URDU LITERATURE AND JOURNALISM: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES
Professor Shafey Kidwai
Foundation Books,
An imprint of Cambridge University Press India Pvt. Ltd.
New Delhi – 110 002 Year: 2014
Pages: 187
Indian Rupees 626, Hard.
Reviewed by ASIF ANWAR ALIG
Once the Indian subcontinent was divided to form Republic of India and Islamic Republic of Pakistan, polygonal damages were witnessed across the newly created borders. Urdu faced rancorous prejudice for voicing the Muslim concerns. Vacuums demeaned Urdu’s sweetness and made it scapegoat of chauvinism. Professor Shafey Kidwai’s collection of essays Urdu Literature and Journalism: Critical Perspectives evaluates Urdu literature and journalism with a ray of hope. He stipulates that once preferred language of communication Urdu began to lose its charm. The essays herald how ‘constant suppressions engrossed its sanguinity.’
The essays weigh Urdu literature and litterateurs’ selfless services from colossal popularity before partition to downfall to contemporary litterateurs striving to regain lost legacy. Post-independent Urdu short story; post partition Urdu poetry; structuralism and post-structuralism in Urdu criticism and critical perspectives on Urdu literature and journalism are the book’s strong themes.
According to Professor Kidwai, hardly any language bore the brunt in its homeland like Urdu did. Its irrefutable contribution to shape the cultures and civilizations is ruthlessly ignored now. Little chunk of masses use it as a means of communication due to bleak relation with the job market. Ironically, new generation of even the custodians of Urdu are unaware of its script.
Besides caveats, selected essays ignite a positive trend of Urdu through defying the caricaturing perceptions. Emerging scholars, critics, writers, poets and journalists revive Urdu to spread its cultural sensibility. Victims of detractors’ prejudices allege Urdu championed the nation’s partition; it rather attained respect over the decades. It promoted journalistic instincts, literary prudence and disseminated consciousness to support modern education to help unite societies to vociferously oppose the self-centred religious preachers.
Essays on Urdu short stories reflect life’s gleams. Premchand’s rural life mores and Sadat Hasan Manto’s oblique storytelling are superb mockeries of sentimentalism which laud moral values and common men’s plights. Urdu fiction’s evaluation is incomplete without Rajendra Singh Bedi’s preoccupation with social narrative to elude the polarities in human societies. Qurratul Ain Haider explicated life with sensuous, emotional and intellectual awareness. Her discerning consciousness streams, cinematic montage flashbacks and time sequencing opposed traditional storytelling.
Hayatullah Ansari’s novel Lahoo Ke Phool revives Premchand’s tradition. Regionalism is vivid in Balwant Singh’s stories and focus on Punjab’s cultural splendidness. Qazi Abdus Sattar drew liberalism from wistful experience. His story Peetal Ka Ghanta besides novels Shab Gazeeda and Badal project such elements while Dara Sikoh, Ghalib and Khalid Bin Waleed show historicity. Relationship intricacies are abundant in Balraj Mainra’s Machis and Composition Series stories.
Surendra Prakash projects self-referential narrative in fiction to capture life’s myriad impressions. Iqbal Majeed avoids traditionalism in storytelling while Ghyas Ahmad Gaddi’s plots flap through psychosomatic themes of consciousness and oblivion. Sensitivity aesthetics in Joginder Paul’s stories comically express social realities. Khalid Javed’s sensitively themed stories portray human degradation and Baig Ehsas shows modern world engulfed in pungent violence, helplessness and valueless societies. Asrar Gandhi’s Mafamehat, Nali Mein Uge Paode and Akhbar Mein Lipti Rotian peep into human conflicts. Kashmir’s backdrop in Tarannum Riyaz’s stories showcase desires. By retelling wistful experiences, Ratan Singh enlivens human lives in Kath Ka Ghora, Sookhi Tahneaon Mein Tika Suraj, Suraj Ka Mehman and Zindagi se Door stories. Magical realism in Naiyer Masood’s stories judiciously narrates the human agonies.
Essays on the doyens of Urdu literature and journalism applaud from Firaq Gorakhpuri as an astute critic cum crème de la crème poet to Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib as poet at par with prophetic prose. Spellbound themes are of first Dalit voice in Urdu poetry in Jayant Parmar to critic in poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz. Faiz perceptively defined cultural and social consciousness with fascinating merit.
Reviewing deftness and aesthetic sensibility of Mir, Ghalib, Anees, Iqbal, N.M Rashid, Meeraji, Faiz, Firaq Gorakhpuri, Nasir Kazmi, Akhtarul Iman, Faraz and Shahryar, who brought Urdu to each nook and corner, these essays thoroughly describe the leaflets of history. Akhtar-ul-Iman distinguishes with meticulous use of monologues blending with matchless imagery and reliably infused pain inflicting nostalgia. Shahryar showcased cross-cultural streams through provoking imaginations. Speech rhythm, mundane wordings and ironic poses are vibrant in Nida Fazli’s concise but succinct poetry. Salahuddin Parvez had inconclusive but non-discursive narrative paradigm. Tarannum Riyaz denounced the ego-centric obsessions on feminist sensibilities.
