Iconoclast Fehmida Riaz - Raza Rumi

Her bold poetic expression was considered indecent in a country where pornography, heroine and arms are sold on every street. And, where stage plays with "hot" mujras and explicit sexual innuendo are patronised by official cultural institutions in the name of commercial viability. Fahmida was sometimes labelled as a non-believer when she questioned the clergy; at other times a communist when she talked of social justice. Even last year, a group of Karachi-based "intellectuals" chided her for eulogising a letter by the fourth Caliph Hazrat Ali (AS) as a model for good governance. This time she was a reactionary and a "toady."

She had to deal with a society that was unshackling itself of the colonial hangover and still continues to do so, where the mullah, the mighty arms of the state, oligarchies of vested interests flourish with ease; and all independent voices have to be silenced, co-opted or crushed. And, the hapless poets especially those outside the ambit of officialdom are the soft targets of such cultural cleansing.

In the second PPP government (1988-90), Fahmida Riaz was appointed as the managing director the National Book Council of Pakistan (later merged with the National Book Foundation), where she made a mark and even the unfriendly press recognised her reform. This was a short-lived stint as she was seen as a "PPP" appointee. In Benazir Bhutto's second tenure as prime minister, Riaz was affiliated with the Ministry of Culture and her work was incomplete on the fateful day when the Leghari brigade unseated yet another elected government. And now that the third PPP government is in power, she is forgotten by those whose identity she has had to bear all these years making her a permanent punching bag of right-wing ire....