History of Urdu Poetry

Source: The introduction to the book "Fire and the Rose"

Rahman, Anisur ; Fire and the Rose; an anthology of modern Urdu poetry; Rupa & Co. 1995.

    Urdu language and literature, beyond their spatial confines, have been more heard of than read. With the publication of some notable translations, some of them in the recent past, a new literary culture seems to be emerging from the canons of the old. Modern Urdu poetry, of which this is the first comprehensive selection, has its own tradition of the new. It has developed through stages of a variegated literary history. This history has absorbed both the native and non- native elements of writing in Arabic and Persian, and the Urdu language has survived through several crises and controversies. Some of these are related to its growth and development, its use by the British to divide the Hindus and the Muslims. it estrangement in the land of its birth following the Partition of India and its interaction with Hindi once akin but now an alien counterpart. Even with the extinction of those generations of Sikhs in Punjab, Muslims in Bengal and Hindus elsewhere, who nurtured the language with love and for whom it was the mark of a cultivated man, the language has survived and developed.  It is now the cultural legacy of India and the adopted national identity of Pakistan, and significant new literature has emerged in both countries. 

Literary centre : Deccan, Delhi and Lucknow

    Literature in Urdu grew at three different centres: Deccan, Delhi and Lucknow. As it happened, the Deccan emerged as the earliest centre, even though the language had first developed in northern India, as a result of an interesting linguistic interaction between the natives and the Muslim conquerors from Central Asia, who settled there in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, The period stretching roughly from the middle of the fourteenth centuries to the middle of the eighteenth produce a number of poets. They are claimed both by Urdu and Hindi literary historians, but Quli Qutub Shah (1565-1611) is generally acknowledged as the first notable poet, like Chaucer is English, with a volume of significant poetry in a language later named Urdu. He was followed by several others, among whom Wali Deccani (1635-1707) and Siraj Aurangabadi ( 1715-1763) deserves special mention. Delhi emerged as another significant centre with Mirza Mohammad Rafi Sauda (1713-80), Khwaja Mir Dard (1721-85), Mir Taqi Mir (1722-1810), Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib (1797-1869) and Nawab Mirza Khan Dagh (1831-1905). It reached its height of excellence during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Lucknow made its way as the third important centre with Ghulam Hamdani Mushafi (1725-1824), Inshallah Khan Insha (1757-1817), Khwaja Haidar Ali Atish (1778-1846), Iman Baksh Nasikh (1787-1838), Mir Babr Ali Anis (1802-74) and Mirza Salamat Ali Dabir (1803-1875). These literary capitals, where the classical tradition developed, had their individual stylistic and thematic identities, but broadly it may be said that the ghazal  (love lyric) reached its zenith with Mir and Ghalib, qasida (panegyric) with Sauda, mathnawi (romance) with Mir Hasan and marthiya (elegy) with Anis and Dabir. 

Hali and Iqbal  : new poetry in Urdu

    In the period that followed, and before the launching of the Progressive Writers Movement in the 30s, mention should be made of Altaf Husain Hali (1837-1914) and Mohammad Iqbal (1877-1938). Hali was a poet of the newer socio-cultural concerns and advocated 'natural poetry' that had an ameliorative purpose. His Musaddas is an important example of this. He was also a theorist who opened new frontiers in Urdu criticism with his Moqaddama-e-Sher-o-Shairi (Preface to Poetry) which equals Wordsworth's Preface to Lyrical Ballads in importance, and even surpasses it in certain respects. He realized that with the impact of the West a new perspective was required. He, along with Mohammad Husain Azad (1830-1910), laid the foundations of a new poetry in 1867 under the auspices of Anjuman-e-Punjab, Lahore. Azad had asserted in the same year that Urdu poets should come out of the grooves of responses conditioned by Persian culture and root their works in the ethos of the land. Seeing no response to his pleas, he reiterated the same point seven years later on May 8, 1874 during his address on the occasion of the first mushaira of the Anjuman. These appeals failed to make and impact as sensibilities rooted in particular tradition are not easily altered even by impassioned pleas. Hali, creating a  new taste for his age. Iqbal, with his remarkable religio-philosphical vision, and Josh Malihabadi (1838-1982), with  his nationalistic and political fervour, produced exceptionally eloquent kinds of poetry that continue to reverberate over the years. Iqbal remained the most influential poet  to achieve artistic excellence while putting forward a philosophical point of view, and his poetry, quite often, acquired the status of the accepted truth. A host of others Urdu  poets and translators of English poetry who appeared on the literary scene during the first quarter of this century experimented with non-traditional poetic forms but they ultimately echoed sentiments and adopted forms that were more or less tradition-bound. They also looked towards the West, the traditional source of literary influence, but that was a world apart and too far to seek, They could reach only the Romantics who had already become outmoded in an age identified with Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot. A characteristically modern poem in form and value, tone and tenor, remained at best an intriguing possibility.

Progressive Writers Movement

    The 1930s emerged as the archway for entry into a new world and achieve the unachieved. Some young Indians-- Sajjad Zaheer, Mulk Raj Anand, and Mohammad Deen Taseer-- who wee then studying in London, musing on the role of literature in a fast-changing world, came up with a manifesto for what came to be known as the Progressive Writers Movement. Even before this, Sajjad Zaheer, during his stay in India had published Angare (Embers), an anthology of short stories, with explicit sexual references and an attack on the decadent moral order. The book had to be banned, like Lady Chatterley's Lover, but the stories had an impact, as they were thematically interesting and technically innovative. The reader had suddenly become exposed to the worlds of Freud, Lawrence, Joyce and Woolf. There was a world of new values waiting to be explored by an emotionally charged and intellectually agile reader. the Progressive Writers Movement was launched at the right time. This was the precise hour to shed the age-old traditions, take leave to the clichés, proposed new theories, and explore a new world order. 

    Akhter Husain Raipuri, in his well-timed Adab aur Inqilab (Literature and Revolution) published in 1934, discarded the classical Urdu poets, including Mir and Ghalib, as degenerate representative of a feudalistic culture. This rejection was, however, based on extra-critical considerations as he was more intent on popularizing Marxist thought in literature. Premchand's famous presidential address to the conference of Progressive Writers Association in Lucknow two years later in 1936, came as a more precise call to relate literature to social reality. ' We will have to change the standards of beauty, ' he had said, and beauty of him was that which Eliot identified as ' boredom and horror' in his own context. The movement focussed on poverty, social backwardness, decadent morality, political exploitation; it dreamt of an ideal society and a just political system. 

    Every rebel was, therefore, a progressive writer and vice-versa during those exhilarating days. He was basically wedded to the idea of political and social revolution. He drew his inspiration from Marx. He rejected the striving for individual signatures, new modes of expression and new experiments in form. It was important for the poet to denote rather than connote, and to appeal to the larger humanity rather than to the individual. Falling victim of these errors before long, the movement alienated some noted poets, the most important of them being N. M. Rashed (1910-75) and Miraji (1912-49), who came together to lead a group called Halqa-e-Arbab-e-Zauq (Circle of Connoisseurs) in 1939. The progressive writers insistence on ideology and the impatience of those who cared more for art are reminiscent of the British poets of the 1930s and the later stance of W. H. Auden. 

