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The Consequences of Indo-Pakistani War for Urdu Language and Literature: A Parting of the Ways?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

C. M. Naim
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In September 1965, there occurred between the armies of India and Pakistan a fierce clash which each side attributed to the aggressive designs of the other. This undeclared war lasted only a short time; first a ceasefire ordered by the United Nations, and later the pact signed at Tashkent, brought the hostilities to a formal close. It was by no means a spontaneous or unexpected flareup, the hatred and antagonism that caused it had been festering for a long time. Similarly, its effects have not been short-lived; neither have they been restricted to the area of military logistics and high diplomacy. In this paper I intend to review the consequences of that conflict for Urdu language and literature. I shall proceed by showing why it was necessary for Urdu writers, especially the poets, to respond to this war, and what sort of attitudes were displayed in the poetry written exclusively in response to it. I shall then discuss certain subsequent developments in the general area of Urdu language and literature and end by presenting my own conclusions with regard to the future.

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Articles
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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , February 1969 , pp. 269 - 283
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Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1969

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References

1 In the main body of the paper, all non-English words, including names, have been written in a loosely Romanized form to facilitate reading, but in the footnotes, the following system of transcription has been used for Urdu words whenever necessary.

Vowels: a, ā, e, ē, i, ī, o, ō, u, ū, ai, au.

Consonants: b, p, t, ṭ, , j, c, ḥ, x, d, d, ẕ, r, ṛ, z, ẓ, s, ṣ, , ', g, f, q, k, g, l, m, n, w, h, y.

Miscellaneous: An upper-case H after a consonant represents aspiration (dō-caṣmī hē); an upper-case N after a vowel represents nasalization (nūn-i gunnah). Other symbols are self-explanatory. Hindi words are transcribed differently, but in the way now common in the U. S.

2 According to the more recent census reports there are now nearly thirty-five million people in India and Pakistan who regard Urdu as their mother tongue. Beside them, of course, there are several million more who understand Urdu and on occasion even use it, but who, otherwise, consider themselves speakers of Hindi or Punjabi. In Pakistan, Urdu is one of the official languages, along with Bengali and English, and enjoys state patronage. Its fortunes, however, have suffered in India where in the minds of Hindu nationalists it erroneously became identified with the Muslim separatist movement. Though listed among die languages recognized under the Indian Constitution, it has not been granted the status of a second state language in what has traditionally been its homeland, Uttar Pradesh. In fact, compared with its fate in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh, it has fared better in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra where it is allowed as a medium of instruction in some schools. Ironically, Urdu has received special favor in both parts of Kashmir. In the Indian section, Urdu, was declared to be the state language, while in the Pakistani part, too, the use of Urdu has been made compulsory for all intra-state official correspondence. No other region in Pakistan, incidentally, has yet declared a similar policy.

8 I was informed, on my arrival in India in November 1965, that the number of Urdu programs on the All India Radio had increased tremendously in the days following the conflict. Some of those programs—of which not all were directed to the listeners in Pakistan—were later made permanent. The importance of Urdu for the purposes of propaganda in India can be gauged from the fact that, according to a report from the Anjuman-i Taraqqī-i Urdū, Aligarh, in the elections of 1967 the Indian National Congress put out more posters in Urdu than in either Hindi or English. The large circulation of such virulently Hindu communalistic journals as the Pratāp and the Milāp is also evidence of the fact that Urdu is by no means the language of just the Muslims in India.

4 See the following for more information in English on these matters.

Sadiq, Muhammad, Twentieth Century Urdu Literature (Baroda: Padmaja Publications, 1947)Google Scholar.

Sadiq, Muhammad, A History of Urdu Literature (London: Oxford University Press, 1964)Google Scholar.

