The Art of Opposition: Progressive Politics and Poetry from 1931-47

Mirza Jaffer Abid

Committee Chair: Carollee Bengelsdorf Member: Uditi Sen

1 For Nana, who survived not one but two partitions. And Anas, whose daily life was partitioned.

Speak, for truth is living yet. Speak, whatever must be said. − - Faiz Ahmed Faiz

2 Table of Contents

1. Introduction 4 2. Chapter 1: A Pleasant Conversation 14 3. Chapter 2: Returning 36 4. Chapter 3: Translating the Nation 67 5. Chapter 4: When Lines are Drawn 85 6. Chapter 5: Lal Singh's Encounter with Modernity 107 7. Conclusion 129 8. Bibliography 136

3 Introduction

It is a spirit in opposition, rather than in accommodation, that grips me because the romance, the interest, the challenge of intellectual life is to be founding dissent against the status quo at a time when the struggle on behalf of underrepresented and disadvantaged groups seems so unfairly weighted against them. - Edward Said Representation of the Intellectual

In The Progressive Writers Association, therefore, we have the broadest organization of the Intellectuals of India, the largest bloc of writers who, what ever the difference in their standpoints, whatever their contradiction of philosophical, religious and cultural belief, join for common actions, in the defence of our old culture and the development, through a proper criticism of the past, of a new culture. In this Association, scholars, poets, novelists, essayists and lay readers, all stand united for the winning of our right to the democratic ideal, and to the economic, political and cultural freedom of India. - Mulk Raj Anand On the Progressive Writers Movement

In 1991, the eminent scholar, critic and Palestinian intellectual Edward Said gave a series of lectures for the B.B.C. entitled Representations of the Intellectual. In these talks, later published as a collection of essays, Said laid out the many interpretations and roles of intellectuals. He cites first the Italian Marxist philosopher and working-class organizer Anotonio

Gramsci, from whom he borrows the concepts of the “traditional” and “organic” intellectual. The

'traditional' intellectual is someone who fulfills the same function from generation to generations; teachers, priests and academics. “Organic” intellectuals, on the other hand, are those directly connected with a class. This brand of intellectuals require the labor of fellow organic intellectuals for their work, the way “the capitalist entrepreneur creates alongside himself the industrial technician, the specialist in political economy, the organizers of a new culture, of a new legal system, etc.” Said then shifts his attention to the French novelist and philosopher Julien Benda, from whose work he adopts his second formulation of the intellectual. For Benda, intellectuals are a small band of elite philosopher kings who “constitute the conscience of mankind.” (Said, 1991,

5) Unlike Gramsci, Benda believed that only a select few, highly skilled individuals, were fit for

4 performing intellectual activity.

Said's own perspective on the intellectual moves beyond these two descriptions of the intellectual. For him, the importance of the intellectual is not his/her role in society as it is for

Gramsci and Benda, but the position they occupy in respect to the functioning norms of their society. Intellectuals are those people who, when motivated by justice, will rise in defence of the weak and defy the structures of authority. It is not so much the duty of the intellectual, but their moral obligation, to champion the cause of the exploited and oppressed.

About sixty years before Said wrote this, a group of young Indian students convened at the back room of a Chinese restaurant on London's Denmark Street. Inspired by European intellectual activity in the thirties against fascism, these students decided to form their own group of writers, for the purpose of “... liberate[ing] literature and the other fine arts from the fatal grasp of the conservatives and, making them the interpreter of the suffering and happiness and the struggle of the people, to show the path of the bright future towards which mankind is striving.”

[AIPWA Manifesto] (Pradhan, 1979; 21-22) Like Said, these students believed that the function of intellectuals, (which they saw themselves as) was to struggle for and with those people who faced problems of 'hunger, poverty, social backwardness and slavery.'

This study traces the history of the All India Progressive Writers Association [henceforth

AIPWA], from the publication of Angare, the controversial collection of short stories that initially inspired the formation of AIPWA in 1931, to the partition of the sub-continent and the group's split in 1947. Born during one of the most turbulent, but also potentially rich, periods of South

Asian history, AIPWA set themselves the goal of mobilizing writers from all around India . Their idea was to advance the nationalist movement through literature by infusing it with primarily social critique and content. Consisting of over three thousand writers at its peak, AIPWA grew to

5 become one of the 20th century's most influential and interesting literary political movements.

Between its first meeting in London and it's collapse, the group released amended versions of their initial manifesto multiple times and published versions of it in different languages. What this project attempts to do is examine the notion of 'progress' formulated in each of these manifestos through an examination of the sources from which AIPWA drew its inspiration. By placing their definition of “progress” against the historical backdrop of the ongoing anti-colonial struggles in India, it seeks to analyze what AIPWA had to offer in defining the deeply contested space of the “nation.” The argument it makes is that AIPWA purposely started off with a vague definition of “progress” that included many ideologies, of which only national independence was a must. As time progressed, a divide started to grow between the “political” and “literary” factions of the group. The former were more inclined towards politics, while the latter placed precedence on literature. While the changes made to the definition of progress by the group did reflect a stronger relationship of AIPWA with socialism and later the Communist Party of India (CPI), this piece suggests that this did not detract from the literary merit of the group. Although the primary components of 'progress' were no longer social, but political factors, the progressives remained a group of highly committed individuals struggling “on behalf of [the] underrepresented and disadvantaged.” (Said, 1991; 17)

This project utilizes Partha Chaterjee's framework of the “public” and “private” sphere to examine the location in which AIPWA, as a group, fleshed out it's definition of “progress.”

According to Chaterjee, before it engages in warfare against the colonial power, anti-colonial nationalism starts imagining itself as sovereign within the colonial society “by dividing the world into two domains – the material and the spiritual.” The material, or outside realm, is of “the economy and statecraft, science and technology.” The spiritual, “inner” domain consists of the

6 '“essential” marks of cultural identity,' the concealed, Indian layer that was not penetrable to the colonizer.

In recent studies of nationalism, the work of Bennedict Anderson has been the most significant. His book, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of

Nationalism is considered the most important text on the subject in the last thirty years. Anderson maps out the emergence and intersection of script languages through mass vernacular literacy and print-capitalism, the two categories that for him constitute the formation of all modern nation- states. His argument is that a nation is an “imagined political community that is imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign" (Anderson, 1983; 7) Imagined because "members . . . will never know most of their fellow members . . . yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion,” limited as "even the largest of them . . . has finite, if elastic, boundaries, beyond which lie other nations" and sovereign as "the concept was born in an age in which Enlightenment and Revolution were destroying the legitimacy of the divinely-ordained, hierarchical dynastic realm” (Anderson, 1983; 6-7)

Chaterjee's reply to Anderson's argument is that the third world does not possess the ability and freedom to imagine their own nations,

If nationalisms in the rest of the world have to choose their imagined community from certain “modular” forms already made available to them by Europe and the Americas, what do they have left to imagine? History, it would seem, has decreed that we in the postcolonial world shall only be perpetual consumers of modernity...Even our imaginations must forever remain colonized. (Chaterjee, 1993; 5)

In his interpretation of Anderson's theory of imagined communities, the colonized never possessed the intellectual freedom to even imagine and create independent nations. “But it is not as though the so called spiritual domain is left unchanged. In fact, here nationalism launches its most powerful, creative and historically significant project: to fashion a “modern” national culture that

7 is never the less not western.” (Chaterjee, 1993; 6)

In light of this Chaterjee critique of Anderson, this project examines whether AIPWA was imagining a “modular” form of nationalism exported by Europe or was it successful in imagining its own, original nationalist project? Was it that they too were, in Chaterjee's words, a “consumer of modernity”' or did they succeed in creating their own version of the “modern.” Through looking at what AIPWA adopted from what is the 'inner' and 'outer' domain , we can gauge the type of nationalism they were arguing for and how they did so.

By creating a clear cut boundary between what is public and private, material and spiritual, outside and essential, Chaterjee makes his own analytical framework modular. However, his work is a useful tool for understanding what ideas constituted AIPWA's definition of “progress" and the sources of these ideas. The parallels between the “outside” domain, a product of the colonizer and measure of their success, and the “inner” domain, spiritual realm, the location of Indian-ness and the “traditional”, aid in comprehending what type of nation AIPWA imagined. As they spent time in Europe and India as a group, Chaterjee proves helpful in locating where the progressives adopted their various ideas from.

In my first chapter I will trace the group from the publication of Angare in 1931 till Sajjad

Zaheer, (the main contributor to this collection and one of the group's founding members), left for

London in 1933. Half of it is a history of the quartet, Sajjad Zaheer, Ahemd Ali, Mahmudur Zafar and Rashida Jahan, about how they met each other in Lucknow and got the idea for Angare to the official start of AIPWA through Zaheer's efforts in England for the next three yeras. The other half proceeds to analyze the harsh responses and charges of obscenity they received from the British and Muslim press after publishing this text, proving that the central concern of Angare's audience was the way it treated sexuality.

8 Chapter two begins with the first official AIPWA meeting in London. It looks at the three different versions of the manifesto which appeared in quick succession of each other; he original in the English socialist magazine Left Review; a Hindi version printed in Munshi Premchand's journal Hans; and a third one, introduced and presented at the first AIPWA conference in

Lucknow, India. It looks at the changes in the manifesto from it's European to Lucknowi versions, as well as the changes made in the course of translating it from English to Hindi, and examines the meanings of these changes. What the need to change the wording conveys is that the group had trouble translating their original idea of "progress” first articulated in London, for the Indian context. It argues that ideas themselves have to be changed when being transported from the colony to the metropole, or vice versa.

The third chapter tracks the group from 1937 until partition. From the late thirties to the mid forties, AIPWA's literary motor really began to generate steam. Hasrat Mohani, Josh

Malihabadi, and Firaq Gorakhpuri, some of the most remembered of modern Urdu poets joined during this period. As did the Telegu poet Sri Sri, the Gujrati poet Umashankar Joshi, the Punjabi writer Gurbaksh Singh and the Marathi writer Anna Bhau Sathe. (Mir, 2006) By 1939, AIPWA had managed to set up thirteen branches, in centers all around India. Meetings were regularly held by local branches; journals were released by the centers in multiple languages; translations, although not always possible, were being published. All of these were signs of healthy communication. However, a major rupture within AIPWA became visible in 1941, when Hitler broke his truce with Stalin. What Ahmed Ali termed as the 'literary' side, members of the group who prioritized art, split away from the 'political' wing, those in AIPWA who argued that fighting for the socialist cause, thus protecting Russia, was the association's key goal. Many well-known writers such as Sadat Hassan Manto and Ismat Chugtai, along with Ahmed Ali, left AIPWA. I

9 trace this collapse of the group from this moment to the partition and independence of 1947; as described by Faiz as a mottled and “stained dawn,” when they ceased to be, in Said's words, a cohesive “spirit in opposition...founding dissent against the status quo.” (Said, 1991) While the original social concern and critique denoted by “progress” may have been compromised and subsumed to the greater cause of protecting Russia that resulted in the exit of some important members of the group, I argue that this did not significantly detract from their commitment to social justice or the artistic merit of their work.

The final chapter focuses on Mulk Raj Anand's trilogy; The Village, Across the Black

Waters and The Sword and the Sickle. It explores two major aspects in the trilogy. The first concerns his decision to write in English, its political and literary implications, and his reasons for doing so. The second involves his vision of progress and what elements he fused together to assemble it. What did he take from his experiences of modernity in Europe and India and village life in India? And how did he blend these experiences together to paint his picture of progress?

The reason for choosing him as the only author to explore in detail, and the argument of this chapter is that his vision of progress, which sees “art and literature as a part of social life, unable to be divorced from each other in an arbitrary manner,” emerges as the best compromise between the “literary” and “political” wings that caused fissures within AIPWA. (Ahmed, 200; 43)

On the 14th of August, 1947, the long anticipated independence came with the partition of

Indians into Muslim majority Pakistan and Hindu majority India. Thousands of minorities were caught on the 'wrong side,' the simple drawing of a boundary forced people to leave what they had always considered their home, for a land about which they knew nothing. 12.5 million people were displaced at a conservative estimate. Violence occurred on an unprecedented scale. Trains transporting people to various border arrived at their destinations filled with dead bodies. The

10 bodies of dead women, bore marks that they had been raped, some even having their breasts cut off. Riots took place in all major cities, claiming the lives of people of all faiths. The nation, now nations, had never witnessed such bloodshed before.

Although the progressives had been expecting this action, it still came as a shock. Many members of AIPWA expressed their discontent, melancholy and anger at that fabled midnight.

Sahir Ludhianvi, a member of the group from its inception shared his disillusionment on the moment in a poem entitled Mufaahimat (Compromise)

This is not a celebration of joy, but a vulgar spectacle The same procession of robbers has emerged wearing new cloths After extinguishing a thousand lamps of relationships A new lampshade has been trotted out by the darkness1

In a poem written a couple of years after partition, Ahmed Faraz, who was later exiled by the

Pakistani government for his radical and controversial political views, reflected on that decision.

Now what do you celebrate? That country that was torn into two Whose song do you sing? Of that nation that came into being only upon being broken?

You celebrate the ones with whose blood You painted your nights a ruby shade? Or those oppressed with whom you soak In the murderous tongue of the blade?2

Josh Malihabadi expressed a similar sentiment in his couple:

The strain of song tore out throats We escaped the sword, but were beheaded by the rose's vein3

Arguably the most famous of lines of verse penned on this topic were be future Pakistani poet laureate and most admired literary figure, Faiz Ahmed Faiz. Entitled Subh-e Aazaadi (Freedom's

Morning) it exemplifies the somber and mournful tone of the time. 1 Translation by Mir Brothers 2 Translation by Mir Brothers 3 Translation by Carlo Cappola

11 These tarnished rays, this night smudged light This is not that Dawn for which, ravished with freedom we had set out in sheer longing, so sure that somewhere in its desert the sky harbored a final have for the stars, and we would find it. We had no doubt that night's vagrant wave would stray towards the shore that the heart rocked with sorrow would at last reach its port. Friends, our blood shaped its own mysterious roads. When hands tugged at our sleeves, enticing us to stay, and from wondrous chambers Sirens cried out with their beguiling arms, with their bare bodies, our eyes remained fixed on that beckoning dawn, for ever vivid in her muslins of transparent light. Our blood was young, what could hold us back? Now listen to the terrible rampant lie: Light has forever been served from the Dark; our feet, it is heard, are now one with their goal. See our leaders polish their manner clean of our suffering: Indeed, we must confess only to bless; we must surrender any utterance for the Beloved, all yearning is outlawed. But the heart, the eye, the yet deeper heart, Still ablaze for the Beloved, their turmoil shines. In the lantern by the road the flame is stalled for news: Did the morning breeze come? Where has it gone? Night weighs us down; it still weighs us down. Friends, come away from this false light. 4

The division of the nation, on whatever basis, was repugnant to the Progressives. The creation of an India and a Pakistan destroyed their cherished dream of a socialist, united India. On both sides,

Progressive writers continued to condemn the destruction of their utopia. In both countries they were met by strong opposition from their governments. What they retained was their role as intellectuals, and in Said's words their function as “a spirit of opposition, rather than accommodation.” It is for this reason important to remember and keep remembering the message they had to share.

4 Translation by V.G. Kiernan

12 Chapter 1: A Pleasant Conversation

In 1931, upon graduating with honors from Oxford, Sajjad Zaheer returned to his home in

Allahbad. Son of Sir Syed Wazir Hasan, a judge of the High Court of Judicature, Zaheer came from a upper class, socially prominent land owning family, originally from Lucknow. His father sent him abroad, with the intention that he study law and follow in his footsteps. To Syed's disappointment, Zaheer, or Banney as he was fondly referred to by his friends, took instead an interest in literature and politics. Instead of studying law he devoted his attention to reading modern English literature in the school's various libraries and spent the rest of his time attending meetings held by the university's leftist student organizations.

The summer of that year, while attending a party Zaheer began a lengthy conversation with another young gentleman like himself. His name was Ahmed Ali. Their meeting would go on to have a significant impact on the political and literary landscape of India. Unlike Zaheer, Ahmed was the son of a middle class civil servant. After the early death of his father, he moved to his paternal uncle's house, under whose influence he grew up.( Cappola, 1975) The clash between his uncle's conservative Sunni attitude and his belief in agnosticism and Hindu-Muslim unity forced him to escape. Ali moved to Aligarh Muslim University and then to Lucknow University, from where he received first class honors in English in both his B.A. And M.A. Degrees.

Recalling their first meeting, Ali notes that the two “shared a fondness for sombreros, bright shirts and contrasting ties, collecting candlesticks and gargoyles. Bach and Beethoven, and an admiration for James Joyce and D.H. Lawrence and the New Writing poets, as well as

Checkhov and Gorky.” (Ali, 1935; 36). This encounter led to to the “establishment of a bond of friendship, for we shared a love of art and literature and our tastes were common.” They

13 continued to meet after that night, discussing the idea of publishing an anthology of their work.

Despite Ali already possessing material from previous publications, the two did not have enough work between them to come out with an anthology. Ahmed shared the idea with a college mate's sister, Rashid Jahan. A gynecologist at Lady Dufferin Hospital in Lucknow, Jahan came from an elite and liberal background. Her father, Shaikh Abdullah, along with his wife Wahid Jahan, pioneered the movement for Muslim women's education in Aligarh and started an Urdu journal called Khatun, as a way of popularizing the cause of women's education. (Bano, 2012) But even in comparison to her upbringing, Jahan possessed a progressive outlook. She joined the

Communist Party of India when it was still an underground movement and remained an active member till her last days. In fact, when her uterine cancer became extremely bad, she was invited by the Soviet Union to receive treatment. A “forceful woman of formidable wit, intelligence, charm and beauty,” Rashida as she was fondly called by her friends, joined the two without hesitation. (Cappola, 1975)

Soon a forth member, Mahmuduzzafar, joined the group. Also having recently returned from finishing his studies in England, Ahmed met the lad through the friend of a cousin. Unlike the rest, Mahmud was not fluent in Urdu, his mother tongue. He came from an upper class family and was schooled entirely in English first in India and then in England, finally graduating from Oxford.

Like Zaheer, his time abroad was spent with leftist students and intellectuals, from whom he adopted his radical political agenda. On returning to India he refused to sit for his Civil Service exam, stripped himself of his European clothing, choosing to wear hand loom instead and began learning Urdu.

The four met only once as a group before publishing their collection. While Zaheer and

Ahmed had already been writing, Rashida and Mahmud produced their material in a day. Printed

14 entirely through the funding of Sajjad Zaheer, the collection consisted of ten pieces. Five by

Zaheer himself, two by Ali, two by Rashida (of which one was a one act play) and one by

Mahmudzaffar. As Mahmud was not confident enough in Urdu, he wrote his in English, from which it was translated by Zaheer. And so “Angare was born and published in 1931-2. The cover was designed by a [Muhammad] Oyama, an old class mate of mine, thus a friend of the group.'

(Cappola, 1975)

The stories center around the themes of religion and sexuality. As there are no copies of

Angare in print, only those stories which were accessible will be examined here. Zaheer's first story Garmion ki ek Rat (A Summer's Evening) exposes the crooked morality and hypocrisy of a pious Muslim. Munshi Barkat Ali, after finishing his evening prayers, buys a garland of flowers and some sherbet, on his way to the park, where he spends his evenings watching people. When

Munshi reaches the park he sees no free bench and lies on the ground. Almost immediately he hears his name and turns his head to see a superior from his office calling him. As Munshi walks towards him, Lalaji notices his garland and inquires whether he was “planning on having a good time.”(Shingavi, 1995)

After politely conversing with Lalaji, all while making fun of his large belly and size to himself, Munshi returned to the grass. Disgusted at his elder's attitude, he says to himself

Why did I run into this idiot after a day at the grind. Asks me, 'Planning on having a good time? What does he think I am, some rich landlord who can spend his night listening to mujras5 or visiting the brothels? Would that I ever had more than a quarter in my wallet. The wife and kids, and a sixty rupee a month salary – and on top of that the money that comes under the table is hardly reliable. (Shingavi, 1995; 248)

While walking he sees a friend, much poorer and less well off them him. After making mundane

5 Mujras were once a dignified dance , but due to political and social upheaval, it did for a while become the province of prostitutes. However, it seems to have undergone a more arty and slightly more wholesome revival and has become a fairly normal feature of mainstream Indian and Pakistani cinema

15 conversation about the weather, Jumman, Munshi's friend, gets to the point and asks for some money. Munshi lies to him, telling him that he himself cannot afford to lend out any money as he has non himself. Just as they reach the middle of their argument, an old friend of Munshi's from college drives up after recognizing him and offers an invitation to a mujra. Munshi immediately jumps into the aristocrats car, without even saying goodbye to Jumman. The narrative immediately switches from third to first person, showing the contrast between the private, selfish and mean Munshi, to his dishonest, patronizing form of talking with his superiors. (Cappola,

1975)

What Zaheer is pointing out is that one can be considered a good Muslim on the outside while concealing all the traits of a bad one inside. But the story says more than just this. It also implies that morality is socially constructed. The detrimental factor of one's moral compass is not the belief system they buy into, but their social and financial circumstances. It echoes the attitude of the socialist writer George Bernard Shaw's character, Alfred P. Doolitle from the play

Pygmalion, who when asked if he had any morals replied, 'No governor. I cant afford them.”

In Phir Yeh Hangama... (The Same Trouble), Satan pays a visit to a Muslim man who regards religion as a matter of utmost importance. The unnamed man, who prefers reading his novel than debating religious matters with the devil tries to lead him away. Satan refuses and tells the man that he is actually Gabriel and has been confused numerous times for being the devil.

Satan then tries to test the man's faith telling him numerous stories about the unfair treatment inflicted upon living creatures through no fault of their own.

The two engage in a conversation about the nature of good and evil through these anecdotes. In the first story the imported dog, Lion, who on arrival becomes the Alpha dog in his neighborhood, is attacked by a stray dog who is then shot by Lion's master. The next one sees the

16 needless death of a sweepers son caused by a spider bite. Although the employers' son has good intentions in trying to save the boy, the well to do man's efforts are ineffective. The last one is about the difficult but untimely romance of a young man with a girl he wants to marry. Each of these stories are connected to each other by the common thread of characters facing “the same trouble,” causing the subjects to be angry and sometimes unhappy.

The most controversial of Angrare's pieces was Zaheer's Jannat ki Basharat (Vision of

Heaven). It takes place on the 27th night of Ramadan, when the Angels are closest to earth and

Muslims stay awake, praying till sunrise. A Muslim cleric returns home from delivering his sermon at the mosque. As he gets home late, it is dark and his wife is asleep. Wanting to light the candle he searches for the matches, scavenging the area close to her for them. She, twenty years his younger, wakes up to him finding them and tries to get him into bed with her. After putting up a staunch resistance to such horrid behavior, the maulana proceeds to the prayer room and to begin the long night of ritual. While praying he falls asleep and has a vision of heaven where he is about to have sex with a houri. The maulana wakes up to the site of semen on his Koran, which is where the story ends.

In both of Ahmed Ali's stories the protagonists are women. The first, Mahavaton Ki Ek

Rat (Night of Winter Rains) paints a grueling picture of the struggle of a single mother. Narrated entirely through a first person monologue, it starts off with Maryam, the mother, trying to take care of her four children while her crumbling house gets further destroyed by the monsoon rain.

Water is falling between the cracks, onto their floor. The climate in the room is warm and damp.

To make matters worse, the five only have one blanket amongst them and no food to feed the children. Maryam, who was once well off, compares her situation to the rich people she sees through her window.

17 Here she launches her critique of God. “Dear God, have mercy. God is supposed to be with the poor, to help them, to hear their cries of pain. Am I not poor? Why doesn't God hear me?

Does God exist or not? And what is God, after all? Whatever He is, He's very cruel and extremely unjust.” (Shingavi, 1995; 241) While she is critiquing God for not coming to her assistance,

Maryam is also questioning the existence of a God at all. It is not that she believes in a Higher

Being. She chooses to do so as a way to channel her anger. Ali's point is that if people continue to believe in salvation, then the world will remain static.

And then there's religion, it teaches the same thing, the same thing, and on top of that they says it's a mine of knowledge and justification for poverty. It's a fool's wisdom. It takes the one who are advancing, who are climbing higher, and pulls them back. Its a roadblock on the path of progress. Stay poor, you can only find God in poverty. (Shingavi, 1995; 243)

The most radical part of the story is not what she says about religion, but that it is a she speaking of religion. These two themes, as mentioned, were the most common in the Angare stories.

Ali's other contribution to the collection, Badal Nahin Atein (Clouds do not Come) is similar in it's treatment of religion and gender. Also written in stream consciousness, the protagonist, a woman whose name the reader never finds out, shares her anger about relgious conservatism. Melting from the strong heat of Delhi's summer, the woman questions why it is that only men can shave their heads and cut their nails, while women have to let their hair and nails grow long, and on top of that hide their hair. In rage about the unfair treatment of women she says

A woman's life is a wretched life; she's worse off than a tick...work, sew embroider, cook...run errands around the house from morning till night like a cat with wounded claws, and then, bear children. Whether you want to or not, your blasted husband will take you forcibly by the hand...come here, my love, my dearest, such fire in your coquetry....Rot behind a veil, it's a life worse than a slave's, we're even inferior to animals shut in a cage, imprisoned, unable to flutter our wings—what is our life. If extinguished, we cease to burn, if lighted, we burn, burn incessantly.” (Naqvi, 1987; 190)

18 Her anger is not directed at religion itself, or even all religions, but just Islam.

Hindus are better off than we are, they're free. And Christians—they're so fortunate. They'll do what they want, dance, look at pictures, have short hair, says the narrator. How unfortunate that we were born in a Muslim house hold, may such a religion perish. Religion, religion, religion is the soul's solace, the security of men. (Naqvi, 1987; 190)

This is where the story becomes complicated. What was Ali's intention behind writing a statement like this? Does he himself share in the idea that only Muslim women live in such conditions? If this is his argument then not only is he presenting a false picture, but also segregating Muslims from

Hindu progressives. However, Ali's choice to take this position was because “they [the Angare four} have chosen (to critique) the particular field of Islam not because they bear any “special” malice towards it, but because, being born into that particular society, they felt better qualified to speak about that alone.” (Mahmuduzzafar, 1933)

Whatever the reasons behind that statement, it is obvious that the story's central message is the dire need for change. The reoccurring motif in the story, the narrator's desire for the clouds to come and change the weather, is an obvious symbol for social change. Under the direct glare of the sun, she's rendered paralyzed and inert, unable to alleviate her misery in the least. (Singh,

2011) The coming of the clouds is the remedy to the circumstances the speaker finds herself in, providing her a sense of agency and control.

