Urdu literature
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Urdu literature, history
An exhaustive journey into literary history
By Intizar Hussain
With the plan of an exhaustive history of Urdu literature in view, Jameel Jalibi embarked on a long journey through centuries of the Indo-Pak subcontinent. The first volume, as the starter of this ambitious plan, came out in the late seventies of the twentieth century. It was soon followed by the second volume which in its turn was subdivided into two volumes, and published in 1982.
Now with the advent of the twenty-first century, we have from him the third volume of the series. But he is still in the middle of his journey as the present volume covers only half of the nineteenth century. The other half is to be covered in the fourth volume. But that is not the end of the story.
Beyond the nineteenth century lies the tumultuous twentieth century. It may too refuse to be contained in one volume. So the project is long and arduous. May Jalibi live long so as to be able to achieve the completion of this ambitious project. He, on his part, seems determined to complete it in accordance to his plan. Great works ask for extraordinarily devoted souls. Urdu is fortunate to have one such soul within its fold.
But how does this history stand distinguished from those previously written? Is it volume alone which makes the difference? Or is it the detailed study of each period and of writers belonging to the period, which qualifies it to be treated as a distinctive literary history? Of course this too is a distinctive feature of this history. But the real basis of distinction is something else. In our literary histories written so far literature, more particularly poetry, had been treated as an independent phenomenon in the social environment of our society. Only occasionally casual references were made to the prevalent social conditions.
Here in this case the very conception of a literary history is different. Here the concept is that literature is not an isolated phenomenon in the history of a society. On a deeper level it has links with what is going on in society. So for a correct understanding of literature it is necessary to keep the socio-political situation of that age in view.
Literary trends can best be understood when seen in the perspective of socio-political and cultural conditions of that period. In his preface to the present volume Jalibi has expressly said that he has tried to seek connection of literature with society, culture, and linguistic evolution and make a study of it in totality. And that “what was the peculiar spirit of that age, which provided an incentive for literary creation.”
The corollary to this concept is that prose and poetry should be studied jointly. “The reason is,” says he, “that prose and poetry both are equally influenced by social and cultural conditions. They both can better be understood when seen in the perspective of their times.”
So in the present volume, which deals with literary trends during first half of the nineteenth century, Jalibi begins by looking firstly at the political situation and then at the changing social and cultural scenario. Traditional society, as he perceives, was in tatters. The validity of age-old customs and rituals was being questioned. A need for social reforms was being felt, giving rise to certain reformative movements both among the Hindus and the Muslims.
With this awareness of political, social and cultural situation, he turns to the literary scene as it emerged during those times and surveys it in that perspective.
Jalibi’s history stands distinguished also because of its refusal to share the prejudices our literary historians had in general inherited from the elitists of Delhi and Lucknow. Because of its eliticism, the literary world of old Delhi and Lucknow was simply incapable to appreciate and recognize poets like Jafar Zatalli and Nazir Akbarabadi. Jafar was perhaps the worst sufferer as the literary historians of the later periods too appeared sharing the same prejudice against him.
But Jalibi chose to take a serious notice of this poet for two reasons dear to him. One reason being the acute socio-political awareness of the poet, which made his verse reflective of the deteriorating conditions of that age. The other reason lies in his linguistic innovations, which inform his poetic diction. This helps us to understand the evolutionary process Urdu was passing through at that stage of its development.
In contrast to Jafar Zatalli and Nazir Akbarabadi, Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, with his passion for fine arts, invited a different kind of prejudice. And Jalibi tells us that the Britishers and some papers at their behest launched a vilification campaign against him. In fact they were in search of some justification for dethroning him and taking Oudh completely in their control. They exploited conservative Muslims’ prejudice against fine arts and interpreted his involvement in arts as signs of his decadence and moral degradation.
Wajid Ali Shah figures prominently in the present volume of Jalibi’s book. In reply to his character assassination, Jalibi has brought to our notice the positive aspects of his character and has discussed in detail his contributions to different branches of arts and literature.
So one distinctive feature of this history is its attempt to fight those cultural prejudices and misconceptions which stand in the way of the understanding of our literary tradition and a number of such trends which have enriched this tradition.