Malik, Hafeez, “The Marxist Literary Movement in India and Pakistan,” in The Journal of Asian Studies, XXVI, 4, August 1967, 649–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Of the two Muslim writers, Sajjad Zaheer and Qurratulain Hyder, who have returned to India after having originally immigrated to Pakistan, only the latter's decision can be said to have been based on ideological issues. In her novel, Āg kā Daryā [The River of Fire], published in Pakistan nearly ten years ago, Miss Hyder had expressed her horror at the tyranny of those ideologies—political, religious, economic, or any other kind—that would break the larger family of mankind into smaller nations, races, and sects, and at the inhumanity that can be perpetrated in the name of these ideologies. Though considered until recently decadent and sentimentalist by the critics of the Progressive establishment, she is now being hailed—at least in India—as a champion of humanist values which, incidentally, she always was. Sajjad Zaheer's return to India was a matter of political expediency, as was his original migration to Pakistan, where he was for awhile General Secretary of the Communist Party.

6 Books:

ʻAlī Sardār Jaʻfarī, Pairāhan-i Ṣarar (Bombay: Ḥalqa-i Adab, 1966)Google Scholar.

Naubahār Sābir, Lahū-Tarang (Patiala: Anjuman-i Taraqqī-i Urdū, 1966)Google Scholar.

Sāḥir LakHnawī, Ṣamṣīr-o SināN (Lucknow: Anjuman-i Taraqqī-i Urdū, 1965)Google Scholar.

Ṣādāni, Tāhir and others, Gulbāng-i Jihād (Lahore: Aiwān-i Adab, 1965)Google Scholar.

Lāhaurī, Tāhir, Pākistān Pāindahbād (Lahore: Majlis-i Tahzīb-o Adab, 1966)Google Scholar.

Periodicals:

Naqṣ (Jang Nambar), Karachi, 1966.

Nuqūṣ (Annual Number, III, War), Lahore, 1966.

Sāqī, Karachi, January—February, April, September, 1966.

Barg-i Gul (Mujāhid Nambar), Karachi, 1966.

Also various issues of Qaumī Āwāz (Lucknow), Imrōz (Lahore), Manṣūr (Karachi), Māh-i Nau( Karachi), and Nu rat (Lahore). I was in India between November 1965 and May 1966 and had the opportunity to attend several muṣāʻirah and listen to the Urdu literary programs of the Pakistani as well as Indian radio stations.

7 Jaʻfarī's poems, Duʻā and Dast-i Faryād, in Pairāhan-i Ṣarar, and the poems of Jagan NātH Āzād, Nāziṣ, Rif'at Sarōṣ, and Munawwar LakHnawī in Lahū-Tarang. Munawwar, incidentally, seems to suspect 2 collusion of three: Pakistan, Communist China, and Great Britain.

8 Ḥabīb Jālib in Gulbāng-i Jihād, p. 95, and Fārig Buxārī in Naqṣ (Jang Nambar), p. 450, are the only Pakistani poets who incline to suspect the U.S.A. to have a hand in this matter.

9 It was indeed ironical to find some Hindu poets referring to Prophet Muhammad as the “Messenger of Peace” and invoking his name in their appeals to the Muslims of Pakistan, while a few Pakistani writers, including army officers, preferred to discover in him a master strategist of war. For example, ʻArṣ Malsiyānī, “Tasxīr-i Amn” (Ṣamṣir-o SināN), p. 25, cf. Maj. General Akbar Khan, “Ḥadīs-i Difʻ,” in Naqṣ (Jang Nambar), p. 82.

10 Of the few articles that have appeared on the poetry of the 1965 conflict, only one is of considerable value. (Rafīq Xāwar, “ḥusn-i kalām āīnah: razmiyah ṣāʻirī par ēk naỵar,” in Barg-i Gul, Mujāhid Nambar, 1966, pp. 285–303.) In this article, Rafeeq Khawar suggests that though the present rage for war poetry may be temporary, it has at least resolved the impasse (jamūd) faced by the Urdu writers in Pakistan. They no longer lack a topic to write about. No need for them now to borrow inspiring ideas from the outside world, there is one available at home. In fact, the poets and writers have taken over this theme so avidly and with so much emotional intensity that the older traditions of lyrical (bazmiyah) poetry seem to be threatened. No one turns to Meer and Ghalib for models, it is only Iqbal's voice that sometimes finds echo in this poetry. Even the craft of poetry, its artistic principles, seem to be ignored by these poets in the heat of their emotions. However, there is no reason why afer some time these emotions will not find expression in profounder ways. Punjabi was neglected before this conflict, but now Punjabi songs have spread all over Pakistan, and the Punjabi writers have discovered a new vitality in their medium. It is likely that Urdu writers will also benefit from this revival of Punjabi.

