Pakistan poet Fahmida Riaz’s daughter Veerta Ali Ujan said in a Facebook statement on Wednesday that she had rejected Pakistan’s presidential award for her mother saying it would be an insult to Riaz’s struggle for justice and equality.
Ujan said in a Facebook post, “Awards section contacting me about ammi’s award investiture ceremony. How can I accept an award for her work at this time? It would be an insult to her whole life’s struggle for justice and equality.”
In her statement criticising the Imran Khan government, Ujan that it would not be fair to accept the award at a time when, “Writers and journalists are being kidnapped, tortured, even murdered. Harassers being awarded. Karachi left to rot in sewage.”
Riaz is an Urdu poet who was born in Meerut in 1946. She died in Lahore in 2018.
Riaz was a staunch feminist and activist who lived in exile in India during General Zia-ul-Haq rule in Pakistan because of cases filed against her because of her activism.
She has been a vocal critic of sectarianism in Pakistan.
On March 8, 2014, Riaz had recited her poem titled ‘Tum bilkul hum jaise nikle’ which translates to ‘you turned out to be just like us’, at a time when cow vigilantism and Hindutva fundamentalism was rising in India during a seminar called ‘Hum Gunahgaar Auratein.’
Later, after the Modi government had come to power, Riaz had said in an interview to The Indian Express, “Pakistan has committed a huge mistake by becoming semantic with religion and it is in such a mess. We have been living under a communal sky for a half a century now. It’s sad that India is almost there.”
“Please change the situation, don’t become another Pakistan, don’t live in a hell-hole,” she had warned.