Jahan, the group's lone woman, wrote a story called Dilli ki Sair (Journey to Delhi) and a one act play, Parde ke Piche (Behind the Curtain). Both these pieces had female characters speaking for the first time about things that were considered taboo. (Bano, 2012) Particularly provocative is her treatment of sexuality, descriptions of the female body and details on the subjugation of women by men. Rashida's, or Apabi as she would be called by her female admirers who later join AIPWA like Ismat Chugtai, training as a gynecologist is what prompted her to make

19 the female body the subject of her work not only in Angare, but later in her career as well. Jahan's generous attitude towards those who could not afford treatment, especially women, provided her with sufficiently interesting, compelling and radical material for her fiction.

The first of these two pieces deals with a purdanashin, or burqa clad woman's, ordeals with men and modernity. This woman, also the narrator, having never been to a city as big as Delhi or taken the train, is highly excited before the trip. When she and her husband reach Delhi, he spots a friend and leaves her with their luggage at the station, amidst hundreds of people. She is left there, suffering in the heat and growing increasingly tense from the crude remarks she receives from the men there. When her husband finally return at night, wanting to take her out for dinner, she calls the trip off, saying she has had enough of sight seeing. Here one sees “the significance of the veil in ensuring the subjugation of women in a patriarchal society,” but also the uneven relationship of men and women with modernity, symbolized by the train. (Gopal, 2002; 32)While the train liberates the husband as he is able to meet his friend, the female character does not admire greater freedom or mobility by just using a modern machine. Her thesis here is not only that the traditional practices of Muslims need to be changed for the liberation of women, but also that Europe's modernity is not the answer, is a provocative statement. It is evident that Apabi had a radical definition of “progress” even in comparison to other writers of this collection. She was, form an early period, trying to blend elements from the 'public' and 'private' spheres, when imagining the nation.

Parde ke Piche (Behind the Curtain) narrates a set of similar problems. In this play two women from well to do Muslim families discuss the woes of married life. The sickly woman complains about her husband's neglect for her health, who forces sex on her every night. For her, marriage has been a life of continuous oppression and “complete dispossession of body and

20 persona” (Bano, 2012) While her husband is allowed to flirt outside the marriage and threatens to remarry, she has to face the physical pain of giving birth to a baby year after year. At the end we find out that she is due to have another child in seven months.

Here the picture Jahan paints is of two women speaking openly about “their bodies, sexual ailments and the effects of repeated childbirth and abortions, issues which had before remained unmentioned” (Bano, 2012) Although one does not see these characters claiming space in the public sphere, they are engaged in a conversation revolving around subjects considered taboo during this period. But in doing so Jahan is actually bringing the private into the public. Instead of keeping issues around the female body confined, in writing about them for an audience that is predominantly male, she is making the issues women face a public matter. It is clear that “Rashid

Jahan had made a pioneering inroad into the literary public sphere by claiming for herself -and for other women – the authority to speak, not only about women's bodies and sex, but about modernity, science progress, ethics and epistemology.” (Gopal, 2005)

The last piece, Javanmardi or Chivalry by Mahmudzafar is about an Indian man who

starts to develop progressive, modern perspective. When he returns to his wife in India, these

feelings are dulled and fade away as he tries harder to impregnate her.

The launch of Angare created a havoc amongst the Muslim community in India. In a letter

to Carlo Cappola, Ahmed Ali wrote:

We knew the book would create a stir, but never dreamt it would bring down the house. We were condemned at public meetings and in private; bourgeois families hurried to dissociate themselves from us and denied acquaintance with us, especially Rashid Jahan and myself, and even Sajjad Zahir's mother (a dear old lady) accused me of spoiling her son. People read the book behind closed doors and in bathrooms with relish but denounced us in the open. We were lampooned and satirized, condemned editorially and in pamphlets. Our lives were threatened; people even lay in wait with daggers to kill us.' (Letter to Carlo Coppola; August 16th, 1972)

21 According to Talat Ahmed, no controversy in South Asia had broken out on this scale before.

(Ahmed, 2008; 16) As the stories in Angare targeted Islamic India, it was from there that they also received their harshest criticism. The authors were vilified by multiple press agencies. Urdu newspapers wrote fervently about the "horrid” actions of the Angare writers. The paper

Sarguzasht on 24th February 1933 wrote

The only difference is that if you claim to be champion of Islam, you should set a correct example of Islam; because Islam is a light which is an enemy of darkness. If we had followed this Islam, we would not be in this situation today. In this they [the writers of Angare] are much less to blame than us. It is a primary duty of those who are offended by this dirty literature to become real examples of true Islam.

Medina form Bijnor said

Praise be to God that we are to a large extent protected from the frivolities of the world. Alas from time to time journalism acquaints us with some of the mischiefs to which the sons of Adam are prey, and after making their acquaintance it becomes difficult for us to sustain our patience and steadfastness...

The Central Standing Committee of the All-Indian Muslim Conference, in Lucknow passed a resolution that

strongly condemns the heart rending and filthy pamphlet called Angare...which has wounded the feelings of the entire Muslim community by ridiculing God and his Prophets and which is extremely objectionable from the standpoints both of religion and morality. The Committee further strongly urges upon the attention of the U.P. Government that the book be at once proscribed.

The most interesting reaction came from Aligarh university, and much to delight of the quartet, humored them during this tense period. Payam, a paper published from Aligarh, carried a statement saying

...In this respect the attitude of religious leaders is exceedingly misleading and incorrect. Condemnation, proscription and legal action are no answer to blasphemy and atheism. How ironic that the very people who claim the right of free speech from the Government are not willing to concede the same right to their country men. The result of this is that fire keeps kindling unnoticed and bursts into flames when it gets a chance. If truth is with religious leaders, why do they get flustered by one attack of heresy and blasphemy? If the religious belief of the common man is

22 such that he gets misled by a handful of people, then the responsibility for this load of sin cannot be placed on anyone's shoulders except those of the religious leaders. The irreligious cannot be opposed with these weapons. When a man has no plausible answer to a question he gets annoyed and enraged. Such anger and rage can silence criticism for some time but the question still remains. The progress of the human mind cannot depart from the path of research. This is a futile effort. It is hoped that the leaders of the community will try to provide satisfactory answers to the problem underlying Angare.

After reading Angare, Shahid Ahrarwi, a mullah and resident of Aligarh, synchronized a plot to tear down the Women's College of Sheikh Abdullah which he called a 'brothel.' Upon hearing this plan, Ismat Chugtai, a student who would later go on to become one of the leading literary talents of the Progressive Writers Association, wrote an article exposing the stupidity of Ahrarwi's argument. After reading her piece in the school newspaper, an all female group organized and led a demonstration to the cleric's office and physically beat him up.(Ahmed, 2008; 17)

In defense of themselves, the authors issued a statement. Written by Mahmuduzzafar and published in The Leader (Allahbad) on 5th April, 1933, the piece is entitled In Defence of Angare:

Shall we Submit to Gagging? Parts of the document are quoted here:

Some five months back four young authors, among them a young woman, brought out a collection of short stories in Urdu under the title Angare. I happened to be one of the contributers to this collection. This book at once raised a storm in Moslem circles. It was said to be a shameless attack on Islam and everything decent in society. The book has already been proscribed by the U.P. Government under Section 295A of the I.P.C. [Indian Penal Code] It is even said that funds are being collected to start the prosecution of the authors. ...The authors of his book do not wish to make any apology for it. They leave it to float or sink of itself. They are not afraid of the consequences of having launched it. They only wish to defend 'the right of launching it and all other vessels like it'...they stand for the right of free criticism and free expression in all matters of the highest importance to the human race in general and the Indian people in particular. They have chosen the particular field of Islam, not because they bear any special malice, but because, being born into that particular society, they felt themselves better qualified to speak for that alone. They were more sure of their ground there. Whatever happens to the book or to the authors, we hope that others will not be discouraged. Out practical proposal is the formation immediately of a League of Progressive Authors, which should bring forth similar collections from time to time, both in English and the various vernaculars of our country. We appeal to all

23 those who are interested in this idea to get in touch with us. (Mahmud, 1933) [Emphasis mine]

What is important to stress here is that there were intentions to form a 'League of Progressive

Authors' from the publication of Angare and inception of this “group” into the public. What this suggests is that in the near future, Zaheer maintained contact with the other Angare writers during his time in Europe. There is even more at stake here. What this means is that even though there was no manifesto or central document that outlined core principles and beliefs, there was some idea behind what they wanted 'progressive' to mean, as well as a strong purpose behind selecting this word in particular.

The moment marking the beginning of the movement would later become a point of contention between Ali and Zaheer. Unlike Ali, Zaheer in his biography of the movement Roshnai translated as The Light: A History of the Progressive Writers Movement in the Indo-Pakistan

Subcontinent says that the Progressive Writers Association actually began later. He begins the first chapter saying “In 1935, some Indian students set up with first circle of the Progressive Writers

Movement, in London. There, the manuscript for the manifesto was prepared. Dr. Jyoti Ghosh,

Dr Mulk Raj Anand, Promode Sengupta, D Mohommad Din Taseer and Sajjad Zaheer wrote and put the final touches to the one page document.” (Zaheer, 2006; 1)

Contrary to Zaheer, Ahmed Ali along with the statement published by Mahmuduzzafar representing the group, suggests otherwise. Ali himself says that “The basic fact is the movement did not start in 1936, but 1932 and was publicly announced in 1933. This perhaps did not fit into the political strategy of the date when Roshnai was published, as Sajjad Zaheer had then become identified with and was completely involved in the Communist Movement in the Sub-continent.”

(Ali, 1935; 36) In spite of the contradictory beginnings suggested by two of the most important members of the group, no historian of the group has taken this debate seriously. What is ironic is

24 that frail nature of Ali's and Zaheer's relationship was visible in the beginning stages of the movement. This would later frame the most important divide, between what Ahmed Ali called the 'political' and 'literary' wings of the group.6

EUROPE

Shortly after the Angare quartet released their defense statement, Zaheer went back to

England. As we know that he did not enjoy law and would not return to persue it, the most likely reason for his return is that he wanted to escape the death threats that were placed on him. Upon moving to Europe he began a new part of this movement abroad. It is during this phase the a association, in the formal sense of the word, was formed. What is also significant about the

European phase of this movement is that, here they draft their manifesto, and lay out for the first time, what they mean by 'progressive.' Although the group formed in London consisted of only one of the four members involved in Angare, everybody who was part of the group in London eventually moved back to India and became part of the movement at home. Therefore it is only correct to say that the while the movement may have begun in India, it acquired momentum and strength in Europe.

In his essay Reminiscences, Sajjad Zaheer points to three events that struck a particular chord with him and other members of the association in Europe. The first was the trial of the

Bulgarian communist Georgi Dimigtrov, who on the 27th of February 1933 was accused but later proved innocent for burning down the Reichstag, the German parliament's central building. The second was the formation of the United Front in France in 1934, sponsored by the Communist

6 I purposely call it the beginning of the movement because under my impression Ahmed Ali is correct in saying that the movement was founded in 1932 and not 36.

25 Interanational, and the workers strikes that would follow. The third was the unsuccessful Austrian workers rebellion from February to March of 1934. (Zaheer, 1940; 34-35)

Events like these, which reflect the growth of fascism in Europe, promoted an alliance between liberal and communist intellectuals. Fascism, as Zaheer points out at the beginning of the same piece, was spreading like a virus through Europe, and its effects were becoming vividly present. He notes

The political effect of the economic crisis that engulfed the world took in Germany the shape of the dictatorship of Hitler and his Nazi Party. In London and Paris we daily came across the miserable refugees who had escaped or were exiled from Germany. Everywhere one could hear the painful stories of fascist repression, Fascist ruffians were torturing the freedom loving people and the communists in a thousand different ways. (Zaheer, 1940; 38)

As a result intellectual activity, along with organization on a political and literary basis, increased throughout the continent. It was from these European intellectuals whom they spent time with, learned from, conversed and argued with, in England and France, that Zaheer and other members of the association, learned how to form and be part of a group of writers that could extend beyond a cricle of freinds.

Mulk Raj Anand in particular, recreates vignettes of the times he spent with members of the Bloomsbury group, one of London most famous club of intellectuals. In Conversations at

Bloomsbury, he recounts arguments he had with T.S. Eliot on the Hindu epics and how they inspired him. He talks about tea with Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard, and their conversation on modernist novels. It appears as if Anand's favorite member was E.M. Forster, whose novel A Passage to India, he considered to be the best work of fiction in English, on India.

Anand moved to England in 1925 after finishing his studies at Khalsa College. He enrolled as a Ph.D student at University College London, where he studied philosophy. After graduating in

26 1929, Anand chose to stay in London and started a career as a nvoelist. He published his first book, Untouchable, in 1935. The story centers around the life of Bakha, a member of the untouchables caste, and his struggles as a sweeper. Despite E.M. Forster writing the forward for his work, Anand had to visit twenty publishers before somebody agreed to publish his work. It is important to note that apart from Zaheer, Anand was the only other official AIPWA member writing serious fiction during this period. His biography and his work are examined in further detail in Chapter 5.

Probably the most influential intellectual in regard to the formation of AIPWA was the

Canadian Marxist literary critic, Ralph Fox. Over lunch with Zaheer and his friend, Fox talked about his plans to visit India. They talked about literature, with Fox repeatedly warning them to not let their progressivism fall into the traps of sectarianism and prejudice. He got upset when

Zaheer's friend criticized Tagore for representing the Indian capitalist class, resenting such caricatures of Marxism. Later Zaheer asked him about what he as an Indian student, aspiring to be a writer, could do to fight fascism. Fox advised him to create a association of Indian writers and start and Indian movement. (Zaheer, 1940; 37)

The day after he met Fox, Zaheer arranged the meeting between some of London's Indian students who seemed interested in the idea of starting a group of writers. “One day after consultation among ourselves a regular meeting was held in my room. There were no more than six or seven persons and a committee was constituted to organize the Indian Progressive Writers

Association. In the beginning the work was slow, but soon all of us took greater interest. It was decided that a manifesto be drafted to formulate the aims and objects.” (Zaheer, 1940; 37) The most important task of drafting the manifesto was split between four to five people. Anand drafted the first version and his work went through a lengthy and rigorous committee checking

27 before it was deemed acceptable.

The first “regular” meeting, as Zaheer called it, was held by the Progressive Writers

Association sometime towards the end of 1934. The ceremonious event took place at the back room of a Chinese restaurant lent to them by the owner at no cost. “This small, unventilated cellar could accommodate forty to fifty people with difficulty.” (Zaheer, 1940; 38) Luckily the group was small in the beginning. Thirty to thirty five students from London, Oxford and Cambridge convened for the first meeting where grand plans were made. Anand was elected as the president.

Four or five other members were elected to an executive committee. Aside from designating people positions and tasks in the group, this meeting was meant to “clarify scattered ideas. What is progressivism? What is the aim of progressive writers? How they should work?” (Zaheer, 1940;

40)

In London the group held meetings once or twice a month. The tradition was to get together, read aloud and critique a poem or story, and then begin the meeting. Various students and scholars read out different papers at meetings. Being in London, what all members of the group had in common was that they spoke English. When the movement would generate steam in

India, creating a linguistically knit association would become not only a challenge, but an obstacle. But as Zaheer says, these students from the very beginning knew that while living abroad they could

neither influence Indian literature not create any good literature ourselves...A few exiled Indians could do little more than draw up plans among themselves and produce an orphanlike literature under the influence of European culture. The most important thing that we learn in Europe was that a progressive writers movement could bear fruits only when it is propagated in various languages and when the writers of India realize the necessity of this movement and put in practice its aims and objectives. (Zaheer, 1940; 40)

Zaheer became the first of the London group to return to India and revive movement again at

28 home.

Aside from the three earlier mentioned incidents that had a strong impact on Zaheer's time in Europe, there was a fourth event that played an even more commanding role. In 1935, Zaheer along with Mulk Raj Anand, went to Paris to attend the International Conference for the Defence of Culture. Zaheer fondly relishes this moment as “the first occasion when the writers of almost every civilized nation had collected together at one place for consultation among themselves,” but others, as we will see, held very different opinions on the conference. (Zaheer, 1940; 42)

The Left Review carried an announcement of the International Congress of Writers

“which has been called by a committee of French writers who believed that the perils confronting cultural freedom in a number of countries to day are such that measure should be for its defence.”(Left Review, 1935; 435) The planned date was June 21st. The organizers of this committee, who received the financial support from the Soviet Union, included notable figures like Andre Gide, who was a friend and translator of Rabindranath Tagore as well as Gandhi,

Andre Malraux, who although not as in touch with India, showed an interest in Asia in his novel

Le Condicion Humaine, which is set during the Chinese civil war. (Cappola, 1975) Writers and journalists all over the world were sent information on the conference, with many attending to report on it.

When everybody actually convened for the conference, there were some two hundred and thirty delegates, representing between thirty to thirty eight countries. (Cappola, 1975) The largest number of delegates were obviously from Western Europe and the Soviet Union. The English contingent included names like E.M. Forster and Aldous Huxley. Playwright Jean-Richard Bloch and novelists Louis Aragon and Julien Benda represented France. Thomass Man was expected to come but never did. Undoubtedly the largest fleet came from the Soviet Union, including the

29 conference's biggest name, Maxim Gorky. Sadly Gorky fell sick on his way to Paris and was forced to return home, dying shortly after.

For the Indian Progressive writers, this conference seemed as a site from which they could draw inspiration and where they could make connections with writers from other parts of the world. Authors from Central Asia republics as well as Algeria, Iceland, Peru and China and India attended. The official representative for India was Sophia or Madame Wadia, one of the founders of the Indian P.E.N. Her speech was on the “problem of colonization” and how British rule had created a homogeneous culture in India, out of it's rich and diverse tradition. She said

What is true for the education of the child holds true for that of the nation, which is after all but a collectivity of individuals, or grown up children. Already modern education is feeling the effects of the most artificial regime which forces all individuals to follow the same line of development instead of helping each of them to find his own way...humanity can progress only by the collaboration of all nations, each having its own distinct donation to make to the common good. (Wadia, 1935; 7)

Essentially, what Britain was doing was trampling upon the cultural growth of India. The abrupt imposition of it's culture, on the tame and salient Indian culture, caused a reaction that changed the sensitivity of Indian culture and it's people. Those who were educated in the English schooling system, made an effort to adapt themselves to this “strange” culture and diverted this aggression.

However other Indians who clung to their original identity would express it with great antagonism.

Indian literature proved to be an exception. The aura of prestige that the white race brought with them, according to Madame Wadia caused in India a “genuine sense of inferiority.”

(Wadia, 1935; 12) The humiliation which Indians have suffered caused them to retreat into their shells and not par-take in artistic production. India was forced to “destroy its spiritual traditions” in order to become a poor duplicate of the west. There may not have been much literary activity

30 amongst Indians themselves during British rule, but they were still attached to their culture. While the emplacement of English ideas did effect India, they did not necessarily harm Indian cultures themselves. Followers of this culture may have diminished over the years, but the culture itself was not harmed in a significant way. According to Wadia, Indian writers were not active because they were scared of their English counterparts. The formation of AIPWA proved to be the strongest negation to her claim. The nationalist inspired literary activity that this movement brought about really challenged her idea that Indian writers were feeling a “genuine sense of inferiority.”

She concluded her speech by talking about how nations should strive for cooperation instead of domination of one by another. “Our ideal is then not in competition but collaboration; it is not the exploitation of one class by another but the mutual cooperation of all classes; it is not fratricidal strife but international peace.” (Wadia, 1935; 7)

The members of the Progressive Writers Association who attended the conference were appalled at the way Madame Wadia portrayed India and embarrassed that she was the only Indian representative. Sajjad Zaheer went to the extent of saying that it would have been better for India to go unrepresented rather than to send her as their representative. Since the Progressive Writers

Associations had just been formed, they (Sajjad Zaheer and Mulk Raj Anand) were easy about having to represent all of Indian literature and neither were they funded by any Indian literary organization. This however is rather questionable. They certainly had the connections, (Zaheer knew Ralph Fox and Anand had spent a lot of time with E.M. Forster, whom he dedicated his book Conversations in Bloomsbury to) that would allow them to have spoken. So why did they then choose not to? Perhaps it was too daunting a task for the two of them to have to stand in for their entire country. They were after all only in their mid twenties.

31 In Reminiscences Zaheer critiques Wadia's speech for praising the same features of Indian civilization that the Oriental scholars and intellectuals of Europe did. She lauded the stereotypical notions of the “spiritual” and “mythical East” and in doing so recreating the same misconstrued notions the Europeans had about India. What was worse is that her voice was regarded as Indian, despite her being Colombian. The only link she shared with India was through her marriage to a

Parsee.

Andre Gide delivered a memorable speech entitled “In Defence of Culture.” He spoke about the relationship of the individual writer to society and how the beauty of the individual being would best be revealed in a communist society. “Individuals and their peculiarities can best flourish in a communist society” and quoted Malraux to say “Communism restores fertility in the individual.”(Gide forward to The Human Condition by Andre Malraux, 1933; xi) In his discussion of the relationship between art and society he argued that art becomes artificial when disconnected with the realities of life. For him, French literature of the thirties epitomized this philosophy. Literature is not supposed to be independent of the social sphere, but on the other hand is not supposed to function as the “mirror” of society as it does in the Soviet Union. It is literature that “informs, propounds and creates,” that communicates with the public that is useful.

This “must...inevitably be a literature of opposition: to the shams and conventions of culture.”

(Andre Gide's forward to The Human Condition by Augustine Malraux, 1933; xv)

While India was perhaps not the best subject of this conference, other great ideas were exchanged. E.M. Forster gave a speech called “Liberty in England” where he spoke about the limited conception of freedom in England. About how it meant freedom for the English but not for people of other races and then about the threat of fascism, on which he said

Fabio-fascism,” by the dictator-spirit working quietly quietly away behind the facade of constitutional forms, passing a little law (like the Sedition Act) here...is

32 what I am afraid of, for it is the traditional method by which liberty has been attacked in England. It was the method of King Charles I – a gentleman if ever there was one. (Forster, 1935; 64)

Forster extended this argument to the creative work in England. There was no room to write or talk freely about sex. Sex for him was a subject of serious treatment as well as comic. Thus it was the responsibility of the English writer to start treating such themes. He ended his speech on how to bring about this change saying intellectuals in Europe should “utilize the existing apparatus, and to extend to all classes and races what has been confined to a few wealthy and white-colored people.(Forster, 1935; 67)

However, despite delivering a speech that Zaheer and Anand enjoyed, Forster himself did not enjoy the conference at all.7 He was not a Marxist, “though perhaps I might be one if I was a younger and a braver man.” (Forster, 1935; 63) But he saw in communism a hope, for “it does things which I think evil, but I know that it intends good.” (Forster, 1935; 67)However, when he returned to England he wrote to a newspaper that being present at the conference was having “to sit through many eulogies of Soviet culture, and to hear the name of Karl Marx detonate again and again like a well-placed charge, and draw after it the falling masonry of applause.” According to Susan Stonor Saunders, Forster only attended the Paris event because he saw it as a necessary step in the struggle against fascism. However, what he found amongst the left was a “fondness for revolutionary slogans, its ignorance of Marxism, and its admiration for what it thought was happening in Soviet Russia, a journey that was leading many intellectuals into highly irresponsible pronouncements and actions.” (Saunders, 2004; 2)

Another member of the Bloomsbury group, Aldous Huxley, said that the congress was full of “endless communist demagogy.” Huxley said that he went hoping for serious, technical 7 Anand and Forster were close friends before this conference and grew to develop an even stronger relationship. Forster would write the forward for Anand's novel Coolie. After receiving this from Forster, Anand who saw twenty published managed to get the book published when meeting his next and last one

33 discussions but in fact, the event simply turned out to be a series of public meetings organized by the French communist writers for their own glorification and by the Russians as a piece of Soviet propaganda. (Saunders, 2004; 2)

Though the conference was not enjoyable to some because of its ardent communist flavor,

Zaheer and Anand were emphatic about what it had managed to accomplish. Its conclusion brought about the establishment of Paris as the international center for progressive literary movements from around the world. “The progressive writers movements in different countries were being integrated not only intellectually but also organizationally. This was a big stride in the path of the creation of international culture.” (Zaheer, 1940; 42) Even when the movement moved to India they maintained this connection with the European movement, calling themselves a

“foreign” branch of the “central” organization. Keeping these ties with Europe was important because it gave them avenues into representing Indian literature in other countries, both in Europe and in other parts of the world as well.

After the conference, Zaheer spent a few more days in Paris before heading home to India.

While there he flirted with many French intellectuals particular Louise Aragon who was playing a lead role in the progressive movements of French writers. Zaheer asked him about organizing writers and how he could form an association. Aragon replied saying “Dont ask that. No other group is more difficult to organize than writers.” (Zaheer, 1940; 43)

Zaheer left by ship for Bombay soon after. “When I left Paris for India, autumn had set in.

The trees were no longer green, their leaves were already yellowish red. A cold breeze was blowing. It appeared as if some one had extracted the heart out of the sunshine leaving only its light. It was the best season for leaving Europe.” On the journey back from Europe he finished working on his novel, A Night in London. This text chronicles the lives of Indian students talking,

34 walking, conversing, flirting, getting drunk and partying with English men and women in London.

Although not by any means a brilliant work of fiction, it is the only document that describes the lives of the progressives, during their time in Europe. (Zaheer, 1940; 45)

35 Chapter 2: Returning

“Today is the day. Today is the day.” He kept saying while opening his eyes and making his way out of bed. “Today is the day we find out the verdict of the Dimitrov trial.” he yelled again, this time with purpose, in an attempt to of course, 'accidentally' wake up his roommate. But, when he opened the front door to reach for the newspaper holding the answers to this problem, it was not there.

“What the hell is this!” exclaimed Sajjad. “The one day I immediately need the paper and its not there.” Huffing and puffing, much like a shocked child after receiving a bad present, he made his way to his flatmate's room, attempting to attract some sympathy from him. As he opened the door, slow and cautious, Sajjad discovered Babar sprawled out on his bed. His left hand held on to his morning cup of tea, which, from the way he held it, one could see had gotten cold. In his right hand was the newspaper, still open to the front page, where the article on the Bulgarian's case lay. The cause of the tea getting cold.

“What you have the papers! What happened? Whats the decision? Innocent? Please tell me they are not going to put him in prison, or worse, execute him. The man was not involved in the burning and the whole world knows it.”

“Not to worry Banney” replied Babar in his slow and deep voice. “He has been declared innocent.