    Faiz Ahmad Faiz (1911-84) is the most prominent and the finest of the poets who subscribed to the progressive  ideology. he was singularly successful in striking a balance between art an ideas. He was drew upon sources other than Urdu and Persian and imparted an individual tone to his poetry. he did not raise slogans; he only uttered soft notes of expostulation. he was inspired more by the spirit of liberation than by slogans raised elsewhere. Prominent among other progressive poets were Asrarul Haq Majaz (1908-56), Makhdoom Mohiuddin (1908-69), Ali Sardar jafri (b.1913), Jan Nisar Akhter (1914-76), Kaifi Azmi (b.1918) and Sahir Ludhianawi (1921-80). They are mentioned here not only for the individual qualities of their poetry by also for their importance in this movement at a particular juncture in literary history. Despite the deep political complexion of the Progressive Writers Movement, it prominence was a short-lived affair. The next generation of poets expressed certain misgivings about their emphasis on class struggle in a materialistic and scientific world. The new poet wished to shake off all external shackles and apprehend his own experience for himself. 

The modernism

    N. M. Rashed and Miraji are the two most remarkable poets in this group.They along with Faiz, represent in the Urdu language what Eliot and the Symbolists do in English and French. They appeared later but also showed a unique resilience and vitality. Faiz was a poet with a message, one woven artistically into a pattern of symbols and delivered in a mellifluous tones. Rashed treated the Urdu language in a fresh way and created complex symbiotic fusion. Faiz appeals alike to the philanthropist and the philanderer, the pious and profane, the music makers and dreamers of dreams, but Rashed appeals only to a select readership. Faiz emerged as a myth in his own lifetime while Rashed and Miraji are yet to be fully appreciated. Rashed's resources are immense. The merging to the eastern and western influences accounts for the richness of his verse enhanced by linguistic innovation and poetic skill. Miraji,  who reminds one of Tristan Corbiere in his bohemianism, drew upon Oriental, American and French sources, meditated upon time, death, the mystery if human desires, the raptures of sex and wrote in a variety of verse forms -- regular, free, and prose-like. He opted for esoteric symbolism, resorted to the stream-of-consciousness method and emerged as a unique modernist movement in Urdu poetry. 

    It was on this tradition that individual poets later developed their own version of modernism. Majeed Amjad (1914-74), Akhtarul Iman (b.1915) and Mukhtar Siddiqi (1917-72) deserves special mention here. A poem for them was a delicate work of art that succeeded or failed for its artistic worth. Akhtarul Iman wrote ironic,  nostalgic and dramatic poems, while Majeed Amjad wrote in an inimitable introspective mood and ideas. They served as models for the younger poets to follow. The impact of Rashed, Miraji and Faiz was immense and far-reaching. Their successors echoed them, learnt from them and so came to acquire their own voices in course of time. 

    The generations of poets since the 1950s faced new predicaments. The Partition of India was an experience they had suffered, while the world around was also terribly alive and eventful. Groups of poets followed on after another; Wazir Agha (b.1922), Muneer Niyazi (b.1927), Ameeq Hanfi (1922-88), Balraj Komal (b.1928), Qazi Saleem (b.1930) grappled with the world around in an idiom and form that were decidedly new and had nothing to do with Progressive aesthetics. All of them acquired their own individual identities and made their mark in the development of modern poetry. They looked back at their won masters-- Mir and Ghalib-- and fared forward to Eliot and Empson. Modern literary and philosophical movements no longer remained alien. Realism, symbolism, existentialism, and surrealism, were drawn closer home. Kumar Pashi (1935-92), Zubair Rizvi (b.1935), Shahrayar (b.1936), Nida Fazli (b.1938) and Adil Mansoori (b.1941), on the one hand, and Gilani Kamran (b.1926), Abbas Ather (b.1934), Zahid Dar (b.1936), Saqi Farooqi (b.1936), Iftekhar Jalib (b.1936), Ahmed Hamesh (b.1937), Kishwar Naheed (b.1940) and Fehmida Reyaz (b.1946), on the other, experimented in form and technique, bringing in new diction and finding a place for new experiences. The new poem had come into being; modernism had firmly established itself by the mid-1970s. 

    Shaabkhoon, a literary journal, projected this movement in a big way and identified the poets of the new order. Ever since its inception in 1966, it has done a singular job -- especially during the vital 60s and 70s -- of creating a taste for modernism. Shamsur Rehman Farooqi, the most perceptive of the modern Urdu critics, played a vital role in helping recognize the contours of modernism with his critical studies. his studies appraising modern poets, as well as classical poets who bear upon the modern tradition, developed sound critical theories and helped in creating an atmosphere for the acceptance and appreciation of modernism.

Poetry in Pakistan

    It may not seem quite right to speak of Urdu poetry in terms of Indian and Pakistani poetry, but it would be reasonable to say that the new urdu poetry in Pakistan is remarkable for its variety and vitality. Emerging from the common sources and traditions of history and culture, poetry in Pakistan has achieved its own frames of reference, its own tones of voice, its own notes of protest, largely because of the socio-political compulsions. Its poetics is characterized by a healthy adherence to tradition and somewhat virile improvisation of the traditional modes of expression. 

    The new poet in Pakistan has created his own blend of the lyrical with the prosaic, the manifest with the allegorical. he expressed his own predicament and that of the world around him which arouse both hope and fear, dreams and despair. Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Majeed Amjad and Muneer Niyazi, with their vitality and strength, have led us to the still more varied and vibrant Sermad Sehbai, Asghar Nadeem Syed, Afzal Ahmad Syed, Zeeshan Sahil and the vital feminine voices of Kishwar Nahed, Fehmida Reyaz, Nasreen Anjum Bhatti, Sara Shagufta, Shaista Habib and Azra Abbas. All these and many more form part of a formidable poetic scene. They are rich in their experience and execution and may well be placed among the prominent Third World voices that are being heard today with great curiosity and interest. 

    Modernism is an international phenomenon and modern Urdu poetry is a part of it. It  has made its mark with its recognizably individual poetics. The Urdu poet is now free to make his choice; he has drawn upon sources both indigenous and foreign, literary and extra-literary, including philosophy, sociology and mythology. The issues regarding the form of the poem, the language, experiential capital and aesthetic dimensions have been resolved. the modern reader has finally identified his poem.

The early years of the progressives

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The early years of the progressivesby Kamran Asdar Ali

From February 28 to March 6 of 1948, 632 delegates assembled in Calcutta for the second congress of the Communist Party of India (CPI). The most important task performed during the meetings was the shift toward a more radical political line by the party that followed a critique of the reformist politics of its leadership during most of the 1940s.

The delegates also took some time to divide the party into two constitutive parts: the CPI would confine its working to the boundaries of the Indian Union while the post-August 1947 separated territories of Pakistan would be free to form a different communist party.

The CPI’s radical position followed the Soviet post-Second-World-War political line that was articulated forcefully by Andrei Zhdanov, one of the three secretaries of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in his speech at the inaugural Cominform Conference in Poland in September of 1947. As the earlier alliance of the three superpowers — the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union — on the basis of defeating fascism was no longer viable in the changed political climate, the Soviet Union argued for a mass resistance against the Anglo-American line of imperialist expansion. In India, this was translated by B.T. Ranadive (the new CPI secretary general) and his group as a call for more radical confrontational politics of struggle and political strikes, a general uprising which had little to do with the level of preparedness of the public as well as the rank and file of the party itself. Some of this confrontational politics was accepted by the newly formed Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) as well.

