Feroz Abbas Khan’s Hind 1957 revisits the unhealed wounds of Partition

Hind 1957: Reflecting on the questions of religion and belonging

Expressing the unspoken, Feroz Abbas Khan’s Hind 1957 makes us reflect on humanity. Hind 1957, staged at the Bharat Rang Mahotsav, is about a Muslim family that chooses to remain in India post-Partition. It is a sensitive and thoughtful Hindustani adaptation of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Fences (1985), by Vikas Bahari. The play transposes the 1950s African-American experience in Pittsburgh to the Muslim narrative in post-Partition India.

Spread over two acts, the play explores themes of patriarchy, prejudice, family secrets and the tension between a weary father’s cynicism and the optimisim of his sons for a better future. The poignant story makes you realise that classics don’t age.

The central character, Tabrez Ansari (evocatively portrayed by Sachin Khedekar), is a poet who participated in the freedom movement. He is wrongfully imprisoned after his father migrates to Pakistan. He is tired of being repeatedly interrogated by the police, and works in a bidi factory to keep the home fires burning.

Charged as a spy, Tabrez personifies the shattered dreams of a generation, poignantly captured towards the end through Abhishek Shukla’s verse, ‘Main ghar kahoon toh Hindustan samajh samjha jaye....’

Feroz Abbas Khan resists generalising the Muslim peeve or romanticising the laments of progressive writers. Tabrez is flawed in his understanding of society and family, and uses religion opportunistically. His poetry is progressive, but his behaviour within the four walls is far from forward-looking. For him, drinking liquor is being liberal, but when it comes to infidelity, he invokes the Shariat. He uses his brother’s pension to have a roof over his family’s head.

Tabrez tries to pass on his bitterness to his sons, who, in a departure from the traditional depiction of Muslim families, embrace India with all its imperfections. They are not chained by their father’s fears. Latif takes to his father’s poetic legacy while Kaif wears his love for the nation in his army uniform. They believe their father will get justice under the Indian Constitution, and the writer rewards their patience and optimism.