This history has also refused to treat Lucknow and Delhi as two different schools of poetry. In the estimation of this history it is one and the same tradition of poetry extending from Delhi to Lucknow.
So it is a history conceived differently and exhaustively.
Urdu novel, impact of English ideas
February 04, 2007
EXCERPTS: Novel ideas
Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah’s PhD thesis which, in 1940, made her the first Muslim woman to earn a doctorate from the University of London.
Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah traces the genesis of the Urdu novel.
The contact with English literature has had a profound and far-reaching effect on Urdu. With the impact of western culture came new ideas and ideals, a new outlook on life, and a new conception of values. It revolutionised thought and changed not only the superficial outlook on life but basic moral values as well. In short, contact with English life and literature brought about the same changes in India as the Renaissance had done in Europe. In fact this period is called, and rightly so, the Renaissance of Urdu. There is nothing like a shock to bring about the flowering of genius, and a new leavening from time to time is a very beneficial thing for any society.
Urdu poetry had reached its peak of achievement on the lines it had chosen in the field of the ghazal and qasida. Even in the marsia and the masnavi all that could be done had been done. The language had been polished and purified, until it shone like burnished gold. Every thought and idea that could be culled from mysticism and from philosophy had been culled and distilled and presented, not once but many times; nothing original remained to be done in that sphere any more. A further purifying of language and evolving of rhetorical rules would only have weakened it, and attempts to present thrice presented thought in new garb would only have resulted in artificiality.
The time was ripe for a change, for the exploration of new realms of thought and for the adoption of new ways of expression. And the western influence did both.
Up until then, the stock of thought was an admiration for contentment, an exaltation of a fatalistic attitude towards life, a submission to suffering and unworldliness, while the noble-minded poets dealt solely with love and passion often in its less admirable aspects. The crumbling of the Moghul Empire and the destruction of their own culture imbued poets like Ghalib and Mir with a feeling of utter melancholy and despair, which found expression in poems which, for sincerity, depth of thought and for sheer literary merit, remain unequalled. But still the thought expressed in them was akin to the thought and feeling of what could be called the ‘Age of Ghazal’ in Urdu literature.
But the contact with the West brought with it an entirely new set of ideas. The ideals of unworldliness and concern with the ultimate good of the soul gave place to a desire for making the most of this world and achieving success. A spirit of struggle, a spirit of adventure and a desire for achievement took the place of resignation and the patient bearing of one’s lot.
Robust feelings such as these did not find adequate expression in the lilting couplets of the ghazal. So the musaddas and masnavi came into their own as they gave greater scope for continuous thought. Love lyrics gave place to narrative and descriptive poems. Wordsworth had a great influence. Nature which had so far been ignored, and only incidentally brought in (as for example in the qasida) as a background, became a very popular subject and patriotic poems became the order of the day.
This influence brought about a more realistic attitude towards life. Urdu poets had so far lived in realms of fancy and imagination; now they are coming down to the reality of life. So far, their woes had been coldness of an imaginary beloved, nor were they face to face with the (less poetic) misery of existence.
Prose naturally is a more suitable vehicle of expression for mundane thoughts of life and poetry. Hence the age of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and Hali, or the Renaissance of Urdu literature as it has been called, saw the development of prose to its final perfection. The birth and popularity of prose were the natural complement of the general attitude of realism that was produced under western influence. But only in this indirect way was western influence responsible for the development of prose; it had also a direct influence in bringing it about. It was under the auspices of the Fort William College, Calcutta, that the first words of prose fiction were written.
In order to enable the employees of the East India Company to learn the vernaculars, the Fort Williams College, Calcutta, was founded in 1800, and Dr Gilchrist placed at the head of it. Dr Gilchrist composed an Urdu grammar (generally considered to be the first; but there are some doubts as to the correctness of this statement as an Urdu grammar in Latin is supposed to have existed before this) and an Urdu dictionary.