It is evident to most who know the history of the period that culture and intellectual creativity was of immense importance to the CPP and to its new secretary general, Sajjad Zaheer. Zaheer, an accomplished short-story writer and literary critic, did not produce much literary work during these early years in Pakistan, yet he was constantly writing for the party newspapers and sending long letters to different party committees. He also found time to read what was being written in various literary journals and newspapers and would send individual comments and criticism to foes and friends alike. The militancy in his letters to party comrades was represented often in dictatorial language, giving much importance to the dissemination of party literature, opposition to Muslim League leaders and the building of an open political front linked to other progressive forces in the country. One of these fronts was the re-establishment and the re-organisation of the Progressive Writers’ Association (PWA). The PWA was one of the most influential literary movements in the decade preceding the partition of British India. It was initially formed by a group of Indian students like Mulk Raj Anand, Sajjad Zaheer and Ahmed Ali who were living in England during the 1930s. With annual gatherings, regional meetings and affiliated literary journals, the movement attracted writers and intellectuals from almost all Indian languages. However its strength lay among the Urdu-Hindi writers of the era.

From its very inception, the PWA was influenced by socialist and Marxist tendencies and soon after his return from Britain in 1935-36, Sajjad Zaheer joined the CPI. Hence, although the PWA was open to all those who broadly agreed with its manifesto — that called for a new literature that addressed progressive ideals and focused on the issue of poverty, deprivation and servitude of the Indian masses — it soon became closely aligned with the CPI.

Carlo Coppola, who has written a history of the PWA, argues that young Zaheer and others were influenced by Marxist writings while studying at Oxford and the person who encouraged them to establish a formal organisation was the leftist writer Ralph Fox (Fox later died in the Spanish Civil War). However, what is missing in Coppola’s account (and also from Roshnai, the biographical account of the PWA that Sajjad Zaheer wrote later) is any discussion of how the manifesto borrowed heavily from the reports and speeches of the first Soviet Writers Congress in 1934, especially if we see the speeches by Zhdanov and Maxim Gorky. There is much thematic similarity between Zhdanov’s position and that of the emerging manifesto of the young Indian students in Britain. This influence remains a story still untold.

The All Pakistan Progressive Writers Association (APPWA) was a continuation of the All India Progressive Writers Association (AIPWA) and similarly closely affiliated with the newly formed CPP. For example, in 1948, the various CPP district organising committees supervised the formation of local APPWA chapters. Zaheer himself, as a founding member and past president, was keen on pushing the role of intelligentsia in society. In his communiqués he asserted the need for writers to have a thorough mastery of Marxist ideology and insisted on study circles so that intellectuals and creative people, especially those linked to the CPP, could study the works of Marx, Lenin and Stalin, as well as literature coming from the Soviet Union and progressive literature from Europe and Britain. Writers were also encouraged to write essays, articles and literary criticism for popular consumption to counter bourgeois and “reactionary” ideologies that were being propagated by, according to him, state and class enemies. Within this context, by the late 1940s the CPP, in control of APPWA and influenced by the CPI’s radical line, had started to purge from its ranks those that did not completely toe the new party line. This became more evident after the introduction of the new manifesto which targeted “non-progressive” writers during the first APPWA conference held in Lahore in November 1949.

During this conference, “non-progressive” intellectuals were severely criticised for their perceived political failings, alliances with state machinery, sexual perversions and lack of social consciousness. The manifesto for this meeting clearly divided the Pakistani cultural scene into many factions and spoke positively of those intellectuals who raised their voices against the ruling class and who struggled against oppression and for independence, peace and socialism (the new manifesto was published in the literary magazine Savera in 1950). Their writings, the manifesto proclaimed, were full of optimism, progressive ideals and a willingness to move the working class toward action.

In opposition to these intellectuals were the groups that were undemocratic, supported the status quo and through their writings, created confusion in peoples’ minds. The manifesto, in strong and uncompromising language, established three groups of reactionary intellectuals. The first were the writers who proclaimed the ideology of art for art’s sake. The text criticised these writers as denying class struggle and hence colluding with the ruling classes. The second group was designated as those that claimed to write Pakistani literature. They too were condemned as people who favour the capitalist and feudal classes of the new country and who, in their communalist hatred toward India, could not differentiate between Nehru’s fascist government and the Indian working classes. The third group was labelled as Islamic writers who seeked to establish Islamic law in the country. The manifesto lumped all of these writers — the Islamists, nationalists and liberals (art for art’s sake) — together and painted them as reactionaries.

The manifesto then turned toward those writers who used bourgeois psychology and Freudian parameters to understand society. These authors were labelled obscene, perverse, pornographic and decadent for their depiction of life through the lens of sexuality. They not only distorted peoples’ experience, the manifesto asserted, but also disrespected love as a pure form of desire. Hence the manifesto portrayed these writers as anti-humanists who could only make fun of the peoples’ creative faculty and were insensitive to the struggle for human existence. The protagonists of their works were killers, thieves, prostitutes, and those elements of society that do not contribute in the productive process; they wrote pessimistic stories that sang of darkness and of death (this is a clear reference to Saadat Hasan Manto’s work).

During the late 1940s, the progressives were dominant on the literary scene and their insistence on creative activity that focused on a clear ideological position was the legacy of their anti-colonial and class-based politics. They argued that reactionary authors did not understand or write about the social and political aspect of Partition violence and merely presented psychological and sexual renditions of the events. In an essay, the progressive poet Ali Sardar Jafri (Taraqi Pasand Adab, 1957) asserted that the progressives deeply analysed the situation from social and political angles and found the light of humanity even in this darkest hour of the nation’s history. Echoing progressive stalwarts like Ali Sardar Jafri, even Sajjad Zaheer argued that free thinkers and liberal artists possessed a sick mentality that made them avoid peoples’ problems. Hence in Pakistan’s early years there was much anxiety among progressive writers to create a distance from those who were perceived by them as the standard bearers of middle-class values and perverted literature. For example, Jafri attacked poets like N. M. Rashid by arguing that he and others like him were perpetrators of the death wish, escapists, obsessed with sexual themes and condemned him and Manto for raising such topics to the level of religious belief.

Writing during the late 1940s, Aziz Ahmed, another progressive intellectual, in his book on the subject, said that people like Manto were so obsessed with sexuality that he wondered whether they were mentally stable. He goes on to say that this perversion had entered Urdu literature due to the influence of D.H. Lawrence who, according to Ahmed, did not hold the respect of British literary circles any more. Within this context, Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi (who was then the secretary general of the APPWA), in an important defence of progressive literature, proclaimed that the progressives had learnt from their mistakes and cleansed their house of impure infections brought in by perverted artists whose pornographic work and psychological analysis was influenced by the decadent intellectual Sigmund Freud (‘Kuch to Kahiye’ Nuqush 9, 1949). Ironic as it may seem, calling works of literature obscene meant taking them out of public circulation, a framing that seemed akin to the censorship that the progressives themselves at times suffered from under the moral surveillance by the community and the state (colonial or post-colonial).

What I have recounted about the new manifesto is fairly common knowledge among the literary circles in Pakistan. What is not so well known is that the language of the manifesto may have been influenced by, as did the first manifesto in 1935, the Congress of Soviet Writers, the renewed Soviet criticism of writers and intellectuals who were not following the state sponsored ideological line. One example of this form of attack was by the same Andrei Zhdanov in 1946 on the journals Zvezda and Leningrad for publishing the works of Mikhail Zoshchenko (1895-1958) and Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966). This became the basis for what was later to be called the Zhdanov Doctrine in cultural debates within global socialist circles. The journals were reprimanded for giving space to Zoshchenko’s short stories. They were deemed commonplace, rubbish, devoid of ideas and apolitical literature that aimed at disorienting the youth and poisoning their minds. He is called a vulgar lampoonist for the satirical short stories he published during the war.

