Whenever a foreign shadow or enemy’s hand fell 
upon my beloved land,

Whenever the killers stood opposed in battle,
And conflict erupted along my borders,
Whether through my blood or the power of my words,

I offered whatever I could, whatever was mine to give.

With tears, I bid you farewell,

When the battlefields called upon you.

Whether you returned in triumph or not,

Even defeat could not strip you from my heart.

You sold your honour in exchange for life,

Yet still, we have accepted you.

Even those in the East, with hearts torn apart, were our own,

Whose blood you came to smear on your face.

Did you come to violate the sanctity of mothers,

Or to crush the rebellion they birthed?

You couldn’t alter their fate,

But you aimed to change the course of their generations.

Whatever the outcome of this may have been,

The night passed, but their dreams were left shattered by you.

With what grandeur and arrogance you arrived,

Yet with what shame you departed for the prison.

You came with swords in hand,

But left with chains around your neck and shackles on your feet.

Like the Gurkhas under British rule,

Who spread terror without restraint.

And like the cruel white men in Vietnam,

Who falsely accused those who stood for justice.

You are no different from them today,

For they, too, had rifles, uniforms, and names like yours.

Yet, I still called you innocent.

To console the people of the city.

Though my poetry was no balm for their wounds,

Still, I made an effort to offer some remedy.

For the sake of lifting the spirits of my hopeless people.

You must remember those days as well,

When you returned from captivity.

We, with torn hearts, stood along the roads,

With our hearts filled and eyes brimming,

Forgetting the bitterness of our humiliation

We showered you with flowers of honour

Whose jaws were stained with the blood of their own people,

Came to surpass all limits of cruelty,

After the massacre in Bengal, they arrived in Balochistan,

to slit the throats of the citizens

Today, from the border to Punjab and Mehran,

You have set up slaughterhouses, O warriors.

On whose orders do you cause this devastation?

Before whom are you bowing down, O warriors?

Whose imperial command is this?

For whose sake is this slaughter and bloodshed, O warriors?

Who knew that, O descendent of Shapur,

You would become the embodiment of a dark night?

Yesterday too, you were the throne-bearers of the oppressors

Today too, you remain the guardians of [their] courts

For the sake of a dictator’s crown,

The edge of the sword is at everyone’s throats.

You have seen the caravans of the masses,

Waving banners of rebellion in their hands.

The scabs of blood dried on woods,

Declare that these scenes are apocalyptic.

Yesterday, love resided in our hearts for you,

Today, the flames that rise are that of hatred

Today, the poet owes a debt to the land

For now, blood flows in the pen, not ink

Now that blood has been shed, it has become evident,

O professional killers, you are no soldiers.

Now the heads of those devoid of conscious are demanded,

The issue is no longer confined to the royal crown.