Hum Dekhenge

Hum Dekhenge (Urdu: ہم دیکھیں گے - In english We shall see) is a popular Urdu nazm, written by the Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz.^[1] Originally written as Va Yabqá Vajhu Rabbika (And the countenance of your Lord will outlast all),^[2] it was included in the seventh poetry book of Faiz -- Mere Dil Mere Musafir.

Hum Dekhenge
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Original title	ویبقی و جہ ر بک
Written	1979
First published in	1981
Language	Urdu
Lines	21

Background

The nazm was composed as a medium of protest against Zia Ul Haq's oppressive regime.^[3] It gained a rapid cult-following as a leftist^[4][5] song of resistance and defiance,^[6] after a public rendition by Iqbal Bano at Alhamra Arts Council^[7][8] on 13 February 1986,^[9] ignoring the ban on Faiz's poetry.^{[10][11][12][13][14][15][16]}

Themes

Faiz employs the metaphor of traditional Islamic imagery to subvert and challenge Zia's fundamentalist interpretation of them; Qayamat, the Day of Reckoning is transformed into the Day of Revolution, wherein Zia's military government will be ousted by the people and democracy will be re-installed.^[15][17]

In popular culture

Media

The song was recreated in Coke Studio Season 11 on 22 July 2018, under the aegis of Zohaib Kazi and Ali Hamza.^[18][A] In the movie The Kashmir Files (2022), it was depicted as being sung by students of a left-leaning Indian university to as a song of protest ^[20]

Protests

The poem gained importance in protests against Pervez Musharraf in the early 2000s.^[21][22]

During the Citizenship Amendment Act protests in India,^[23] faculty members of IIT Kanpur took issue with Hum Dekhenge being sung by protesting students in the campus, and alleged it to be "anti-Hindu".^[24][B] The IIT instituted a commission to look into the issue.^[25] The student media body rejected the charges as being misinformed and communal, which divorced the poem from its societal context.^[26][27] During the same period of early 2000s Madan Duklan, a prominent actor, director and poet in Garhwali language translated 'Hum Dekhenge' in Garhwali language. Encouraged and directed by Dr. Sunil Kainthola, local artists who were participating in a production orientation workshop for 'Mukhjatra' sang the Garhwali version of Hum Dekhenge in front of the Uttarakhand movement's martyrs monument in the court compound at Dehradun.