Similarly, the poet Akhamotova, who has now become the icon of modern Russian poetry, was condemned for ideologically empty poetry of pessimism reflective of a spirit of decline. She was accused of bourgeois aristocratic aestheticism, of “art for art’s sake,” which does not follow in the footsteps of the people. She is portrayed as a poet of the elite that mixes fornication and prayer, of a kind of religious eroticism (we see the echo in how N.M. Rashid, Manto, Meeraji and others were condemned during the period of the new manifesto). As was the case with the APPWA manifesto of 1949, so was the ideas put forward in Zhdanov’s argument that literature should become party-oriented in order to counteract the bourgeois individualistic moral code and literary forms (Zhdanov’s speech was published in Pravda, September 21, 1946).

It is obvious to a lay reader that there are connections between the Soviet positions on culture and literature and the PWA during the late colonial and the early post-colonial period in South Asia. These literary linkages need to be elaborated and discussed for us to understand the literary debates in Pakistan’s early years.

This said, there was of course opposition from various quarters to the understanding of culture and literary undertaking by the progressives. But other groups were not as organised and consisted of a range of free thinkers, modernist poets and independent-minded intellectuals along with those who sought to link the question of Pakistan with Islamic morals and values. The latter group was intellectually eclectic and divided (Hasan Askari wrote a scathing critique of M.D. Taseer during the late 1940s in his discussions of Pakistani culture) and many had also previously been close to the progressives. However, it is also clear that intellectuals like Mohammad Hasan Askari and others continued to question and accuse the progressives for negating the completeness of the independence project and denying Partition as the logical end-point of the struggle, which for them was the emancipation of the masses through a proletarian revolution (a clear attack on Faiz’ poem ‘Subh e Azadi’). To take an example, Mohammad Din Taseer, an eminent man of letters who was also one of the founders of the PWA in the 1930s, had by the late 1940s become one of its major opponents. In a trenchant piece published in 1949, Taseer clearly states that although all progressives are not socialists, and all progressives are not traitors, all socialists are traitors to the cause of Pakistan. This is so, Taseer explains, because their loyalties are with Soviet Union or with India and they seek the destruction of the new nation. Such proclamations aided the ruling elite in the first years of Pakistan’s existence in becoming suspicious of any communist challenge to its authority.

Hence, in Pakistan’s early years, groups of intellectuals debated the future course of the country after the catastrophe of Partition. Whether the answer was in class solidarity (as the communists believed) or in the moral community of South Asian Muslims (as the Pakistani state desired) was a continuing discussion. Further, irrespective of the CPP’s desire to open up a discursive space to convince people of its political agenda, the government of the time was adamant to put important members of the CPP’s central committee and its workers periodically in jail and ban or confiscate communist publications. Further, the state also started using Islam as a political weapon to counteract various the communists and other democratic forces. Islamic doctrine was employed in the media to persuade people against the anti-religious (meaning anti-Islam) and, linked to it, the perceived “anti-Pakistan” political stance of the communists. The party was under perpetual government surveillance and attack. During the early 1950s, Zaheer spent several years in jail and soon after his release in 1955 he went back to India. The CPP was officially banned as a political organisation a year earlier in 1954.

Postscript: Under Sajjad Zaheer’s leadership, the progressives in Pakistan, at least in this era (perhaps as a reaction to their own suppression), sought to tame the conditions of the debates according to their own vision of a more egalitarian future. They used the trope of sexual deviancy, ideological purity and social commitment to curb the chaos that they thought would ensue from “non-progressive” literature. In this world of order and truth they sought no contingency and no ambivalence. In later years however, Syed Sajjad Zaheer went through a transformation of sorts. In a recent key note address at the Jamia Milia University in Delhi on Zaheer’s 100th birthday, writer and critic Intizar Husain related the following: Zoe Ansari, a critic and literary figure in India had written a critique of the great Persian poet Hafiz and called him an escapist poet whose work was perverse. In responding to him, Zaheer admonished Ansari for throwing the priceless gem of Muslim cultural history in the proverbial dustbin of history. He argued that we cannot read Hafiz in terms of some mechanical relationship between social practice and artistic expression. Husain suggests that this was a provocative response, but a bit late. Zaheer should have proclaimed such ideas in the 1940s, in the early days of the progressive movement. But perhaps he could not as the “tides were riding high with revolutionary fervor and some young radical would have announced that now even Banne Bhai (meaning Sajjad Zaheer) has also become reactionary” (Dunyazad #17, 2006).

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Kamran Asdar Ali teaches anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin

Sajjad Zaheer and Progressive Writers’ Movement

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Sajjad Zaheer and Progressive Writers’ MovementBy Mushir Anwar

THAT literature will meet our criteria which has thought, passion for freedom, beauty, a constructive spirit, the light of life’s realities; that moves, creates a turmoil and turbulence, makes us restless, does not put us to sleep since it would be akin to death if we sleep more. Thus Munshi Premchand defined the objectives of the Progressive Writers’ Movement in his presidential address at the movement’s first congress held in 1936. The standard bearer of this movement was Sajjad Zaheer, a scion of nobility who renounced the advantages of his birth to work for the cause of the downtrodden. Celebrations of his birth centenary beginning last year have revived some spirit of the time and good men who are still there have tottered to the aid of the Party.

The 41st edition of Irtiqa is devoted to Banney Bhai, his pet name, and the Progressive Writers’ Movement that he founded. It is a document of considerable interest for the present day reader who can find a great deal of thoughtful material on the life and work of Sajjad Zaheer as well as a candid discussion on the course of the movement, its achievements, drawbacks and its likely future. The issue presents a selection of the papers that were read at centenary conferences and seminars in the subcontinent. A brief account of the proceedings of the conferences held in Karachi and Lahore as well as in India has been covered for the issue by Jamal Naqvi.

Sajjad Zaheer saw in literature that force which could bring about a qualitative change in the life and thought of the people since it anticipated the profound and the deep unseen as well as the surface tensions springing from the font of ambition that not only make men dream but goad them to their realisation. But that in effect meant changing the aesthetics of art which some thought to be inflexible. Sajjad Zaheer who believed in scientific thinking that changes with new discoveries and does not remain wedded to old concepts saw no harm if literature could give a helping hand in social transformation. Why should this be so abominable, asks Dr Muhammad Ali Siddiqui since the artist has never been unconcerned about the form and content of his creation and its relevance to society. A piece of literature is after all a narrative. It is saying something. It is an expression. It is not therefore possible for art to be dumb. Sajjad Zaheer like other progressive thinkers wanted literature to be alive to the human situation and its needs. What was so unliterary in that?

Wasn’t that that the Greek and Roman writers of yore sought in their tales of the gods and goddesses and hasn’t that been the motive in religious texts and hymns and dirges that embody the classic tradition? And nobody seems to have any quarrel with that.

Irtiqa holds that Sajjad Zaheer with time’s passage has become a leading symbol of the movement and its unending struggle for its ideals. He will continue to inspire others to join the caravan. That may be true, yet, it is a fact that the movement wilted which Ashfaq Saleem Mirza, in his essay on its rise and fall, blames on the excessive optimism of our armchair revolutionaries while Dr Qamar Rais sees it not so much as a reaction to the inflexibility and extremism of the doctrinaires as to the changes that came at the end of the colonial rule when it was thought that a number of objectives of the movement had been achieved and the nationalist governments banned the PWM and jailed its leaders leaving others disenchanted and prone to pursue writing in the spirit of their own creative urges and bent of mind.

