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Urdu Poetry on Delhi During the Late Mughal Period

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Urdu Poetry on Delhi During the Late Mughal Period 50 ■ Article ■ Lamentation Dedicated to the Declining Capital: Urdu Poetry on Delhi during the Late Mughal Period ● So Yamane Introduction The purpose of this study is to analyze some characteristics of Urdu lamentation dedicated to the capital Delhi (Dihlr or Dillr in Urdu), during the late Mughal period. In the study of Urdu literature, it has been argued that Urdu poetry in the Delhi of that time is famous for its typical characteristics of the use of simple words in a simple style and a pessimistic motif. This is why Urdu poetry in Delhi during the late Mughal period is called Dabistan- e Dihl r, 'the Delhi School of Poetry' .1) Many Urdu poets wrote poems on Delhi to express their grief at the declining capita1.2) These poems were written mostly by Urdu poets in Delhi or by those who migrated from Delhi to other places. Among them is one famous genre which is categorized as shahr ashob, which means disturbance of the peace of a city, and some studies have been done on it. Most studies, however, are related to the history of shahr eishob and the fact that the poems of shahr 山根 聡 So Yamane, Department of Area Studies (South Asia, Urdu), Osaka Univer- sity of Foreign Studies. Subject: Urdu Literature. Publications: Ghuldm 'Abbas Sawc-inil o Fan kii Tahqrqi Ja'iza (in Urdu), Lahore, Sang-e Meel Publications, 1996. 295p. "Caudhri Barkat 'All Ichizoku to Gendai Urdu Bungaku", (in Japanese), in Sekai Bungaku 4., Osaka Gaikokugo Daigaku Sekai Bungaku Kenkyukai, 1999, pp. 281-316. Lamentation Dedicated to the Declining Capital 51 ashob reflect the social disorder of that era.3)Furthermore, these studies are limited to very few individual poets who have employed this genre.4) Another weakness of these studies is the omission of Urdu couplets of the same motif. Since these couplets are not included in shahr iishob but in ordinary ghazals, amatory poems, there has been a tendency for stud- ies on shahr ashob and ghazals to be regarded as separate objects of a study. Although a ghazal consists of several couplets and each couplet is independent in its own motif, it is possible to isolate those couplets dealing with Delhi. But so far, few attempts have been made to study such couplets. Saiyid `Abd Allah is among those who have proposed that much attention needs to be paid to them, and he called this kind of couplet 'ashobiya shi`r', a couplet of tumult5) But after Saiyid `Abd Allah, little attention has been given to the comprehensive study of either these couplets or shahr ashob. My objective is to understand these poems on Delhi as monodies and to study their characteristics. There are typical characteristics in the method and technical back- ground of the metaphor of the poems, and it is through the study of their metaphorical expressions that we will be able to analyze how the Urdu poets utilized poetry to express their feelings about the decline of their beloved capital. Social Disorder in Delhi and the Flowering of Urdu Poetry After the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, Delhi faced many problems. Conflicts among the successors of the emperors caused disputes and assassinations in the Mughal Court, and invasions on Delhi by Nadir Shah (1739) and Ahmad Shah Durrani (1749-61) brought about social disorder in the capital. As well, after the first half of the eighteenth century, some powers were inclined to become independent or semi- independent from the Mughal Empire. Furthermore, the force of the Marathas made many expeditions into Mughal territory and the British East India Company was expanding its territory from Bengal to North India. People in Delhi were troubled with the social disorders, and called their troubles `riau gardiyein'6) an expression indicating that Delhi had declined as the Mughal capital during the empire's last years. For ex- ample, Mir Taqi Mir expressed the badly damaged situation in Delhi as follows: 52 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 12, 2000 Dilli- men aj bhik bhi milti nahin unhen tha kal talak dimagh jinhen taj o takht ka (Mir Taqi Mir)') The people who were proud of their royalty till yesterday: Today even charity is not given to them Sikh, Marathe, nor ueakke shah o gada sab khwahan hain eain sehain jo kueh nahin rakhte faqr bhi ik daulat hai ytin (Mir Taqi Mir) The Sikhs, Marathas, thieves, sharpers, kings and beggars are eager Only the haven't are in peace here, faqr is a wealth in this world The capital had become merely symbolic and the dynasty was losing its control. Nevertheless Urdu literature