The English press say he managed to argue his way out of all the contentions Hitler's government threw upon him. They say he was born to be a lawyer and not a politician like he wants to become. Apparently the German government has given him the liberty to move to the USSR, where Stalin will gladly accept him. Rumors are that he already has a opened a position for him in his government.”

Delighted and jubilant, Sajjad stood up from the bed. “This calls for a celebration” he exclaimed.

36 “Shall we hold a small party commemorating this occasion. Or shall we just hit up one of the usual bars and cafe's where this news is already being celebrated?”

“Lets do the later. After all its only Wednesdays. We still have more than half the week ahead of us and some of us actually have to attend classes and get a degree.”

“Oye whats that supposed to mean. You, and I will explicitly say this, are yes, not as well of as I am. While you came here on a scholarship, I came because of my father's money which is where my tuition and spending money also comes from. But you see, what we share is that the both of us arrived here under conditions. You, Babar Ali Ahmed could only come, and can only stay, if you comply with all the stipulations denoted by your scholarship. This means there are multiple things you cannot do, for instance anything steal a book, or you will perhaps be caught and thus have your scholarship revoked. I, on the other hand, was only allowed to go abroad if I would study law. This was my condition, and a brute one it is. And you know the other reason why I came back, why I actually had to come back to study.”

The conversation came to a standstill. Both knew why. Sajjad who was still standing, walked back to his own room. Babar as it was, had to head to the British Museum Library soon.

Now twenty seven, he had been working on his Ph.D for the past three years. The subject of his work; the poetry of Keats, with whom, out of all the romantics, he shared the the strongest affinity. For both lost their fathers at an early age and contracted tuberculosis as adolescents.

Urgency caused Babar to spend many days at the library and even more nights. He loved staying up late to write, for the simple reason that he produced better work during that period.

The day distracted him. The atmosphere was busy, cars would be stuck in traffic jams, people cuing up at the taxi stand, students, younger and older than him, running around Kings Cross station, all creating noise and polluting the environment with it. What Babar liked about London

37 was that the sun did not stay out for very long, causing him to be a lot more productive. The night, on the contrary was a much better time to write. When people have ended their day's work, rested and eaten dinner. When almost the entire city of London is tucked away inside their homes, when the streets are more quiet and cues inexistent, then only will Babar sit at his desk and finally engage with the solitude he needs and appreciates about the night, to commence his daily writing.

While Babar would most often work at during the nights and at home, Wednesdays were an exception to both these rules. Why you ask? Because some Wednesdays Aldous Huxley would go to the library and spend the day reading either religious texts from every corner of the globe except Europe, or would browse through the zoology, reading through the manuscripts of his grandfather, Thomas Henry Huxley. Yes urgency played a commanding role in Babar's life, but some things of course were more important, like meeting people, famous people.

After he finished reading the article of Dimitrov, Babar shaved, showered and made his way to the library. 'Today will hopefully be one of those Wednesdays,' he thought to himself, 'so that I may try once again to convince Mr. Huxley that the mysticism he finds so attractive in

Blake's poetry is still a highly misconstrued, fetishized, and Western reading of the Hindu religious texts. When will these people learn I ask you?”

The apartment they had was relatively small. There were two bedrooms, one a little larger than the other. Babar, who was the original tenant of the their place, naturally had the rights to the biggest room, not that it made much of a difference. They after all only contained space for essential items, and both of them, being simple, only had beds, a desk and a rod upon which they would hang their clothes. The kitchen was small, but that never annoyed them. The two barely ate food, and cooked even more infrequently. The fridge did not contain much apart from basic items.

A small stove occupied the center, with the sink to the right and fridge on your left. Above it were

38 cabinets that held numerous glasses and mugs, but only four plates. Immediately outside was the living room. An old mahogany table that Babar managed to secure through a friend of a friend for free, along with four chairs, took up most of the space. There was a sofa against one wall and a window right next to it. On the floor lay an old record player that the two enjoyed playing loudly during the parties they hosted. The main piece of attraction though, was the rug that Babar's mother had gifted him before he left home. Although ordinary to many Indians, the laborious hours of weaving that went in to it's production charmed many all Westerners alike and never disappointed either of the two as a means to start conversation with somebody new.

Sajjad lay on his bed, pondering about why the conversation had come to a halt. He thought about it everyday, why he came here, why he returned, or why he had to. “There are probably protests still going on against it. Death threats still out against me. My only real concern is my family, but baba's position should ensure that nothing happens to them.”

It happened in the summer of 1931. Not even a year had passed. Sajjad, or Banney as his friends fondly called him, had just returned to Lucknow after finishing up his studies at Oxford.

He was sent by his father to study law, follow his footsteps, and become a barrister. While at the university he grew disinterested in law choosing to his time reading literature in the school's various libraries. He would frequent the reading groups students would hold and emerged to become quite the presence. Always prepared, Sajjad would come ready with a critique that he had written and memorized. Although a generally patient man, there were instances where Zaheer lashed out at other students for their thoughts, resulting in a ban for the next meeting. But all this

39 changed when the assigned reading was Karl Marx.

Sajjad had never read anything by him before. In fact, he knew nothing about Marx aside from his German heritage. But as soon as he opened the book and read 'The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggle.' he knew that this man had something to offer.

Class was an issue that disturbed the entire world. A universal plague. The poor have always suffered at the hands of the rich, and the those have at the top have continuously reaped the benefits of those below them. Although a simplification, there lies truth and validity behind this claim. Societies are not divided into classes, but by them. This was something Banney knew, something he had vividly seen in India, more so it was an idea that he had lived. He knew how separated he was from the lower classes of India, how different he was from them. He could relate more to people in England than he could with some of his own. It was as if there existed two Indias. The India he was part of and fortunate to grow up in. Where one can see the world outside of India and then come back to call the place home. And the India where one cannot afford to do that, and is obliged to call their country home.

And so he continued reading Marx, and read him with a voracity that he had never exhibited towards any author, philosopher or poet. He became more involved with leftist student groups on campus. No, he was never conservative. He had always abhorred capitalism with a vengeance, seeing how it had tortured his country, his people. But never was he exposed to aan idea that could actually remedy the situation. A philosophy that actually offered a different approach to understanding history, to understanding the world, understanding humanity. One that had an answer that was change, not interpretation.

It was like Sajjad was young again, as if along with a cure for India's stagnant economic, political and cultural situation he had also stumbled upon the fountain of youth. He became more

40 active both in his classes and student groups, gained a significant amount of confidence so that he never shied down from saying what he thought was right, woke up early everyday, made more friends, but also more enemies, and finally mustered up the courage to tell his father that he hated law and wanted to study literature. There were many more signs that he was growing younger, but they also pointed in another direction. It appeared as if Banney was in love. But not with a person. Everybody knew of how he shy he was in front of English girls. How every time he wanted to charm a girl, he would open his mouth to recite a verse or a couplet, but would then claim to forget and then mumble some sill excuse in Urdu. Banney it seemed was in love with an idea, an idea in which he seemed so faithful, that to argue against him meant breaking his heart just a little.

He graduated in May of 1931 with a degree in law. It was not what he wanted to do, but a command. An order. It is funny how little control we have over our lives. Some of our most cherished belongings were not chosen by ourselves. For instance, names. Names are given to us at our birth, before our parents know what we are like, how we act and how we react. Yet our names are one of our most specific, personal and important assets. They are the title under which we are recognized, under which we come to be known and understood. In India, occupations work in a similar manner. If a family is fortunate enough, they will declare at birth that their son will carry on the family business, become an engineer, doctor, lawyer or another highly regarded profession. Banney was caught in this trap, or had been until now. Now that he had graduated and was finished, at least temporarily, with his studies, he had the time to do what he desired. Sit down and write.

The graduation ceremony went well, but he was glad it was over. Three years of Oxford was enough and he had had more than his fill. Now, back in Lucknow he could concentrate on

41 more serious matters. Literary matters. He decided it would be best if he took a vacation for sometime. Nothing long, just a for a month. In Lucknow, the fashionable thing to own is a vacation cottage. Every family who could afford it has one. The most popular and sought after destination for such a commodity was Nainithal; a hill station situated in the Kumaon foothills of the Himalayan mountains. Only a five hour drive or six hour train ride, people would go for anytime from a week to a couple of months.

Sajjad decided to take the train. He loved taking the train, so much, that he never learned how to drive, and so every time there was a choice between the two, it would already have been made in his favor. There were many things he hated about the British. The way they always thought themselves superior, the way they mis treated his people, abused India's culture, insulted the country's traditions and brought about freedom by excavating differences amongst religions, pronouncing it through policy and then argue that Indians need to be free from one another, not from them. The train was an exception to this rule. What a marvelous invention it was. How much it had changed India, brought it closer together. Now people could move faster, move commodities faster, and more of them too. It made the country work more and quicker. Efficient.

Aside from its utilitarian use, the train was also a marvel of human labor. How amazing was it that humans managed to invent something that allows them to climb hills and mountains with ease, cross desserts in comfort and travel without having to move oneself. It is a testament to humanity, that we as people, have managed to use the fruits of nature not to conquer it, but live with it, or at least learn to live with it. It was, in his eye's and Marx's, although the distinction is starting to diminish, a marker of progress. And every time he heard it's first horn, in memory of his brother, a poetry freak who passed away when Banney was only six, would recite the first two stanzas of his favorite Emily Dickinson poem, for he had always failed to memorize the other half.

42 I like to see it lap the miles, And lick the valleys up, And stop to feed itself at tanks; And then, prodigious, step

Around a pile of mountains, And, supercilious, peer In shanties, by the sides of roads; And then a quarry pare

The Zaheer family owned the nicest cottage on the hill. It was the only one with four bedrooms, a luxury even for those who could afford a vacation house. A wooden gate opened to a small driveway and garden, on which there was still the swing set from Sajjad's childhood days.

The house was embellished with a marble flooring and all the furniture was made from Burma

Teak. The ideas for them, his mother stole from old furniture catalogs that came from Britain and asked a local carpenter to copy them. There was a master bedroom and two smaller ones. Sajjad's father converted the fourth bedroom into a study as a present, so that Bannet could have a comfortable space and more importantly, a desk, at which he could sit and let his imagination take flight.

Taking care of him was Ghulam, the guard they employed to look after the house, and Ali, his fourteen year old son. Although sixty, Ghulam had never managed to grow a beard. His excuse was that the cold weather stunted the growth of his facial hair. Now, because it was the summer, he managed to sprout some facial hair, but nothing his fellow Muslim fanatics would be proud of as an imitation of the prophet Mohammad. His wife would come to the cottage in the mornings, and cook the days worth of food, and take leave to go back to their home at the bottom of the hill around noon. Ghulam and his son would then heat and serve Sajjad whenever he desired. Here, in the calm and serene environment of the Nainital, away from the heat and combustion of Lucknow and with his everyday concerns taken care off, Banney would finally be able to begin serious

43 work.

A week had passed and Sajjad was beginning to grow into his this temporary life style. He managed to build a schedule. His days would start at six thirty. Once awake, he moved downstairs to eat the breakfast already prepared for him. A feast compared to his English meals, breakfast would consist of a cut up fruit, either cereal or porridge, two friend eggs, toast and of course tea.

But that did not really count. Once he managed to stomach this food, he would make his way to the study and start the morning on a melodic note, and read some poetry. The classical Urdu poets, Mirza Ghalib, Mir Taqi Mir and Amir Khusro were his three favorites. As a child his grandmother, who was not allowed to leave the house, would sit and read to him these poems. He grew up on them, listening to some poems multiple times in a year, and even though he knew many of them by heart, he insisted on reading them from the book, so that it made him feel productive and better about himself.

Today, as he was reading one of Ghalib's Persian poems, a language he did not know well, but from the little knowledge he had of it and through what he knew of Urdu could decipher,

Ghulam Ali came in with an envelope.

'What could this be' he thought to himself, while carefully taking the card from Ghulam's hand.

The note read

'You are cordially invited to the dinner party of Mr and Mrs. Farukh on Tuesday June 28th at 7pm.

Location: The Farukh's Summer House - 11 Jilling Road, Nainithal.”

“Hmmm.. My father must have told them I was here. God, I really wish he had not. Now I am obliged to go to this bloody event, since the Faroukis definitely know that I am here. I hate these formalities, I'm bloody disgusted by them. What will I have in common with my father's friends.

All of them are stuck up lawyers, physicians and businessmen. Their only ambition in life is to

44 make sure they have enough money to send their sons abroad, give them a good education so they can come back to India and either take the civil service exam to get a high paying job, or follow in their footsteps. They would not care if there British were here or not, in fact, most of these hypocrites want the British to stay so that they can continue being who they are.”

“Thank you Ghulam” he said while faking a smile. And Ghulam took leave.

“Bloody hell. Tomorrow is Tuesday. They could not have even bothered to give me more notice.

Or was it that my father just got in contact with them yesterday? Who cares. Either way I'm in this tussle. Parents. What can one do except rebel against them. How can one be like their parents. It seems illogical, an unnatural occurrence. If generations change, is it not an inevitable cause of this change is the revolt of the youth against the older generation, a struggle of new ideas against traditional ones, of the present trying to make new history. How then can we comply with what they say? Agree that the way we live is the best and that our world is correct. It just cannot be.”

Sajjad became entrenched in this theme of generations having to be drastically different. He finally understood why the failed relationship between Nikolai and Arkady Kirsanov in Fathers and Sons was tragic. Turgenev did not purposefully create Arkady as a polar opposite to his father, the antithesis to the thesis. He only observed that families worked in this fashion, and that history unfolded in a manner that made the present different from the past. Sajjad's India, like Turgenev's

Russia, suffered from having exceptionally broad generational schisms. Nikolai's generation, the one who wanted to reform their country by adopting the Western form of government were exceptionally different from his father's, those who wanted Russia to return it's traditional spirituality. In a similar vein, Sajjad's generation was heavily caught up in the various nationalist movements involved in the bargaining process with the British. For him however, freedom meant more then just hoisting up a different flag and chanting to it a different tune. It meant being free

45 from religious dogma, free from the idea that the rules of the gods or God were absolute.

Freedom meant freeing Indians from those Indians who owned them, who ran the companies and businesses that many of them worked for and whom all of them bought products from. It meant freedom from those who controlled their lives, controlled how they lived, what they ate, how, and how much.

Sajjad then thought himself to be more like Bazarov, Nikolai's nihilistic friend and the hero of Turgenev's novel. Yes Nikolai was different and so was Sajjad, but he was a even more different, radically different, and so more active and vocal about their ideas. As a leftist , he associated more with the politics of the communist party than the traditional Muslim League or

Indian National Congress, who have socialist platform. Sajjad, being a more drastic break from tradition, found himself to be closer to Bazarov. But what made him different from Bazarov was character.

Unlike his confident Russian literary counterpart, Banney was shy and timid. He never voiced his opinion until it was necessary. Only if someone whom he was talking to severely contradicted his thoughts, if the situation commanded that he needed to make his presence felt would he do so. Whenever one found him in a large crowd, he took the form of a reserved creature. Although always full of delightful insights that could nourish the conversation, Banney never spoke unless specifically asked to, often sitting in the corner, nursing his drink as if one glass was his ration for the night. On the rare occasions that he did drink past his quota, parties would turn into real parties. It was easy to notice when he was drunk, since he started to speak rather incessantly. And when he began, whether on an intellectual rant about how the only thing wrong with Marx was that he predicted that the revolution would take place in the centers of capital, or on a poetry recital where he would sing hymns praising the beauty of nature and the

46 quest for love, everybody knew that he would continue talking with a fluency matched only by the water running through the mighty Indus. This would continue until the alcohol finally drowned him.

Contradictory to the stubborn, rude and pompous Bazarov, who believing in nothing resorted to believing in himself, Sajjad being raised in Lucknow, the capital of Muslim culture, the emblem of it's tradition, had proper manners. Very proper manners. Lucknowi's, people from

Lucknow, have a reputation and fame for being formal and proper with one another. Jokes are commonly made about how Lucknowis do not swear upon one another because not one foul word exists in their Urdu. About how they take twice as long to say 'hello' or 'thank you' because of their slow way of saying it, and the unnecessary, extra words they use for trying to appear courtly. Being from a family who rested in the highest echelon of Lucknow's social milieu, such traditions and patterns of behavior were taught to Banney since childhood. So now, at twenty four, Sajjad did not even think that he acted in this manner, barely noticing his formality when others pointed it out. His etiquette, or better, his tehzeeb, because tehzeeb as a word is more specific to the world that Sajjad came from and more vividly represents his mannerism, was so ingrained and naturalized, that every time anybody approached him in India.= he would greet them in the formal way; by bowing down, cupping your right hand and placing it to your forehead without, of course, touching it, all while saying 'Adaab arz hai' or “I offer you my greetings.'

This was the way in which Lucknowis greeted each other, but only those whom type recognized as Lucknowis, whom upheld a certain type of culture, a certain level of tehzeeb. Sajjad never accepted such silliness, frowning on the idea that only certain people deserve respect and are worthy of such treatment. He failed to understand how his own people, how not only Lucknowis, but all Indians, pretended as if they were different from one another, act as if religion, class or

47 gender made someone superior to another. It is the tragic failure, not only of Indians, but of all humans, that we find it easier to discover and mark the differences amongst cultures, instead of the traits we share.

Now that Sajjad had done some thinking on the subject of generational divides, he thought it would be worth writing story about it, or perhaps a poem. His mood was a little better since he justified his anger to himself. The party was still a chore, but at least it would make good substance for a story.

As most of what he wrote in the past three years was for university, he was in the habit of writing in English. In an effort to recuperate his Urdu and bring it to par with his writing skills in

English, he decided to pen this story in his native tongue. It was not that he had never written in

Urdu during his tenure at Oxford. Just that he reserved this language only for the use of poetry, as

Urdu for him was a language that naturally lent itself to this branch of literature.

Ghazals, poems compromising of a series of couplets, were his favorite kind, and also the perfect metaphor for the world. Just like a ghazal, where the poet knits together a series of couplets, each couplet meaning something on its own but something greater when combined, individuals can accomplish a lot on their own, but a significant amount more when working together in a melodious fashion. His only wish to be the poet with with the ability to write all of us melodically into a ghazal, preserving our individual beauty while making us glow together. A musician, who would both compose symphonies and conduct the orchestra of harmony. But his personality never lent to such professions.

So Sajjad, refined and reserved, took comfort in his solitary nature and began writing a short story in Urdu about a rebellious adolescent boy and his father, based of course loosely on his relationship with his own father. He continued writing for five hours at a stretch. No breaks, not

48 even for tea. They simply were not needed. When he felt as if he had exhausted his energy, he cordially asked Ghulam for lunch.

He proceeded to the dining room and found Ghulam laying the table.

'The food will just be ready. Ali is heating it up and making chapatis.'

'Not to worry Ghulam. There is no rush for time.'

'You are eating a little later then usual today Sahib. Is anything the matter?' inquired Ghulam.

'No, nothing Ghulam. Just got a little occupied with work. How was your day?' he asked, using the formal aap as opposed to the impolite tu.

'Well Sahib. Yesterday we got news that one of my daughters, the one who is twenty three is pregnant. When she delivers her child Sajjad Sahib, it will be my seventh grandchild.'

As he felt more comfortable around him, Ghulam began addressing Sajjad by his name as well.

'Wow Ghulam. Seven, and you still have a son who is only fourteen.'

'No Sajjad Sahib. You know Abbas, the guard who works at the Chaudri's house. He has ten grandchildren and his youngest child is only eight. Three of his grandchildren are older than the youngest one.'

Right then Ali burst through the door with the tray of steaming food. Daal, two vegetables, todays being okra and cauliflower, along with shaami kebabs and a basket full of freshly cooked up chapatis were spread out on the table. A feast for others, but standard for him.

'Alright Sajjad Sahib, I will let you eat your meal in peace. Just call for me when you are done eating.

'Thank you very much Ghulam.' he replied, in that slow Lucknowi fashion.

After eating more than his fare share of food and moaning from doing so, Sajjad washed his hands and made his way to the garden. It was only four, still the afternoon. He pondered about whether

49 to enjoy his tea outside in the garden or take it inside to continue work on his story.

He did neither, and instead proceeded to the veranda on the upstairs floor. There, when he sat on one of the plastic veranda chairs, from which he could see the entire side of the hill he lived on, and the multiple more. The city was invisible to him, only viewable from the other side of the mountain. But there, weaving through and around hills was the train, lapping its miles around the landscape. Gradually, it made its was down and across the range, and then disappeared amongst the pine tree and weeping willows, moving slowly but steadily towards its progressive destination.

The weather was perfect. The air was slightly chilly even in the afternoon, but was balanced by the sun that always made itself visible till around six in the evening. Then things really started to cool down, and a shawl or sweater became necessary. It was the way Sajjad liked it.

Spending time in England had made him accustomed to the lower temperatures. Now he preferred it to be slightly cold instead of hot and enjoyed the idea of having to put on a layer instead of take one off. But even when all Indians did judge the change in the air as drastic enough for them to lay on another item of clothing, Sajjad found it to be perfect.

The slim breeze that blew across the veranda chiseled away at the hotness to a drinkable temperature in matter of seconds. Sajjad still insisted on blowing in the mug twice before taking a sip. While enjoying this moment of pure serenity, Banney began reminiscing about his England days. There was one thing that he missed about England, independence. In India, he always felt constrained, obligated to do only those things regarded as permissible by his father. He knew that till he did not stop living under his parent's roof, on their money, he would never be independent at home.

In England he lived through the same means, but was able to hide his activities, disguise what he did with his money and time. Here he was constantly being monitored, subject to

50 constraint, surveillance and scrutiny. Even out in the hills he had to socialize with their friends, go to events that they had organized for him. Fleeing to England was not an option. It would detract from his ability to contribute to the independence struggle at home and add to it his perspective and direction. He needed to find a way to be free, here, at home.

As an attempt to refresh his mind, Banney went for a walk. When he came back he notified

Ghulam and Ali that he would not be eating dinner that night. His stomach, still fresh from

England, was not used to eating such vast amounts of food in a day. He sat down to lay and then drifted off into a sleep.

The following evening Banney told Ghulam that he would not be eating at home that night.

'Ghulam' said Sajjad in a loud voice. 'Ghulam could you please come to my room.'

'Yes Sahib.' breathing faster than usual after running up the stairs.

'Ghulam, I am afraid I will not be eating dinner at home tonight. There is somewhere I need to go' he said putting on his tie.

'Yes Sahib. Do you have to travel far? How are you getting there?'

'Oh no need to worry about such minor things Ghulam. I just have to walk to the train station and the Farouki's are sending their car and driver to pick me up.'

'Challo, that is good Sahib. Are you sure you would not like me to leave something on the table.

Just in case you come back late and feel hungry?'

'That is very kind of you Ghulam, but I just do not think it will be necessary.'

'As you say Sahib. As you say.' and he made his way out of Banney's room, back into his small quarter at the back of the house.

The party was bigger than he thought it would be. People had come up to the hills earlier

51 than he expected for their summer vacation. At the entrance of course were Mr and Mrs Farouki, greeting everyone as they walked into the house. Mr Farouki, wealthy but down to earth, was wearing a tuxedo. His wife, a self centered and arrogant lady, was wearing a sparkling red sari and had adorned herself in pearls and diamonds from ears to neck. But he had to be nice. Not only were they his fathers friends, but they had also made an extra special effort to get him there, urgently delivering his card and sending their car and driver to pick him up. So he bowed and greeted them in that typical Lucknowi fashion while forging a smile on his face.

There were chairs laid out in the garden, most of them occupied by older people. He greeted those that he knew, warmly, but quick at the same time, and then made his way to the bar inside. The scene was ordinary. Groups of five or six people were dispersed in the various rooms.

He ordered his usual, whiskey on the rocks with a bit of water. While the bartender made his drink, his eyes and ears scoped the scene, trying to find a reasonable crowd and conversation to join.

Just then, a man close to his own age, walked to the bar and ordered the exact same drink.

'Nothing like good old whiskey to warm you up eh. These hills can make you feel as if your thousands of miles away from Lucknow and it's heat.'

'Yes' mumbled Sajjad, in typical shy fashion.

“Those goras think we Indians cannot handle such heavy liquor in the summer. Well, we sure show them wrong. Even our maulanas can drink this stuff in the summer. Those pious fools who pretend to be so richeous. Controlling their sins so they can make it through this life to the next where they think they will get their four houris. Idiots I tell you.”

The man was clearly a little tipsy, but he had a point, which, not many other Lucknowis realized.

Or if they did, admitted.

52 'My name is Ahmed, Ahmed Ali' he said. 'And I'll be your fool for the night.'

'Pleased to meet you' replied Sajjad as they made their way to a couple of empty chairs.

Ahmed and him, as Sajjad discovered in the next couple of hours, had a lot in common.

Both were under thirty, unmarried and had been educated through the medium of English. The two also shared a fondness for sombreros, brights shirts and contrasting ties and collecting candlesticks. This coupled with a musical admiration for Back and Beethoven and a literary appreciation of James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence as well as Chekhov and Gorky established a firm connection between the two on their first encounter.

Ahmed, as Sajjad inquired, came from much humbler origins. His father, a middle-level civil servant, died when Ahmed was only five and so he was sent to be taken care of by his zealously orthodox paternal uncle. At seventeen, he broke away from the conservative atmosphere of his uncles home and attended Aligarh Muslim University. After a year, he moved to

Lucknow University from where he graduated with first class first honors in English,in both his

B.A. And M.A. degrees. While the university still debated on whether to hire him as a lecturer or not, he was currently unemployed and so had time on his hands.

After spending the entire evening together, they arranged to meet again the same week.

Like Sajjad, Ahmed had been writing fiction in his spare time. They discussed the subject matter of their work and the common threads it shared. The two detested of the stringent laws of Islam, agreed that Indian culture had become stagnant and was starting to decay, abhorred the disparity amongst classes in their country, the amount of poverty that plagued their country and the inequality of women in Indian society, how they lacked access to basic rights like education.

Already they drafted plans to publish an anthology of their work. Banney did not have much to offer, not yet at least. He had finished the story he began working on yesterday, but that did not

53 engage directly with the same subject matter. He needed to erase his more personal problems and concentrate on those that troubled the masses.

He left the Farouki residence on a high. Although Ahmed had consumed well over his share of alcohol for the night, it turned out to be an unexpectedly enjoyable evening. Sajjad was excited to meet the friends that Ahmed was going to bring with him to their next encounter, to finally find people in India who like him were young, energized and had a progressive vision for

India's future. His enthusiasm reached such heights that on his way out he did not even have to forge a smile while saying 'bye' and 'thank you' to the Faroukis, and even refused their offer to have their driver take him to the train station, deciding last minute to walk the forty five minutes instead. Again, it seemed as if our Sajjad was in love, that he had found something promising, in which he could invest time and be returned happiness. But true love was lurking just around the corner.