Sajjad Zaheer’s centenary celebrations after years of the demise of the Soviet Union serve as a reminder that neither has history ended nor the class struggle ceased. The subjugated masses of Asia, Africa and Latin America do not see the realisation of their dreams in the nightmare of globalisation. Closer at home the voices of men like Sajjad Zaheer are beginning to echo more resoundingly as the rude sight of corporate plunder is bared to even the dim-eyed on the street. In any case the clouds of dust from the debris of the Berlin wall seem to be settling down making the vision of the dazzled and the dazed clearer. The success of Left parties in South America and reassertion of the progressive politics even in Western Europe and signs of renewal of stirrings in the Non-Aligned Movement as was seen at the Havana summit are developments that should not surprise anyone. What should be more worrying for the sages of statecraft and movers and shakers of our world is the sight of a supine mass of humanity that does not rise to claim its rights and where the intellectual class plays the courtesan.

* * * * *

AWAMI JAMHURI FORUM: The 31st issue of this Left monthly magazine being published from Lahore features critical analyses of national issues by eminent writers like Kaiser Bengali who dismisses the claims of economic revival as temporary glitter which will soon fade, Salman Abid who analyses Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s (MQM) failure in the Punjab and Ashfaq Saleem Mirza who reviews where we stand after 59 years of freedom. Then there is a very candid interview with comrade Jam Saqi who rejects the concept of dictatorship of the proletariat and declares he is not opposed to Trotsky, whose political thought is examined in another essay by Khurshid Javed. A juicy piece in the charming Punjabi of Iqbal Dhallon suggests the biggest challenge is the promotion of democratic thinking in the society. There are two other interesting studies, one on Maulana Sindhi who suggested 50 per cent tax on the rich and a secular federal government; and the other on Lenin’s view of imperialism. Edited by Aamir Riaz, at Rs20 a copy it helps sustain the glow on the horizon.

CM’s visit and after

By Shakeel Ahmad

POLITICAL leaders of the area have termed last week’s visit of Multan by the Punjab chief minister ineffective and unproductive.

During his visit the chief minister inaugurated the Multan Industrial Estate Phase II, Multan, the PTV centre and under-construction building of the Multan Press Club.

He also visited the under-construction building of the Cardiology Centre and held meetings with MNAs, MPAs, Nazims, and a delegation of High Court Bar Association, Multan bench.

PPP (Parliamentarians) deputy secretary-general Shah Mehmood Qureshi said that the establishment of industrial estates was a welcome step but the basic element that could run these industries was electricity of which there was a crisis in the country.

He said that the high markup and bad law and order were major hindrances in the way of investment and in such circumstances nobody was ready to invest. He said that all the running projects in the city were from the World Bank and were planned before but the Punjab government was insisting on taking the credit while they did not give anything except making false promises.

Dr Javed Sadiqi, the Punjab Assembly member, said that in the past whenever the chief minister visited Multan he announced something regarding the development of the district whether or not it was implemented but this time he disappointed the people of Multan. He said that three days before his visit (to Multan) the chief minister visited Faisalabad and announced a Rs11 billion grant for its development projects. He announced Rs7 billion for the construction of Faisalabad Ring Road and Rs4 billion for the Faisalabad Industrial Estate, besides promising more money if this grant fell short.

He said the Punjab government had acquired 4,500 acres for the Sundar Industrial Estate in Lahore and they had established two industrial zones in between Lahore and Sialkot where they acquired 2,500 acres for each industrial zone while they did not acquire even an inch of land for the Multan Industrial Estate and it was being established on the land that was acquired in 1964.

He said, according to the chief minister, the Industrial Estate Phase II Multan would create 100,000 job opportunities while Faisalabad Industrial Estate would create four million job opportunities and Sundar Industrial Estate in Lahore would create 600,000 jobs while zones between Lahore and Sialkot would create one million employment opportunities.

He said the Women’s University, Multan, was working in two rooms of Government Degree College for Women, Multan, while on the other hand the chief minister announced a university in Gujrat last year and the Punjab government had allocated Rs2 billion for it.

He said that a new district headquarters hospital in Multan had been announced by the Punjab government some four years ago but it could not be established to this day.

He said that all these facts proved that rulers were not interested in reducing the deprivation of southern Punjab and their all attention was on the development of upper Punjab.

He said that investors would not invest in Multan or any part of southern Punjab until the government announced special incentives to encourage them.

PML-N’s Babu Nafees Ahmed Ansari, also the Punjab Assembly member, said that the inauguration of Multan Industrial Estate Phase II, which was actually part of Industrial Estate Phase I, was not a glad tiding for the people of Multan.

He said the City District Government had spent a huge amount on the arrangements for the visit of the chief minister and an air-conditioned tent was brought from Lahore which was a misuse of national resources.

He said that Mian Faisal Mukhtar, City District Nazim, actually was a businessman who was not a people-friendly person and he purchased the Pak-Arab Fertilizers at the price of Rs14 billion while the actual price of it was Rs70 billion. He accused the city district nazim of making hundreds of workers of factory jobless and said that a person who could make people jobless could do everything for his personal benefit.

Hafiz Iqbal Khakwani, adviser to the chief minister, said that it is true that southern Punjab is less developed as compared to central and upper Punjab but the process of development had accelerated during the tenure of the present regime.

He said that the chief minister visited Multan for the inauguration ceremonies of Industrial Estate Phase II and the PTV Centre and he (the CM) himself had asked President Pervez Musharraf for the establishment of a television station in Multan.

He said that classes had been started in Multan Women’s University while the land for its campus would be acquired very soon and construction work on a new District Headquarters Hospital would also start shortly.

He said that the chief minister had told him during his recent visit that he would announce a mega development package for Multan after the holy month of Ramazan and he would also declare Multan a big city and the construction of an international airport in Multan was among our priorities and work on this project had also started.

Marxist Influence on All-India Progressive Writers’ Movement

Source: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/cmkp_pk/conversations/topics/20033

Marxist Influence on All-India Progressive Writers’ Movement

Jamal Ali Bashir

In contemporary times, Urdu literature has lost its significance in the eyes of the common Pakistani. The situation is such that the new generation is alien to the progressive writers movement and hence, literature. Those acquainted with Marxism have, at times, failed to relate the progressive writers’ movement in Urdu literature with Marxist ideology. This paper will elaborate upon the influence Marxist ideology commanded over the progressive writers’ movement. The first part will be on the history of this movement before partition, the second part will elaborate on the contributions of several progressive writers’ for this movement and last part will shed light on how this movement declined after partition.

Modernism in Urdu literature emerged after the film “Gadar” in 1857. The War of Independence was a mutiny in which Muslims and Hindus united to gain freedom from British rule and failed badly in June 1858. In this event, there was a brutal massacre of Muslims and Hindus as they failed to gain control over the British army (Marshall). This tragic event had a significant impact on the minds of the writers of that time. One of them, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan was severely shaken by this event. Later, Sir Syed would come to be known as the pioneer of modernism in Urdu literature. After Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, Allama Muhammad Iqbal, Maulana Shibli Nomani and Maulana Hali were torch bearers of modernism. Sir Syed Ahmed tried to mobilize Muslims through his writings and is credited with having added an entirely new vocabulary to the Urdu language. Allama Iqbal wrote about the terrible conditions the Muslims of the subcontinent offered solutions to their problem. The book, “Musaddas” by Hali completely changed Urdu poetry by introducing new form of parody and imitation which was unknown in Urdu poetry as he spread the message of patriotism and social progress. Shibli also contributed to mobilize people, he started writing poetry that had an was aimed to agitate minds and confront them with the problems of people. He also introduced the art of criticism and biographies in Urdu. These were the people who deliberately related literature with society. However, there was no organized or collective effort to change the passage of Urdu literature until the 1930’s. Often, in the existence of a vacuum in any society due to the inefficiency of old values to meet new demands, there is the possibility for modernism to emerge. Its birth is inevitable as old values start becoming meaningless and new possibilities start to emerge (Kiran).