This book highlights Khawaja Altaf Husain Hali’s prodigious monograph of 1893 Muqadma-e-Sher-o-Shaeri (Preface to Debate on the Nature of Poetry) on Urdu poetry. With distinction of first glorified book of scholastic calibre, it defined contemporary poetic nuances from Urdu poetry’s golden era. By studying critics Akhtar Husain Raipuri, Sajjad Zaheer, Sardar Jafri, Ehtisham Husain, Qamar Raees, and Sharib Rudaulvi et al who pleaded Urdu’s social significance, Professor Kidwai writes why they blended new criticism and structuralism for theme-centric criticism. Critics S.K Farooqui, Gopichand Narang, Waris Alvi, Waheed Akhtar, Baqar Mehdi, Mahmood Hashmi, Fuzail Jefery and Mughni Tabassum are Urdu criticism’s contemporary gems.
Above mentioned critics argue creative insights of Urdu that literature mayn’t be an intrinsic part of wider social discourse but it showcases culture. Wahab Ashrafi’s painstaking book, Ma’bad Jadeediyat (Post-modernism–Implications and Prospects) has narrative cohesion to analyse the contemporary writers. Hamidi Kashmiri focuses on the cultural space to question creative potentials for cultural projections. Qazi Afzal Hussain argues post-modern Urdu litterateurs. With thorough grounding in Eastern poetics, Abul Kalam Qasmi applies structural and post-structural insights to study Ghalib, Akhtarul Iman, Qurratul Ain Haider, Shahryar and Irfan Siddiqui et al.
Firaq’s poetry is much admired though his sharp-witted criticism is equally paramount. Ghalib serenely projected ingenuous human sufferings in both poetry and prose. Books, commentaries and translations of his works in English, French, German, Russian, Persian, Arabic and Hindi are outstanding. Hali’s exemplary analysis of Ghalib’s imposing prose in casually written letters is masterpiece. Malik Ram’s Zikr-e-Ghalib presents Ghalib’s exhaustive but truthful life sketch. Professor Ale Ahmad Suroor’s essays on Ghalib present incredible wit. Professor Asloob Ahmad Ansari’s books Naqsh-e-Ghalib and Naqsh Haye Ranga Rang study a gamut of Ghalib’s genius.
This book discusses poet laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s influence on Urdu. Premchand and Josh Malihabadi enthralled sensuous creativity of revolutionary zeal from Tagore. Noted scholar Maulana Majid Daryabadi reviewed Josh’s book Rooh-e-Adab (Spirit of the Literature) in 1921 points out his wherewithal from Tagore. Akbar Allahabadi and many other Urdu litterateurs developed imaginations by admiring Tagore’s masterpieces. Maulana Azad employed Tagore’s baroque but perceptive style in journalism, literary works and widely acclaimed letters.
A section on Urdu and Persian journalism turns this collection a seminal book of well-researched essays on the origins of Indian journalism. With simultaneous origin Urdu and Persian media remained debatable. Raja Ram Mohan Roy launched first Indian Persian newspaper Miratul Akhbar in 1822 in Calcutta (now Kolkata) that became first in the Indian subcontinent and also in the entire Persian speaking world, including Iran. Maiden issue of the first Urdu newspaper, Jame-Jahan Numa, edited by Munshi Sukh Lal, came on 20 March 1822 from Calcutta (now Kolkata).
This book critically studies first ground-breaking bookwork on Urdu journalism and journalists’ contribution in India’s freedom struggle. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan’s early journalistic endeavours and similar conquests by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad are erudite studies. Maulvi Mohammad Baqar launched first Urdu newspaper in Delhi named Delhi Urdu Akhbar in 1836. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan’s elder brother Syed Mohammad Khan launched Urdu weekly Syedul Akhbar in 1837. Prior to that, Persian newspaper Zubdatul Akhbar had been launched in 1833 from Agra.
Punjab University (Lahore) is credited to launch first course in media in 1941 but it is a proven fact that National University at Adyar or Madras (now Chennai) had launched the first such course earlier. Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) introduced a diploma course in journalism in 1938. Veteran journalist Chowdary Reham Ali Hashmi headed Journalism department at AMU until it was closed. AMU revived diploma decades later to further improve that to Master’s degree which it runs now. Reham Ali Hashmi’s book Fann-e-Sahafat (Art of Journalism) is path-breaking contribution to Urdu journalism. It distinguishes as maiden effort on journalism written in an Indian language to present epistemological foundations and theoretical frameworks of journalism.
Urdu journalism had distinction of producing first Indian journalist Maulvi Mohammad Baqar getting martyred for exposing British misrule way back in the 19th century. His death galvanised revolutionary zeal. Urdu newspapers Sadiqul Akhbar (Delhi), Tilsim-e-Lucknow, Seher-e-Samri (Lucknow), Kohinoor (Lahore), Akhbar Murtazai (Peshawar), Desi Akhbar (Multan), Habibul Akhbar (Badaun) and Umdatul Akhbar (Bareilly) irrefutably advocated India’s freedom struggle.
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad introduced lucid but verbose prose style in Urdu journalism. He was the first Urdu journalist to differentiate newspapers and journals on the creative lines through launching Al Hilal weekly on 13 July 1912 as a breakthrough step.
This book thoroughly assesses Urdu literature and journalism in the contemporary era. Selected essays discuss Urdu’s role in different spheres which turn this book into a collectors’ edition. It is a reference book on Urdu criticism in English for wider reach.
[The reviewer is Assistant Professor and Media Relations Specialist at Saudi Ministry of Education. He worked earlier as an executive producer in ETV Networks; editorial coordinator at Management Development Institute (India) and media specialist at Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University (Saudi Arabia). [email protected]]