flourished during this period. In the middle of the eighteenth century, Urdu literature, especially po- etry, took the place of Persian poetry in Delhi. Suzuki Takeshi points out that the reason why Urdu poetry could replace Persian poetry is related to the situation of the dynasty in Delhi. Since the dynasty had started to decline, the status of the official language also changed because it could not gain sufficient patronage. The importance of Persian at the Court decreased and people and the growing power of the East India Company began to give more attention to the lingua franca, called Urdu, that had been used not only in daily life but also in the academic and administrative institutions.8 From the study of tadhkiras, i.e. biographi- cal memoirs of poets, it becomes clear that Urdu poetry gained popular- ity among all walks of life. For example, in Majmii` a-e Naghz by Hakim Abu al-Qasim Mir Qudrat Allah Qasim (written in 1806), we can see that Urdu poets belonged to all walks of life.9) In Tadhkira-e Makhzan- e Nikat, written by Qayam al-Din Qa'im bridpuri in 1754-55, the total number of Urdu poets is 128.10)Then in Nikat al-Shu'ara written by Mir Taqi Mir (1758?), some 104 poets are introduced.") In Tadhkira-e Shu` ara-e Urdu by Mir Hasan (1785?), 304 poets are included,12) then 289 poets in Gulshan-e Hind by Haidar Bakhsh Haidari (1800-01),13)693 poets in MajmiVa-e Naghz (1806),14)671 in Gulshan-e Be-khar by Nawwab Muhammad Mustafa Khan Shefta (1834),15) and 542 in Tadhkira-e Gulistan-e Sukhan by Mirza Qadir Bakhsh Sabir Dihlavi.16) This in- crease in the number of Urdu poets shows that Urdu poetry gained rapid popularity in and around Delhi from the middle of the eighteenth century to the beginning of the nineteenth century, in spite of the de- cline of the capital. Lamentation Dedicated to the Declining Capital 53 Of course, with social disorder in the capital, the living environment of the Urdu poets in Delhi was forced to change. Some of them had been under the patronage of the Court or the nobility, but because of the downfall of the nobility, they had to leave Delhi and move to other cities, for instance, Lucknow, so as to get the patronage of the Nawwelbs. Mir Taqi Mir, Muhammad Rafr Sauda, Mir Hasan, Shaikh Ghulam Hamadani Mushafi, Insha Allah Khan Insha and Salamat 'Ali Dabir were among them. On the other hand, some poets wrote qasi-das (odes) in favor of some notables of the East India Company, in order to get pa- tronage. For example, Sauda wrote qasida for Richard Johnson, who was the chief assistant of the resident of Lucknow,17) and Sauda dedicated his first diWain (collection of poems) to Richard Johnson.18) Beciarar found employment at an Englishman's office, and Ghalib also presented a Per- sian qasida to Queen Victoria.19) On the other hand, there were some poets who stayed in Delhi, since they belonged to the Sufi sect and became leaders of the Sufi schools. One, Khwaja Mir Dard was a leader of the Sufi sect Muhammadiya of Naqshbandi-ya, and Hatim, who once was a soldier, became a Sufi because he was disappointed with the social disorder. The poets who left Delhi wrote many lamentations about it in the styles of ghazal. After the Indian Mutiny (Jang-e Azadi) in 1857, two collections of such lamentations, Fughan-e Dihli (1863)20) and Farydd-e Dihli (1931),21) were compiled. These consist of ghazals written on the declining city of Delhi. Fughan-e Dihli includes 63 poems on Dehli by more than 40 poets. Faryad-e Dihli, which was published in Lucknow, is almost a kind of revised edition of Fughtin-e Dihli, and most of the poems were taken from it.22) Accordingly, this paper covers only the poems from Fughan-e Dihli. Interestingly, this kind of lamentaion is only found in the late eigh- teenth century or after 1857. When the East India Company occupied Delhi in 1803 and recaptured it in 1857, and restored its stability, al- though Urdu poets wrote poems on Delhi, we find only a few lamenta- tions during this period. Now we shall look more closely at some of the more important fea- tures of the expressions in those shahr ashob or couplets. As mentioned above, Urdu poetry developed in Delhi after the middle 54 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 12, 2000 of the eighteenth century, but the situation around the poets was grow- ing worse. Robbery, plundering, and murder became an everyday occur- rence in Delhi. Although the situation was unbearable, people in Delhi could not forget the glorious days of the past. Delhi was not only the administrative capital of the Empire, but also the center of Mughal cul- ture. Urdu poets wrote many poems and couplets praising the glory of the capital.
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