This was exactly the situation faced by four young writers, Sajjad Zaheer, Ahmed Ali, Muhamuduzzafar and Rashid Jehan. Jehan wrote the book Angare, which comprised ten short stories, and published it in December 1932. This marked a major change in the history of Urdu Literature. This book was one of its kind because its form and content was completely different from the prevalent Urdu literature of the time. The book helped to build the foundation of All-India Progressive writers Association later on which is considered to be the most significant movement in the history of Urdu literature in twentieth century. Angare drew its inspirations from Marxism by attacking ferociously on existing political, religious and economical institutions. By writing this book, young writers tried to convey the message that man is the creator of his own destiny and he is capable of utilizing nature for his own benefit. A prevalent theme in the entire book is the individual self-respect of every man. Moreover, it also talks about the class antagonisms present in the then Indian society. Also, this book seems to be inspired by social realism because it tries to present a real picture of society. These ideas lie at the root of the progressive movement which started formally in 1936 (Mehmud).

The central committee of the soviet communist party passed a resolution on April 23, 1932 and created a single union of soviet writers which was organized later in 1934. This union invited other writers to join it but their membership was conditional; the condition was adherence to the doctrine of socialist realism in literature. Meanwhile, many Western critics maintained that Soviet literature has become a mere “instrument of propaganda”. At the same time, in India, Marxist intellectuals under the leadership of Sajjad Zaheer were uniting and called for the first conference of All-India Progressive Writers’ Conference in Lucknow on April 10, 1936. Pandit Jawaher Lal Nehru was invited to preside over the sessions of the conference. It must be kept in mind that within the Congress, Nehru was one of the left wing leaders. Moreover, this was a period of posing a united front for Soviet Union Diplomacy and it encouraged foreign communist parties to enter into anti-fascist alliances throughout the world. Nehru in his speech during this conference showed his support for All-India Progressive Writers’ Association (AIPWA). Other leftist leaders like Jai Parkash Narain, Yusuf Mahraly, Indulal Yajnik, Kamla Devi Chatopaddhaya and Mian Ifthikhar-ud-Din also participated in this conference and showed their support (Malik).

Nevertheless, the number of literary delegates was not particularly encouraging or promising. Only thirty eight writers participated in the conference, twenty five of whom were from Uttar Pradesh and it is significant to note that none of them was a Hindi writer. Actually, many other Hindi writers recognized the existence of this literary movement but were hesitant to participate in this conference due to the presence of large number of Muslim writers and they were confused about the nature of the movement. As Sajjad Zaheer points out,“a good many of them were reluctant to enter into any cooperative endeavour with Urdu writers”. However, Munshi Prem Chand, a renowned Urdu and Hindi writer presided the conference which compensated partially for the absence of other Hindi writers. Moreover, Munshi Prem Chand’s selection as a president of the Progressive writers’ movement was tactically wise because he had command over both the central languages, Urdu and Hindi, and he was at that time at the pinnacle of fame due to his writings. He had by then published dozens of novels. All-India Progressive Writers’ Association at its best was a semi political literary organization; this is demonstrated by the resolutions adopted in its Manifesto. Moreover, its manifesto categorically condemned Mussolini’s aggression against Ethiopia, the Japanese attack on China and the British government for repressing civil liberties and the press in India. The constitution of the association was drafted by three young graduates from different universities: Sajjad Zaheer, Muhammad al-Zafar and Abdul Alim (Malik).

Furthermore, it was tacitly stated in the Manifesto of Progressive Writers Association that their aim was to introduce new literature in India which would address basic problems existent in the Indian society. Some of these key problems were hunger, poverty, social backwardness and political subjection. These problems appear to be very important in the Marxist analysis of social conditions, which tries to offer solutions to eliminate these problems from society. However, it must be noted that the conditions in British India were quite different from those of other countries mainly because India was less industrialized. So, its main problem was the subjugation of farmers, women and particularly of the lower strata of society, including labourers. But it was not focused on only labourers, as was the case in Soviet Union and other countries (Kiran).

When we consider responses to the movement, it must be considered that the All-India Progressive Writers’ Association (AIPWA) faced severe hostility from the British Government from its inception. In addition, statesmen of Calcutta wrote and published two articles which claimed that this association was being controlled by communists and that the association posed a threat to the harmony of India. Moreover, the articles went as far as proclaiming that the association has been designed to create anarchy and lawlessness in the country. These worries were clearly exaggerated but as far as the connection with communism was concerned, their message was true. This is because this association was, to some extent, a diffused belt of Communist party of India (CPI) because Sajjad zaheer was its main stake holder and he was one of the well-known communist leaders, but it was utterly wrong to say that this association was dominated by only Marxists. This is evinced strongly by the fact that non-communist writers like Munshi Prem Chand, Maulana Hasrat Muhani, Maulvi Abdul Haqq, Sarojini Naidu, Doctor Abid Hussain, were also among the prominent patrons of this association. So, it was practically impossible for Sajjad Zaheer who was Secretary General to dictate these people, who were all strong writers with individual agency and personality. However, for AIPWA there were two main problems; firstly, how to infuse Marxist content in the current Urdu Literature and secondly, how to win the confidence of Hindi writers (Malik).

Let us review the situation in its historical context. The Hindi-Urdu controversy was at its peak in the 1930’s. Hindu’s insisted that Hindi should be the national language of India while Muslims, on the other hand, were of the view that Urdu should be the national language of India. Since AIPWA was dominated by Muslim Writers, Hindi writers felt insecure and suspicious regarding its ambitions. However, later on, their suspicion was reduced due to continuous persuasion by Communist Party of India (CPI). The movement evolved in many ways over time, as it gained popularity amongst different people. From 1936 to 1947 this movement seriously influenced young Muslim writers. However, after partition the movement became popular amongst many Hindi writers as well. It flourished in Punjab due to devoted Marxist writers like Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Zahid Kashmiri, Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, Sahir Ludhianvi, Krishan Chander and Rajhnadra Singh Bhedi. The contribution of these writers was that they successfully blended Marxist form and content with the traditional style of Urdu poetry. Moreover, these writers tested newer techniques of short story writing and novels. They therefore contributed to the corpus of Urdu literature at that time by articulating their ideas in a mode more accessible to many people traditional forms of political advocacy: the mode of literature (Malik).

Sajjad Zaheer was one of the conspicuous figures of the movement. He proved to be a political and literary guide for other members of the movement. Zaheer belonged to an upper-class, bourgeoisie family of Uttar Pradesh. He was sent to Britain for his education where he obtained his bachelor’s degree from Oxford University and then three years later he received his barrister-at- law degree from London University. He was greatly influenced by communism and he never practiced law later on. Progressive writers were committed to the cause of peasants and proletariat but they had no proper idea about how these two classes actually lived. These writers debated this issue passionately in late nineteen thirties and they proposed that their place in this social ladder is determined by the capitalist social order and they urged everyone to defy their social order (Malik).