The following morning, Banney packed his bags and took the train back to Lucknow. The meeting was the first priority on his agenda and they had agreed to meet in the city. Ahmed had only come to Nanithal for that party. He was the guest of a guest, the actual guest being a former professor of his and mentor, Musheer, who was his mentor come father. Realizing Ahmed's talent but also his eccentric and at times wild behavior, Musheer took Ahmed in during his first semester as a student at Lucknow. He paid for his hostel, food and other living expenses. For the past six years he had been looking after Ahmed, both at school and outside. There was a true soft spot for him in Musheer's hear, but he made sure to treat him rightly. So when Ahmed misbehaved, like at the Farouki's party, he would earn himself a yelling. Despite being up for professorship and almost completely financially independent, Ahmed never talked back to Musheer, never argued with him or mocked what he said, for he knew that no Lucknowi, no Indian, could be angry with someone

54 who had looked after him like Musheer did.

Ghulam was the most upset when Sajjad was leaving the house. They had become friendly with each other ever since Banney arrived. He used to enjoy conversing with him, asking him what he thought would happen in India and what should happen. Naturally they differed in opinion. The old man, bound tightly to religion, associated with the Muslim League. He liked the idea of separate Muslim nation, but refused to support it knowing how much more bloodshed and carnage it would bring with it. This for him would be truly un-Islamic. Sajjad was a member of the

Communist Party of India, who, despite traditional belief, were the only party who supported the idea of Pakistan. He hated that policy of theirs and believed that the only way a true revolution could arise was if India stayed knit together.

The two even hated the British in different ways. Ghulam viewed them with animosity.

They had come to his country, taken advantage of his people, used them and now were going to leave. This strong blend of hatred, a variety nurtured through and by many generations, was shared by millions of Indians whose ears were exhausted of hearing the promises of a better future in a foreign language. Sajjad, who thought that the British were now obsolete in India, was antipathetic towards them. Contrary to Ghulam, he had benefited from their rule. He was fortunate enough to speak English as if it were his native tongue, had travel throughout Europe, have been educated at one of the premier institutions in the English speaking world and was in the position where by taking over his father's profession, he could secure a very comfortable living. It is true, Sajjad did have the privilege to be able to hate the British. The outcome of India's independence struggle did not affect him the way it did Ghulam. But never the less he hated them, the way a man hates a close friend for having slept with their wife.

Despite their differences, Ghulam enjoyed listening to Sajjad, because nobody around the

55 area, whom he knew could or would make such remarkably radical claims about Indian politics.

So, when Sajjad said his goodbyes, it was Ghulam who hugged him the longest and asked Allah to look after Sajjad till he next saw him. It was an ironic remark, since Allah as we will see, was not so kind to Sajjad over the next year. Not that Banney by any means was kind to them.

They first met on a Friday. Ahmed called Sajjad to say they were not meeting in Lady

Dufferin Hospital. Since their first encounter Ahmed had talked to a few friends whom he knew thought would exhibit interest in the idea. The only one thus far was Rashid Jehan, a doctor who wrote on the side. Rashid, or Rashida as she was called by her friends came from a progressive family. Her father, Shaikh Muhummad Abdullah was a prominent pioneer in the movement to educate Muslim women. He created many all girls schools around Lucknow and the ideas and philosophy of teaching in these schools was starting to spread to other urban Muslim centers. All six of his daughters went to some of the best schools in India and held professional jobs. Rashida in fact, was one of the first female gynecologists at this hospital.

Her office was on the fifth floor which meant Sajjad had to climb ten flights of stairs.

Banney told Ahmed that he would meet him outside the hospital at five. Delayed because of his evening cup of tea, he showed up twenty minutes late. Ahmed was no longer outside the hospital.

You cannot blame him, this type of heat could melt a person in thirty minutes. Because of his tardiness Banney had run from the bus stop to the hospital. The sweat from his forehead fell on his hand as he opened the main door. The journey was not over though. He inquired at the desk where her office was. 'The sixth floor' the receptionist replied. That meant another twelve flights of stairs.

'Oh my God.' He said to himself, panting away. 'How does she get any patients forcing them to walk up all these stairs'

56 In an attempt to appear somewhat decent he went to the bathroom first to freshen up.

Opening the door he saw Ahmed sitting on one of the patient's chairs and behind the desk, on the nicest chair of them all was the most beautiful woman Sajjad had seen. When fist glanced at her while closing the door, his mouth stayed open, as if his body and mind were in two different places. He could barely introduce himself, that was how obvious his attraction to her was. His name came out as if he was a child trying to utter its first full words.

'Sa sa sajjad...Zaheer.' he managed to say with much difficulty.

Rashida giggled in her chair. Many men had appreciated her looks but nobody had ever expressed themselves that way. She was however, a beautiful woman, even in the doctors coat.

Her hair was as black as a raven and silky because she regularly oiled it. If she wore it long it would reach her waist. She was not very tall and her body was slender. So Rashida was not by any standards a physical presence in the room. But this lack was more than compensated by her vocal participation in any situation and the constant need for her to say what she felt, because for her that was the truth. This coupled with a formidable wit and charm made Rashida the stark opposite to the tall, gentle and generally quiet Banney. He was dumbfounded and confused; delightfully charmed but also in distress.

The meeting as predicted went off beautifully. Ahmed and Rashida dominated the conversation. Banney barely even said anything, mostly nodding in agreement when looked at or asked by one of the two. His lack of action was not a problem because the other two as he could see had ferocious mouths. They whole hour went by with hardly a silent second. Lots of things were had to be discussed. What kind of stories had they been writing? What kinds of stories did they want to write for this anthology? Who was the audience that they were trying to reach? What was the message they wanted to convey to people? None of these three had ever published

57 something before and so were completely unknown on the literary scene. Who would read what they would write and who would even bother publishing it?

What the three of them, well two since Sajjad remained numbed by Rashida's beauty, was that they did not want to write for aesthetic pleasure. Their ambition was to write about the troubles of India, expose to Indians what in their view were the problems that plagued India communalism, racial antagonism, and exploitation. They wanted to write about issues that were not dealt with in Indian literature, family, religion, sex and war.

“You know Rashida' said Ahmed “Indian literature, since the breakdown of classical, has had the fatal tendency to escape from the actualities of life. It has tried to find refuge form reality in baseless spiritualism and idealism. The result is that it has become anemic in body and mind and has adopted a rigid formalism and a banal and perverse ideology.”

“Yes” said Rashida, nodding her head sideways in agreement. “It is true that Indian literature is moribund, in a state of decay. But people are making efforts to prolong it, to revive it. Look at

Premchand. His stories, whether in Hindu or Urdu are popular amongst our educated public. This makes right now an even better time to become part of this movement.”

“I guess we should leave it on a high note.” replied Ahmed. “The two of us will take leave

Rashida. When we meet day after tomorrow the two of you can come over to my place. I will also contact some more people whom might be interested in this idea. There is one person whom I think will want to join.”

Banney slowly picked himself up form his chair as Ahmed announced their departure. He awkwardly looked down at Rashida's feet, waiting for her to finish talking to Ahmed so he could say bye. When she did, he slowly lifted his again bowed down slightly and muttered 'Khuda-e-fiz.'

Again she giggled, surprised that a man whom seldom spoke and whose body language suggested

58 nervousness, wanted to herald the revolution in India. It was to her absurd, but then again she had just gotten to know him.

Ahmed lived in Musheer's house. A room at the back had been built as an addition especially for him so that one could enter without going through the house itself. His space however was small and clustered. There was a bed which, judging from it's unkempt state looked like nobody ever changed the sheets. Opposite was a bookshelf. Next to it was a lamp on top of a rug upon which were scattered multiple pillows. The only other piece of furniture was a roll top desk that had with it a chair. Contrary to the rest of the room, the desk was well maintained.

Papers were stacked one on top of the other and both pen and ink had their caps on.

When Banney reached his house, late again, Rashida and the new chap that Ahmed thought would be interested were both there. Conscious about his tardiness, he tried to enter the room as silent quietly as possible, thinking that he could somehow get inside unnoticed. As he opened the door, everybody looked towards him. Rashida and the new person, whose name he would soon discover was Mahmuduzzaffar were sitting on the rug on the floor. Ahmed was placed on the chair next to his desk. Sajjad first went towards Mahmud and introduced himself.

He then looked just left at Rashida and greeted her as he last time. This time however she did not giggle, choosing to respond only with a polite smile.

After casually greeting Ahmed he sat himself on the bed. It seemed as if Rashida had taken a liking to Mahmuduzzafar. Instead of talking of talking and dominating the conversation like at their last meeting, Rashida had taken a step back. She receded against the cushions with her legs stretched long on the floor as she heard him speak, occasionally taking a sip from her tea. The expression on her face suggested that she was not paying much attention to the conversation itself, but was using it as an excuse for looking at him while thinking other thoughts. Contrary to

59 the other three, his Urdu was weak.

Mahmuduzafar came from one of the ruling families in Rampur, who during the first

Indian War of Independence sided with the British and so played a key role in political, social and cultural affairs. He had been schooled almost exclusively through the medium of English in private schools in India, later England and finally Cambridge where he mingled with other Indian and

British leftist and Marxist students. After completing his B.A. two years ago he returned to India and refused to sit for the Indian Civil Service examination, a task usually expected of England returned graduates of his social standing. Instead, he abandoned his European style dress in favor of handloom cloth and set about learning the finer points of Urdu, his first language, in which he was almost illiterate.

His Urdu skills sufficed to charm Rashida. The times when he did not know the word for something he would make it a point to ask her, and then thank and compliment her every time he did. Sajjad thought of it as petty, that he was playing a game with her as he probably did the first time he met other women whom he found attractive. He told her stories about his England days and the atmosphere at the university. He told her about how he used to stay up late with Ludwig

Wittgenstein in the university libraries, who at that time was working on his Ph.D., and hold long conversations about logic and the nature and function of language. And how Bertrand Russel loved to tell the story of how smoking saved his life because one time when he was flying the airplane crashed but in such a way that the smoking section had no casualties.

Sajjad hated it, but hid his disgust. The two of them were actually very similar. They both came from well off families, both were educated abroad and both of course were also interested in the same woman. What defined them however was confidence. Banney could also talk about his days at Oxford and the famous people he used to meet there. Instead he just sat with his head

60 resting in his hands, watching Mahmudzafar dazzle Rashida.

Ahmed, Sajjad could see, had some papers in his hand. They agreed on bringing some of their writings to the meeting so they could read what each other had written. Banney inquired about the papers. They were the stories that Rashida had brought in. Excited, he grabbed one from Ahmed's hand and began reading it. 'Excursion through Delhi,' only three pages, was about a woman named Malika Begum whom never having taken a train is offered a ride by her husband.

When the two get there, the husband meets a friend and takes off leaving her stranded with their luggage at the station for nearly the entire day. When he gets back she insults him, upon which he hits her. There story ends with Malika saying 'Im done sight seeing with you in this damned Delhi.

Nobody should even go to Paradise with you.' But, being a man he has to get the last note and says 'It's your decision. If you don't want to go sight seeing here, then don't.'

When he finished it he gave it back to Ahmed. 'What do you think' Ahmed asked him.

'Great. I love that at the end he acts as if he is giving Malika a choice when there really is no choice in the matter. This is very good case of how in our society, women are continuously denied agency, how they are coerced into following their husbands, dependent upon them for a living and so have to show them honor. What is great is that Malika breaks this scaffold. Although subtle, she in her own way has made an effort to counter patriarchy.'

Ahmed looked back at him with a smile on his face.

'Well go on and tell her yaar. I'm not the one who wrote it.' He could barely do that even though

Rashida had been looking at him the whole time Ahmed has been talking to him, making the process a lot easier.

'Reading your piece was very enjoyable. Malika is a very real. She is a true representation of

Indian women, their helplessness and tragedy.'

61 'That means a lot coming from somebody with your credentials. Thank you.' replied Rashida. This was the longest any of them had spoken to each other.

Rashida and Mahmudzafar broke their personal conversation. Work had to commence.

They had to read each other stories, give feedback to each other and try to get this anthology to a publisher by next week.

After reading what the others had brought in and talking about it for a while, they reached the conclusion that no publisher would actually publish their work. Nobody would agree to publish such scandalous work. There were stories about the plight of women, stories mocking

God and it's believers, particularly maulanas, those who pretend to be the most pious but are also the most perverted and stories that propelled anti British sentiments making fun of their rule in

India.

There was still not enough material to publish an anthology, well not enough material that they found suitable. Amongst the three of them, Mahmudzafar had not brought anything of his to read. Their rule was that only those stories upon whom everybody votes for would be published.

The end result was Ahmed and Rashida being elected to publish a piece each and Sajjad three.

It was agreed that all of them would write a another story that same night, now that they knew exactly what together they wanted, and come together tomorrow to read what the others had written. Nobody predicted that time had flown so fast. When Rashida asked for the time before the three of them left Ahmed's home, they discovered they had been there for four hours. It was already seven in the evening. All had work to do and wanted to meet up tomorrow. Banney left alone, walking to the bus stop while Mahmud accompanied Rashida to the rickshaw stand where he found her a rickshaw and paid for him to take her home.

The following day they met again at Ahmed's house. Banney came this time, hoping that

62 Rashida would show up earlier than Mahmud and they could possibly exchange a few words on their own. After yesterday's conversation he had become much more at ease around her, but because her attention was not towards him anymore but Mahmud, he was not as nervous but still gentle.

Mahmuduzafar showed up before she did. His Urdu was poor and he was not comfortable writing in it, so he had written in story in English and asked one of them if they could translate it.

It was clear that Mahmud was uncomfortable being in his skin, constantly trying to prove his

Indian identity. His accent, having spent his years from the ages of nine to twenty one in England, was very English and one could tell that he was working on shedding it. Sometimes though, when he had just switched from Urdu to English it subconsciously reappear. Ahmed offered to translate his story, a type of work he enjoyed more than writing creatively.

Rashida was just a little delayed by an appointment she had. Only Sajjad was bothered by it, not bothered but upset, because they could not talk earlier. After a couple of hours of conversing they assembled their collection. The final product contained ten stories, one by

Mahmud, two by Rashida, three by Ahmed and four by Sajjad. That was their final decision.

Together they drafted an introduction explicitly describing what the goals of the collection were and what the purpose of publishing such a document was, to incite feelings of revolution. They were aware that what they were doing could get them in trouble. Nothing that vaguely resembled what they had written had ever been published before. There was a strong chance that the public would react to such ideas, that they could not accept such a criticism of their society, consider their views blasphemous and take action against them. Anything was possible in their India, a country fervent in both revolutionary and reactionary sentiments. If they did not test the waters now to check if it would accept their progressivism, then they would never do so.

63 Angare or Burning Embers, was published that weekend completely thorough Sajjad resources. He took the money from his father and printed a hundred and fifty copies of the pamphlet. They divided the copies evenly amongst themselves, agreeing to give them mostly to students at university campuses. Distributing the document was tough because they wanted to make sure that people across all axis, religion, gender, class and race received their literature. That was the only way to measure all Indians thought of them, their writing and their ideas. Once this task was divided, mandated and carried out there was nothing they could do but wait to see what happens.

They had agreed not to meet till the following week. Both Ahmed and Rashida had work which they had to attend to and compensate for after devoting the previous week to Angare. This placed Banney in a state of pain. He needed an excuse to see Rashida, see if she was still meeting

Mahmud on the side or even just see her, to sit in the same room as her because it made the place so much brighter. He wished that she would sit on the floor in his room, dreaming that she could sit on the floor in his room with him, while he told her stories about his England. And then he would tell her a joke that would make her laugh, because she loved to laugh and he loved to watch her laugh.

Four days had passed since their last encounter and he wanted to call Ahmed and ask for her number. He was thinking about this while having dinner with his parents when all of a sudden the cook ran into the dining room.

'Sahib.' he said, shivering in front of Sajjad's father. 'Sahib there are people outside the gate with sticks who have come looking for Sajjad. They are trying to get in the house to find him and beat him up.'

'What?' said his father, looking at Sajjad. 'What is going on here. What have you possibly done

64 that could have caused this. Shahid, make sure the guard does not let them in, make sure there are enough people to keep the gate shut and prevent them from coming inside. Call everybody from the neighborhood if you have to get these idiots away.'

'Yes sahib' he said , panting away. 'I'll do everything I can sahib.'

'Sajjad, what is the meaning of this' yelled his father. His mother perplexed by the whole situation wondered the same. What could have gotten her son into this sort of trouble.

Banney explained the whole situation. About how he met Ahmed in the hills and they got the crazy idea to publish a collection of stories, which was the reason he came back early to

Lucknow and not the lie he told them about wanting to be in a warmer climate after England.

With dinner already ruined, he told them what the stories were about and confessed to using the money his father had given to publish them. The jar was empty. The beans spilled.

The funny thing was his father did not have time to be upset. The radio carried news about protests in Lucknow over the release of this small book. Muslims were at rage about the profanity of Angare and how it mocked their religion. About two hundred of them got together and burned copies of the pamphlet, shouting 'Allah Wahakbar' 'Allah is Great.'The British who had gotten hold of a copy and translated it deemed it as an act of treason. The matter had become grave.

Without Sajjad's consent or approval, his father booked him a ticket back to England. The flight left the next morning. No ordinary person could have gotten a seat at this time. He had only managed by calling a few friends and paying a little extra money, one of the perks of being from that class. Banney said or did nothing in retaliation. He yearned to stay, fearing that there was even a chance that his parents will not be safe, that something dangerous would happen in

Lucknow which he would feel the guilty for causing and not suffering it. Most of all he wanted to

65 stay to see Rashida again. What would happen to her he wondered if matters became serious?

What if something was happening to her right now. Who was there to protect her? Did she have any place to go?

Sajjad left Lucknow early the next morning knowing nothing about her and trying harder to know less.

66 Chapter 4: Translating the Nation

In 1934, thirty two Indian students convened at the back room of a Chinese restaurant on

London's Denmark Street to discuss the political, economic, social and cultural situation of India.

Drawing inspiration from the literary activism of European writers and intellectuals against the spread of fascism, these students wanted to create their own group of Indian writers and fashion a project of progress for India. There they laid down the basic objectives of the group and began work on a manifesto. After numerous revisions and edits with Sajjad Zaheer, Mulk Raj Anand prepared a final version of this document, that was read over Chinese food.

Between 1935 and 1939 three versions of AIPWA's manifesto were published. The first, drafted by Zaheer and Anand, was printed in the English magazine The Left Review in 1936. The second, a Hindi version, was printed in Hans, a journal run by the famous Hindi and Urdu writer, the doyen of Indian literature, Munshi Premchand. Although this text did appear earlier, the basis for its translation is the original English document. The third version was first presented at the

Second AIPWA conference in 1938, which came two years after the first one, held in Lucknow.

By this time the movement had gained momentum, and had according to Carlo Coppola,

“reached the zenith of its power.” (Coppola , 1968 ch.5 pg 1) Multiple more versions would be presented and enacted by the group throughout its lifetime.

The three avatars of this document reveal the ideological shifts AIPWA underwent in its initial stages. Implicit in them are two sets of changes. The first from The Left Review to the

Hans, the second from The Left Review to the one presented at the Second conference. As the writers moved back to India they grew more aware and perceptive of the reality at home. For this reason, and to attract a larger following, the group adapted their philosophy, most vividly articulated in the manifestos.

67 Useful in trying to understand the relationship of this group to the West and the sophistication of this bond is the work of two postcolonial theorists. First, Homi Bhabha's theorization of “mimicry,” the tendency of the colonized to imitate and mimic the colonizer, will be helpful in trying to answer whether this group was in fact taking on the appearance of British or Western culture. By combining Bhabha's work on mimicry with Chaterjee's formulation of the public and private sphere, it will be easier to see both the origin and trajecotry of AIPWA's conception of progress.

In consideration of these theoretical insights, this essay argues that the trouble and effort of this group in formulating a clear definition of “progressive” and what constitutes it, shows that the progressive were attempting to create an 'original' Indian project. The word 'original' is used here for two reasons. First because as Bhabha has shown, trying to recover an authentic culture in its entirety is impossible and so it cannot be called 'authentic.' (Bhabha, 1994; 86) Second, because the ideas the accumulated in Europe and transported back to the colony they realized had to be merged with 'Indian' ones, one of which was uniting under the goal of independence. While the actions of AIPWA may not be regarded as authentic, in toning down the sharpness of their initial ideas they were successful in fashioning their own, “original,” Indian project.

Three years after the founding on the AIPWA and immediately after their second national meeting, Mulk Raj Anand published an essay looking back on the failures and success of the group. In this piece he asserts “It is a measure of the understanding of the implications of the manifesto by our members not only in their critical elaborations but in the creative work of the last two years that the general output of our writers has increased and a few vital things have been thrown up whose significances will come to be appreciated more fully as time goes on.” (Anand,

1939, 3) As the chief actor behind the framing and articulation of the manifestos nobody better

68 than Anand understands the importance of this piece in uniting this group of writers. For him, it is the firm understanding of the principles presented in the manifesto by Indian authors was the principle reason why the movement was able to achieve the success it did until 1939.

But the argument is more complicated than this. Alterations had been made to the manifesto since members of the group returned to India. What this suggests that the group did encounter obstacles when attempting to instigate their conception of 'progress' at home. The original ideas they conceived of in London could not take flight in India and so the group had to render them appropriate for the Indian situation. To Anand's argument, that the group was formed by the manifesto, one must also add the necessary corollary that the manifesto was created and re- created by the group. The work the founders put into changing this piece is as important as the effect of the manifesto and it's ability to attract a larger membership.

When the group initially met in London, they all agreed on starting the movement as quickly as possible in India. Sajjad Zaheer possessed many contacts, but it is unclear as to whether he was in communication with the other authors of Angare. Through a friend of his father's, he managed to get permission from Premchand to publish the group's manifesto in his Hindi journal

Hans. Four months after Anand and Zaheer produced a finished product it was sent to India. The

Hindi translation thus appeared in print the English original. The English version was first made available to the public through The Left Review in a year later. This same edition was read out at the first AIPWA conference in 1936.

In comparing the original English draft and the Hindi translation one encounters a significant number of differences. Carlo Cappola, who translated the Hans version into English remarks

'The term “radical changes” of the Left Review version is translated into Hindi as “bari bari tabdiliyan,” which suggests large and numerous changes but does not

69 convey the sense of “radical,” not does it approximate this meaning. Similarly of the Left Review manifesto which speaks of “spiritual reaction,” is not included in the Hans version, nor is the statement regarding Indian literature's “furitive and sentimental attitude towards sex”... “Obsession” as used in the Left Review version in not conveyed in the Hans translation as “bhar-mar,” or “excess” (Cappola, 1975)

The “radical” language and cadence of the original English, as Cappola suggests has been compromised in the Hindi version. Their original version is a much starker, crystallized and truly

“radical” vision. The version published in Hans is much more watered down and opaque, with the sense of clarity and urgency vividly portrayed in The Left Review displaced. One can then only imagine the impact these changes had on the initial interest Indian writers and admirers of literature alike in this group. It is, in fact, an interesting area of speculation as to whether AIPWA would have generated the initial support it had attempted to launch itself in India with a translation closer to the original.

It was Premchand's translator who was responsible for making these alterations. But why did he choose do so? There is no information about the person himself, his background or political affiliations. However, what one can infer from the changes is that in his perspective India was not ready for the mode of thinking AIPWA members shared in Europe. This need of the translator to alter the language of the manifesto, to dub it more acceptable for the Indian public reveals that the thirty to thirty five students who first got together in London had a different understanding of the

Indian condition. Having spent the last few years in Europe, their outlook, perspective and understanding of both the world and India was impacted by the literary, political, economic and social thinking of the metropole. It is probable then that the translator sought it necessary to tame the sharp formulation of a progressive philosophy stated in the original manifesto.

In addition to Premchand, Zaheer sent the groups manifesto to Dr. K.M. Ashraf, an influential member of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and lecturer at Aligarh, and the other

70 three members of the Angare quartet: Mahmuduzazafar, now a professor of English at Anglo

Oriental Colelge, Rashid Jahan, who married Mahmuduzzafar during this time, and Ahmed Ali, who was also teaching English at Allahabad University.(Cappola, 1975) Upon returning to India,

Zaheer traveled first to Allahabad University where he expressed to students and professors alike his desire to start an Indian Progressive Writers Association. His idea found admiration amongst people from both groups including the poet Firaq Gorakhpuri, Vice Chancellor Amarnath Jha and

Tara Chand, a professor of history and expert on the Hindi-Urdu language controversy. In

December, the Hindustani Sabha, “an organization which sought to popularize Hindustani, a neutral form of the language which was neither “High Hindi” not “High Urdu,” met in

Allahabad.”(Cappola, 1975) Zaheer attended the event where he met Premchand along with

Maulana Abdul Haq and Josh Malihabadi, two other giants of Urdu literature. He showed the later two a copy of the manifesto which both of them, agreeing with its principles, were content to sign.

Eager to create AIPWA, Zaheer traveled throughout India setting up centers in major cities. In his opinion the best way for the group to expand was by employing this tactic.

Premchand originally disagreed with him, suggesting that the best manner to proceed was by establishing provincial branches, but he eventually acceded to Zaheer's idea. In his travels Zaheer passed through Aligarh, Calcutta and Hyderabad. The most successful of his journeys was to the

Punjabi capitals, Amritsar and Lahore. Amongst others who joined the movement were figures like

Faiz Ahmed Faiz, who at the time was a lecturer of English at that time and Sufi Ghulam Mustafa

Tabassum, an established poet and future secretary of the Lahore group. Even Muhammad Allama

Iqbal, who was eventually lauded as the national poet of Pakistan, offered his support to the group. The encouraging responses motivated Zaheer to organize the first all-India conference as soon as he could.

