Progressive Urdu Poetry

Carlo Coppola. Urdu Poetry, 1935-1970: The Progressive Episode. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. 702 pp. $45.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-19-940349-3. Reviewed by S. Akbar Hyder Published on H-Asia (July, 2018) Commissioned by Sumit Guha (The University of Texas at Austin) Carlo Coppola’s 1975 dissertation submitted of us implored Coppola to publish his dissertation to the University of Chicago’s Committee on Com‐ as a book; the result is Urdu Poetry, 1935-1970: parative Studies in Literature under the supervi‐ The Progressive Episode. Der āyad durast āyad (a sion of C. M. Naim was no ordinary thesis: it was a Perso-Urdu saying that suggests better late than meticulously researched and thoughtfully crafted never). work of modern South Asian literary history, with The book comprises twelve chapters, two ap‐ a focus on the frst four decades of the Urdu Pro‐ pendices, a chronology, and a glossary. The frst gressive movement (the taraqqī pasañd tahrīk). chapter provides a concise historical overview of This movement, especially during its formative nineteenth-century colonial-inflected socioreli‐ years in the 1930s and the 1940s, nudged writers gious reform movements and their impact on the and other artists out of their world of conformity, literary sensibilities of the twentieth century. The especially in terms of class consciousness, reli‐ second chapter treats the fery collection of Urdu gious and national allegiances, and gender roles. prose, Añgāre (Embers), the sensational impact of When Coppola submitted his dissertation, there which far outpaced its aesthetic merits. The third was simply no work, in Urdu or in English, that and fourth chapters are a diligent documentation could compare to this dissertation’s sweeping and and narrative of the Progressive Writers’ Associa‐ balanced coverage of a movement that resonated tion, the literary movement—with its calls to jus‐ not just in written literature but also in flms, po‐ tice and accountability—that is at the crux of this litical assemblies, mass rallies, and calls for justice study. The ffth chapter accounts for the move‐ throughout South Asia. ment’s most triumphant years, after it emerged For the last four decades, the contents of Cop‐ from the ferce and protracted debates in the pola’s work, especially the references, freely cir‐ Kremlin, London, Lucknow, and Hyderabad. The culated among students and scholars seeking to sixth chapter narrates the “decline” of the move‐ understand the literary networks that brought ment in the wake of the Partition of 1947. In chap‐ Russian, English, and French worlds into contact ters 7 through 11, Coppola parses the life stories with Urdu, and to some extent, Hindi. Coppola’s and the verses of fve iconic Progressives: Faiz effective translations of Progressive poetry set the Ahmed Faiz, Asrarul Haq Majaz, Makhdum Mohi‐ standards of translating modern Urdu literature uddin, Ali Sardar Jafri, and Sahir Ludhianvi. Fi‐ into English. It is not surprising, then, that many nally, the conclusion and the ancillary material H-Net Reviews bring closure to the work and further display the the Progressives in this study at least paid lip ser‐ author’s dedication. vice. Coppola’s painstaking research is readily ap‐ While admiring Coppola’s sharp eye for com‐ parent in his documentation of the interviews pelling historical analysis, students of literature and meetings he had with the towering fgures of might very well disagree with the author’s ap‐ this movement. He documents the letters he ex‐ proach to hermeneutics, the way he takes certain changed with Amrita Pritam, Ahmed Ali, Rajinder categories for granted, and the manner in which Singh Bedi, Krishan Chander, Ismat Chughtai, Faiz he overlooks sources that would have added fur‐ Ahmed Faiz, Qurratulain Hyder, Ali Sardar Jafri, ther depth to this work. In the study at hand, the Mohan Rakesh, N. M. Rashed, Sahir Ludhianvi, author implies that to be a good Progressive, one Sajjad Zaheer, Razia Sajjad Zaheer, Sibte Hasan, had to bear the brunt of injustice directly. The ill Akhtar Husain Raipuri, and others. Our author’s effects of colonialism and capitalism on the larger personal engagements with these literary fgures society do not count for much, they do not even paint his perspectives as those of an inside ob‐ leave artists room for complaints against the server. Yet his deft analysis of history and politics reigning order. For instance, when speaking of of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and his Sahir, Coppola suggests that the poet held an elit‐ skill in telling stories through poetry lend this ist vantage point by virtue of the class into which work an aura of scholarship and artistry that is he was born and by demanding a salary higher rare in South Asian literary histories written in than that of other flm lyricists. Sahir’s back‐ English. Coppola is uniquely