Likewise Faiz Ahmed Faiz tried to analyze the teachings of Marx, Hegel and Engels and he advocated amongst his colleagues the point that none of these three were themselves manual workers but they all understood the problems of workers wisely and urged everyone to be empathetic in understanding the problems faced by labourers. Moreover, he said that at least our message should reach to the middle class even if it fails to reach the labourers. In his poem “Bol”, Faiz tries to convey the same message in the following words:

Speak, for your two lips are free;

Speak, your tongue is still your own;

This straight body is yours still-

Speak, before its breath is gone. (28)

Another writer who worked passionately and zealously for this movement was Sayyid Mutalabbi Faridabadi. Soon after the creation of this movement, a school for peasant poetry emerged and he made a serious contribution to it. He was a humorous writer who discussed serious things by presenting them in an unprecedented way. These verses from his poem, “Hayya Hayya” demonstrate this point better than any other words can:

Rise and shine hayya hayya, raise your head hayya hayya;

Eight months of hunger, Sher Bahadur, long months of hunger;

No tattering rags, no clothes to wear, hayya hayya;

Here you go, hayya hayya; hunger will hurt, hayya hayya;

What do you mean brother mine, hayya, hayya, Sher Bahadur, hayya hayya:

Yes my brother, hayya hayya, belly will fill, hayya hayya! (Malik)

One of the unique contributions of the Progressive Writers Movement to the Urdu literary tradition in the subcontinent was its evocation of social problems, an aspect of life that was rarely discussed otherwise in such a serious and grave manner in Urdu literature. The latter was mostly about imaginative and romantic themes detached from social realities of life. But the new stream of poetry that emerged shows how Urdu writers were now concerned with such social realities.

Another writer, Munshi Prem Chand was not considered a Marxist writer but a genteel reformer who lacked an understanding of the concept of dialectical materialism, a feature central to Marx’s teachings. Moreover, his works reflect a reluctance to demonstrate a refutation of religion. This is portrayed by how Munshi delivered an address while presiding All-India Progressive Writers’ Association in which he completely rejected the idea of religious revivalism. Moreover, he also rejected the idea of art for the sake of art. This was an influence derived from Russian social realism that emphasized that artists should rebel against the out dated modes of society and they should work for political and economic freedom (Malik). Similarly, he tried to expose British politics and he criticized industrialists for their inhumane treatment of labourers (Kiran). From this it could be said that he did have the tendencies of Marxist thought. However, it should be kept in mind that this declaration by Munshi did not come as a surprise to at least Muslim Urdu writers who had previously committed art to the awakening of Muslims under the leadership of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Allama Muhammad Iqbal (Malik).

Karl Marx’s writings about social and economic problems can be considered a form of protest against existing problems of subjugation in society. In the same way, the writers of the Progressive Movement in their writings were often writing in the form of protesting about different problems that perceived. Literature is one way of individuals engaging with the reality they see around them and this is perhaps, why the process of literature took writers in different or unexpected directions. Saadat Hasan Manto can be seen as one example of this. Manto was a unique and renowned writer but also, to this day, a controversial figure in the world of literature, because of the content of his short stories. He wrote mainly about social problems and linked them with sexual deprivations. Mostly his stories revolved around prostitutes and attempted psychoanalysis of them by showing the real motives behind their actions. This was something unbearable to a large section of society because they regarded it as obscenity and as unethical. The slightest mention of sex appeared indecent to them and they did not allow even covert references to sex in literature. This led these progressive writers especially Manto to protest against this hypocrisy and this narrow mindedness of the middle class. Manto translated large number of texts from Russian literature in Urdu (Kiran). Ismat Chugtai like Manto was also a social realist. Both of them are said to share much in common, both in terms of style and content of their writing. Both of them were greatly influenced by Soviet socialist literature and they adopted the same style and represented the reality of human condition. Moreover, they were influenced by the works of Freud and it prompted them to write about human sexuality more openly than others of the time. Their writings were mostly about human sexuality and this made their relation with AIPWA ambiguous and even alienated, because in the early years of progressive writers’ movement these writers were involved in it. However, in later years when more dedication was required they were less interested in those issues (such as..) and they kept writing about human sexuality. In 1941 Manto was charged in Lahore high court for his short story named “Bu” (“Odor”). Similarly, Ismat Chugtai was charged for her story “Lihaaf” (”quilt”) in the same year. Sajaad Zaheer at this point in time started to disavow any connection between Progressive and “obscene” literature (McLain).

Progressive writers were in fact social realists as it is obvious from their work. This word has its origins in Russian-inspired beliefs. This belief is about the function of literature in revolutionary socialist society. This is the belief that words have the power to portray the structure of social reality. This belief is in many ways inspired by the Russian revolution, Soviet communism and international Marxism. It urges the need to respond critically to repression and the feeling of frustration. This frustration can be due to the collective or personal aspirations of people. Prior to the Mutiny of 1857, Urdu literature lacked an instructive function. However, led by this event many reform movements materialised which believed in socio-religious reforms that were targeted at some level, at reclaiming people’s ancient heritages. After 1857, literature was perceived as a medium of writing that began to provide both a social and an aesthetic purpose. This is because Urdu writers were greatly influenced by late nineteenth-century Russian writers whose writings had a strong social aim, which was reform. The content of new writing that thus emerged shifted its focus from being about the elite class to being about the masses (McLain).

Many writers of this movement were indirectly active on the political front. They protested to events occurring in the world of foreign affairs which were an affront to their Marxist beliefs and loyalties. An example of this occurred when on September 2, 1939; British viceroy in India declared that India would participate in the world war. Progressive writers condemned this act of British government and this period led to the shifts in progressive writers’ poetry. One could argue that this action by progressive writers was in some ways motivated by the actions taken by The Communist International (Comintern), an organization initiated in 1919 in Moscow, had condemned Germany and its allies for engaging in a war forced by the thirst to gain world power. Moreover, these writers in their writings predicted that this involvement in war will eventually bring an end to British imperialism (Malik). These thoughts were expressed eloquently by Ali Sardar Jafri:

This lightening was nurtured in your home; this dagger was sharpened by your own hands.

This long-awaited calamity has befallen, and your anchor of fate is beyond your control.

Your throne is no longer safe on its pedestal, and your crown has fallen off your head;

Your imperialism has been shaken to its foundations.

Freedom-lovers rejoice at this occasion, all the rebels sing the anthem of freedom.

Let us burn sorrows with fires of glad-tidings

Let us dance under the blood-drenched flag. (Malik)

These impassioned verses show the new stream of thought amongst many people regarding what Indians viewed as their war of “Independence”. The passion and intensity embodied in these verses also show how literature can and has functioned as a strong stimulation for people’s sentiments.

Moreover, demonstrating a similar zeal and emboldened confidence to assert oneself, Faiz Ahmed Faiz wrote poems like “Siyasi Leader kay Naam”(“To a Political Leader”) and he warned Congress leaders of the upcoming success of the Soviet Union and advised them to put off their strategy of joining second World War. Similarly, Makhdum Mohy-ud-Din wrote “Tarana-I Azadi” (“Song of Freedom”) to highlight the changes going on in the nature of war (Malik).

In the years preceding the partition of India, the writings of the progressive writers evolved, affected by the external realities around them. Soon after the World War 2, it became obvious that the British were going to leave India and it was made clear that the country would be partitioned into two parts, one for the Muslim majority and the other one for Hindu majority. The Progressive Movement’s impartiality was affected by this divide and it led many of these progressive writers to become partial. Also for some Muslim writers, the pull of Muslim nationalism proved to be stronger than Marxism. Asrar al-Haq Majaz was one of the progressive writers who led many agitational rallies demanding the creation of Pakistan (Malik). Moreover, he wrote a poem named “Pakistan Ka Milli Tarana” for the future state (Malik).

In the mid 1942 The Communist Party of India was hesitant to support the cause of the independence of Pakistan and it presented the idea that India was a multinational entity and it should give the right of self-determination to these nationalities. But one year later it was supporting the cause of Pakistan openly. During this period, certain progressive writers like Ibrahim Jalis and Nazir Hyderabadi ended their relations with CPI and Progressive Writers Association. They joined Majlis Ittehad-al-Muslamin which was a right wing Muslim organization committed to the independence of Hyderabad. Meanwhile several progressive writers joined to create Anjuman Muslim Musanafin which was committed to the same aim. During this chaos they forgot Marxism and proletarian solidarity and they struggled instead to create South Pakistan in Hyderabad. This example shows how the partition of British India affected the loyalties of certain writers’ and that partition was in fact a very polarising event (Malik).