71 The first AIPWA meeting was held on the 9th and 10th of April, 1936 in Lucknow. The location and timing of the the event was specifically chosen so that it would coincide with the

Indian National Congress's meeting. The group wanted the presidential address to be given by

Jawaharlal Nehru, but this ambition never materialized. Zaheer then asked Premchand if he would be willing to deliver this message and become the group's president. Premchand was reluctant at first and given his old age it was no surprise. In a letter to Zaheer he responded to his offer saying

As regards to my presidentship, I am not fit for it. I do not say this out of humility, but I actually find myself weak. Mr Kanaialal Munshi would be a better person than myself, or even Dr. Zakir husain. Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru will be too busy; otherwise, he would be the best one. At this time everyone will be intoxicated with politics and few will be interested in literature. But we have to say something. If Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru shows an interest in it, the meeting will be a successful one. (quoted from Carlo Cappola, 1975)

However, after little pleading he accepted Zaheer's offer and unexpectedly arrived at the conference, prompt and ready with his speech that he edited on the way over form the train station. Zaheer fondly recalls this moment in his biography of the movement titled Roshnai.8

The train was scheduled to arrive at 9 am, and we had planned to leave for the railway station at 8:30. It was eight o'clock and we were having tea when we hear a [horse-driven] carriage enter the gate. A servant informed me that a gentleman had just arrived and was calling me outside. When I went out, I found Premchand and another person standing in the veranda outside. For a moment, I was overcome by astonishment and embarrassment. But before I could say anything, Premchand said, laughing, “It took us ages to find your house. We have been going around in circles.” Just then Rasheeda came out, and together we offered explanations and apologies. It turned out that our information about the time for the train's arrival had been incorrect; that from the first of April, the time had been changed to an hour earlier. But now it was Premchand who began to apologize. (Zaheer, 1996, 58)

The speech that Premchand delivered on the opening day of the conference, is not only one of the

8 Zaheer wrote this book during his tenure in jail. He, along with Faiz Ahmed Faiz was falsely tried for treason on the grounds that they had planned and were going to execute a plot to oust Liaquat Ali Khan, the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Roshai was written entirely through memory without any documents and so at times falters in chronological accuracy, which Zaheer warns about at the beginging. Although Roshnai means Ink in Urdu, the English translation published in 2006 by Amina Azfar is called The Light: A History of the Movement for Progressive Literature in the Indi-Pakistan Subcontient.

72 most important documents to emerge from this event, but also one of the major pieces of the progressive movement. Zaheer said of it that “nothing better to date has been written in connection with the progressive literary movement in our country.” (Zaheer, 1996; 123) The substance is deft as it manages to highlight the literary, political and social problems of India and addresses some of the issues that the movement would face in its history. Most importantly it seeks to define “progressive literature” and so can be read as an equally important tenet of their ideology. For this reason it deserves a critical eye.

He begins by saying that this moment is a “memorable occasion in the history of Indian literature.” (Premchand, 1960; 234) He then says that Indian literature of the past has generally confined the purpose of their work to artistic and aesthetic merit. The pitfalls of many of India's great writers is that they have only been occupied with language as an end in itself. But this process was at the same time necessary because “until language is pure and steady it cannot express fine or powerful feelings.” (Premchand, 1960; 234) In the same vein as Western and

Indian critics of the period, Premchand argued that because writers were depending on patrons, the literature India's authors produced depicted the attitudes and sentiments of those for whom it was written. Thus far, India's great literature had only catered to the upper class. The India of the

1930s was experiencing a 'period of decline” where people “either indulged themselves in sexual passion or lost themselves in spiritualism and renunciation.” He affirmed

The sole purpose of these writings was to entertain and to satisfy out lust for the amazing. It was a delusion to think that literature had any connection with life; a story and life was life; both there considered contradictory to each other. Poets were also dominated by the notion of individualism. The ideal of love satisfied lust and that of beauty contented the eyes. (Premchand, 1960; 236)

Premchand held a drastically different opinion in regard to literature, which he defines as

“the criticism of life...whether in the form of an essay, story or poems, the chief function of

73 literature is to present an honest and critical view of life.” The words “function” and “honest” are particularly interesting. 'Function' denotes that Premchand took a utilitarian view of literature, that it had a purpose, a role in every society. “Honest” implies that only that literature which accurately, realistically depicts reality can be considered good literature.

That literature which does not rouse our good taste, does not provide us with a spiritual and mental satisfaction, does not produce activity and strength in us, which does not awaken our life for the beautiful , which does not produce in us resolution and the determination to achieve victory over difficulties, that literature is useless today; it does not deserve to be called literature...It [literature] tries to awaken this love of beauty in man. No man is impressionable to beauty. A writer's creation is impressive to the extent to which this quality is alive and active in him. Due to his keen observation of nature and his incisive impressions [the writer's] aesthetic sense becomes so refined that whatever is ugly, ignoble and devoid of human qualities becomes intolerable to him. He attacks this with the full force of works and feelings at his command. It could be said that he is wedded to humaneness, virtue and nobility. To support and plead for the oppressed, suffering and destitute, whether an individual or group is his duty. (Premchand, 1960; 238-9)

This lengthy quote succinctly summaries Premchand's position on literature. For him, the writer must illustrate the tragedies of India, bring to life that which is horrid, and address the diseases the nation is suffering from. In portraying this reality, the writer will participate in the struggle remedy the ills of their country, and improve the human condition. A writer does not choose to adopt this attitude towards literature, but in choosing to be a writer he or she agrees to be “progressive.”

A litterateur or an artist is, by nature progressive. He probably would not have been a litterateur if this were not his nature. He feels inadequacy inside as well as outside himself. He must remain restless in order to fulfill this deficiency. He does not perceive the individual and society in those conditions of happiness and freedom in which he wants to see them in his imagination. For this reason, he always feels dissatisfied with the present mental and social conditions. He wants to end these disgusting conditions so that the world would become a better place to live in and die in. (Premchand, 1960; 242-3)

He then moves on to describe in detail what he means by “progress.”

By progress we mean that situation which generates [in us] the firmness and

74 capacity to perform duty, which shows us our degradation, which shows us that due to various internal and external causes, we have reached this condition of death and decline and must strive to remove them. (Premchand, 1960; 243)

So progress for him is not a specific outlook of this world, a philosophy one adopts. Instead it is an innate capacity, a built in trait. Everybody, not only writers are progressive and contribute their labor towards creating progress. It is the duty of the writer to illuminate those aspects of out society that are causing degradation. This art which does not place “importance [on] egoism and individual perspective,” and so represents the society at large, is progressive.

In order to create this progress Premchand asserts “We will have to change out standards of beauty. Till now our standards of beauty were based on those of wealth and luxury. Our artist wished to remain tied to the apron strings of the rich.” (Premchand 1960; 246) Writers must escape that ivory tower which they have so long lived in. Instead of living in isolation and writing for those in power, they must strive to get in touch with the masses of India, the population that has so long been excluded from Indian literature. So the writer not only has a purpose in bringing to light the perils of their culture, but also making their art accessible to all of their people, especially those it has traditionally ignored.

This blame can only be attributed to artist's narrow conception of what constitute art and beauty. Previously art mean “worship of form, word scheme, and novel similes.” (Premchand

1960; 247) This type of art has

...no ideal, no lofty purpose of life. Worship, renunciation, spiritualism, and retreating from the world are its most exalted imagination. According to out artists opinion these are the ultimate aims of life...He does not believe that it is possible for beauty to exist in starvation and nakedness. For him, beauty is a beautiful woman – not a poor woman who lacks beauty, sweats in the fields as she puts her child to sleep on the bare earth nearby. (Premchand 1960; 247)

Part of creating progress will be changing the definition of beauty. He argues that one must change what Indian writers have historically, traditionally regarded as beautiful to incorporate

75 other elements. Beauty cannot only entice feelings of pleasure, it can also be found in the sadder moments of history, in “disheveled hair, dry, parched lips, and withered cheeks.” (Premchand

1960; 247) When the standard of beauty expands it will bring about feelings of “idealism, courage and self-sacrifice.” (Cappola, 1975) He concludes the speech saying that this new literature of the

Progressives “must give us a goal; it must make us alive; it must make us think.” and most importantly “should not put us to sleep, for further slumber will mean death.” (Premchand, 1960;

253)

Apart from this speech, a second document emerged from this conference that elaborated progressive ideology. The Lucknow manifesto, a reworking of the earlier manifesto prepared in

London was presented by Zaheer at the event. Aside from “the difference of a few words” Zaheer instsists there is little that separates the London manifesto and the one presented at the first

AIPWA convention.

The Declaration of the Progressive Writers Association was also put before the conference and was unanimously approved. There was only a difference of a few words between the first draft which had been prepared in London in the beginning and this resolution. These changes, which were submitted by the Maharashtrian delegates, were all approved. (Zaheer, Roshnai; 71)

However, a careful analysis of these two pieces reveals that there is a greater difference than that

“of a few words.” Again this work will rely on Carlo Cappola's translation of the Urdu Lucknow

Declaration which he says has been done as literally as possible. (Cappola, 1975)

Similar to its Hindi counterpart, the Urdu version also contains the same vague and opaque articulation. According to Cappola, the difference between these two versions is even greater than that between the London version and that printed in Hans. (Cappola, 1975) 'Radical' is again translated as 'Great.' Unlike the London manifesto, it neglects to mention that “fixed ideas and old beliefs, social and political institutions are being challenged.” This is a particularly

76 important point because in doing so they neglect to mention that there was already a trend of progressivism present in India. Although they later mention “new progressive tendencies which are emerging,” it does not state that they were in existence in India at that moment. But did they purposely ignore saying this, to make the audience and future members think that AIPWA would herald progressivism in India?

Another note of stark contrast between the two pieces is that the version presented in

Lucknow gives more liberty to the writer in defining 'progress.' Where as in London they thought that writers “should give dress of words and form to the existent changes in Indian life,” the

Lucknow manifesto allows the writer to “interpret those new progressive tendencies.” The reason behind doing so, lay in the motivation to attract a larger crowd, instead of formulate a coherent ideology. In lieu of defining their principles and assembling a membership according to them,

AIPWA purposefully blunted their ideology to generate a greater following. The clarification of certain principles mentioned in the manifesto would later cause the decline of the group, most starkly manifested as what Ahmed Ali termed as the split between the 'political' and 'literary' wing of the movement.

Also worthy of mention is how the Lucknow manifesto is completely devoid of any sign of “the mystical devotional obsession” of Indian literature, “its furitive and sentimental attitude towards sex” and “its emotional exhibitionism.”' From that paragraph, the only statement that carries over to Lucknow is the “lack of rationality,” arguably the least offensive of the lot.

Interestingly enough the later manifesto does not state that the worst aspects of Indian literature were nurtured most successfully during England's colonization of India.

Unlike the six resolutions formulated in London, the Lucknow document contains only four. The most important of these omissions is the second one; “To co-operate with those literary

77 organizations whose aims do not conflict with the basic aims of the Association.” This sentence was written with the purpose of having the group cooperate in the United Front effort as envisioned by the Seventh Comintern of 1935. Cappola suggests that this was a defensive move by the group who, in their initial stages, were more interested in gaining momentum not affiliations.

It would seem that perhaps the organizers did not want to state their 'united front' attitude so specifically; in fact, they did not mention it, but, again, preferred to effect the same end by different means. These means were the revamping of the whole manifesto in less radical language to get a more widely based organization, the very aim for which resolution 2 was written. The organizers did not need to state their intention specifically; for, by “deradicalizing” their earlier London manifesto, they shifted its emphasis to having Indian writers work toward a goal which they all – regardless of their political, linguistic, religious or social disposition – could agree on: independence from Britain. (Cappola, 1975)

While he is correct in saying that independence from Britain was a common goal that would unite Indian writers, it is contentious to argue that the “deradicalization” of the earlier manifesto occurred because of India's anti-colonial ambition. There was a greater force that motivated the decision to reword this particular part. In her book Literature and Politics in the

Age of Nationalism: The Progressive Episode in South Asia, 1932-56, Talat Ahmed argues that although it is hard to judge what exactly prompted these alterations, what one can be sure of is that members of the group were more themselves in Europe. It is worth quoting her at length.

It is difficult to ascertain exactly what lay behind these changes. What is undeniable is the fact that exposure to radical currents within the literary world in London an Paris would have emboldened Indian writers to be more forthright in their own thinking. In addition, distance from home meant they were not subject to the same social pressures as experienced by those writers in India. In London, linguistic or religious differences amongst the small Indian community would have seemed immaterial compared to their status as Indians and the cohesion this would have engendered. This situation was more likely to produce a dynamic and daring response when drafting the manifesto and its tasks. (Ahmed, 2009, 21)

Her argument suggests that there was more behind rewording the manifesto than just making the

78 primary goal of the association be independence from Britain. In Ahmed's understanding, the progressives felt more at home in Europe and so the manifesto drafted in London is a more accurate representation of their actual desires. When moving back to India and changing the manifesto, the group sacrificed many of their original ambitions formed in Europe, to more appropriately suit the Indian condition. The time this group spent abroad clearly had the strongest impact on their thinking.

Were the ideas they wanted to bring with them from London then too Western or foreign for India?Could the changes made to the manifesto resemble the trouble this group had in translating the idea of progress they elaborated in Europe back to India? Such a theory is likely.

First because the translator from English to Hindi amended the document to suit the Indian condition out of his own free will. Being the translator for the journal run by one of India's most renowned authors he, whoever he was, must have been in tune with the literary and political trends of the period. He altered the language so that the movement could establish a broader base.

Secondly, although they changed the original manifesto by dulling its language, it was changed multiple times later by the group to more closely resemble the original version. Could it be that the Progressives did not read the Indian situation as appropriately for implementing their ideology of “progress?” Even Cappola, who hesitates to make such a claim, argues that Premchand

“echoed sentiments discussed by other Western critics,' proving there was support for their original ideas at home.” (Cappola 1986, 25)

Or is it the case that the western attitude of the students who first convened in London, could never take flight in at home because they were in fact “Western” ideas, and so suitable only for European social, economic, political and cultural climate? Rather, is there the possibility of a third theory, which does not read the various notions of progress inside the typical framework of

79 the “East” and “West” binary, so they become neither 'European' nor 'Indian', 'traditional' or foreign' ideas, but can be understood as universal, humanist ideals that the progressives modified to fall under the greater, more active desire for independence.

In his book, The Location of Culture Homi Bhabha lays out his formulation of mimicry.

Drawing from a deep knowledge of colonial and postcolonial literature, Bhabha argues that mimicry emerges as a tendency in the colonized to imitate the actions, dresses, lifestyle, language and customs of the colonizer. In the context of colonialism, mimicry is seen as a optimistic pattern of behavior, as the colonized think that by mimicking power, they will have access to that same power themselves. (Bhabha, 1994; 84)

But mimicry emerges as a more complex phenomenon than this. It is also the “desire for a reformed, recognizable Other, as a subject of difference that is almost the same but not quite.”

(Bhabha, 1994; 86) Thus mimicry operates and thrives on a platform of nonnegotiable difference.

While the colonized will constantly try to be like the colonizer and continue to replace positions of power with their own people, they will never have the ability to be exactly like their colonizer and appear only as “partially” recognizable. Thus the “discursive process by which the excess or slippage produced by the ambivalence of mimicry (almost the same, but not quite)...becomes transformed into an uncertainty which fixes the colonial subject as a “partial” presence.”(Bhabha,

86)”

However the recognition of the colonized as only “partial” beings re legitimizes and reinstates colonial authority. “In this comic turn from the high ideals of the colonial imagination to its low mimetic literary effects mimicry emerges as one of the elusive and effective strategies of colonial power and knowledge.”(Bhabha, 85) Mimicry arose not only out of the failure of the colonized to imagine another situation where they would be able to hold power, but also out of its

80 use as a brilliant strategy for domination. It's rhetoric was forked not only because it said that the

colonized were the same but not quite, but also because it convinced the colonized they could

attain power while the colonizers retained all their authority.

The final irony of mimicry according to Bhabha, is that it refuses the colonized any degree

of authenticity. While the colonized are always searching for authenticity, they find it impossible to

encounter and lay claim to other categories not their own, like the nation, as something that

belongs to them. This desire to fashion an authentic, Indian project only repeats the partial

presence that is the basis of mimicry. In doing to the colonized feed back into the “narcissistic

demand of colonial authority” and recreate the already existing social, political, economic and

cultural reality. (Bhabha, 1994; 88) Nothing that emerges is truly their own.

How does one read the progressives in regard to mimicry? It is clear that they did not

mimic the colonizer in the traditional manner, of wanting an independent nation but only to

continue running it the way the British did, replacing the white ruler with a brown one. They

stood for a more radical approach, directed initially and more so later, by a firm belief in Marxism.

While in Europe, the group's members flirted with Marxist literary circles. In Reminisces where

Sajjad Zaheer reflects back upon the initial stages of the movement, he says both he and his

friends

Were gradually drifting towards socialism. Our minds searched for a philosophy which would help us understand and solve the different social problems. We were not satisfied with the idea that humanity had always been miserable and would also remain so. We read Marx and other socialist writers with great enthusiasm, solved the historical and philosophical problems through mutual discussion. Our minds became clear and out hearts contented. (Zaheer, 1952, 49)

Clearly there was a strong streak of Marxism present in the founding of this group. As stated earlier, they originally planed on making the movement part of the United Front. So then could their actions still be read as mimicry? It was not that they were mimicking the social

81 doctrines of the colonizer. Socialism was never the doctrine of Britain's colonization and so one may argue that the progressives were not mimicking the colonizer.

But Marx was a product of the West. His ideas were very strongly grounded in a

European and Orientalist understanding of India. For him, British policy, despite its ruthless attitude was bringing progress to India. In his first piece on the 1857 Revolt, what he called “The

First Indian War of Independence” he ends by saying “The question is, can mankind fulfill its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social state of Asia? If not, whatever may have been the crimes of England she was the unconscious tool of history in bring about that revolution.”(Marx, 25) Evidently for Marx, as long as a foreign power impregnates social revolution in their subject, the rest remains insignificant.

If in mimicking, according to Bhabha one mimics the “reformed, recognizable other,” then the progressives were not actually mimicking. As socialism, unlike capitalism and earlier mercantalism, was not an ideological pillar of the British Raj, the “other” that Indians imagined was not the same as would come about if an empire was created under a socialist banner. The argument here is not that Marxism is not a form of mimicry. No, if the Raj was a socialist organization then the progressives would be mimicking. However, because they were mimicking their colonizer and the economic, political, social and cultural doctrines it exercised, the actions of the progressives cannot be read as mimicry.

The progressives may have not mimicked the colonizer in the typical manner, but that does not mean that they were imagining an “original” form of the nation. As Chaterjee suggested, even the way the colonized imagine the nation is itself colonized. They are restricted to following theories of the nation exported by Europe, as nationalism itself was a product of Europe. What this group had to offer, however, was a rich and diverse array of different ways of imagining an

82 independent India. At its peak, AIPWA had about 3200 members, consisting of authors from all parts of India. Not many literary movements can boast such a statistic. It attracted the greatest poets and writers from around the nation, and grew to become an important player in the movement for independence. Though AIPWA may have been caught in the trap of mimicry, they added color to the ambivalence that arises through mimicry. They tried to make their ideas neither

'Indian' nor 'European,' but progressive, humanist and universal.

Contrary to Zaheer's remark, multiple changes were made to the London version to create

the Lucknow one. The later version, read aloud by Zaheer at the first AIPWA conference, is rife

with the word “interpret.” “It is the duty of Indian writers to interpret those new progressive

tendencies. 'The purpose of our association is to liberate literature and the other fine arts from the

fatal grasp of the conservatives, and making them the interpreter of the suffering and happiness

and the struggle of people.” “We will interpret every such sentiment as may show the path of a

new and better life in our country.” (Lucknow Manifesto, Pradhan, 1979; 35) The appearance of

this specific word multiple times suggests that the progressives actually wanted to keep some

aspects of tradition alive. The manner in which it is used, asks people who join the movement to

themselves judge and “interpret” from India what is good, and bring these out into the new

'public' realm, that the association seeks to create. The change of words from the original Left

Review to the Lucknow version shows that the Progressives did want to bring tradition and

elements of the “private sphere'”into their movement. While the historical relationship of literature

to society must be changed as Premchand argued, the group would still hold on to some of their

traditional values.

In essay by Mulk Raj Anand mentioned at the beginning of this piece, the author, aside

from stressing the importance of the manifesto also writes about the group's history and

83 philosophy. In it he says that what the progressives essentially sought to do was “reorient their traditional values and their more self conscious styles to suit a modern society.” (Anand, 1939, 3)

The success of the progressives lay in their ability to take elements from both their 'Western' experience and their 'Eastern' birth, to create an 'original' anti-colonial project. The trouble the had in trying to finalize their ideology reflects the difficulty encountered in 'reorienting their traditional values for their 'modern society.'” (Anand, 1939, 3)

84 Chapter 5: When Lines are Drawn

Thus far, from the publishing of Angare to their first conference in Lucknow, the All India

Progressive Writers Association (members who existed during its various stages till Lucknow

1936), had faced a significant amount of trouble in establishing a definition, for what they meant by the word 'progressive.' The manifesto, from its original in London, had been amended by

Premchand's translator when transported to India. This Hindi version in comparison to the original printed in the Left Review was timid in comparison, and void of the radicalness articulated in the original manifesto. This tailored translation, stitched and hemmed to the unknown translator's own reading of the India, expressed a different flavor of 'progressive' than it's authors had penned in actuality.

The version read aloud by Zaheer at the first Indian AIPWA meeting in 1936, told those who gathered there to themselves look for and judge what it meant to be 'progressive.' The greatest Urdu and Hindi short story writer Premchand, delivered the event's best speech where he argued that by “progress we mean that situation which generates [in us] the firmness and capacity to perform duty, which shows us our degradation, which shows us that due to various internal and external causes, we have reached this condition of death and decline and must strive to remove them.” (Premchand, 1960; 243) Progress for him is that spirit which, after gaining an understanding of the wrongs of this world, causes you to act upon them. The other important document presented at this conference, the third version of their manifesto, asked the writers themselves to “interpret the new progressive tendencies” and “give dress of words and form to the existent changes in India life.”

Between this first meeting and the partition of the sub continent the most important and defining event was the Second World War. When the war broke out in 1939, AIPWA continued to

85 sport a vague definition of 'progress,' but were reaching out to people through the banner of independence. Despite the fact that the British were fighting a war against fascism, an ideology both Zaheer and Anand openly and strongly ahorred, the group did not change their attitude with regard to anti-colonialism. For them the logic behind this move was contradictory, as the English still ruled over India, and were trying hard to hold on the “jewel of the crown.”

Although the association did not place precedence over the beginning of the second world war, when Germany broke their non-aggression pact with the USSR, AIPWA immediately convened to rethink and re frame their definition of 'progressive.' That they responded to the outbreak of war against the Soviet Union and convened to discuss again what it meant to be

'progressive,' says a lot in itself about the group's political outlook. While earlier they had managed to succeed in India by advocating a vague and broad definition of 'progressive,' where it meant what one wanted it to as long as it agreed with independence, the progressives, rather abruptly 'clarified their scattered ideas.' (Zaheer, 1940; 27)

In 1937 AIPWA held a national meeting in Allahabad. The main event, a speech that was supposed to be delivered by Maulana Abdul Haq or Baba-e-Urdu (father of Urdu), was unfortunately read out by someone else as he himself was unable to make it to the event. Haq was arguably the most important Muslim intellecutal in India during the decade before partition. By the time of the meeting he had established himself as the foremost Urdu literary critic of India. He wrote on numerous subjects, as vast as politics, philosophy, Islam, science, linguistics and history.

The subject of his essay at the conference, was similar to that of Premchand's speech at the first conference; what is the position of progressive literature in regard to earlier writing?

A harsh stance was presented by some in regard to “traditional” literature, particularly

Ahmed Ali who said that resorting back to this literature was “cry back to the Vedas, which in fact

86 means a retrogressive movement into a once bumpy past is thoroughly baseless and untenable. It is impossible to go back to the past or to revive its atmosphere.” What Haq attempts to do is find a compromise between the two forms of literature in his piece. (Sadiq, 1947) One of the first points he makes in his piece is that while the progressives do not necessarily have to adopt trends from past literature, they should still study this literature to learn what it's mistakes were.

It is possible that in some sphere of life total destruction and devastation may be useful; that is, unless everything old is uprooted, no new movement can prosper. In this connection the example generally given is that of an old, run-down house. Unless it is entirely destroyed, no new construction can take place. It is possible that this simile is correct in some instances. In the case of literature, it cannot be fully applied.(Azmi 56)

While Haq acknowledges that destruction is perhaps part of progress, it is not a necessary step.

Doubtless you will have to produce a new style, new ideas in literature; many old, harmful ideas and superstitions will have to be uprooted, dry branches will have to be clipped away and withered branches, having been watered, can only be revitalized, the roots of the tree, having been spread with compost and watered, can only be made to blossom so that new buds and new leaves will burst forth. But if you cut the tree at its roots, then where is the chance for it to do anything? We should certainly derive benefit from the work and toil of our predecessors as far as it is needed. We must set the foundations for such a literature which may produce a freshness in our life and conform to our modern necessities. Then those future generations can modify and change these according to the new necessities and conditions. This procedure should continue thereafter. (Azmi 56-57)

The metaphor of a literature being a tree, as something that has been growing through human nourishment and care is a very apt choice. The art produced by a society will change according to the tastes of the new generation. As previous generations have not detached themselves completely from their predecessors, it would not be smart to do so. Instead of distancing oneself from the past, progressive writers should change the past to suit the present.

He goes on expressing this train of thought.

The idea that everything connected with the previous age is vitiated by reactionsism

87 is not correct. We should not break our link with the past just because we have advanced. Doing this is tantamount to cutting our roots. We are the heirs of the past and if an heir is oblivious of his past and not aware of it to the fullest extent, than however intelligent, active and revolutionary he may be, he can neither effect any reform, not can he himself derive any benefit [from the past]...What things are to be abandoned and what means are necessary to elevate literature to a high position? If we are not aware of the beauty and ugliness of what we have inherited, then what shall be reformed and what kind of revolution will take place? ...We are not only answerable to our present, but also our future. Therefore, we should engage ourselves in every sphere of life; it is out duty to see what the effects of our action and deeds will be on future generations, because in the future the condemnation and criticism of our wok will be based on this very principle.

In Haq's opinion, the writer is as much of a product of the past as they are of the present.

While the present may have a greater effect on the writer, the present itself is a product of the past and so is the writer as well. This underlying logic of cause and effect runs throughout the rest of his speech. But his basic argument remains the same; to be progressive and/or revolutionary, one has to sieve through their past and decide what they want to keep and what they choose to discard. He ended on an encouraging note, expressing his admiration at the hardship and determination of this group of writers, comparing them to the Encyclopediasts of eighteenth- century France who also suffered in their purpose, but refused to shy away from their goal.

The Second All India Conference of the Progressive Movement was held in 1938. Two years and nine months had passed since the first meeting in Lucknow and at this one in Calcutta.