He travelled in the regions where the choicest Urdu was spoken, and from Delhi, Lucknow, Cawnpore and Agra he collected a band of men who were masters of Urdu idiom. He set them to translate into Urdu prose stories from Persian and Sanskrit. As the object was to get, as quickly as possible, books which could be used as textbooks for teaching young Englishmen Urdu, he had them written in easy flowing prose and not in the heavy ornate style which was so popular
Amongst the books translated there were manuals of conduct, historical pamphlets and books of instruction. In fiction there was Bagh o Bahar by Mir Amman, Araish i Mahfil by Sher Ali Afsos, Nasr i Benazir by Bahadur Ali Husaini, Mahzab i Ishq by Nihal Chand Lahauri, Shakuntala and Singhasan Battisi by Kazim Ali Javan and Lallu Lal in collaboration. They enjoyed an immense popularity, and are still read with pleasure and are included in the Urdu curriculum of most colleges and schools.
Though translations, they are part and parcel of Urdu literature. They popularised prose and developed a taste for it, whereas until then poetry alone was appreciated, and thus prepared the way for the coming of the novel.
Bagh o Bahar (1801) is the first of these translations and deservedly the most popular. Its language is easy and flowing, without any of the encumbrances of rhetoric; the manner of story-telling is intimate so that the reader feels that he is being taken into confidence and is listening to rather than reading a story.
The characters are singularly alive, interesting and likeable. The four dervishes, King Azad Bakht and Khaja Sag-parast stand out as individuals, and have the power to elicit the sympathy and interest of the reader. The incidents are of the usual kind, that is to say, far-fetched and with a mixture of the supernatural, yet the supernatural is not laid on with such a heavy hand as in Araish i Mahfil but sparingly.
The story is of men and their joys and sorrows and disappointments, the supernatural intervenes only now and then, while in Araish i Mahfil one gets the impression that the man has, by mistake, tumbled into a land peopled by monsters and dragons, and giants and fairies. The human interest in Bagh o Bahar never gets submerged under an overlay of the supernatural; most of the incidents of the story are not improbable, only a few are impossible.
The characters of Bagh o Bahar encounter strange and unusual adventures in a faraway land. They have no authenticity about them, but there is an air of plausibility in it all. In days when access to and penetration into other countries was so difficult, it was very likely that anyone who ventured forth would meet with strange rites customs, and so the experiences of the four dervishes, in their wanderings round the world, and the Khaja Sag-parast, take on the semblance of reality.
Araish i Mahfil, however, enjoyed a great deal of popularity in its earlier days. It is difficult to account for this, as it seems to be extremely cumbersome in style. There are roughly three adventures to a page, and the reader is thoroughly confused and only by repeated and vigilant reading can keep the thread of the story before his mind. It is extremely difficult, however, not to lose it among the innumerable and unconnected series of incidents.
The framework of the story is this. Husun Bano, the daughter of a merchant who had miraculously come into a great fortune, has declared that she will marry anyone who will answer her seven questions. A young man named Munir falls in love with her, but has not the courage to seek for the answers to the questions. Hatim, the prince of Tai, who is the most kind-hearted of men, takes pity on him and sets out to find the answers for him …
The story is spoiled by overloading of incidents. There are far too many of them, and it is utterly impossible to keep count of them or remember them even while reading. They come crowding in without sequence, and they do not lead to the ultimate solving of the riddles. Their solution only appears when Sher Ali Afsos feels like winding up the chapter, and then he just stops and thinks out the answer and gives it without any regard to the fact that nothing that has gone before has, in any way, contributed or led up to it.
In Bagh o Bahar, incidents are nicely dove-tailed into one another. There is a gradual sliding into one from the other. In Araish i Mahfil the chief defect is that it does not allow any impression to be formed, or any image, to be created in the mind. The framework of the story was ingenious, and had Afsos restricted himself to the inventing of incidents, he might have created a readable and enjoyable story.
Mazhab i Ishq or Gul Bakaoli is another of these well-known Gilchrist translations. The story existed in several versions already. There was the Masnavi Gulzar i Nasim as well as a Persian prose version of the same story. The translation, into Urdu was done by Nihal Chand Lahauri. It is in simple, unadorned prose. If it has succeeded in avoiding the then common fault of over-elaboration, it has failed to achieve the simple dignity of Bagh o Bahar. It has no style, so it cannot be called literature. It has the prosaic quality and flatness of a textbook, and that is what it was meant to be.
