Chup ki Daad by Hali: The Poem on Women, Explained

Daad is the praise a poet receives from listeners at a gathering, the "wah, wah!" that rewards a fine verse. Chup is silence. Hali's title means praise for silence: the recognition owed to women for everything they have borne without complaint, and which the world has never applauded.

The opening stanzas speak to women as mothers, sisters, daughters and wives, the source of comfort and of every man's upbringing. The middle stanzas turn to their suffering: the unequal treatment of daughters, the burdens of the husband's house, the lot of widows, the long ages in which injustice was accepted as custom. In the closing stanzas the tone changes to hope, as Hali sees the dawn of an age in which women too will have their share of knowledge.

The language is plain and direct, with the measured music of Hali's reformist verse rather than the ornament of the classical ghazal.

Hali had argued for women's education for thirty years before this poem, in his prose book Majalis-un-Nissa (1874) and in Munajat-e-Bewa, the lament of a widow. Chup ki Daad is the summing up of that lifelong cause. Learn more in our guide to Altaf Hussain Hali, and see the essay The Rights of Women by his friend Sir Syed.