Tagore was supposed to speak once again but failed to attended due to his frail condition and bad health. Multiple Urdu authors attended including Zaheer and Ahmed Ali. Other attendees included the prolific short story writer, Krishan Chander, who wrote in both Hindi and Urdu. Chander became one of AIPWA's most prolific writers penning over 20 novels and 30 collections of short stories and multiple radio plays. is short story "Annadata" (The Giver of Grain) - an compliant appellation used by Indian peasants for their feudal land-owners, was made into the film Dharti ki

Laal (Children of the Earth) by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, a member of AIPWA's sister organization,

88 the Indian People's Theater Association. Dharti ki Laal became the first Indian film to be screened in the U.S.S.R.

Asrar ul Haq Majaz, known by his pen name Majaz, was also present at this conference.

Majaz became one of the most popular poets of AIPWA. He began his poetry career while still an undergraduate student at Aligarh Muslim University. The school's anthem is a compilation of two of his poems. His poetry was popular amongst the masses and also respected by the literary elite.

One of his most memorable poems is called Inquilab (Revolution) goes:

The rule of capitalism is about to end The passion of the workers revenge is coming to a boil Winds bearing the scent of blood will soon blow from the forests Blood shall soon be flowing everywhere Blood in the huts, the palaces, the night chambers Blood in the desert, in the valley, in the desolation … And on that horizon, amidst a thousand tumults Shall rise the sun of our land's freedom9

Sadly Majaz suffered from alcoholism for much of his life and died at the young age of 44, only eight years after the sun rose on his land's freedom.

Sardar Ali Jafri, who joined AIPWA in 1938 was present. Jafri was borth into an aristocratic family in the the town of Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh. Like Majaz, he too attended

Aligarh, but was expelled after organizing a student strike. He moved to Zakir Hussain College, graduated and went on to get a masters from Lucknow University. Jafri was expelled from there as well for writing anti-War poems and organizing with the Indian National Congress. He attended the first meeting in Lucknow in 1936 and joined the group the same year. In 1939 he became the editor of one of AIPWA's major Urdu journals Naya Adab (New Literature). Many of his poems featured in movies, including Dharti ki Laal. Even after partition Jafri, who chose to

9 Translation by Mir Brothers.

89 stay in India, remained a committed AIPWA member, holding secret meetings for which he was arrested numerous times.

Although not a prominent figure at this point, Faiz Ahmed Faiz also joined AIPWA in it early stages. He was one of Zaheer's major helpers during the recruiting stages of the movement, when Zaheer had just returned from London. Born in Sialkot, the son of a barrister, Faiz studied both Arabic and English literature in his higher education. When he first met Zaheer in 1935, he was professor of English at Muhammedan Anglo-Oriental College in Amritsar. He served in the

British Indian Army during the Second World War and was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant

Colonel in 1944. He became one of the group's most famous and remembered poets and remained a committed Marxist for all his life. Although most of his best work appeared after partition, Faiz was a significant contributor to the movement even before 1947.

However it was the arrival of workers and laborers from the inner city that made this conference an event to remember. Zaheer recalls these moments fondly in Roshnai remarking that at this moment they “observed with pleasure that the representatives of the workers of Calcutta were present in our conference not just as spectators or audience, but that a fairly large number of them were working as organizers, or were participating as delegates to the conference.” (Zaheer,

1996; 144) His recollection of this instance while writing this memoir from prison, resembles his fondness of seeing workers at the International Conference for the Defence of Culture in Paris.

One could see that at least Zaheer, who was the chief organizer of the movement since its inception, was starting to see links between AIPWA's activity and intellectual organizing going on in Europe. In his view, one could really start seeing progress with the progressives despite

“writers being the hardest people to organize.” Which is not to say that Aragon's remark did not in the end prove to be true.

90 Mulk Raj Anand, who planned his arrival back to India from Europe after more than a decade, coordinated it so that he would be able to attended the Calcutta conference. There he was chosen as president of the meeting and presented at the end, another version of the manifesto.

This one, written and presented in English, strongly resembles the one printed in the Left Review.

Contrary to its Lucknow predecessor, the Calcutta version retained a significant part of the

“radical” edge originally present during the London convention. It repeats much of the wording from its earlier counter part; “Radical changes are taking place in Indian society,” “It is the duty of

Indian writers to give expression to the changes taking place in Indian life and assist spirit of progress,” “India must deal with the basic problems of our existence today – the problems of hunger and poverty, social backwardness and political subjugation” etc. However, what separates this piece is that it takes the critique of Indian society and so the definition of “progress” a step further. Here the group appears focused on what exactly they want to question and actually mention tendencies like “family, religion, sex, war and society,” and not only “communalism, racial antagonism and exploitation of man by man,” a line present in all the earlier manifestos.

Compared to the earlier, vague attack on Indian society, this version actually targets specific institutions.

Overall, the second conference was a mixed bag. Zaheer says that it “strengthened the organization further as they became more self confident and enthusiastic about creating the new

Progressive literature.” (Zaheer, 1996; 148) However, the language divide between the authors, became more pronounced during this meeting, as Urdu writers, who composed the bulk of the progressives, had to have the Bengali translated to them and vice versa. Although they had deployed this strategy in their previous meeting, it took up a great deal of time. This prevented them from carrying out critique sessions of more papers that people wanted to read out loud.

91 While journals setup by the provincial branches of the group were being translated into all of

India's languages and distributed throughout the provincial associations, the inability of the progressives to accomplish more during the rare and important all-India sessions hampered their progress as an association.

Ahmed Ali was present at the conference despite becoming disillusioned with the movement. His categorization of the group as a division between the 'literary' and 'political' inclined members led him to believe that the “political” side would be the dominant half and caused his relationship with AIPWA to fracture. Zaheer describes the tension between him and other members of the group, particularly Punjabis, in his memoir. Ali considered the most high ranking people of the group inexperienced and ignorant compared to himself, while they in return regarded his art as shallow and read it with suspicion. (Zaheer, 146)He was convinced that the young members who attended this meeting were getting dragged into a communist illusion, blindly following progressive principles as they became the trend.

It is obviously incorrect to rely solely on Zaheer's account of this instance as the correct version, especially since it was written completely from memory, but there is no other documentation of this interaction at the conference. Particularly at this point in the groups history, where Zaheer and Ali were beginning to go separate ways, one cannot take his account as the final word. This was after all, a battle of egos as well. What caused more friction in the situation between Ali and other writers in the group, was that Ali had switched to writing in English instead of Urdu. At at time when nationalistic sentiments were rife in India, that too in a group who were demanding freedom from the British and trying to carve a niche for themselves inside nationalist politics, switching to writing in English decreased his literary and political merit for the group.

Ahmed Ali left the following year for England, where through the help of E.M. Forster he

92 published his first novel, Twilight in Delhi.

In the time spanning between this meeting and the next all-Indian conference five years later, a lot of work was being done by the writers to expand the group, their ideas and art primarily in the form of journals. The Urdu serial Naya Adab issued its first copy from Lucknow in April 1939. The editors of this publication, two earlier mentioned poets, Ali Sardar Jafri and

Majaz, along with Sibt-i-Hasan ,an eminent Urdu scholar and activist who had just returned from studying at Columbia University, dedicated a handsome amount of time discussing and delimiting the meaning of the word “progressive.”

The editors here were concerned by the word 'progressivism' and its relation to terrorism and destruction, themes that were becoming common in Urdu. (Cappola, 1975) They say:

There is a dangerous tendency among the new writers of the country, who also call themselves 'progressives.” They do worship to the star of destruction. To a large extent the character of the intellectual rebellion of these new writers is destructive. These people appear eager to break at one stroke the magic spell of the art of the old society. There was no constructive program before them, but they have concluded that all of these things of the old society are, in their present station, obstacles to the expansion of their [writers'] individuality and to the growth of their natural talent. (Azmi, 1939; 62)

They issued a similar warning to the one Maulana Abdul Haq gave in his speech in regard to looking back at the past, re-evaluating it and using it towards the creation of a new ideology.

Much alarm was created around the provocative nature of the titles.

Such inflammatory words as Angare [embers], shole [flames], cingari [sparks], ag [fire], sharare [flashes] atish pare [sparks], inqilab [revolution], inqualbi sharare [revolutionary flashes] tufan [storm], khun [blood], bagi [rebel] etc. are being used increasingly. Names of some books by progressive writers have also been of this sort, some newspapers and journals have also started to appear under such names as well. It cannot be denied that all of these books, journals and newspapers are the products of sincere restlessness, quest and non-fulfillment which are surging in the heart of every self-respecting and sensitive Indian; but it cannot be denied either that the destructive aspects of these writers is more apparent than the constructive. Agreed that without the destruction of all the old buildings new ones cannot be erected. But what is accomplished by a destructiveness which does not even leave

93 behind materials for constructivism?10 (Azmi, 1939; 66)

Moving on to actually clarify the location of progressive literature in relation to traditional Indian literature, they write that

It is wrong to say that the term “progressive literature” denotes protest and hatred of all old things. Progressive literature sees all things in their proper perspective and historical background; this very fact is the touchstone of literary achievement. Progressive literature does not break off relations with old literature; it embodies the past traditions of the old literature and constructs new edifices on the foundations of these traditions. In fact, progressive literature alone is the most trustworthy guardian and heir of ancient literature. (Azmi, 1939; 67)

In response to what makes literature progressive they say:

It is wrong to say that the term progressive literature denotes protest and hatred of all old things. Progressive literature sees all things in their proper perspective and historical background; this very fact is the touchstone of literary achievement. Progressive literature does not break off relations with old literature; it embodies the best traditions of the old and constructs new edifices on the foundations of these trust worthy guardian and heir of ancient literature...In our view, progressive literature is that which keeps in view the realities of life; it should be a reflection of these realities; it should investigate them and should be the guide to a new and better life. (Azmi, 1939; 68)

Progressive poets in particular did adopt themes from old literature which they incorporated and used in their poetry. Classical Urdu poetry does have a tradition of dealing with the human condition. Poets like Khusrai, Wali, Mir, Sauda and others spoke compellingly about the state of humanity. Later Ghalib and Iqbal combined social commentary into their work. (Mir, 2006; 36)

However mainstream Urdu poetry remained preoccupied with romance and death. Themes like the Sham'a-parvaana (flame-moth), bulbul-sayyaad (nightingale-hunter), saaghar-jaam-meena

(goblet-wine-flask), and gulbahaar-khizaan (rose-spring-autumn) remained dominant. (Mir, 2006;

36)

They did what Premchand adivsed them in his speech, “to transform the standards of

10 Shole published in 1934 was the title of Ahmed Ali's first collection of Urdu short strories. Gingari was the name of the Communist Party of India sponsored monthly co-edited by Rashid Jahan and Mahmuduzzafar.

94 beauty.” Typical metaphors for the beloved were used with scorn. One of Majaz's compelling couplets reads

From behind the palace rose the yellow moon Looking like the mullah's turban, like the moneylenders ledger11

Another poet, Makhdoom Mohiuddin, a full-time CPI worker, president of the state Railway workers union and leader of the Telegana rebellion wrote:

The stars rise at night upon hearing your name The beauty of morning and evening speak out to you Behold, the bounties of nature pay you homage12

Majrooh Sultanpuri, another great Urdu poet, who became one of Indian cinema's more cherished song writers, transformed the metaphors of beauty, using them instead to represent the revolution.

I am a worker, I am the enemy of darkness My smile is what brings about the new morning The red revolution arrives, that day of brightness dawns Which these eyes have been awaiting for so long Now the earth will sing songs to the beat of the plough Anthems will dance in the valleys The carefree will weave garments of color and fragrance And beauty shall emerge, adorned, from within the factory walls13

In one of his most famous pieces, Faiz utilizes the classical metaphor of the beloved to mean the revolution.

That which then was ours, my love dont ask me for that love again. The world then was gold, burnished with light and only because of you. Thats what I had believed. How could one weep for sorrows other than yours? How could one have any sorrow but the one you gave? So what were these protests, these rumors of injustice? A glimpse of your face was evidence of springtime. The sky, wherever I looked, was nothing but your eyes. If you'd fall into my arms, Fate would be helpless.

All this I'd thought, all this I'd believed. 11 Translation by Mir Brothers 12 Translation by Mir Brothers 13 Translation by Mir Brothers

95 But there were other sorrows, comforts other than love. The rich had cast their spell on history: dark centuries had been embroidered on brocades and silks. Butter threads began to unravel before me as I went into alleys and in open markets saw bodies plastered with ash, bathed in blood. I saw them sold and bought, again and again. This too deserves attention. I can't help but look back when I return from those alleys – what should one do? And you still are so ravishing – what should I do? There are other sorrows in the world, comforts other than love. Dont ask me, my love, for that love again.14

Urdu poets, certainly the largest contingent of AIPWA, were leading the way in changing the manner in which literature had traditionally functioned and transforming it into a vehicle for the long awaited revolution.

Although it has been thinly argued that this definition of 'progressive literature' followed the tract of socialist realism, this is not the case. (Cappola, 1975) While there are allusions made to “realities of life,” the term in this context, is particularly vague. On top of this, the editors of

Naya Adab suggest that they do not want to break off “with old literature” as the progress embodies the “past traditions of the old literature.” (Azmi, 1939; 66) It does not seem reasonable that these three would talk in detail about “traditions” and then subscribe to an ideology that completely ignores their “old literature.” While the group may have later adopted a strong communist and “socialist realist” tendency, this sharp turn did not occur till Germany's invasion of

Russia in 1941.

This edition of Naya Adab, coupled with the next two issues published the same year, became the first systematic publication of works by the group. They reflected the diversity and depth of the movement during its peak years. The second Naya Adab demonstrated a sense of

14 Translation by Agha Shahid Ali

96 internationalism that the movement was trying to infuse in its writers and readers. Published in it was a short story by Ismat Chugtai called Genda (Marigold) and an essay by the communist activist Shafiq Naqvi called Insan ki Qimat (The Price of Man). There was also an essay on modern Chinese literature and a translation of the story “That Boy” by Maxim Gorky. Aside from this there were essays on Muslim poets and a drama by Mahmuduzzafar.

This journal was only the beginning of many publications, in multiple languages, that

AIPWA would launch in the next few years. Sajjad Zaheer's novella London ki ek Rat (A Night in

London) was published in 1938. Written in a stream of consciousness style, the book paints a picture of Indiian students living, studying, partying and talking in London. Zaheer finished the text on his way back from Europe. It is regarded as his best piece of fiction. Aside from Zaheer,

Hayatullah Ansari published a collection of stories, and Majaz a collection of poems called Manzil

(Destination). Poet Josh Malihabadi began a journal called Kalim (Speaker) from Delhi, which was frowned upon by the government. Naya Adab even began an English language publication of the same name but discontinued it after World War II.

When war broke out in Europe between the Allied and Axis forces, AIPWA was at the height of its power. They had established branches all around the country. Multiple journals were made available to progressive writers and the general public through their organization. Novels and poetry collections were being published by various progressive poets. Healthy activity was occurring inside the group. As the British shifted their attention to the struggle at home against fascism, the progressive storm was gaining momentum in India. The launch of the war did not alter the attitude of AIPWA towards the British. There was no reason to realign their opinion of them simply because they had engaged in a European struggle for freedom. What reason was there to fight for the British, when at home they were fighting against them.

97 On September 2nd, 1939, the British viceroy in India declared for India's participation in the war. While AIPWA, in the case of foreign affairs, followed the Soviet Union most closely, here they supported the stance of the Communist International (Comintern), who condemned both

Germany and the Allies for engaging in a war for world domination. (Malik, 1967; 654) The viceroy's call was met with strong opposition from members of AIPWA. Many wrote poems in protest. Ali Sardar Jafri best eloquently captures the inability of progressives to fight for the

British in his piece Jang awr Nazm (War and Poem)

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.15

Another fine poem, articulating the “consternation that Indians were taken to war to fight for a foreign power,whilst their own country needed them to struggle for freedom from that power,” is

Mahdum Mohiuddin's Sipahi (Soldier). (Ahmed, 2009; 90)

Ask the departing soldier Where he is going Who is this distraught woman singing To console her hungry children? The smell of burning corpses; Life shrieks. Ask the departing soldier Where he is going. How frightened the landscape! How the stars move in fear! How youth is being murdered! The edges of the sari are dipped in red. Ask the departing soldier Where he is going. The tent of darkness is falling;

15 Translation by Carlo Cappola

98 My love, dawn is near! O you are leaving your country, The banner of revolution has been unfurled! Ask the departing soldier Where he is going.16

On the 22nd of June, 1941 Hitler broke his non-aggression pact with Stalin and invaded

Russia. This diplomatic breach caused the group to undergo an existential crisis. The group had always been close to the Communist Party of India (CPI). Many members of AIPWA (all of the

Angare quartet except for Ahmed Ali) were card carrying communists, and if not that, then at least ideological believers and supporters of a socialist revolution. When this incident took place, the CPI shifted its position, calling the war the “people's war.” The main enemy was now fascism and any opposition to colonialism had to accommodate that. A month later they changed their position. In a compromise that the Russian part of the war should be supported, but Britain's role in the war should be denounced as an imperial one. Their manifesto declared:

the only way in which the Indian people can help in the just war which the Soviet Union is waging, is by fighting all the more vigorously for their own emancipation from the imperialist yoke. Our attitude towards the British Government and the imperialist war remains what it was...Our campaign is of our support and solidarity with the Soviet Union must be coupled with the exposure of the imperialist hypocrisy of the Churchills and Roosevelts with the demand for the intensification of our struggle for independence. (Deva, 1946; 152-3)

When the CPI changed their stance on the war, Britain changed it's relationship with the party, releasing many of it's members from jail, including Sajjad Zaheer. Zaheer had been in prison for two years. When he and others pleaded for him to at least be detained in his home, the proposal was refused on the grounds that he was too dangerous. Now suddenly he became “first and foremost an “intellectual” communist, and not too much of a practical agitator.” (Zaheer, 1940;

40)

16 Translation by Carlo Cappola

99 On July 14h, 1942 the Indian National Congress (INC) launched it's most decisive battle against Britain. The Congress Working Committee passed a resolution demanding absolute independence from the colonial state. If their demand was not met, they threatened the crown with massive civil disobedience around the country. On August 8th, less than a month later, Gandhi introduced his Quit India resolution, promoting mass action against British rule through the slogan

“karenge ya marenge” (We will do or we will die). (Ahmed, 2009; 81) In response to Gandhi's maneuver, Faiz wrote one of his most enduring anti-war poems titled Siyasi lidar ka nam (To the

Political Leader)

For many years, these helpless, bound hands Have clawed into the hard, black chest of night, Like twigs battling the ocean, Like butterflies assaulting a mountain. And now there are so many wounds on the stony, black chest of night That in whatever direction one looks, everywhere, Something like a network of light has created. From afar comes the sound of the throbbing of dawn; There very hands, then, are your stock, your hope! Do you have anything else? Only these very hands! You do not accept the victory of darkness, but Are you willing to accept that these hands may be cut off? That the day which throbs in the Eastern hiding place May be crushed beneath the iron corpse of night?17

The “helpless, bound hands” are those of the workers struggling against capitalism and fascism.

The “network light has created” is that of the people fighting against the forces of night and darkness, which serve as metaphors for the fascists. The consequences of the “Quit India” movement, would be, in Faiz's view, a victory for fascism over Britain, and for him, a graver threat. (Cappola, 1975)

Before Congress could take any action, the government ordered the arrest of the entire

Congress Working Committee, including Gandhi. Despite these measures, there was agitation and

17 Translation by Carlo Cappola

100 protest on a scale never before witnessed. The month of August was particularly violent. Buses were burnt. Police stations and post offices were attacked. Strikes took places in Ahmedabad and

Pune. Telephone and telegraph wires were cut. The most significant damage was inflicted on government property. Barricades were placed on the streets, but police officials were still attacked. It was, as Viceroy Lord Linithgow described it, the most serious rebellion since the 1857 mutiny. (Ahmed, 2009; 81)

When AIPWA had organized their third national conference in May of 1942, the USSR had entered the war as an ally of Britain and France. Progressive writers had already begun to express a change in their attitude towards the war. Josh Malihabadi and Saghar Nizami issued a joint statement where they addressed the dangers India was facing.

Our objective is full independence for India and a socialist order of government..India is especially at this time surrounded by extremely great dangers. Foreign barbarians, who have taken civilization-destroying tyrannies in China to their farthest extent, want to attack us in order to ravage our country. In such a situation, it is the duty of every Indian to defend his country. (quoted in Cappola; 1975)

While the statement did stress the need for socialism, it's acknowledgement of Japan as an Asian threat kept it attached to the policy of Congress.

A year later AIPWA convened for their fourth national meeting in Bombay. Their position, as the war being the “peoples war,” became crystallized. The Marathi writer and union leader,

Shripat Amrit Dange, in the opening address said

...if you believe that the victory of the nations led by the Soviet Union is no concern of yours, you are not paving the way for freedom from your colonial enslaver, you are aiding a worse slavery to take his place. You are aiding not only your annihilation, but the annihilation of all peoples, all culture. (Dange, 1943)

A fine example of the progressive poetry during the war period is another Mohiuddin poem called

, Jang-i-Azadi (War of Freedom). It reflects the urgency felt amongst members of this group to

101 fight for humanity's freedom.

This is a war of freedom Under the banner of freedom Of us inhabitants of India, Of the condemned and helpless, Of those drunk with freedom, of the peasant and worker; This war is a war of freedom Under the banner of freedom The whole world is ours, East, west, north and south; We Europeans, we Americans, We Chinese, risking our life for our country, We Red soldiers destroying tyranny With bodies of steel; The war is a war of freedom Under the banner of freedom18

Similarly, Jafri also asks Indians to participate in the international front against fascism, but also against imperialism, reflecting the quick change in AIPWA's position.

The sound of the trumpet is heard And our war has begun; The foundations of this reign are shaking; Why should we beg from the government? We have been in the house of the poor And brought up in the lap of misery; But the cannon, the gun, the sword and the spear Have all been molded by our hands. Come, let us overthrow the wall of this prison of slavery With these weak hands; No more distinctions between a Russian and a Negro; Let us unite the boundaries of Indian and China19

Majaz's poem, Ahang-i-nau (New Melody) became one of the most popular poems of this time, warning India of Japan's fascist invasion.

Rise up, O youth of the country, if your spirit is young! Rise up, if your eyes see this Doomsday! Ruse up, if you have any fear of disgrace and fear of loss!

18 Translation by Carlo Cappola 19 Translation by Carlo Cappola

102 Rise up, if you care for the honor of the loved ones of the world! Rise up! Strike the drumof heaven! Wake up this sleeping world! All about. Plans for a night attack; A promise of kindness, but everywhere cruelty; Death's command rules over Life's assembly; Why talk of cities when even villages are bombed! The airplanes thundering in the sky Are Death's messengers riding on the shoulders of the wind! There, swords in hand; Here, plans in mind; Cruelty heaped on cruelty, punishment on punishment; Over each head a sword; chains on every leg. Join together, for this is the tumult of Doomsday, The great chaos of Life's battlefield. Our enemies approach our frontiers Spitting showers of fire, Drunk with blood- If you rise up, you will halt their advance. Set them afloat in running blood! Throw them into the trenches they themselves have dug! …...... They are the savage beasts, enemies of honor; You are the repository of ancient ways, traditions; You are the guide for the wayfarer; they, highway robbers; You, the harvest garden, they, autumn lightening. Beware that they do not step foot in this sacred land! If they do, let them not leave alive! …...... They are bane incarnate! Stop them! They will destroy civilization! Destroy them! Burn them, incinerate them all! You are the honor of the country! Let them know this! Do you know who your ancestors were? You are the sons of Khalid and Bhima You are not alone. You have supporters: Men of Russia, warriors of China, Even a few magic-mongering Europeans, and many singers such as we! Fuel this calamity from people's head! Quell the fire of Hell and turn it into Paradise.20

In a radical turn of events these three poets, who two years ago were condemning Britain's

20 Translation by Carlo Cappola

103 treatment of India, were now joining their efforts.

Ismat Chugtai's semi autobiographical novel Tehri Lakir (The Crooked Line), brilliantly describes the debate amongst progressives during the war. Growing up, the protagonist

Shamman, is a rebellious girl who gets kicked out of many schools for her disrespectful behavior towards authority. After making her way to college, Shamman is introduced to the radical politics of the progressives and the Communist Party, as well as Nehru's ideas on nationalism. She becomes involved in politics through members of these groups at her university and organizes protests with them. Although Shamman never joins the CPI, she closely follows their politics, first through university students and friends, and later, when she becomes a teacher, through her close friend Iftikhar. While Shamman is a staunch nationalist, she does not know which side to take.

But then again, “No one knew which viewpoint to endorse and which to oppose.” (Chugtai,

1995; 249) All in all, the novel beautifully demonstrates how sensitive progressive writers were to what Talat Ahmed has identified as the three positions on the nationalist debate; anti-colonial, anti-fascist and pro-socialist. (Ahmed, 2009; 69)

Between 1943-47, AIPWA did not function at an 'All-India' level. The national executive committee did not meet once and the national bulletin was also not published. As a result there was less introspection and critique occurring amongst members of the group on their own work.

However, branches did function at a local level, where writers presented their work for discussion. Issues that were debated included the war, the freedom movement, art and propaganda and the position of writers in regard to India's cultural heritage.

One of the larger branch meetings was held in Bombay in 1947. The cosmopolitan nature of the city attracted an ethnically and linguistically diverse membership and audience. The different languages and their representatives at this conference were:

104 the famous playwright Mama Warekar and the worker-poet Anna Bhau Sathe representing Marathi; Bakoolesh Swapnasth and Bhogilal Gandhi were Gujrati writers; Hindi writers included Narendra Sharma, Upendra Nath Ashk, Amritlal Nagar, Balraj Sahni, Nemichand Jain, Rajeeva Sazena and Dr. Joshi; Urdu was represented by Josh Malihabadi, Krishan Chander, Khwaja Ahmad Abbad, Sajjad Zaheer, Sahir, Ali Sardar Jafri and Kaifi Azmi; and English by Mulk Raj Anand and Anil De Silva. (Ahmed, 2009; 96)

The multilingual character of this branch meant that meetings were held in both Enligsh and

Hindustani. Separate language groups met within the branch to discuss issues facing them. This branch was one of, if not the, most vibrant of the local sectors.

But conferences and activities were hosted by other branches as well. The Urdu branch of

AIPWA arranged a big meeting in Hyderabad in 1945. Jafri and Azmi orated their political mansavis (narrative poems). Zaheer presented his paper called Hindi, Urdu aur Hindustani

(Hindi, Urdu and Hindustani), expressing his take on the language debate. Hindi branches in Agra,

Allahbad Banares, Cawnpore, Lucknow and Aligarh continued to hold literary gatherings. Most of their organizing went towards raising money for victims of the 1943 Bengal famine, a crisis towards which AIPWA directed a significant amount of energy. This tragedy claimed the lives of about seven to ten million people though causes such as starvation, malnutrition and disease.