Literature cannot be produced to order, nor was Gilchrist aiming at doing so. He was out to get books that could be used in teaching English officers the language quickly. Nihal Chand Lahauri incorporates much less in his translation than Mir Amman and Sher Ali Afsos. His is a fairly accurate rendering of the well-known story of Taj ul Muluk and Bakaoli. There is no background or local colour in it, but as in Bagh o Bahar and later in Fasana i Ajaib, in it can also be seen the reflection of manners and customs of the India of that day. The description of Bakaoli’s marriage ceremony tallies in every detail with the customs of Indian marriage. The attitude of Bakaoli and Ruh Afza’s parents on discovering the misdemeanours of their daughters is that of Indian parents; but Gul Bakaoli at no point shows any literary merit.
The other translations done in Fort William are more or less collections of short stories, and not full-length romances. Of these Tota Kahani was very popular, and though really only a collection of short stories or fables, the fact of being encased in the framework of another story gives it a claim to be regarded among the longer romances. The stories are told by a parrot who uses these means to prevent the wife of his master from meeting her lover.
The way in which the parrot every day excites Khujista’s interest is psychologically most interesting. Casually, just by the way, not in the least appearing to detain her or being desirous of doing so, he mentions that he hopes that in her case it would not happen as it did in the case of so-and-so. Khujista’s curiosity is at once aroused and she stays on to hear what it was that had happened, and so day after day he prevents her from meeting her lover.
His tactics and mode of approach vary. He does not go on saying, as he did the first few days, that he hopes her affair would not end as so-and-so’s did, or that of course in love you never can tell, as it happened in the case of etc, etc; he varies his tactics as time passes. Sometimes he says, “You have been delaying, and if your lover is angry, show tact as did so-and-so,” and then follows the tale. Next time he warns her not to get caught, and tells her what to do if she does. On another occasion, he tells her to be as resourceful as so-and-so, and then commences another tale.
As the day of her husband’s return draws near, the parrot’s counsels take on a different tone. “Supposing your husband returns and finds out what you have been doing, this is how you should behave,” and that leads on to another story. In fact, how the Tota finds an opening for his stories is really clever, and does great credit to Haider Bakhsh’s inventiveness. The language is simple, straightforward and easy, there is no rhetoric or style about it.
Bahar i Danish is a similar collection of short stories inset in a longer tale. This encasing of shorter stories in the framework of a larger was very popular amongst earlier writers. Examples of it are found in every language: Alf Laila is itself written in this manner, and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales are also similarly put together.
Nasr i Benazir is the prose version of Mir Hasan’s Masnavi, Sihr ul Bayan and Shakuntala, a rendering in the form of a narrative of the story of Kali Das’s world-famous drama. These translations, however, are less known than Bagh o Bahar, Araish i Mahfil or Tota Kahani and did not have the same vogue.
All these translations, done under the auspices of the Fort William College, went towards the simplification of prose and the popularisation of prose romances.
Excerpted with permission from
A Critical Survey of the Development of the Urdu Novel and Short Story
By Shaista Akhtar Bano Suhrawardy (Begum Ikramullah)
Oxford University Press Plot # 38, Sector 15, Korangi Industrial Area, Karachi
Tel: 111-693-673
ouppak@theoffice.net
www.oup.com.pk
250pp. Rs495
Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah
Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah (1915-2000) was an active participant in the struggle for independence. In 1947, she was appointed to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan.
She was a member of the Pakistani delegation to the UN in 1948 where she served as a member of the Third Committee, which formulated the Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention against Genocide. Between 1964 and 1967, she was Pakistan’s Ambassador to Morocco. The Government of Pakistan awarded her the Nishan-i-Imtiaz in 2001. Her other books include Letters to Neena (1951), From Purdah to Parliament (1963 and 1998), Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy: A Biography (1991) and Behind the Veil (revised edition, 1997).
Urdu literature by Sultans of India
July 16, 2006
REVIEWS: Men of culture and war
Reviewed by Dr Asif Farrukhi
IN the days of yore, kings and princes were expected to be more than mere monarchs. They were themselves schooled in arts and culture so that they could play the role of patrons of fine arts and scholarship. The men who ruled the Delhi throne were no exception.
