For Original Visit above Link
Lucknow plays host to commemorate 1936 Progressive Writers
Association conference
Fifty
years ago, Lucknow was the venue for the first conference of the Progressive
Writers' Association (PWA). Last month, Lucknow again played host to a
gathering of progressive writers, this time in commemoration of the 1936
conference. As some 500 delegates descended on the historic city to take stock
of the movement and chew the cud of reminiscences, it turned out that the 50
years had not been very kind to the PWA and the movement had lost much of its
initial zeal and thunder.
For an
association that spearheaded the whole progressive movement in Indian
literature, the PWA stands a much weakened force today. There was a time when
almost every senior writer was associated with it and the movement gave the
subcontinent some of its most significant literature.
Today,
however, the active participation of its senior members has dwindled to mere
patronage, while most young writers are either members of the rival
CPI(M)-aligned Janvadi Lekhak Sangh or of the CPI(M-L)-led Jan Sanskriti Manch.
Says Hindi writer Rajendra Yadav, who was an active PWA member in his youth and
is now vice-president of the Janvadi Lekhak Sangh: "It has become more and
more aligned with the establishment. The progressives, on the pretext of
infiltrating the system to fight it from within, have become a part of
it."
Admitted
Hindi writer Bhisham Sahni, the outgoing general secretary of the National
Federation of Progressive Writers (NFPW) - the new name adopted by PWA in 1975:
"Yes we have become weak organisationally. After Independence the PWA
became a bit scattered and the initiative towards socially oriented writing
became weak." PWA's only living founder-member Mulk Raj Anand, who formed
the nucleus in 1935 in London along with Sajjad Zaheer and Muhammad Deen
Taseer, added sadly: "It's not only the association that has become weak.
The
progressive movement itself has lost momentum, largely due to sectionalism and
the dispersal of the intelligentsia." Pakistani critic Sibte Hassan, one
of the oldest members (who ironically died in Delhi of a heart attack soon
after the conference), felt that the PWA was frittering itself away on
inconsequential issues like linguistic prejudices and ideological hair
splitting.
Hindi
writer Asghar Wajahat says in his book Hindi-Urdu ki Pragatisheel Kavita
(progressive poetry in Hindi and Urdu) that the PWA began as a broad-based
group of nationalists, secularists and communists. With Independence, the
nationalists became content that their goal had been achieved and left the PWA.
On the other hand were those who felt that this freedom was not real and that
imperialists of one kind had merely been replaced by another. Then, during the
Telengana and Bengal movements, several writers were arrested and the movement
started falling apart.
As a
result the PWA came increasingly under the control of the Marxists, and its
policies and stands became more and more left-oriented. The cracks in the PWA
became deeper after the Communist Party split in 1964. The decline was
precipitated in 1975 when the PWA decided to support the Emergency.
"It
was a mistake," admits Bhisham Sahni, "and we regretted it. We
supported the Emergency because we thought that it would suppress the rightist
reactionary forces like the Jan Sangh and JP's movement." Another negative
factor was that it distanced itself from other literary movements, isolating
itself in the process.
PWA
meetings then and now: weaklned forceUrdu poet and Chairman of the NFPW
Presidium Ghulam Rabbani Taban, however, insists that the movement is in fact
going strong. "Contrary to what people say," he says, "the
movement in fact is growing. Organisationally too, it's strong. Three units -
Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar - are quite active while others are doing
good work in their own limited spheres."
This is
true but only in a small way. While some writers feel that the association
should be made more broad based, others believe that all it needs are
catalystic circumstances. As Hindi critic Namvar Singh, an active NFPW
executive committee member, says: "The movement began with a sense of
crisis.
This
sense of crisis doesn't arise often. But now it's building up, what with the
threat of nuclear warfare on the international front and the increasing
regionalism, communalism and sectarianism on the national front. I guess this
might give the movement fresh impetus and a new lease of life."
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