At a first glance, one feels jitters going through the spine to note the title Ghalib gave to his 1857-1858 diary of that fateful Indian insurrection, forever carved in South Asian Muslim consciousness asghadr [rebellion/treachery]. He called it Dastanbu a word of archaic Persian meaning `a fragrant bouquet.` Why would Ghalib present a bouquet to his readers while his homeland was in the throes of unspeakable bloodbath, witnessing exiles and dispossessions and public executions? At a time when fireballs from heavy artillery were flying across the reddened skies of his Delhi? And when his mentally ill brother Yusuf`s house was plundered by British soldiers leading to a pathetic death the corpse lying unshrouded for days; and when, stripped of their possessions, Ghalib`s friends were being condemned to Kala Pani, to that dreaded Blair prison, that chamber of torture at the Andaman Islands, far away from home? In this calamity, a fragrant bouquet in the hands of Ghalib would look like an abject betrayal a betrayal further darkened by the fact that Ghalib did not care to make even a passing reference in the Dastanbu to his close and loyal friend Nawab Mustafa Khan Shefta, accused (perhaps falsely) of inciting the 1857 rebellion and condemned to several years of incarceration. Nor, indeed, did our grand poet find the towering Allama Fazl-i-Haqq, who was exiled to Kala Pani, worthy of figuring in his diary we recall here that the Allama was perhaps the dearest and most highly valued friend of Ghalib.

Things are even more intriguingly complex in fact, for Ghalib expressly sided with the British colonial rulers, bitterly denouncing the freedom fighters. For example, to memorialise the rebellion, he coined the phrase `rastakhez-i-beja` [unjustified commotion], a phrase whose numerical value yields the Hijri year of the outbreak of the calamity.

He called freedom fighters names `ungrateful/ disloyal`, `wicked loiterers`, `godless creatures`, `heartless murderers`, `lost traitors`, `evil robbers`, `ugly belligerents`... This is too much. But more, on the obverse, we see eloquent praise for colonial rulers they were `glowing stars on the firmament`, `just rulers`, `lion-hearted conquerors`, `embodiment of knowledge and wisdom`... the list goes on.

In one letter addressed to his beloved disciple Tafta, Ghalib expresses his love for the British: `Among the British people slain by these ugly black-faced [Indians], some were the chambers of my hope, others my kind companions; also among them were my intimate friends and my students.` As a matter of fact, Ghalib openly acknowledges that he wrote the Dastanbu to gain three specific personal favours from the British Crown the restoration of his pension for which he had struggled for years, the bestowal of the Robe of Honor, and the conferment of the title of `Poet Laureate.` In this vein, one recalls that our poet also wrote a Persian gaseeda [panegyric] eulogising Queen Victoria, which was appended to the Dastanbu. And the timing of this gaseeda disturbs many of us: it was written on the occasion of Delhi`s final capitulation to the colonial armed onslaught. But what is likely to cause much disconcert on the part of many of us is that, in his eulogy, Ghalib congratulates the Queen for the `conquest` of India [fath-i-Hind].

But Ghalib was an exceedingly clever man; and more, his adorable mischiefs would not cease even in the most unlikely circumstances. So we note that he placed a veil over the Dastanbu by writing it in archaic Persian that hardly anybody knew at the time unfamiliar Persian utterly `unmixed with Arabic words` (farsi na-amekhte ba-Arabi), unlike standard Persian.

In fact, he says in one letter that he aimed to write it in the language of the cryptic Zoroastrian Dasatir [canon], associated with the obscure high priest Azar Kayvan.

Why write the Dastanbu in an inaccessible language? The purpose seems quite obvious to save it from reaching the ordinary reader among his countrymen, a creative, in fact pretty, linguistic trickery.

The question is, were the colonial circumstances at the 1857 decisive juncture such that Ghalib was forced to speak in favour of the British? Surely, one recalls that barely a month after the breakout of the 1857 insurrection from a Meerut cantonment, the Governor-General, Lord Canning, enacted his draconian `Gagging Act` to `impose fetters on the right of public speech`, as one English-language newspaper reported an abrupt suppressive step for which he had managed to win the approval of the ruthless Legislative Council.

The vernacular press was now being silenced and outlawed, with editors and publishers facing arrests and merciless punishments, including public executions. Most significantly, the particular target of the Act were Urdu newspapers of urban centres that had daringly led the insurrection, printing fiery provocative material against the colonial rulers including jihad fatwas of the ulema of multiple doctrinal persuasions.

Indeed, many respectable scholars have tried to exonerate our great poet (scholars on whose writings I draw upon), pointing out that, conversely, Ghalib had openly agonised over and moaned about the devastations of 1857 in most graphic and deeply poignant terms in his letters.

But, then, it is important to note that, even in his letters, Ghalib does not explicitly condemn the colonial rulers. Perhaps as one critic said he considered the British a metaphor of progress, and that the glories of the Mughal Empire were to be committed to the oblivion of the past.

The columnist is Executive Academic Adviser at the University of Lahore and Adjunct Professor at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) Karachi.

All translations are by the columnist