The Emperor Akbar was an unlettered man himself, but his glittering court drew poets, scholars and men of learning to him from far and wide, making it a great centre of learning. The Emperor Jahangir, not so astute a statesman as his worthy father, nevertheless continued patronage of the arts. The Mughal court soon became the great centre of classical Persian poetry.
In painting, the breathtaking illustrations of Dastaan-i-Ameer Hamza and other classics were produced. Not simply patrons, these emperors were accomplished in learning and scholarship themselves, not the least of their abilities being the skill of responding in verse at the spur of the moment. These feats are presented in the series of essays which make up the two volumes under review.
The late Sabah-ud-Din Abdur-Rehman, who has authored these essays, was a scholar and man of erudite learning, and knew how to make historical subjects interesting without being pedantic. He was associated with the Darul Musanifeen at Azam Garh, which became a great cultural institution at the hands of no less a person than Shibli Nomani. He worked hard to make the institution financially sustainable and kept alive its distinguished publication programme. A well-known scholar himself, he penned about two score books himself, mainly on historical themes. He was well-suited to taking up the pen and digressing on such as the learning and contributions of the men who sat on the throne of India.
The author left these articles in the dusty archives of periodicals, which have been dug out by the editor
Unfortunately he did not take up this task. Instead of writing a book, or series of books on the subject, he wrote a number of articles on various aspects. These articles were published in the journal Mu’arif throughout this long writing career. They have now been collected in two separate volumes, with a somewhat misleading title as “Sultan” is now generally used for the Muslim rulers of India before the Mughal emperors, in what is generally referred to the Sultanate period. The articles included here cover this period as well as the Mughal rulers.
The first book includes articles on the art of warfare, weapons and military administration as well as textiles, feats and holidays, while those in the second volume focus on the literary tastes of the Mughal rulers. A long article on the verse history written in the eighth century AH describing the military conquests of the different rulers, from Mahmood Ghaznavi to Mohammed Tughlaq, does not really fit in with the themes of the other articles. The articles collected here were written over long stretches of time, but most of them were written in the ’30s. As is inevitable with such articles, there are the usual repetitions, statements which may even seem contradictory and some points which need to be revised in the light of latter-day scholarship. The author left these articles in the dusty archives of periodicals, which have been dug out by the editor, but only partially.
However, the books seem to have been put together with little or no editing. A few footnotes have been provided, but there are no references. In a number of areas, the information is outdated. The “Adabi Khidmat” articles include a study of the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah, known as a poet with the takhalus of Zafar. He is generally regarded as an important Urdu poet in his own right and the author has pointed an accusing finger at Azad who implied that Zauq was the real author of his poetry. Azad was of course writing soon after the turmoil of 1857 and could not be impartial towards the deposed emperor.
Dr Aslam Pervaiz, the Indian scholar, has written in detail about Bahadur Shah’s life, while critics such as Shanul Haq Haqee and Khalil ur Rehman Azmi have explored the literary qualities of his poetry. The editor makes no reference to such well-known developments in the field of study and hence has not well served the scholar whose work is presented here. Surprising too is the fact that the articles on warfare have been put together with the odd pieces on festivities and textiles. The two items do not constitute tamaddun and even if they did, they make odd companions for the essays on warfare and military power. Culture has been made a bedfellow of the considerations of military rules of the game only for the sake of editorial convenience.
While it is interesting to read about the feats of kings and emperors, surely we now need to take a different view of this and understand that culture and history are the domains of the people, more than that of kings. When these essays were first written, they must have been of value in highlighting the cultural aspects of the ancient kings against the colonial context. The situation has changed over the years and we need a fresh perspective on our history.
Salateen-i-Hind ki Adabi Khidmaat
310pp. Rs225
Salateen-i-Hind: Funoon-i-Harb Aur Tamaddun 392pp. Rs250
By Syed Sabah-ud-Din Abdur-Rehman
Compiled by Dr Mahjabeen Zaidi
Manzil Academy, A-10, Al Karam Square,
Block 3, Liaquatabad, Karachi.
Tel: 0320-4002766