11 MaʻṢūm ṢērgHāṭwī, Lalkār (Champaran, Bihar: Syed Manzur Tamanna, 1963)Google Scholar.

Most of the 132 poets included in this anthology are not known outside of Bihar. There arc, however, also included such well known poets as ʻAlī Sardār Jaʻfarī, Sāḥir LudHyānwī, Majrūḥ, Jamīl Ma harī, Rawiṣ iddīqī, Salām MacHlīṣahrī and Sāǥar Ni āmī. Only a small number of the selections is technically superb, such as the short ḡazal of Majrūḥ and Salām and the poems of Iʻjāz iddīqī and Jaʻfarī. Most others are merely intensely patriotic and tend to lose literary qualities in their vehement denunciation of the alleged Chinese treachery. On the whole, in these poems, one does not find the deeper personal involvement that is evident in the poems of some of the younger Pakistani poets. On the other hand, it must also be pointed out that neither in India nor in Pakistan has any poet experienced war or responded to it in the manner of such English poets as Wilfred Owen, W. W. Gibson, and Siegfried Sassoon.

12 “Fankār aur Difāʻ-i Wa an” [Artists and the Defense of the Motherland], in Nu rat, No. 7, New Series, March 1966. Report of a public symposium held in Lahore on December 9 and 10, 1966. Similar meetings were also held at Karachi and Rawalpindi.

13 In ancient Arabia it was customary for the poets to travel with their tribes and recite or declaim verses of a hortatory nature at the time of battles. Often an individual warrior would himself step out of the ranks to challenge his enemies reciting verses about his courage and skill. This practice as well as the particular meter in which such verses were written are called rajaz.

14 Ali Sardar Jafri, “ayyuubshaahii-kii chhaayaa-mēē paakistaanii buddhijiivii” [Pakistani Intellectuals Under the Shadow of Ayub-dom], in Dharmayug, October 24, 1965, p. 15 and passim.

15 Ibid., p. 15.

16 Kamaleshwar, “faizshaahii-kii chhaayaa-mēē bhaaratiiya buddhijiivii [Indian Intellectuals Under the Shadow of Faizdom], in Dharmayug, November 21, 1965, p. 10 and passim.

17 The verses in question are

dīda-i tar pe wahāN kaun na ar kartā hai

ṣīṣa-i caṣm mēN xūNnāb-i jigar lēkē calō

ab agar jāō paē ʻar-i alab unkē huūr

dast-o kaṣkōl nahīN, kāsa-i sar lēkē calō

Who pays there any attention to a tearful eye?

In the goblet of your eye carry your heartblood.

If you go to him again to express your desires,

Don't carry a begging bowl, carry your head in your hands.

According to Jafri, these verses indicate a radical change in Faiz's attitude: instead of simply showing despair at the state of affairs in his country, Faiz now calls for a drastic, revolutionary stance from those who seek to bring about political and social changes in Pakistan. Kamaleshwar, however, contends that these verses should be interpreted in the light of what was being written in Pakistani newspapers in 1965. He asserts that in these verses Faiz was asking his compatriots to assume an aggressive attitude against India, in much the same way as the Editor of Dawn, Karachi, was asking at that time. This was, of course, very unfair of Kamaleshwar, for he was looking at these verses in isolation from what Faiz had said and written all his life. He was also taking unfair advantage of the ambiguity inherent in the symbolic language of ḡazal poetry. In his support Kamaleshwar also quotes Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, an Urdu writer, English journalist, and Hindi film-maker, who wrote in his column in Blitz (Bombay): “‘F’ is also for Faiz Ahmad Faiz, the Pakistani poet and intellectual, who should now reject the Lenin Peace Prize (which he received on the recommendation of India's Progressive writers) for tacitly supporting Ayub-Bhutto's war-mongering against India. Has he forgotten his own stirring verses—bōl ki lab āzād haiN tērē/bōl zubāN ab tak tērī hai?” The hypocrisy underlying Abbasʻ remarks needs no comment. As a matter of fact, in all the material that I have used for this study I came across only one reference to Faiz, and that to a ḡazal of his which was included in an anthology of war poetry. Unfortunately I was not able to secure that book, but the couples quoted from that particular ḡazal of Faiz seemed to me to give no basis for Abbasʻ allegations of “war-mongering.” Also, I have been informed by some friends in Pakistan that Faiz's reticence during the period of conflict actually caused displeasure in both official and literary circles.