adept at relaying the ground should thus discourage us from profitably cultural debates that run the gamut of beauty, jus‐ reading him as a true Progressive, even if it does tice, loyalty, obscenity, and disillusion. He lucidly not immediately repudiate his right to speak for draws our attention to the questions that lurked subalterns: “If family background and subsequent behind nationalism of various stripes. He does not lifestyles are any indications of a person’s inner forget those who bucked the Progressive trend yet feelings and beliefs, then one can only conclude remained progressive. We learn how the progres‐ that, on such bases, Sahir Ludhianvi was not a sive agenda during the 1946 Telangana uprising, progressive at all, or that he was, with his fast, and under Jawaharlal Nehru and various govern‐ flashy cars, expensive booze, and sartorial ele‐ ments of Pakistan, was often circumvented by gance, at best, a ‘parlour’ or ‘armchair’ progres‐ well-meaning actors; how ideals of communal sive. While it is true that most progressives had harmony confronted the reality of 1947; and how come from middle-class rather than lower-class drawn-out Urdu-Hindi debates painted pluralistic backgrounds, Sahir was upper middle-class, per‐ languages with exclusivist colors. His citations of haps ever upper-class. Therefore, it is not surpris‐ primary sources, including the minutes of meet‐ ing that the quality of his interpretation of and ings of those who labored to face the pressures of commitment to progressivism were different emerging nation-states and their wavering ideo‐ from those of other poets of humbler origins” (p. logues, are particularly welcome. By encountering 532). Coppola implies that the best Progressive multiple fashpoints in the Progressive trajectory, writing has an inverse correlation with the au‐ the book gives readers a sense of how the aesthet‐ thor’s economic standing in his society. More im‐ ics and ideological priorities in Urdu were maneu‐ portantly, many of the details he provides about vered by censorship and market forces, and how the poets’ lives do not offer any significant in‐ this diminished the movement’s prospects of lift‐ sights into their creative processes. ing up the oppressed—an objective to which all 2 H-Net Reviews I would also criticize Coppola’s comparisons, er” (p. 214); notwithstanding the fact that Sardar as these do not do justice to the breadth of the Jafri hailed from a Shii family and several of his oeuvres of the Progressive poets. Coppola uncriti‐ verses make reference to Karbala, he should not cally accepts the literary critic Ale Ahmad be placed under the category of “orthodox.” There Suroor’s classification of Makhdum’s poetry as is no such category in Shii Islam and one would “loud” (p. 444), without questioning whether be hard-pressed to express this adjective in Urdu. there was, in fact, anyone in the pantheon of the In an instance of over-reading: Coppola translates Progressives who was not loud. Certainly, Jafri as “purest gold” (p. 466). In the scheme of Is‐ Makhdum’s poetry is no louder than “Bol” (Speak lamic names, Jafri represents the category of peo‐ up), the poem penned by Makhdum’s dear friend ple who claim descent from the Prophet of Islam, Faiz. And in the interest of locating loudness, he through the sixth Shii Imam, Jafar al-Sadiq. Sar‐ neglects to delve into the works of the most bom‐ dar Jafri certainly would not have wanted anyone bastic of all the Progressives, Josh Malihabadi. In to translate his surname as a precious metal. Jafri fact, the ever-expanding mushaira (poetry read‐ was also not the only pen name used by the poet: ings) forum of public recitation in which many of he also used Sardar many times and like his com‐ these poets spoke, and which brought about the rades, even omitted his pen name in an effort to rise of many of these poets, applauded loudness. be unobtrusive, to cast his poetry as the voice of In addition, the throb in Makhdum’s poetry, the masses and not one of a privileged individual. whether it was generated by substance (ideas, How can his devout readers forget his lines from words) or form (meter and rhyme), represents an Merā Safar (My journey): “har ‘āshiq hai sardār important long-standing debate in Urdu, one that yahāñ har ma’shūqah sultana hai” (every lover is is nicely captured by Sikandar Ahmad in supreme here and every beloved the sovereign)? “Makhdūm Mohiuddīn kā she’rī āhang.”[1] A cor‐ Sultana was also the name of Jafri’s life compan‐ rection is in order: Makhdum’s last poem was not ion. written in 1966 as Coppola states (p. 462); in fact, In his conclusion to this study, readers would he wrote a beautiful ode to the American civil have benefited from an analysis of the significant rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr., after King’s influence of the Progressive movement on Urdu assassination in April 1968.

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