ruling establishment.

Yet politics in contemporary India has increasingly demonstrated that allegations often have an expiry date determined not by courts, but by political realignments.

The moment Adhikari crossed over to the BJP in 2020, the rhetoric changed almost overnight. The same leader once denounced as a corrupt TMC strongman became the BJP’s principal “face of resistance” against Mamata Banerjee. Critics pointed out that even sting-operation videos earlier circulated by BJP platforms quietly disappeared from official channels after his induction.

This is precisely what opponents describe as the “washing machine” phenomenon in Indian politics — where leaders accused of corruption suddenly emerge politically sanitised after joining the ruling party or its ideological camp.

The BJP justified the shift by claiming that Adhikari had rebelled against corruption within the TMC system. But the contradiction remained glaring: if the allegations were once serious enough to demand arrest and prosecution, what fundamentally changed beyond political allegiance?

Nandigram: Symbolism and Personal Vendetta

The 2021 Bengal Assembly election transformed Adhikari from a regional power broker into a national political figure. His decision to contest against Mamata Banerjee in Nandigram converted the election into an intensely personalised battle.

His narrow victory over Banerjee was projected by the BJP as a symbolic defeat of TMC dominance, even though the party ultimately failed to capture power in Bengal.

From that point onward, Adhikari increasingly positioned himself not merely as an opposition leader but as the ideological spearhead of Hindu consolidation in Bengal politics.

The Shift Toward Open Polarisation

What distinguishes Adhikari from many earlier Bengali leaders is the bluntness of his communal rhetoric.

Over the past few years, he has repeatedly made statements targeting Muslims in ways that would once have been politically unacceptable in Bengal’s mainstream discourse. He has spoken about ending what he calls “minority appeasement,” called for identifying “infiltrators,” and frequently framed electoral politics in overtly communal binaries.

Several of his speeches have drawn criticism from civil rights groups and opposition parties for allegedly violating constitutional principles of equality and secularism. Critics argue that such rhetoric seeks to import the politics of religious polarisation seen in parts of North India into Bengal’s historically syncretic political culture.

Supporters, however, portray him as a leader articulating Hindu anxiety allegedly ignored under decades of Left and TMC rule.

But the deeper concern is not merely ideological disagreement. It is the normalisation of political discourse where Muslims are increasingly spoken of not as equal citizens but as a demographic problem, a security concern, or an electoral obstacle.

In a state shaped profoundly by the trauma of Partition and communal violence, such rhetoric carries dangerous historical echoes.

From Anti-Establishment Rebel to Establishment Power

Perhaps the greatest irony of Adhikari’s political career lies in the contrast between his origins and his present image.

He first rose to prominence through a mass democratic movement against state-backed land acquisition and authoritarian governance. Today, he represents a political formation critics accuse of centralising power, weaponising investigative agencies, weakening dissent, and intensifying communal divisions.

The transition reflects not just personal ambition but the broader transformation of Indian politics itself — where ideological flexibility has become a survival strategy and where political morality increasingly depends on proximity to power.

What Adhikari’s Rise Means for Bengal

The emergence of a BJP government under Suvendu Adhikari signals a historic shift in Bengal’s political trajectory. For decades, Bengal politics revolved around class, language, peasant struggles, labour movements and regional identity. Under Adhikari, the axis may increasingly move toward religious polarisation and majoritarian mobilisation.

Whether this transformation produces durable political stability or deepens social fragmentation remains uncertain.

What is undeniable, however, is that Suvendu Adhikari’s rise encapsulates the central paradox of contemporary Indian politics: allegations that once disqualified a politician can disappear through ideological migration, while divisive rhetoric increasingly becomes a pathway to power rather than a barrier against it.

His journey from Congress worker to Trinamool strategist to BJP Chief Minister is therefore not merely a personal success story. It is a mirror reflecting the unsettling evolution of Indian democracy itself.