The Andhra region held their third conference in 1939, attracting about 80 writers. Their total membership extended to well over 900, in 16 smaller branches covering Hydrebad,

Secunderabad, Madras, Telegana, Vizianagram, Masumilpatam and Bezwada. The Bihar region had active branches in Patna, Bhagalpur, Gaya, Muzaffarpur, Dhabhanga, Chapra and Ranchi, compromising of some 250 members. In Karnataka there were progressive organizing and literary production occurring in Mangalore, Hubli and Bangalore.

The dysfunctionality of AIPWA at a national level in the years preceding partition suggests that the schism between the 'literary' and 'political' wings was growing deeper. The last four years,

105 from 1943-47, were filled with heightened and intense political activity. The rupture of Hitler's pact with Stalin, the Bengal famine, the Quit India campaign and the end of the war, were all important historical events that AIPWA members carefully followed. The lack of national activity should not serve as an indicator of the group's weakness. What it demonstrates is a precedence of political activity over national literary awareness.

AIPWA had originally begun as an organization vouching for a radical vision of progress, attracting people under the broad label of anti-imperialism. As the years brought with them many decisive moments, the group changed what they mean by progress in accordance to the time.

While Marxism had always been on the foundational tenets of this group, they turned more towards it as the need to protect the U.S.S.R grew dire. Their policy and poetry may have shifted to protecting the motherland, but this did not detract from the literary merits of the group. Their perspective may have changed, but the quality of their work retained it's charm and vigor. Though there may have been a divide between the 'literary' and political' sides of AIPWA, it remained a collection of committed intellectuals challenging the status-quo.

106 Chapter 6: Lal Singh's Encounter with Modernity

Those who know or have heard of the All India Progressive Writers Movement

(henceforth AIPWA) will most often think of it as being a political-literary movement dominated by Urdu writers. This claim does hold validity. The authors of the Angare quartet penned their stories in Urdu with the exception of Mahmudzafar, who during its publication, was incapable of writing in his mother tongue. Some of the groups first and most popular authors including Faiz

Ahmed Faiz, Sibt-e-Hasan, Kaifi Azmi, Majaz Lucknawi and Sadat Hassan Manto wrote in Urdu.

In fact, Premchand had warned Zaheer during their first meeting about how hard it would be to organize Hindi authors into a movement primarily run by Urdu writers, as they were “pressed with feelings of inferiority.” Hindi writers he said “might understand that this [APIWA] movement is a kind of trap laid down by Urdu writers. Perhaps they have not as yet understood the meaning of this movement. They will remain in the dark until things are explained to them at a meeting.”(Zaheer, 1996; 32)

Although Premchand and Zaheer were unsuccessful at gathering a large contingent of

Hindi authors to the initial meeting, the movement did succeeded in drawing the attention of writers and poets from those who spoke all the different vernaculars of India, not only Urdu and

Hindi. At its peak, AIPWA was composed of over thirty thousand members who expressed themselves in almost all of India's different tongues. (Ahmed, 2005, 3) From the late thirties till the mid forties, AIPWA, which had managed to spread itself throughout the country, was generating a tremendous amount of politically inspired literature. While the quality of a large portion of this writing is debatable, and critics have quite rightly argued that some it was just spreading communist propaganda, the sheer number of journals released by the Progressives and their monthly publications, marks how influential the movement grew to be.

107 Even in comparison to many of the members of AIPWA, Anand was one of the msot committed Indian novelists writing in pre-partition India. He wrote his first book The

Untouchable in 1935. Despite receiving favorable reviews from reputable English novelists like

E.M. Forster and George Orwell, Anand had to visit twenty different publishers before he found someone willing to publish the novella. His next work Coolie appeared in print the following year.

The protagonists of both these novels, Bakha and Munoo, two Indian children from extremely lower class families represent the “downtrodden and laborers with their problems – social rejection, poverty, starvation, poor health, misery, death and humiliation... for whom such exploitation and denial of life and happiness is the lot of everyday life.” The Village, Across the

Black Waters and The Sword and the Sickle came out each consecutive year from 1939-41.

Together known as the Lalu trilogy, these three novels document the life of Lal Singh, a Sikh boy from a rural India. They trace his life from him being a sixteen year old boy working on his family's fields to being in jail at the age of twenty four for planning a peasant revolt. Painting a picture of India at the beginning of the twentieth century, critics have asserted that the trilogy is

Anand's greatest achievement. Marath S. Menon called it “the finest and most balanced of

Anands works,” while Meeankshi Mukherjee wrote that “Anand's achievement in the first two volumes of the trilogy has not yet been surpassed by an Indo-Anglian novelist.” (Menoh, 1948;

190) (Mukherjee, 2000; 195) It is for this reason and many more that the Lalu trilogy deserves closer attention and analysis.

This chapter will analyze not just Anand's work, but also his life. Both him and his work are an area of great interest for the reason that no writer, described India's intense and heated political climate of the period preceding independence, in as beautiful and elegant a manner as he did. Anand's art, particularly the Lalu trilogy, embodies the idea of progressive art as it “sees art

108 and literature as part of social life, unable to be divorced from each other in an arbitrary manner” and “incorporates the political, economic, social and cultural domains.”(Ahmad, 2009, 43)

Anand was not just a prominent personality within the movement. No other author produced the volume of literature that he did in the period preceding partition and in doing so blended politics and art as well as he did. What this essay attempts to do is highlight and analyze the parallels between his life and that of Lal Singh or Lalu, to gain a deeper understanding into

Anand's political thought as well as his rationale behind writing in English. While a significant portion of this trilogy's subject matter is dedicated to a conversation around modernity, their form is a matter of equal importance. It is extremely interesting and controversial in equal measure that

Anand chose to compose his fiction in English.

This study suggests that Anand's ambivalence towards modernity, his relation to English and his blending of Indian and European traditions make him a true progressive writer. No other writer in AIPWA better “criticize[d] ruthlessly, in all its political, economic and cultural aspects, the spirit of reaction” in India and “foster[ed] through interpretative and creative work (with both native and foreign resources) everything that will lead our country to the new life for which it is striving.” [from AIPWA's manifesto] (Pradham, 1979; 96) By looking at him and his work, one is actually looking at the possibilities of AIPWA.

The first book, The Village begins with Lal Singh picking up his father from the train station after he has come back from the city. It opens in the Punjabi village of Nandpur, shortly before the beginning of the first World War, with Nihal Singh, the father ,complaining about the rush and commotion on the train and at the station. The book revolves around Lalu and his collision with the codes and customs of the Indian village. Agitated and disturbed by forces beyond his control, Lalu chooses to detach himself from the old ways that appear to be in decay

109 and sees only the ugly side of village life. His rebellious tendencies drive him into skirmishes with the characters who represent, and together constitute for Anand, the decaying ruling forces of

Indian peasant society: the landlord, the moneylender and the priest. His admission into the boy scouts, half way through the novel, provides him with an ego boost that carries through the trilogy and leads him to further trouble.

In one incident, he is caught playing marbles with the landlords daughter Maya and is accused of a theft he never committed. “He stood perplexed, looking at the hostile world about him. He had nowhere to go. He had no money and the colour of the world seemed to have changed suddenly. Before him now stood a darkening plain full of alien, phantasmaoric shapes, strange and removed, detached from him and from each other.”(Anand, 1939; 210) After fleeing to Ferozepur, the nearest city, Lalu encounters someone registering sepoys for His Majestey's army and enlists himself.

Almost no time passes before Lalu receives a wire informing him that his father is ill. He decides to go back and take the risk of bearing the punishment for actions he did not commit.

Upon returning he feels alienated from his home, although only a month had passed. He hears about the break up of his brother's engagement, a decision made after Lalu's "misbehavior” with

Maya. He learns how this strongly affected his father and placed him in this condition. Hating everything about the situation at home, he chooses to run away again. The book ends with Lalu secretly escaping back to the army at night.

Anand, like many of his contemporary Indian authors who chose rural life as their theme, with fine detail paints a vivid picture of the life of peasants. The main critique of this novel, and the British reviewers were quick to pick up on this, is that it has a weak plot. Although they did admire it for other reasons, there are only two dramatic incidents that take place in the novel. The

110 first is when Lalu flirt's with Maya, something he never quite did. The second occurs when Lalu and his friends go to the fair in town. Anand uses this episode for a double purpose: to show how simple people in the village are compared to urban centers and to show how Lalu defies tradition.

(Cowasjee, 1997; 101)

While at the fair, Lalu watches a man sell a potion called the “Elixir of Life,” “the most extraordinary potion invented in the seven worlds,” one that is also the cure for impotence. As the seller's audience is the ignorant, superstitious people who desire above all, a male child whom they can make to work in the fields and on whom they do not have to pay a dowry when getting married. The man is able to stir up enthusiasm amongst the people for his product, but Lalu does not fall for his shenanigans. Next to this man is a speaker advertising the army to the villagers, many of whom have lost their land. It is interesting that Anand places right next to each other two people. What he is indicating here is that “British power in India rests on a fraud, on the servile obedience of a gullible people.” The Englishman's superiority in Anand' s view does not stem from any empirical basis, that because they are scientifically advanced they constitute a superior civilization. The point he is making is the reverse, that British power in India is secured only through the ability of the English to bluff Indians into thinking that they are superior.

However, it is the freedom at the fair which provides Lalu the space for his first act of rebelliousness and defiance. In an impulsive act Lalu gets a haircut, oblivious to how this will change the course of his life. Upon returning home he is beaten by the villagers, his face is blackened with soot, and he is put on a donkey and sent across the village. A large crowd starts to form as he makes his way on the donkey. Even women and children join in this sadistic pleasure.

The message here is simple but tragic; that the love of cruelty is part of human nature.

The second part, Across the Black Waters begins with Lalu and other Indian soldiers

111 disembarking their ship as they reach the French city of Marseilles and ends with him being captured by the Germans. The novel centers around two basic themes. The first being the traumatic experience of war. As the novel progresses we are introduced to Lalus friends in the army, many of whom we see die or commit suicide, like his mentor and father figure, Uncle Kirpu.

About two thirds of the novel deals with horrors of trench warfare, troops moving, fighting the enemy and withdrawing. One by one Lalu see's friends and mentors who he has met in the army pass away. Daddy Dhanoo, his father figure drowns, Havildar Lachman Singh, the kindest and bravest of his friends is shot in battle, Hanumant Singh who refuses to fight for the British or

“dirty Sarkar” is shot by an Indian officer for his cowardice, Uncle Kirpu who loses hope commits suicide and Dhayan Singh and Kirpu Ram also die fighting in the final scene of the novel.

These atrocities are a reflection of the horrors Anand encountered during his experience of fighting in the Spanish Civil War.21 The pacifism in this text originates from Anand's humanism. We see in the viciousness of war the sheer number of causalities it brings about, not the bravery, courage and patriotism of soldiers sacrificing themselves, which is the usual for war stories. But even Anand recognizes that wars can be necessary for the preservation of freedom. He was very vocal about his support for the efforts of the Allied forces in fighing German fascism. And he spoke highly of the Russian and Chinese revolutions, believing strongly that India as well would secure her freedom through a revolution. (Cowasjee, 1997; 109)

The second major theme is that of the relationship between the colonizer and colonized, which is not presented in an antagonistic manner. Anand being a humanist, devoted his attention to exploring the underlying similarities between humans in the world, instead of their pronounced

21 Anand wrote the first draft of this novel in Madrid and Valencia during the Spanish Civil War he said in a letter to Soras Cowasjee dated 29th April, 1976.

112 differences. “And then there was an attempt at an exchange in the language of gesture. And, what was stranger, the mime worked. And soon there was complete understanding between East and

West.”(Anand, 1940; 30) Lalu's experiences of a foreign civilization help him grow into a more mature person, with a sharper vision of reality. The British charecters in Anand's novel are not the embodiment of evil but “brave kind and understanding.” (Cowasjee, 1997; 109) Mr. Peacock, the most familiar of all Britishers has his virtues as he considers Indian soldiers as a “distant father figure regards his children” and speaks Hindustani with them.

Unlike the interaction in India, where the “Tommies”22 do not fraternize with Indians,

Europe provides a different platform for this relationship. Instead of being remote and arrogant, the Tommies are hospitable. The central reason for this new found unity is no doubt the common danger of war. But Anand's argument is more profound. What he is trying to say is that men are good at heart, but are dehumanized by the system under which they live. Even though nothing is worse than foreign rule, instead of persecuting individuals for crimes one should actually interrogate the system of empire itself.

It is interesting is that the spaces of 'escape' form the traditional and decaying are actually colonial spaces – the fair, the army and Europe. It is also in these spaces where Lalu commits the most radical of his acts. But what is Anand trying to suggest here. Is it that colonial locations actually offer more freedom to people than Indian ones, so they are more themselves when not at home. This was the case with Anand's own life. He wanted to flee India to escape from the plans his father had laid out for him. However, could he be suggesting that there are no Indian avenues of escape left? Or, if they still are in existence, then these routes do not offer the same hope as their counterparts. Whatever the reason may be, one can be sure that Anand saw no escape from

22 Indian coloqiuial term for European soldiers

113 these Western institutions that were becoming a significant, and even invasive, facet of Indian life.

In The Sword and the Sickle, Lalu returns home to Nandpur to find his family broken up and destroyed by money, an issue that plagued him since his teens and pushed him towards joining the army. But matters are worse. The land he was promised for his service in the army was not granted to him because he stood accused deserting to the German side. At home he finds his fellow peasants suffering the same curse as him and sees unrest everywhere. He comes into contact with some political rebels, most notably a declassed landlord named Count Rampal Singh and Professor Verma, a communist intellectual based loosely off the founding father of communism in India; M.N. Roy. He gets involved with their long, muddled but exciting plans to rouse the peasantry into action. Lacking any theoretical knowledge of Marxism but united by a sense of fraternity, the peasants and laborers and Lalu and his comrades make efforts at trying to bring the Russian Revolution to India. While his efforts land him in jail, which is where the book ends, Lalu meets a number of notable figures including Gandhi and Nehru. The trilogy concludes with Maya sending a letter to Lalu in prison saying that they had a baby.

Born in 1905, Mulk Raj Anand had an unorthodox but culturally nourishing upbringing.

His father, a craftsman in copper, silver and bronze by profession, chose to leave his native town of Amritsar and join the army. Having to move where ever his father's regiment was posted to,

Anand grew up seeing many sections of Indian life and at the same time was brought into contact with Europeans. It was from an early age that Anand was exposed to the strong divide between the Indian village mode of life to which he was born and the technologically advanced culture the

British bought with them. This childhood exposure ingrained in Anand the various tensions at play throughout Indian society.

But Anand did not necessarily view these tensions as 'tense' or incompatible situations.

114 Although he was born a Hindu to the Kshatriya caste, the second highest after Brahmins, he fondly recalls a mixed religious upbringing in his short autobiography, Apology for Heroism. He remembers the statues and representations of Hindu deities that his mother used to have around the house, but doubts that she knew very much about the religion apart form the rules of its ritualistic worship. His fathers beliefs he says were “a compromise between traditional beliefs and the secular life he led in the British Indian army.” Although born a Hindu, his father's side had a

“family devotion to the peculiar Ismaili religion...a faith elaborated by the grandfather of the present Aga Khan, to combine Islam and Hinduism, by claiming a direct descent from the Prophet

Muhammad on the one hand, and an incarnation of the Hindu Gods Vishnu and Krishna, on the other.”(Anand, 1975; 10)

One can gather that from an early age Anand was exposed to the mixed nature of Indian culture. His father, who although later became a member of the Arya Samaj, a reformist movement of Hinduism, came from a family that had tried to find a blend between India's two dominant religions. Therefore his efforts in trying to find compromises between India's different cultures was part of his blood. His father's attempts at finding a medium between the secularism of the army and heightened religious nationalism, rubbed off on Anand and is evident in his novel.

The trilogy in particular, whose protagonist Lalu or Lal Singh is a Sikh, wholly embodies this idea as Sikhism also came about as an attempt to reconcile Hinduism and Islam. The parallels between his experience with army life and Lalu will be discussed in further detail later.

Anand however did not subscribe to any religion or belief in his early life. “The reason for this” he says “seems to me now, as I have said above, to be implicit in the muddle created by the impact of Europe. The British had made very little attempt at a synthesis. They merely carried on the administration of the country and professed tolerance for the religious beliefs, castes, creeds

115 and customs of the people, a tolerance, of course, which worked in their favor because it allowed the sores of old superstitions to fester and kept the country divided.” (Anand, 1975; 14) His hero

Lalu is very similar in this respect. Although born a Sikh, after interacting and talking with

Muslims and Hindus outside his village and learning about their religions, Lalu goes to the extremity of getting his hair cut in open defiance against the religious ordinations and in the process antagonizes villagers who ostracize him.

The relationship between Lalu and his father Nihal also shares many parallels to that between Anand and his own father. The author despite enjoying the dynamic nature of his father when young, started to become more defiant and the latter adopted a more conservative outlook with age. Just like Lalu left for the army after he was caught flirting with Maya, Anand fled India for London. As he “learnt to hate all the compromises which he had accepted, all his ideas of flourishing in the world, of obeying the Government, of my (Anand's) marrying a girl of his choice and settling down like a respectable person” he fled for London after finishing his undergraduate studies at home to “satisfy my curiosity for truth.” (Anand, 1975; 22)

While Lalu's escape from Nandpur was not directly caused by a hatred or confrontation with his parents, it is an underlying reason for his departure. Though Lalu returns to see his ailing father, the fact that he leaves his dying father without saying goodbye shows that he did not have the strongest attachment to his family. This does not mean that he is not emotionally attached to them, for he cries after receiving notice of his father's death. Even his decision to join the army was partially to provide fiscal support for his family.However, he does not share the same political or economic vision as them.

Although not immediately striking there are also parallels to draw between the experiences of Lalu and Anand during their time in Europe. While the two left to pursue completely different

116 paths, Anand for a doctorate in philosophy and Lalu to fight for the British, what they share is the knowledge they gain from their experiences there. When commenting on his desire to study philosophy he says that he chose to study it because he felt it “should answer problems set by our human needs and interest, that it should do so through reason.” He spent his time understanding thinkers whose ideas had changed the world and occupied himself reading those people whose theories had changed history and the way people live.

At the end of his thesis on Fuerbach, Karl Marx wrote “Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways. The point is to change it.” (Marx, 1845; 15) In consideration of this insight,

Lalu can be understood as an active philosopher. Although Lal Singh did not know what he was fighting for “No one asked where the war was or why it was being fought and how it happened that they were going there”, he was actively engaged in a struggle to keep English culture, politics and economics alive. (Anand, 1940; 87) While Anand spent his early days in Europe learning different ways of reading the world, Lalu was actually fighting to keep certain ideas alive.

However the tenures of both Anand and Lalu in Europe teach them valuable lessons on modernity and so they return to India more versed and informed about it.

On a different note, Lalu's contact with the modernity of the West, reveals many interesting insights about the nature of modernity itself. At first he feels a sense of freedom, that contact with the west has liberated him. “In every land, even in our own country it could be like this” he says “But our elders say, “It is not the custom to do this, it is not the custom to do that.”

He says this while looking at a French soldier attempting to court a young woman, flabbergasted at how the soldier was not persecuted for his behavior. “Fools! If you are seen drinking a pot of wine you are automatically declared a drunkard, and if you look at a woman you at once become notorious as a rogue, a pimp and a whoremonger” he remarks. (Anand, 1940; 50)

117 Despite the increased perception of freedom, Lalu seems to feel more lonely and alienated in Europe than he did in India. “Instead of laughing or smiling as others did, Lalu found himself reduced to an emptiness from the center of which his two eyes seemed to see this world as an enormous enclosure, crowded by hordes of hard, gigantic shapes which were oppressing him”

(Anand, 1940; 57) There are multiple reasons as to why Lalu reacted in this way. Perhaps he was just surprised and distraught, as France was extremely new and foreign to him. There is a chance that he was nostalgic for home but it is most likely however that he desired female companionship.

The sepoys later go into a brothel where a girl sits on Lalu's lap and plays with his beard.

Although they manage to go no further as an Uncle Kirpu gets drunk and almost starts a fight that causes them to get kicked out, he is most alone in Europe. With the progression of the war, more and more of his friends and fellow soldiers die, causing a blow to his morale. But what Anand is perhaps trying to suggest through Lalu's character is that Europe and it's modernity brings with it an increased sense of loneliness. It is perhaps that in Europe people feel most alone, most isolated from one another. This is only the case for Lalu, a foreigner in Europe for “The girls seemed to be laughing at all of them in spite of all the blandishments which they were practicing.” But could this only be because Europeans were so accustomed to their isolation that they did not notice it?

This complicated relationship to modernity is extended through the trains that keep appearing in the novel. Trains for Anand are an important and useful symbol for modernity because they too, like modern civilization, are divided into classes. During their first train ride in

Europe, Lalu and his fellow sepoys get the bitter end of the deal.

“They waited in the oppressive dark of the unlit cattle truck, which was their compartment, for the train to start, some dozing, some half asleep, some shaking or shuffling uncomfortable...For the most part the doors of the compartments were closed and they were stewing in the sweat of their bodies, packed almost on top of

118 each other, so that there was no room to move an inch without treading on someone's feet. 'The raper of its sister, this train it is worse than the train from Amritsar to Pathankot during Diwali fair,' said Uncle Kirpu.” (Anand, 1940; 53)

The message Anand is delivering here is that Indians have taken an invention from the West and through their own labor, make it function better. This shows that they have adapted to being modern and can at times perform that modernity better than the West itself.

While traveling by train to the trenches the sepoys spot another train with wounded soldiers heading in the opposite direction as them.

Lalu stared in front of him and, wondering where the train of the wounded was going, he craned his neck and strained to scan the whole length of it – the engine as pointing in the direction opposite to their own train. Apparently it had come from the front. A sudden tremor of dread spread like panic in his brain above the vague cloud on which hovered the confusion of silence. Would these soldiers ultimately die or recover from their wounds? (Anand, 1940; 64)

Anand's mixed reaction and relationship with modernity is continued here as well. Lalu is

oblivious as to where his train is going and where the train heading towards him is going. Thus

while Lalu is moving, he does not know if he is moving forwards or backwards. This raises a vital

criticism of modernity itself. Anand here is questioning the direction of modernity itself, asking

whether it is actually leading us forward or not.

The two trains with the two different sets of people on board embody the two different

sides of modernity. Lalu and those aboard his train are moving forward, towards the war,

preparing to fight. This is the upward movement that modernity and its technological

advancements bring. People can now move faster, they can be transported in larger numbers and

transport goods in bigger quantities. But the fact is that they are still moving towards war. Right

opposite him is the darker side of modernity. Instead of soldiers preparing to fight, the other train

is carrying wounded men, dying and injured, being rushed to the hospital. While technological

119 advancements may be allowing one to accomplish more at a faster rate, the loss they bring about is as severe as their gain. For Lalu, who faints as the train carrying the dead people passes him by, it is evident that the advantages of technology do not compensate for the destruction it brings about.

This troubled correspondence with technology is carried forth from Across the Black

Waters to The Sword and the Sickle. But this conflict, presented through the rejection and acceptance of the machine by different people, actually has its roots in the opening scene of the trilogy when his father Nihal complains about the rush and commotion on trains and at the station. That remark is extended through Lalu when he serves in the army and rides on an extremely cramped train “where he had sat hunched in a corner with his legs on Daddy Dhanoo's shoulders and his head on Uncle Kirpu's rumps, while both Dhanoo and Kirpu rested precariously on Lachman's trunk.” (Anand, 1940; 66) For the author modernity and its technology are ushering in with them a wave of homogeneity. Everybody is becoming more and more similar.

People are losing their individuality to machines, who now control our functions and specialize.

Our common need to use them brings us closer towards becoming the same person.

Compared to its antecedent, The Sword and the Sickle presents a much more nuanced picture towards modernity. As we see a wiser and more mature Lal Singh return home, through his experienced eyes we gain a more sophisticated understanding of what modernity, technology and machinery means in India. His attraction towards the Count and Professor Verma, two adamant Marxists, we see how technology starts dividing Indian society and exaggerates the already existent class divide.

Neena Arora in her book The novels of Mulk Raj Anand: A Study of his Hero remarks

Anand brings to light the evils that have come in the wake of the invention of

120 machines. At the same time he conveys that the evil results of machinery are, to a large extent, the consequences of man's greed and selfishness. It is when the profiteering capitalists turn inconsiderate towards the poor unemployed laborer that machines become the tool of the devil. The machines then become the agents of widening the gulf between rich factory owners and poor laborers. Anand wants a reconciliation between the interest of capitalists and those of the laborers.” (Arora, 2005; 72)

It is the uneven distribution of wealth in society that is the target of Anand social critique. For him, the technological advancements are not bad in themselves. It is the corrosive effects they have on the division of resources in India that makes technology harmful. Thus it would be incorrect to say that Anand despises modernity altogether. It is those who use machinery and how they use it that makes modernity a harmful phenomenon.

In a similar vein, Suresht Renjen Bald argues that Anand's conception of modernity is that mechanization itself is not bad, but is only so when manipulated by the capitalist mode of production.

Mulk Raj Anand's statement of industrialism, though influenced by Marxism, possesses uniquely Indian ingredients. Industrialism itself is good; the machine is a hero except under capitalism,when it becomes a villain. Puran Singh points out: “If you [the workers] have the controlling switch[power] in your hand, you can make the machine your slave rather than your master.... It is that switch or destruction.”

Destruction involves loss of “their manhood, dignity their place in the brotherhood, their sense community”. (Bald, 1974; 484)

In Bald's reading, Anand's attraction to modernity stems from something stronger and more uniting then a reconciliation between laborers and capitalist. His reading differs from Arora's in the respect that he understands Anand to be suggesting that machines foster a spirit of nationalism or 'sense of community' as well. So while machines are working towards homogenizing society

121 horizontally through access to technology, it is also working towards a vertical homogenization

by coercing them into a nation.

Unlike many other members of AIPWA, Anand was never a card carrying member of the

Communist Party of India. Claiming that they would never tolerate him, he preferred calling himself a “fellow traveler," but remained committed to Marxism for the rest of his life. These political aspirations of his are vividly present in this novel. He, as both Arora and Bald say, thinks not that machines are evil, but that the evil side of humans created machines, to keep their selfishness and greed in motion. Considering that he was “impressed by Marx’s letters on India,” it would be incorrect to assume that Anand detested technology.(Ahmed, 2005; 2) Marx himself recognized the twofold nature of Britain's modernizing policy in India. In the second of many articles he wrote for the New York Daily Tribune in 1853 he said that;

England has to fulfill a double mission in India: one destructive, the other regenerating – the annihilation of old Asiatic society, and the laying of the material foundations of Western society in Asia...modern industry, resulting from the railway system, will dissolve the hereditary division of labor, upon which rest the Indian castes, those decisive impediments to Indian progress and power. (Marx, 1853; 22)

Although this quote does not directly address the issue of machines, Anand like Marx, agrees that

the machines or “modern industry,” as the latter calls it, themselves are not. While both agree that

the policy of the Raj was not by any means fair towards the Indians, Anand and Marx also

recognized that the colonial mission was bringing with it some changes necessary for progress.

