Frank Islam speaks with Salima Hashmi, artist, educator, peace activist, founder member Sapan | Washington Calling
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00:00This is Frank Islam, Chairman and CEO of FY Investment Group, and your host of Washington
00:23Calling, where we interview leading voices from business, politics, from art and culture,
00:28and explore the topics that impact you to the viewer. Today our guest, we are fortunate
00:34to have a guest, and her name is Salima Hashmi. And she is a daughter of renowned poet Faiz
00:44Ahmed Faiz, which is a wonderful story, and a professor of art for 30 years at the National
00:50College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan. She is currently the Dean of the School of Visual
00:57at Beacon House National University in Lahore. She works to bring about Indo-Pakistani reconciliation
01:04by developing artistic projects that go beyond the two countries' borders.
01:09She is a human activist and a painter. So, welcome to our show, Salima, and thank you
01:18for coming to our show. And so, welcome to our show. Looking forward to seeing you.
01:25Thank you so much for inviting me. Yeah, you're most welcome. Well, you are a daughter of a
01:31renowned poet. As a result of that, we have a lot of admiration and respect for you.
01:38As I understand, you are an artist, author, feminist, civil rights activist, and a champion
01:43of South Asian peace and harmony. You have indeed a very impressive profile. You seem to wear many
01:51hats. So, I'm wondering, how do you juggle many things and be effective? Well, I think being a
02:00woman helps, because I think women, from the very early time of their lives, learn to juggle many,
02:08many things. We very often don't give them credit for it. But the fact remains, if you go into any
02:13of our rural areas, and you see what women have to do, I mean, child rearing is just one very small
02:21part of it. You know, they are tending to the animals, they're looking after everything that
02:26happens in the household, and they're out in the fields at harvest time, or if it's not harvest
02:32time, they're taking the meals out to the men who are working in the field. I've even seen,
02:37in recent years, that very often it's the women who are tilling the land, simply because I think
02:44so many men have left the country to go and look for work abroad. And there's also now a growing
02:52desire for women to get education. And therefore, you find the droves of young women from all over
03:01the country who are coming into universities and excelling. And that is something that I at least
03:09take great pride in. But I'm also highly inspired because, you know, I'm a very ancient lady.
03:15You're not an ancient lady, you're a wonderful lady.
03:18And I've seen the sea change in women's lives in South Asia, not just in Pakistan. It's happening
03:27all over because I do travel to other parts of South Asia. I've seen how the numbers have changed.
03:34I've seen how women have struggled and, you know, taken up positions which they were not
03:40considered for earlier. They've entered the workforce for a very large number of reasons.
03:47So for me, to wear many hats is just something that becomes part of your life. You don't plan
03:54it that way, but because you're engaged with everything that's going on, you become a human
04:00rights activist, you become a women's rights activist, you become a child right activist.
04:06All the time you are being creative. For me, my teaching has been the anchor. I've taught
04:13at the National College of Art for 30 years and after I retired, a new university started.
04:20So they asked me to start all over again, which I did. But in fact, I stepped down from being a
04:26dean. I'm now professor emerita there. But that doesn't mean you stop mentoring artists.
04:33And I mentor artists, not just Pakistani artists, but artists who come from other parts of South
04:39Asia to study in Pakistan. So it's a holistic life. I have been an actor.
04:50So you have undertaken the task of recording the life and work of female artists in Pakistan
04:55in a book. You wrote a book. What made you do that?
05:01Well, you know how political and social events, they alter your life. And I think artists,
05:09perhaps more than anybody. And when I say artists, I mean people in the creative field. I mean poets,
05:15I mean musicians, I mean filmmakers, I mean theater people. They're much more sensitive and
05:22they act like the radar in a society. So when the worst martial law occurred in Pakistan of
05:31General Zia-ul-Haq, and new laws which targeted the minorities and targeted women and targeted
05:38vulnerable sectors of society happened, I reacted. I reacted and got together other women like
05:47myself who are artists and had a meeting. And we wrote out something called the Manifesto for
05:54Women Artists of Pakistan. And it was a secret document because at that time we couldn't make
06:00it public. But basically we said that our work and our artistic endeavor must be to bring our
06:09people greater awareness into their struggle. It must reflect women. And that's what made me think,
06:16you know, I looked around and I saw, well, my male friends were making compromises,
06:24but my women friends were not. And I thought, okay, this is an interesting story here.
06:30Let's think about writing something on the women artists of Pakistan. So I set about, I interviewed
06:38a large number of artists of various generations, starting from those who were my teachers.
06:45And because they were the first generation, I was lucky enough to have
06:50interviews with them. And most of them have now passed away. So it's an important document.
06:55And then there were my peers, and then there were the younger generation and then the absolutely
07:00new generation who are now quite internationally well-known. So it was a saga which covered
07:0750 years of our story. And it's called unveiling the visible lives and works of women, Pakistani
07:16women artists. Very well said. Would you be able to shine a bright light on India-Pakistan
07:21reconciliation, especially through art? You engage in this because you were born in India
07:27or because of the other reason, and you are also against nuclear weapon and especially
07:33nuclear weapon that's produced in India and Pakistan is because you believe that we should
07:42be fighting against hunger and disease, not nuclear weapons. Am I correct to assume that?