~Hasnain Naqvi is a former member of the history faculty at St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai

Today, May Day 2026, as India's 25 crore workers echo their 22 April Bharat Bandh against the diluted Labour Codes, we reclaim the Chicago Martyrs — eight great heroes whose 1886 stand for an eight-hour working day reshaped the world. Framed after Haymarket's chaos, they faced a kangaroo court, yet their sacrifice birthed global labour rights.

Fedayi ka khoon hai surkh ruh ka sailaab,
Zameen-e-mehnat par ugti hai inqilab ki kahaar
(The martyr's blood is the crimson flood of a spirited soul,
On labour's soil sprouts the crop of revolution)

Let us honour each by name, their lives a defiant hymn against exploitation.

August Spies (31), German immigrant and furniture craftsman, wielded words like weapons as Arbeiter-Zeitung editor. A mesmerising orator, he rallied Chicago's German workers, exposing factory barons' greed. At trial, he exposed bias; from the gallows on 11 November 1887, he proclaimed: "The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you are throttling today!" His pamphlets fuelled the 1 May strike by 300,000.

Albert Parsons (39), Texan printer and The Alarm editor, evolved from Confederate soldier to interracial unionist. Founder of Chicago's Noble Order of the Knights of Labor, he bridged Black and White workers, defying Jim Crow. Kissing his children goodbye, he sang 'Sweet Bye and Bye' to the scaffold, his eloquence immortalised in trial speeches that shamed the judge.

Adolph Fischer (30), German printer at Arbeiter-Zeitung, embodied revolutionary zeal. Father to a young daughter, he typeset manifestos demanding dignity. "I die a proud communist," he declared, unbowed as the noose tightened — his last words galvanising anarchists worldwide.

Phansi ke farmaan par shaheedon ke geet sada,
Mehnatkashon ki awaaz ban gayi hai sada
(On the gallows' decree, martyrs' songs echo eternal,
Becoming the forever voice of toilers)

George Engel (50), Jewish toy seller from Germany, overcame deafness to join the fight. Never at Haymarket, he was convicted on rumour. His simple life — peddling playthings — belied a fierce intellect; from jail, he wrote of "the social revolution", his hanging a stark injustice.

Louis Lingg (22), Swiss carpenter and unmatched dynamite artisan, supplied the movement's muscle. Anarchist firebrand, he scorned the verdict, biting a blasting cap in his cell days before execution — his mangled face a final rebuke, as witnesses like Captain Schaack later confirmed.

The survivors endured Cook County Jail's hell: Michael Schwab (35), Austrian bookbinder and Arbeiter-Zeitung associate editor, penned defiant essays till his 1901 pardon. Samuel Fielden (39), English teamster and Methodist preacher turned radical, hauled goods by day, spoke fire by night — freed in 1893. Oscar Neebe (41), yeast merchant and union organiser, dodged the rope through savvy lawyering, paroled amid uproar.

Hanged amid 10,000 mourners, four martyrs sparked riots from London to Paris. The 1889 Second International declared May Day their tribute; US eight-hour laws followed in 1916, ILO standards in 1919.

India inherited their fire: the 1926 Trade Unions Act legalised strikes, mirroring Haymarket's call amid mill drudgery. Factories Act, 1948, enshrined eight hours. Now, 2026's IFTU-led bandh — paralysing rails and ports — rails against the 2020 Codes' gig-era betrayals, Swiggy drivers toiling endlessly like 1880s Chicagoans.

From Haymarket's National Historic Landmark rises their truth: power bows to united sacrifice. In Srinagar's workshops or Mumbai's mills, their voices urge: seize this May Day to forge equity anew.

Chicago ke shaheedon ka silsila na rukega,
May Day ki loh par likha inka naam sada rahega
(The Chicago martyrs' chain will never halt,
On May Day's stone, their name endures eternal)

Hasnain Naqvi is a former member of the history faculty at St Xavier’s College, Mumbai. More of his writing here