4 He wrote several nazms such as ‘Utho dekho woh aandhi aa rahi hai’ that were later published in Jhankaar during these years and recited them during the prabhat pheri. Gandhi-ji adopted the prabhat pheri, literally meaning ‘morning stroll’, but comprising songs and slogans recited by volunteers at the crack of dawn to awaken people and also as a tool for spreading information about self-rule, civil disobedience, etc., through songs and slogans in order to be accessible and easily understood by ordinary people. Gandhi-ji’s use of the prabhat pheri was an unorthodox but highly effective tool of propaganda.

5 Sumantra Ghosal recording

6 Shabana Azmi, Interview

7 Kaifi & I: A Memoir, Translated from the Urdu by Nasreen Rahman, New Delhi: Zubaan, 2010, p. 44.

8 In a lengthy interview with S.M. Mehdi, who had retired to live in Aligarh till he passed away in 2015, I was able to get corroboration of Shaukat’s account. Like Shaukat, he blamed B.T. Ranadive, who took over from Joshi in 1947, for the infighting and bitterness that marred the post-1947 years. Mehdi also told me how Muneesh, Kaifi and he formed a trio in the commune. In the course of a rambling chat, he described the party leadership as being puritan, bent upon keeping the party away from badnami (getting a bad name). He also described how the party tolerated neither bohemianism nor ‘deviations’ such as homosexuality. One of Mehdi’s designated tasks was to distribute the Urdu weekly Naya Zamana in the Muslim areas of Mohammed Ali Road and Bhindi Bazar. Bitterly critical of Ranadive, he claimed, the sectarianism fostered by him eventually led to the split in the party. In contrast, he praised P.C. Joshi for his inclusive policies. He described Joshi as critical of the national leadership but not anti-nationalistic, the way Mehdi perceived Ranadive’s policies to be. Joshi, he believed, did not want to cut off the communist movement from the nationalist movement and kept his links open with Gandhi and Nehru. Ranadive, on the other hand, was vehemently opposed to this, deeming the independence that was finally achieved a ‘false freedom’.

9 Kaifi & I, op. cit., p. 49.

10 From 1956 onwards, Kaifi had a fairly successful stint as a film lyricist with films like Yahudi ki Beti, Kagaz ke Phool, Anupama, Haqeeqat, Pakeezah, Heer Ranjha, Hanste Zakhm, Garam Hawa, Razia Sultan, etc. Several Urdu writers came to Bombay all through the 1940s to find work in the film industry—as scriptwriters, lyricists, film journalists—and met with varying degrees of success. Kaifi had a better stint than most of them in the film industry.