07:48Absolutely. And that is precisely what has made me an anti-nuclear weapon activist.
07:55But before that, before the two countries were, I would say idiotic enough to test their weaponry,
08:02long before that, I think I inherited this desire to see peace in the subcontinent,
08:10because my father was very much a proponent of peace in South Asia. Where was your father born
08:16in India? My father was born in what is now Pakistan. He was born in Sialkot.
08:23So, the same, the home. Yes. So, the hometown of Allama Iqbal, he shared that
08:32place of birth with him. So, he was very much a Punjabi, like Allama Iqbal. And he was one of
08:41those people who believed that development and all the things that we aspired to in the freedom
08:51struggle would only be achieved if there was peace in South Asia, in the subcontinent. And so,
08:58he was somebody whose poetry never dwelt on sort of empty nationalist slogans. There was love of
09:08the land, but it was not based on hatred of the other. And this is something that I inherited.
09:18I remember as a little girl, I was four years old when I was partitioned. And my mother was bringing
09:27us back from Kashmir into Lahore. And there was a lot of killing in a place called Mari. And my
09:34mother and other women got together, and they took out a peace demonstration. And as a little girl,
09:39I was put in the front on a donkey. So, I sat there and I had a white flag in my hand as a
09:49little girl. And I've been carrying that white flag ever since then. And this is something that
09:57I have inculcated in my students also, that our job as artists, as creative people, is not to bring
10:06about hatred between other human beings, but to think about what makes life saner
10:14and much more beautiful. And that has to do with peace, because humanism is the basic value.
10:20And so, I've been doing it, you know, forever. I was one of the people who organized the first group
10:28that went to India of artists and artistic teachers in 1986. We were a group of 40,
10:38the biggest group that had ever been. And I remember, you know, I was wondering, okay,
10:44these students who I'm taking, they're the generation who's been brought up on anti-Indian
10:48rhetoric, you know, everything in the media and the newspapers and blah, blah, blah.
10:54And so, all I said to them that, you know, you're ambassadors of your country when you
10:59cross the border. And the lovely thing was, you know, as soon as we got across, we got into Delhi,
11:04we went by train. The first thing I said, okay, what do you want to see? Madam, we want to go to
11:09a mandir. We want to see a temple. The curiosity was so much about the other. And they just loved
11:18being there. We went to Jaipur, we went to, of course, Agra. And, you know, everywhere they went,
11:24they would sit down and they would start singing and draw a crowd around them.
11:30And what was wonderful was the fact that they were devoid of any feeling of sort of hatred
11:41or something in which they felt that, okay, these people are difficult to get on with.
11:46It was one of the most illuminating experiences for them. And I must say that their art reflected
11:53that. So, this has been my belief. As President Kennedy says, art engages us,
12:00connects us. It is the city and the hill. Absolutely. Absolutely.
12:08I want to talk to you a little bit about your work. You work for a number of South Asian
12:13organizations such as SAPAN, what's the name, Bina Sarwar, and South Asia Foundation. What makes
12:22you so optimistic about the future of South Asia, considering the fact, the friction and mistrust
12:30between India and Pakistan? And by the way, I love your thoughts on going to the temple,
12:41being inclusive, and we can help shape a better future for America and for the world
12:46if we are in this together. Absolutely. And I feel that especially young people who have not
12:56been tainted by propaganda, they are far more open and they're far more curious to know about
13:04the lives of others. So, if you don't hold them back and if you allow them that voyage of
13:11discovery, you will find that they will always respond both with warmth and they'll also be,
13:19you will find that they will discover things that are in common. And they don't mind the
13:26things that are different because they too are things that they can think about. At the end of
13:31the day, you know, we are human beings, all of us, and we have the same needs. And those people
13:38who are creative, and we know that because we've experienced the great affection that people in the
13:46subcontinent have for poetry, for music, for films, for dance. So, it's really these cultural bonds
13:57which make it so easy to forget that there are differences. Art, as President Kennedy once said,
14:04art nourishes the roots of our culture. Absolutely, absolutely. And you're also a human
14:11rights activist, particularly women's rights, and you live right next to Afghanistan.
14:16Afghanistan does not have any women's rights, they question that. And they are, my question to you is,
14:23how do you go about, there's no equality in Afghanistan for the male as well as the,
14:32well, for the female counterpart, which is the male counterpart as well. My question is why?
14:37Why is that? And how do you make sure that doesn't happen again?
14:44Well, as you know, this is the darkest time ever. It is the darkest time.
14:49For the women in Afghanistan. I mean, it's not much better for the men either.
14:54But for women in particular, and I feel deeply, deeply disturbed by it, because over the last
15:0120 years or so, it has been my good fortune to have students, women and men from Afghanistan
15:09coming to study art in Lahore at Beacon House National University, not just from Afghanistan,
15:16but actually across South Asia. So we've had students from Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh,
15:24Sri Lanka, and believe it or not, even from India.
