Mustafa Zaidi and the Politics of Silence in Pakistan
The untimely death of Mustafa Zaidi, a brilliant poet and civil servant, remains one of the great mysteries of Pakistan’s literary and political history. Found lifeless in Karachi in 1970, alongside a socialite embroiled in scandal, Zaidi’s demise was ruled as a suicide—an explanation that raised more questions than it answered. More than half a century later, the enigma surrounding his death speaks volumes about Pakistan’s enduring discomfort with truth, transparency, and intellectual dissent.
Zaidi was no ordinary poet. His verses, imbued with melancholy and defiance, captured the essence of a man struggling to reconcile his inner world with a society resistant to change. As an Urdu modernist, his work explored themes of alienation and betrayal, often foreshadowing his own tragic end. His professional life, marked by clashes with the bureaucratic elite, painted him as a rebel trapped within the machinery of a state increasingly hostile to free thinkers.
But it is the circumstances of his death that continue to haunt Pakistan’s cultural consciousness. Zaidi’s life ended in a haze of accusations and moral scandal, overshadowing his poetry with a narrative that cast aspersions rather than seeking clarity. The focus on sensationalism—his alleged affair with Shahnaz Gul, the whispers of state involvement—reflected a society more eager to suppress uncomfortable truths than to confront them.
Pakistan, to this day, struggles with the ghosts of such silences. From high-profile political assassinations to the unexplained disappearances of journalists and activists, the unresolved mysteries of Zaidi’s era remain eerily relevant. The state’s habit of sidestepping uncomfortable truths—whether by obscuring facts, vilifying victims, or cloaking itself in bureaucratic opacity—has fostered a culture where questioning power is an act of rebellion.
Zaidi’s death is not just a historical footnote but a reminder of the dangers faced by those who dare to challenge the status quo. It also highlights the fragility of art and intellect in a country where dissent is met with disdain, and where poets, journalists, and activists walk a precarious line between recognition and ruin. The stifling of voices like Zaidi’s robs Pakistan of its cultural and moral compass, leaving behind a society adrift in its own contradictions.
Today, Mustafa Zaidi’s poetry resonates as a lament for a nation that has yet to reckon with its past. His haunting words—“I’ll kiss your hands because I’m looking for you / My brothers and sisters are here”—capture the despair of seeking accountability in a society where complicity runs deep. These lines, drawn from one of his most celebrated poems, reflect a deep sense of betrayal and injustice, where the truth is obscured, and guilt is shared collectively yet hidden behind the metaphorical gloves of denial.
The verse is emblematic of Zaidi’s ability to articulate personal grief as a reflection of broader societal dysfunction. It conveys the frustration of a man searching for answers, not just to his own suffering but to the systemic rot that enables it. In Zaidi’s poetry, blood is a powerful metaphor for sacrifice, truth, and consequence, and the gloves symbolize the deliberate concealment of guilt and complicity by an entire community.
In the context of Zaidi’s life and untimely death, these lines strike a particularly poignant chord. His fall from favor within the civil service and the subsequent ostracization by peers and society mirrored the themes of isolation and betrayal in his work. Zaidi’s critique of bureaucracy, power, and moral hypocrisy became deeply personal, foreshadowing his own tragic end in a society that failed to defend him or his truth.
Today, this verse speaks to Pakistan’s continued struggle with its own culpability in cycles of suppression. Whether it is the unresolved mysteries of Zaidi’s death, the silencing of intellectuals, or the erasure of inconvenient truths, Zaidi’s words remind us of the collective failure to confront these injustices. They call out the complicity of the powerful and the apathy of the masses—tamām shahr, the entire city, which bears responsibility yet hides behind gloves to avoid the stain of accountability.
Mustafa Zaidi’s poetry often served as a cipher for his inner turmoil, offering glimpses into a soul both restless and resolute. In one of his most evocative verses, he writes: “Mirī ruuh kī haqīqat mire āñsuoñ se pūchho / Mirā majlisī tabassum mirā tarjumāñ nahīñ hai”—”The truth of my soul lies in my tears; my public smile is not my interpreter.” These lines cut through the veneer of performative contentment, laying bare the chasm between inner despair and outward composure.
In Zaidi’s Pakistan, as in today’s, such dichotomies are all too familiar. The country’s socio-political landscape thrives on public smiles—symbols of national pride, moral uprightness, and collective resolve—while the truth often drowns in a sea of unacknowledged tears. Whether it’s the struggles of marginalized communities, the disillusionment of youth, or the stifled voices of dissent, Zaidi’s verse encapsulates the tension between what is shown and what is suppressed. His words invite us to question the narratives we accept and to seek the truths hidden behind the performative smiles of a society unwilling to confront its contradictions.
Mustafa Zaidi’s poetry holds up a mirror to a nation that has yet to learn from its past, urging it to confront uncomfortable truths, shed its layers of denial and break the cycle of complicity that continues to silence the voices of dissent.
The writer is a lawyer and development consultant. Email: jalal.hussain@gmail.com