More importantly, the “destructive” and “regenerative” changes necessary to bring about the

greater, socialist revolution that Anand and his Lalu desire.

However, it is not as if the modernity implemented by the British was completely beneficial

just because it would aid in ushering in the Indian revolution. Anand in fact has a nuanced

understanding of the impact of technological changes on peasant life. Thanks to the British the

122 “system of organic, self-sufficient farming with a “modernized” agriculture” was beginning to dominate Indian agricultural practices. Although these scientific advancements did allow Indian farmers like Lalu to produce more crops this “new technology is basically a high-cost high-yield technology which demands capital investment beyond the means of small farmers who form the majority of the farming community (rather total population) throughout the country.” (Highfield,

22) The effects of this policy are exacerbated for Lalu who after returning home finds out that his land has been taken away and that he will not receive his promised share from the army. Lacking any form of capital to invest from which he could derive an income, the protagonist is coerced to taking action by organizing peasants who are in a situation similar to his.

In 1948 the literary critic Jack Lindsay wrote an essay surveying the themes of Anand's fiction till that year. For Lindsay, the most striking and important feature of the literature was that it was written in English and accessible, without translation, to an Englishman like him. He comments on the imprint of English in India and the importance of the role Anand has taken on by writing in English.

Inevitably, English, so long the medium of the dominant political stratum, has left all sorts of impresses, and the relation of India to European traditions and developments is primarily posed as a relation to English. A writer like Mulk Raj Anand, who has set himself simultaneously to express Indian culture and to interpret that culture, has a particularly complicated set of strains to overcome. His extreme importance lies in the fact that he has substantially succeeded in his task, and has become the first Indian in the creative field to do so – since Tagore's reputation in English bore little comparison with his genuinely great achievement in Bengali literature. (Lindsay, 1948; 3-4)

123 As a powerful figure in a movement whose members forged themselves primarily under the banner of anti-imperialism, along with other subsidiary ideologies, what was Anand's rationale behind choosing to write in English? Although Hindi was his mother tongue and he knew Urdu, though not as well as the former, what was Anand's logic behind writing in the colonizer's tongue?

While in Europe Anand did not restrict his stay to England. He traveled extensively through the western portion of the continent. First he went to Germany, although he did not spend much time there. Then with Sajjad Zaheer he attended the International Conference for the

Defence of Culture in Paris in 1935. That was neither the first or last time he visited France, a country whose writers and intellectuals he greatly admired. And as said earlier, he fought in the

Spanish Civil War against Franco and the fascists. While fluent in French, he spoke none of the other languages of the countries to which he went. Instead, he spoke to them in English which he realized was increasingly becoming the international language.

It would be appropriate to regard Anand as an international writer. He realized that his intellectual activity would have greater impact not only in India but throughout the world, if he wrote in English. So, instead of placing nationalistic aspirations ahead of his ability to spread his message of progress to the globe, Anand married these two functions through writing in English.

In comparison to the other members of AIPWA who wrote in many of India's different languages, Anand wrote his stories in English to attract a larger cross-section of readers.

Language had always been one of AIPWA's major problems. While organizing in England the small group of students never encountered this problem because they spoke and wrote in English.

Language was not such a big problem because there was a common language that all the members could speak. When the movement moved back to India and branches were setup in different parts of country, language started to segregate members and inhibit connection. While writers

124 associated with the provincial branches were producing literature, the heavy amount of required translation meant that their work could not be made available to everybody who wanted to read it.

But Anand is as much a national, Indian writer, as he is an international one. Although in the research conducted for this paper, there was no evidence suggesting anything about Anand's language politics. However, we do know that he was conscious of the linguistic divisions and tensions of that India and their ties to the various nationalist projects. We know that despite knowing the two most popular tongues in India he chose to write all his work in English, unlike somebody like Tagore who only translated some of his work into English. It is then appropriate to infer that by writing in English he desired English to be the unifying language of India.

This decision, considered radical back then, still remains radical in todays India. During the forties and even today in India, the North-South divide was and continues to be framed by the attitudes of both the regions to English. In todays India, the North or the 'Hindi belt,' as it is referred to, one can think of Hindi as a future national language. However in the South, where people are suffering from the imposition of Hindi as the national language, there is a great resentment of this language, more so than towards English. (Rushdie, 1992; 65) Making English not the national language, but perhaps an essential language would erase the antagonisms that

India's various ethnicities and religions have towards other languages. And if not erase, then certainly dull them. So Anand, who saw these linguistic antagonisms, predicted that language itself would be the pen drawing both the borders of India boundaries and the boundaries inside

India. The rationale behind writing in English was not only 'international communication which it makes possible, but also simply to permit two Indian to talk to each other in a tongue which neither party hates.' (Rushdie, 1992; 65) In doing so he did, what mistakenly India's post-colonial authors are credited with accomplishing, creating the Indian branch of English literature. “By this

125 Literature that is of the English language but still Indian literature.” (Rushdie, 1992; 65)

In their manifesto published in the Left Review the group did declare their position on a national language. They desired “Hindustani,” a basic form of Urdu and Hindi without any of the

Arabic and Persian influences of the earlier and Sanskrit vocabulary of the latter, and wanted for it to be written in the Roman script. Ironically there is not one major writer from the group who wrote their fiction in Hindustani. In fact there was no attempt made by AIPWA or any of its branches at trying to create this language through any means, not even through the form of a dictionary of what they thought were Hindustani words. This inability to foster a national language and communicate in it was one of the reasons that AIPWA's literary correspondence, along with their membership and audience started to wane in the early forties.

Anand's choice to write in English represents the most “radical” change in Indian culture for the reason that he saw ahead of his time. During this phase of Indian literature there were only two other major novelists writing in English; Raja Rao and R.K. Narayan, neither of whom were part of AIPWA(although Rao attended college with Ahmed Ali). However Rao only became a recognized personality in the sixties. And Narayan, who rose to fame through his fantastical land of Malgudi, was not as politically inclined a writer as the other two. It was not until Salman

Rushdie appeared on the literary scene in the eighties that, to use Pico Iver's words, “the empire struck back.” The success of his Booker Prize Winner Midnights Children resulted in a boom of

Indians writing in English. In consideration of this point, one should regard Anand as one of the pioneers of Indian literature in English, a recognition he rightly deserves but has not received.

An interesting point to be made on the scholarship on Anand's work is that apart from Jack

Lindsay, nobody acknowledges the fact that Anand wrote in English and its significance. That critics from the forties to the sixties did not attribute importance to the idea of an Indian writing in

126 English, says something in itself about Indian intellectual thought of that period. Most authors thought that to reclaim and re validate the Indian nation, Indian authors who were part of AIPWA could only do so by writing in a language that was native to India. If one thinks of AIPWA as a metaphor for the nation, as a group of authors representing India's many region, fragments of the whole, then Mulk Raj Anand was AIPWA's representative of those people in India who speak

English and also those who want to speak English.23

Anand's brilliance lies in his ability to marry highly politicized content and form in a way that no other author during his generation did. The very act of writing in English meant that he was taking a language that was not native to him and transforming it into an Indian language. The trilogy is a fine example of this skill. All three novels are rife with Indian, particularly Punjabi, quotes and sayings adding a strong Indian dimension to his writing. Along with this he incorporates Hindustani and Punjabi words into the novels and in doing so makes them part of

English. This too is part of how Anand's modernism 'possess uniquely Indian ingredients' and subscribes to a different flavor of modernity for India. (Bald, 1974; 448)

Anand wrote the majority of his fiction, including the Lalu trilogy, at a time when India was struggling to free itself from British imperialism. Part of this process, as Lindsay said, was deciding the 'relation of India to European traditions and developments.' Although not the only issue at stake, the relation of India to European traditions, of the periphery to the metropolis, can be 'posed as a relation to English.' His complex comprehension of modernity and complicated relationship with it are brought forth very vividly in these three texts. Through Lalu's adventures one understands technology and machinery as bringing about the death of the Indian lifestyle, particularly peasant life, to which he had the strongest connection. On the other hand, Anand in

23 In and article called Commonwealth Literature Does not Exist, Salman Rushdie says that most people in South India would like to be taught English, instead of Hindi, as a second language.

127 the same vein as Marx, also recognizes the advantages of technology and the partial ability of

Indians to adapt to it, as they do in his novels with trains. One could then argue that Anand was a modernist. That his hope in technology, his choice of writing in English, his fondness for Marx and socialist politics make him a strong believer in modernity. But Anand was first and foremost a progressive, as no member of AIPWA gave a better “expression to the changes taking place in

Indian life” and made the arts “the vital organs which will register the actualities of life, as well as lead us to the future.” (Pradham, 1979)

128 Conclusion

The light which shines only in palaces Burns up the joy of the people in the shadows Derives its strength from others’ weakness That kind of system, like dawn without light I refuse to acknowledge, I refuse to accept - Dastoor (System) - Habib Jalib

In 1962, Pakistan's Chief Marshal Ayub Khan rewrote the constitution, changing the country from parliamentary form of government to a presidential one, giving the president absolute precedence over all political matters. As a way of protest, Habib Jalib wrote one his most famous and remembered poems chanting “Mein nahi manta, mein nahi janta,” “I refuse to acknowledge, I refuse to accept,” this new constitution. Jalib, who was already a recognized intellectual and fondly called, first by Faiz the awaami shaair or “poet of the people,” was immediately banned from public media. But this did not deter his opposition to the regime. He then joined Fatimah Jinnah's (the sister of Pakistan's founder Quaid-e-Azam Mohommad Ali

Jinnah) campaign, who chose to run against Khan in the next elections. Jalib, paid a heave price for popularizing the opposition, being sent to jail after the election.

He was released in 1972 by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who became Pakistan's first democratically elected Prime Minister. Bhutto and his party, the PPP (Pakistan Peoples Party) came into power on a leftist platform. His vision was to incorporate the economic and political practices of socialism with the cultural practices of Islam. However once in power, Bhutto turned against his leftist principles, arguing that the people of Pakistan were not smart enough to rule themselves. Unlike some of his fellow intellectuals, who made money by taking up positions in

Bhutto's regime, Jalib kept his integrity and did not succumb to Bhutto's ideology. When asked by

129 Bhutto, “So, when are you going to join my party?” Jalib replied, “Have the oceans ever fallen in rivers?” As a result of his uncompromising criticism of the state, Jalib was jailed once more, along with other leftist thinkers like Mukhtar Rana and Meraj Muhammad Khan.

Jalib was born in 1928 and therefore was not part of the generation of intellectuals who had founded and promoted the Progressive Writer's movement in undivided India. Coming of age in Pakistan, Jalib only had access to the fragmented inheritor of this divided movement, the All

Pakistan Progressive Writers Association (APPWA). Nevertheless, his politics of protest and unrelenting criticism was true to the spirit and ideology of the original members of the AIPWA.

He exemplifies how despite its dismembering, the specific breed of intellectuals that AIPWA constituted of and idealized lived on in the next generation.

Edward Said, in The World, the Text and the Critic suggests that “solidarity before criticism” means the end of criticism. (Said, 1983; 28) Jalib is a prime example of someone who chose to remain critical of the state, despite having access to people in power, who were happy to offer him a lucrative future, provided he joined the Ministry of Culture and subordinated his creative talents to propping up official ideology. Due to his principled voice and popularity, he was seen as a threat by every single regime in Pakistan and arrested by each of them. He was arrested three times by Zia ul Haq, who was the president of Pakistan from 1977 to 88, after refusing to detract a line from a poem, where he directly critiqued the leader. In his poem Zia, the word itself meaning light, Jalib asked

Why should one call darkness zia (literally: light), intense wind gentle wind and a man God? (Mir, 2006; 190)

He was freed by Benazir Bhutto when she came to power in 1988. Initially a supporter of

Zulfiqar's daughter, Jalib turned against her when she became too friendly with the United States.

When asked to comment on how conditions in Pakistan were different under Benazir Bhutto, as

130 opposed to Zia,her predecessor, Jalib responded in verse.

The status of the poor is still the same the days of the ministers have indeed changed every Bilawal24 of the country is under debt while Benazirs25 of the country walk without shoes

When he died in 1993, Benazir Bhutto, who had returned for her second term in office, offered to pay for his funeral services. Thankfully his family, who kept with his spirit, refused to let her do so. Efforts like this, to co-opt important intellectuals and popular voices who have consistently voiced their opinions against the status-quo, is how national leaders try to manufacture consent and contentment amongst ordinary citizens. By mourning the loss of Jalib, the “people's poet” the Pakistani Government was attempting to neutralize his criticism, presenting a false unity or accommodation to the people. Government attempts to coopt intellectuals thus highlight the most crucial function that intellectuals perform: “founding dissent against the status quo.” (Said, 1993; 6)

Jalib's work was a continuation of what the generation before him had started. Even after partition, Progressive poetry and literature continued to flow from both sides of the border.

According to Carlo Cappola, in India, AIPWA (it kept the same name) started functioning as a front organization for the CPI. After partition, the party faced one major question: Should they cooperate with Nehru and the Congress Party or oppose it? (Cappola, 1970) At this moment, the world was divided by Soviet and American spheres of influence. Although it had declared itself a socialist republic, the CPI were claiming that some of the Indian bourgeoisie was aligning itself with the Anglo-American imperialist camp. The party's leader, B.T. Ranadive released what was

24 Bilawal literally translates as pure, but is also the name of Benazir's son. Here, it is used to evoke all the sons of Pakistan. 25 Benazir means pure and is quite obviously also referring to the then Prime Minister. It is again used to poetically invoke all mothers/women of Pakistan.

131 called the Ranadive Doctrine, a document which basically stated that the CPI “must lead the struggle for a peoples democracy against the forces of capitalism.” The 'forces of capitalism' included Nehru's government. (Cappola, 1970) The Ranadive Doctrine did have a strong impact on AIPWA, who as a group, defined by their manifesto, turned their faces directly towards the

Soviet Union.

As Urdu was the most popular medium amongst progressive writers, the partition of India created grim financial and publication prospects for these writers. (Malik, 1976; 658) Hindi was adopted as the official language of the Union Government of India and became the medium of instruction for almost half of India's population. The position of Urdu became precarious and its readership in India saw a dramatic decrease. In 1953, the famous short story or afsana writer,

Krishan Chander, became the president of AIPWA. A month later he started the Urdu Writers

Cooperative Society, a joint stock company that raised money for those “who know Urdu, love

Urdu and are sympathetic to its progress.” (Anis, 1960; 28 quoted from Malik) Eventually, the society began publishing Urdu books, journals and textbooks of a high calibre fairly inexpensively, as a way of popularizing the langauge.

However, the legacy of AIPWA in postcolonial India was most visible and vibrant in

Bombay's film industry, now popularly known as Bollywood. It took a few years for the progressive Urdu poets to enter the arena of film lyrics. Although some like Sahir Ludhiavani and

Majrooh Sultanpuri had made a film each, the lyrical output of these intellectuals only began to pour out after 1947. Hinidi poets of this period shied away from writing film lyrics. As Hindi had been declared the national language, it's practitioners sought to rejuvenate their mother tongue through a Sanskritization of the language. Writing for popular cinema in the common or bazaari

132 Hindustani was considered degrading at a time when “literary tradition in Hindi tended to be dominated by Hindi revivalism, nationalism and romanticism.” (Malik, 1988; 658)

Many progressive poets such as Kaifi Azmi, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Sahir Ludhianvi,

Shailendra, Ali Sardar Jafri, Jan Nisar Akhtar, Neeraj and Gulzar joined Bollywood. (Mir, 2006)

The 1950's proved to be the period of progressive lyrics, that Hindi movie-makers used as a space for articulating their social critique. Many Hindi directors, including famous names like K.A.

Abbas, Raj Kapoor, Kamal Amrohi shared their misery in lamenting the failure of a united and free

India.

For his movie Pyassa (Thirsty) the director Guru Dutt asked Sahir to write him a poem mocking a speech by Nehru that he had attended. Sahir wrote a song condemning the India that

Nehru claimed to be proud of in that speech. Part of the poem reads

These streets, these auction houses of pleasure These looted caravans of life Where are they, the guardians of self-hood? Those who are proud of India, where are they? Go, fetch the leaders of the naiton Show them these streets, these lanes these sights Summon them, those who are proud of India Those who are proud of India, where are they?

Songs and poems, constituting substance similar to the one above, caused the government to grow hypersensitive towards the film industry and start clamping down. Although progressive poets such as Javed Akhtar write for Bollywood to this day, the new censor board created by the government caused a tremendous decrease in the output of progressive literature in India.

In Pakistan, the association did not fare much better. The principal cause of this behavior

133 was the unwelcome attitude of the Pakistani government towards their political ideology. (Malik,

1968; 659) During its February session of 1948, the CPI after meeting in Calcutta, decided to start a party in Pakistan. Sajjad Zaheer was named Secratary General of the Communist Party of

Pakistan (CPP). APPWA itself was only born a few months later in Lahore, where Ahmad Nadim

Qasmi became its first secretary.

From 1948-54 the CPP functioned as a regular political party, but their activities were carefully monitored and scrutinized by the government. In March of 1951, the Prime Minister

Liaquat Ali Khan accused the CPP of conspiring with military officials to overthrow his government. Zaheer and Faiz Ahmed Faiz were arrested and tried in what is known as the

Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case, named after the city of the hearings. Although the entire country knew that the two were innocent and only clamped down upon so that Liaquat Ali Khan could stay in power after losing his first war with India, it proves how threatening the state actually found poets. The trial took place in 1953. Both figures were convicted and in July of 1954, the

CPP was shut down. Along with this, the Progressive Paper Limited, APPWA's one and only publishing house was also shut down.

The actions of both the Indian and Pakistani states stunted the growth of a progressive writers movement in the individual countries. However, the individual personalities, their reputation and legacy survive to this day and are more remembered than the group. AIPWA, even after its schism, produced and attracted some of the greatest poets South Asia has ever known. Its imprints are still visible on the cultural landscape of the sub-continent. What makes these actors, and hence the group, memorable, is the manner in which they executed their duty as intellectuals,

“found[ed] dissent against the status quo at a time when the struggle on behalf of

134 underrepresented and disadvantaged groups seems so unfairly weighted against them.” (Said,

1993; 6)

It would be most appropriate to end a project on a movement dominated by poetry with a poem. The words of Faiz Ahmed Faiz in this poem Bol (Speak) act not only as a reminder of the struggles of the generation who lived through partition, but serves as a reminder as to why it is necessary to speak truth to power.

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. See how in the blacksmith's forge, Flames leap high and steel glows red, Padlocks opening wide their jaws, Every chain's embrace outspread! This short hour is time enough Now till body and tongue lie dead; Speak, for truth is living yet- Speak, whatever must be said.

Although the “breath” of the PWA is long gone, their spirit lives on in the innumerable left- oriented people's movements in South Asia which continue to draw inspiration from poetry and songs, and at times, specifically from the poems of protest penned by the stalwarts of the PWA to

“speak truth to power.”

135 Works Cited

Ahmed, Talat. Literature and Politics in the Age of Nationalism: The Progressive Writers' Movement in South Asia, 1932-56. New Delhi: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2009. Print. Ali, Ahmed. "A Night of Winter Rains." Trans. Snehal Shingavi. The Annual of Urdu Studies: 240-46. Print. Ali, Ahmed, “The Progressive Writers' Movement and Craetive Writers in Urdu,” Marxist Influences and South Asian Literature, ed C. Coppola, 1, Occasional Papers No. 23, South Asia Series (East Lansing, MI: Asian Studies Center, Michigan State Univ., 1974) 36 and Marxist Influences and South Asian Literature, ed. C. Coppola, 2nd ed. (Delhi: Chanakya Pub., 1988) 44. Ali, Ahmed. "Clouds Dont Come." Trans. Tahira Naqvi. Journal of South Asian Literature 22.1 (1987): 189-92. Print. Anand, Mulk Raj. Across the Black Waters, a Novel. London: J. Cape, 1940. Print. Anand, Mulk Raj. Apology for Heroism. Arnold-Heinemann, 1975. Print. Anand, Mulk Raj. The Sword and the Sickle, a Novel. London: J. Cape, 1942. Print. Anand, Mulk Raj. The Village, a Novel. London: J. Cape, 1939. Print. Anand, Mulk R. "Indian Writers." The Left Review 2 (1936): 410. Print. Anand, Mulk Raj. “On the Progressive Writers Movement” 1939. from Pradhan, Sudhi. Marxist Cultural Movement in India. Calcutta: Navana, 1979. Print. Anderson, Benedict R. O'G. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1991. Print. Arora, Neena. The Novels of Mulk Raj Anand: A Study of His Hero. New Delhi: Atlantic & Distributors, 2005. Print. Azmi, Kaifi. Naya Adab. Jan-Feb 1938. Azmi, Kaifi. Naya Adab, Jan-Feb 1939. Bald, Suresht Renjen. "Politics of a Revolutionary Elite: A Study of Mulk Raj Anand's Novels." Modern Asian Studies 8.04 (1974): 473. Print. Bano, Shadab. "Rashid Jahan's Writing." Indian Journal of Studies 19.1 (2012): 57-71. Print. Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 1994. Print. Cappola, Carlo. Urdu Poetry, 1935-1979: The Progressive Episode. University of Chicago, IL: Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, 1975. Print. Chatterjee, Partha. The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1993. Print. Cowasjee, Saros. So Many Freedoms: A Study of the Major Fiction of Mulk Raj Anand. Delhi: Oxford UP, 1977. Print. Cug?h?ta??i?, ?Is?mat, and Tahira Naqvi. The Crooked Line. New York: Feminist at the City University of New York, 2006. Print. Dange, S.A. Literature and People,' Address to the 4th AIPWA conference. May 22nd, 1943. Bombay: People's Publishing House. 1943. Deva, Acharya. Socialism and the National Revolution. Bombay: Padma Publications. 1946. Documents from the 3rd AIPWA conference. May 1942. Delhi. Quoted in Carlo Cappola Urdu Poetry: The Progressive Episode. 1975. Forster, Edward M. Liberty in England. London: Abinger Harvest, 1935. Print. Gopal, Priyamvada. Literary Radicalism in India: Gender, Nation and the Transition to

136 Independence. London: Routledge, 2005. Print. Gopal, Priyamvada. "Sex, Space, and Modernity in the Work of Rashid Jahan, "Angarewali"" Marxism, Modernity, and Postcolonial Studies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2002. Print. "International Socialism: Mulk Raj Anand: Novelist and Fighter." International Socialism. Web. 13 Apr. 2012. . Lindsay, Jack. Mulk Ra?j Anand; a Critical Essay. Bombay: Hind Kitabs, 1948. Print. Mahmud, Shabana. "Angare and the Founding of the Progressive Writers' Association." Modern Asian Studies 30.2 (1996): 447-67. Print. Mahmuduzzafar, “In Defence of Angare: We Shall Not Submit to Gagging.” The Leader. Allahbad. 1931. reprinted in Cappola, Carlo. Urdu Poetry, 1935-1979: The Progressive Episode. University of Chicago, IL: Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, 1975. Print. Malik, Hafeez. "The Marxist Literary Movement in India and Pakistan." Journal of Asian Studies 26.4 (1967). Print. Malraux, Andre?. La Condition Humaine. [Paris]: Gallimard, 1946. Print. Including a forward by Andre Gide Marx, Karl "Theses On Feuerbach." By Karl Marx. Web. 13 Apr. 2012. . Marx, Karl. "The First Indian War of Independence (1857-1858)and the East India Company (June- August 1853)." Works of Marx and Engels 1857-58. Web. 13 Apr. 2012. . Menon, Maratha S. Three Indian Novelists. Life and Letters. 1948. Print. Poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz. Translated with an introduction and notes, by VG Kiernan, George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1971. Mir, Raza, and Ali Husain. Mir. Anthems of Resistance: A Celebration of Progressive Urdu Poetry. New Delhi: India Ink, 2006. Print. Mukherjee, Meenakshi. The Perishable Empire: Essays on Indian Writing in English. New Delhi: Oxford UP, 2000. Print. Pradhan, Sudhi. Marxist Cultural Movement in India. Calcutta: Navana, 1979. Print. Premchand, Munshi. Adab Ki Gharaz-o-Gayat (The Purpose and View O Literature) Manazmini- i- Premchand (Essays of Premchand). Ed. Q. Rais. Aligarh: Yuniv Pab, 1960. Print. "Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities - Finding the Voice of the Peasant: Agriculture, Neocolonialism and Mulk Raj Anand's Punjab Trilogy." Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities. Web. 13 Apr. 2012. . Rushdie, Salman. Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism, 1981-1991. London: Granta, 1991. Print. Sadiq, Muhammad. Twentieth-Century Urdu Literature. Baroda:Padmaja Publishing House. 1947. Said, Edward W. Representations of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures. New York: Pantheon, 1994. Print. Said, Edward W. The World, the Text, and the Critic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1983. Print. Sajja?d, Z?ahi?r, and Amina Azfar. The Light: A History of the Movement for Progressive Literature in the Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent : A Translation of Roshnai. Karachi, Pakistan: Ameena Saiyid, Oxford UP, 2006. Print. Stonor Saunders, Frances. "What Have Intellectuals Ever Done for the World?" Observer. Web.

137 24 Apr. 2012. . Zaheer, Sajjad. "A Summer's Evening." The Annual of Urdu Studies: 247-52. Print. Zaheer, Sajjad. “Reminisces.” Pradhan, Sudhi. Marxist Cultural Movement in India. Calcutta: Navana, 1979. Print. Wadia, Sophia. “The International Writers' Congress.” the Indian P.E.N. 3. 17 Nov. 1935. 7. Zaheer, Sajjad. "The Same Trouble..." The Annual of Urdu Studies: 253-58. Print. Zaheer, Sajjad. "Vision of Paradise." Trans. Munibur Rahman and Carlo Cappola. Journal of South Asian Literature 22.1 (1987): 184-88. Print. Z?ahi?r, Sajjad and Amina Azfar. The Light: A History of the Movement for Progressive Literature in the Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent : A Translation of Roshnai. Karachi, Pakistan: Ameena Saiyid, Oxford UP, 2006. Print.

138