15:27That's wonderful. I'm so glad. What part of India?
15:34Yeah, it's a very visionary person called Madanjit Singh, who was a UNESCO ambassador.
15:40And he left this endowment. He believed in peace in South Asia. He believed in SAARC.
15:49And so he set up this foundation and made it possible for students from all of the SAARC
15:55countries to go. So you have a program of water management in Sri Lanka. You have one of law in
16:05Bangladesh. You have journalism in India. And the students go, except it's so difficult to get
16:12visas. We know all that, but somehow I've managed. So I've had these wonderful Afghan girls,
16:18who in these 20 years have matured into artists who become internationally well known. One of
16:26them, Kubra Khademi, who had to run from Afghanistan. She had to be evacuated with
16:32the help of the French embassy, the UNESCO did that. And so they have been, she is now,
16:42when the Taliban took over two years ago, three and two and a half years ago, we had to evacuate
16:48some of our former students. We had networks of artists in these 20 years. You know, these young
16:57people who studied in Lahore, they've built their own networks everywhere. And they helped them
17:04evacuate from Afghanistan. They are now in different parts of the world, Australia and
17:09Europe and Switzerland, everywhere. And the work they're producing is amazing. So I'm never
17:18pessimistic. I always feel even if one person through their art can tell the story,
17:26we have succeeded. That's a good way to put it, because the fact that the
17:31one person can make a difference and meaningful difference. Yes. You are a daughter of the
17:38legendary South Asian poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz. My question to you is, I hope you remember some of
17:45the lines from his, from your father's poem. Can you recite some? Well, they are, you know,
17:52at different times in my life, there have been different favorites. And, you know, sometimes
17:57somebody will come up to me and they'll say, you know, so and so is my favorite poem of Faiz. What
18:03is your favorite? And at that moment, I have to quickly think of something. And I've noticed that
18:09over years, my favorites have changed. And there is one poem that keeps coming back to me. And
18:17that's a poem that he wrote in 1947. Oh, my God. At the time of partition. And it's called
18:28Morning of the Birth of Freedom, the Dawn of Freedom. And it starts in this sad way.
18:47And, you know, translated roughly, it's that, you know, this leprous brightness,
19:04this dawn which reeks of night. This is not the one, the long awaited morn. This is not the
19:11shining light that beckoned us, beckoned us men ever onwards to go on seeking the final starry
19:18destination in the heavens, the final edge where ends the endless night. But, you know,
19:25at the end of the poem, he says, you know,
19:42the dark weight of night is not lifted yet. And the heart and the eye have not found their rest.
19:50Let us press on for the culmination is not yet. So, you know, when this is a poem that keeps
19:58coming back to me, especially when things look bleak. And these days, you look around the world
20:04and my God, is it a bleak time? It is. And then I think, you know, then I think,
20:09yeh daakh daakh hujala, yeh shab ghazeeda sahar, woh intazaar tha dhikha, yeh woh sahar toh nahi.
20:15I tell myself, you know, ki nahi, chale chalo. That's a good way to put it.
20:23Do you know Aligarh Muslim University? Sorry?
20:26Aligarh Muslim University. Of course, I've been there. Yes, I've been there. I visited it.
20:32When did you visit? Oh, well, it was a very long time ago,
20:36at the time when visas were easier to get. 1980s.
20:41Yes. No, I went in, I think it was 2011 when it was my father's centennial and they celebrated it.
20:50Oh, that's wonderful. So, yeah. So, it was wonderful because they
20:55celebrated it in Delhi also. The President of India celebrated his 100 years and Aligarh
21:03Muslim University celebrated it and they celebrated it.
21:08Who was the White Chancellor at that time? I don't remember. It was so long ago.
21:14General Shah was the White Chancellor. No, I think he came later. He came later.
21:19I'm not sure. I can't remember exactly. But it was a very nice ceremony.
21:24My nephew came with him, Dr. Ali Hashmi, who's written a biography of my father. So,
21:31very nice. And, you know, they had young poets also reciting. They had a Mushaira also.
21:37It was wonderful. It was very emotive. Yes.
21:41I was born in Aligarh. Really? Aha, okay.
21:45And I came here when I was 10 years old to United States.
21:48Aha, right. Okay.
21:50And there's several things in Aligarh that energize us. Frank and Debbie Islam Management
21:56Complex and Auditorium and there's many things that we have given several million dollars
22:02to have what I consider not to get our name but to make sure that the Innovation Center,
22:08this Entrepreneurship Center, people can be energized by our contributions and who we are.
22:15Absolutely. And it is only through, I feel, through the passion that we put into education.
22:22And commitment. Actually, and the commitment that you put there
22:27that we can hope to build a better human being.
22:31Well, it's wonderful. And thank you for watching the show. This is Frank Islam
22:36wishing you a great week. And thank you, Salma. Thank you.