HYDERABAD: A year away from age 70, India still struggles to answer questions about faith and gender. Decades before Independence, many progressive Hindi and Urdu writers posed such questions challenging parochial and external imperial mindsets crippling the country. As literary agents of change they did not spew venom from afar, like Arnab Goswami. Known in Urdu as Anjuman Taraqqi Pasand Mussanafin-e-Hind, this was not a group of hippies who discussed Karl Marx over marijuana and beer. It was Progressive Writer’s Association of India. In 1932, the dice had been cast when the movement released an Urdu anthology called ‘Angaaray’ four years before their official congregation. Naturally, bearded Ulema did not take kindly to scathing vignettes of social injustices committed by gangsters masquerading as god men. Caving into Ulema pressures, the British UP government ordered a proscription on ‘Angaaray’.
This was way before the government would give credence to khaki shorts-clad activists resembling overgrown schoolboys. Instead, a ban only incited other Urdu-Hindi wordsmiths to wreak similar havoc on parochialism. One of them would become a pioneer of Indian feminist literature while another was Urdu prose’s bête-noir.
Chughtai – the Bard of Badayun
At a time when rebuking an arranged marriage for higher education amounted to apostasy for women, Ismat Chughtai was hell bound. And ’Angaaray’ had pushed her into limbo since she also attended the first PWA gathering.
As Article 377 legitimises itself and divorce becomes a bigger taboo, her most controversial short story ‘Lihaaf’ explores the lesbian romance between a clandestine homosexual Nawab’s beautiful Begum and her lowly masseuse, Rabbu. While the Nawab has a fondness for young boys, his wife finds romance through Rabbu and her adept hands.
Although not Chughtai’s most controversial work, ‘Muqqadas Farz’ is an evocative saga concerning parental/universal stigmas towards inter-religious marriage. After Tushar Trivedi elopes with Samina Siddiqui, both the Trivedi and Siddiqui parents put the star-crossed lovers through torturous Ghar Wapsi-esque (re)conversions.
Seeing as how both parents are no different from VHP activists, ‘Sacred Duty’ could have been a modern day Bollywood adaption titled ‘Love Jihad.’
Manto – the Sage of Samrala
Probably the most prolific South Asian writer to have ruffled feathers, Saadat Hasan Manto was the quintessential iconoclast. Whether it was ‘Thanda Gosht’ or ‘Bu,’ an obscenity trial was like a Nobel Peace Prize.
In the fractured Bombay of 1940s, he chronicled the human condition through visceral lens. However, ‘Titwal Ka Kutta’ is a dark horse among his versatile repertoire. The amiable dog who gets martyred in game of one-upmanship between soldiers along the LOC. during the 1947-48 Kashmir War remains a symbol of severed human ties. It is almost like Manto knew that throughout this eternal Indo-Pak tension, human bonds would be separated by a border would suffer a similar fate to the ‘Dog of Titwal’.
Only after his death would such foreboding tales be taken seriously.
Lest We Forget
Thanks to Partition (when North Indian Urdu speaking elites migrated to Pakistan) and the 1956 States Reorganizations Act, the PWA Urdu endured a poetic fade from prominence.
As the movement gradually declined, Progressives like Chughtai and Sahir Ludhianvi channeled their anger towards society as screenwriters or lyricists. Without their socially conscious talents, Bollywood would not have experienced a golden age of meaningful cinema. Manto and Chughtai do find an audience in English translations. Through his searing stories, Manto posed thought provoking questions regarding how two new nation-states would define themselves in a post-colonial era. That’s how these writers stand tall today with their works relevant even after so many years.
Daneesh Majid is a South Asia writer who has written for various international publications like Dhaka Tribune, The Friday Times, The South Asia Journal, Daily O, etc.