However, on the other hand there were still several committed supporters of Progressive Writers Movement who remained true to its cause and consistent in its support even in those uncertain and turbulent times. By 1947, CPI was successful in starting a serious communist revolution against the Nizam of Hyderabad. Progressive writers like Ali Sardar Jafri and Makhdum Mohy-ud-Din participated vigorously in this revolt, which aimed to overthrow the Nizam. Progressive writers considered these communes of Telengana (district in Hyderabad) modal communes (Malik). Zahir Kashmiri composed a poem dedicated to these communes:

Today, Communes are sprouting from the land of Telengana,

Today, the scorched earth is bearing varieties of beautiful life;

Today, Men of Telengana are spreading the glad tidings of conquering love,

Today, Men of Telengana are giving the blessed news of the renaissance of east,

Today, Men of Telengana have joined in the struggle of Java and Greece. (Malik)

In late forties when partition was imminent, Mian Ifthkhar-ud-Din founded the Progressive Papers Limited. It published Pakistan Times and Daily Imroz. Daily Imroz was a magazine which openly propagated leftist ideas. Soon after its creation this leftist joint stock started publishing several other literary-cum-political magazines. Faiz Ahmed Faiz who was by then an appointment holder of Public Relations Directorate of the British-Indian Army resigned from his position and he was appointed as the first editor of Pakistan Times and the Managing Editor of the daily Imroz. Even when he was imprisoned he technically held these positions (Malik).

Ironically, while partition ravaged thousands of people’s lives and constrained human relationships widely, it did not break the bonds between all Muslim and Hindu writers. This is evinced by how even after partition, literary journals and commercial publishers in Pakistan continued to publish the literary works by Hindu and Sikh writers who wrote in Urdu. On the other hand, partition had created very serious financial problems for the Urdu progressive writers present in India. When Hindi was made the official language of India, it enjoyed official aid for its development and it expanded. Conversely, readers of Urdu decreased with the passage of time. In this situation of insecurity Krishan Chander became General Secretary of AIPWA in 1953 and he replaced Dr Ram Bilas Sharma. In order to defend the rights of Urdu language in India All-India Urdu writers’ convention was held in April 1960 in Nagpur. The committee passed resolutions at this conference to improve the deteriorating position of Urdu Literature. One resolution was to raise funds and publish books of higher quality at cheaper prices. Unfortunately, however, this aim yielded no concrete results (Malik).

On the other hand in Pakistan, the Progressive Writers’ Association was unwelcomed due to its political ideology. On 26th march 1948 CPI in its Calcutta session decided that separate communist party should be established in Pakistan. Sajjad zaheer who was secretary general of AIPWA and member of central committee until 1948 now became secretary general of Communist Party of Pakistan. He resigned from his previous positions. Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi was made its first secretary. Communist Party of Pakistan operated as a legal party from 1948 to 1954. However, during this time party was under constant surveillance of Pakistani government. But soon after the creation of CPP in 1951 Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Sajjad Zaheer were arrested and convicted for conspiracy along with some military officials. They were accused of a conspiracy to overthrow the government. This party was repressed by the successive governments. So, it can be said that Progressive Writers’ movement was at its peak between1930 and 1950. One of the main reasons behind the fall of progressive writers in Pakistan was that they boldly challenged Pakistani establishment. Other reason could be their uncompromising attitude towards those writers who deviated from the doctrine of association (Malik).

In November 1949, progressive writers held their first all-Pakistan conference in Lahore. Four delegates from Soviet Union participated in this conference. Sajjad Zaheer could not participate because Pakistani government had issued his arrest warrant. Moreover, in this conference big posters of Marxist revolutionaries were decorated. In this conference progressive writer presented manifesto which stated that with the creation of Pakistan new era of revolutionary struggle has started and poets and writers cannot remain neutral to it and they must chose avenues of action. Moreover, they raised their voice against the aggression of Pakistani establishment and they emphasized on the idea of true democracy. They laid out different proposals on how to accomplish the progress of socialism. In this manifesto, writers of Pakistan were divided into different categories, which were neutral writers, progressive writers and reactionary writers. Neutral writers were writers who believed in art for art’s sake and they were connected to stylistic embellishments. Reactionary writers were writers who presented the ideas of elite and status quo and they concealed their tyranny. Progressive writers were writers who thought that reality is the product of social actions and they believed in realism and therefore believed that art cannot be divorced from class struggles (Malik). This is the same idea propagated by Karl Marx. Marx did not believe in alienated forms of literature, history and philosophy. In Marx’s view, alienated form is a form which does not account for the material conditions that shape the society (Slaughter). Therefore, the progressive writers were following Marx’s view when they depicted the social realities in the societies around them, in their work.

Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi contributed enthusiastically to this movement and under his leadership, the movement made vigorous attempts to influence young intellectuals throughout Pakistan. This movement’s success can be credited mainly due to the personal charm of Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi. They were very famous poets of Urdu, who are still read today by large numbers of people. Large numbers of young poets and intellectuals were attracted towards this movement based on its appeal to the causes of social and economic justice. These intellectuals mainly drew idealistic picture of socialism and contrasted it with the existing poles of the rich and the poor in Pakistan. Moreover, they analyzed social relations in terms of Marxist concepts-economic determinism and class struggle. In Ahmed Nadeem’s short stories we see a portrayal of rural life in the Punjab, where there is continuous struggle between the famer and the landlord. On the other hand Faiz talked about economic and political struggle and proposed solutions to it. Faiz Ahmed Faiz was awarded Lenin Prize in 1958 by Soviet Union for his contributions to the cause of world peace. This shows the far reaching and long lasting impact that some writers of the progressive writers movement had, due to the strength, authenticity and beauty of their writings even when they were publicly disgraced and even when their cause had declined (Malik).

In conclusion, All-India Progressive writers’ movement changed the passage of Urdu literature by introducing new form and content inspired by Russian literature. This movement however, to some extent, degenerated due to partition and it declined due to the conditions it faced in the two newly independent countries. One limitation faced when conducting research for this essay arises out of the fact that Urdu literature has not been made subject to extensive research and analysis. Discovering reliable sources and conducting secondary research on the subject matter is a tedious task. At times, multiple reliable sources have diametrically opposed views regarding the same subject. Hence, a personal analysis of the available literature had to be conducted. What is required is that extensive research be conducted and due importance be given to the unsung heroes of Urdu Literature – literature that best portrays a mourning heart. It must be realised that this entire movement and the wide array of writing it produced has a strong element of Marxist thought in it. However, these writings also created entirely new form of social consciousness and added a new style of writing in Indian Urdu literature- a style that made evident deep and grave realities about life and problems faced by common people, in a language rich in aesthetic beauty and sensitivity to human feelings and conditions. An overview of the history of the movement reveals that it underwent several phases of change and in Pakistan, was crippled due to certain political and ideological factors. However, its contribution to Urdu prose and to forms of writing in the rich and diverse world of Urdu literature is indubitable and must be appreciated. I would like to end with some verses of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, an immemorial jewel in the realm of Urdu poetry whose words impart a sublime beauty that is felt by the soul:

This thought keeps consoling me:

though tyrants may command that lamps be smashed

in rooms where lovers are destined to meet,

they cannot snuff out the moon, so today,

nor tomorrow, no tyranny will succeed,

no poison of torture make me bitter,

if just one evening in prison

can be so strangely sweet,

if just one moment anywhere on this earth.

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