18 Ata Muhammad Sholah, “kyaa joosh saahab eek buddhijiivii hāī” [Is Josh an Intellectual?], in Dharmayug, December 5, 1965, p. 16.

Ram Manohar Tripathi, “faizshaahii aur ayyuubshaahii banaam bhaaratiiya buddhijiivii” [Faiz-dom and Ayub-dom versus Indian Intellectuals], in Dharmayug, December 12, 1965, p. 17.

Ram Lal, “chup rahnee-kii bhuul” [The Mistake of Remaining Silent], in Dharmayug, December 19, 1965, p. 10.

Dr. Abdul Wadud, “paakistaan-kaa naapaak, aakramaṇ aur bhaarat-kee urduu kaviyōō-kii prakhar vaaṇii” [The Infamous Attack of Pakistan and the Sharp Rejoinder of the Urdu Poets of India], in Dharmayug, January 9, 1966, p. 17.

Begum Ṣhahnaz Zaidi, “paakistaanii leekhak aur ham” [Pakistani Writers and We], in Dharmayug, February 6, 1966, p. 17.

Ḥayātullah An ārī, “Pakistānī adīb” [Pakistani Writers], two editorial articles in Qaumi Āwāz, January 6 and 7, 1966.

19 Yugeshwar, “yuddha, saahitya aur raaṣṭriiya sandarbh” [War, Literature and National Integration], in Dharmayug, December 5, 1965, p. 16 and p. 23.

As one who loves Urdu language and literature I find it painful to note that not one Urdu writer (Pakistani or Indian) dared say publicly what Shrikant Varma, a prominent young Hindi writer, did: “Those who are demanding a war-supporting poetry are truly talking in an anti-humanistic language. … Only this can be the foremost duty of a poet during wars that he should protect high life-values and ideals from being carried away in the tide of madness, that he should come to the defence of poetry, beauty, and art.” (Quoted by Yugeshwar, op. cit., p. 16.) The only exception among Urdu writers seems to have been Jafri, who in three poems dated August 29, 30 and September 3, 1965, denounced war and warmongering in the most unequivocal terms (Pairāhan-i Ṣarar, pp. 49, 51, 53.)

20 The two most important new magazines are Ṣab-Xūn published from Allahabad, and Guftagū published from Bombay. The latter is edited by Jafri.

21 A. D. A har, “urdū yā Pākistānī?” [Urdu or Pakistani?], in Nu rat, No. 10, July 1966, pp. 7–17.

A. D. A har, “Pākistānī urdū aur hindustānī urdū” [Pakistani Urdu and Indian Urdu], in Nu rat, No.14, December 1966, pp. 9–25.

The difference in the vocabulary of Urdu newspapers from India and Pakistan mainly arises from the fact that Indian papers tend to use more Sanskrit-derived words, especially in the area of political news. This difference, however, becomes extremely prominent when one compares the language of a Hindu conservative newspaper such as Pratāp with that of any Pakistani newspaper.

22 These conclusions are based on a large and varied reading, mainly of books and magazines published in Pakistan in 1965 and 1966. Most of the sentiments described here were also echoed in the symposium Fankār aur Difāʻ-i Wa an (op. cit.), which included as participants such noted Pakistani writers as Inti ār Ḥusain, Sajjād Bāqar Ri wī, Aṣfāq Aḥmad, Ḥanīf Rāmē, Muxtār iddīqī, jīlānī Kāmrān, Anwar Sajjād, and Imtiyāz ʻAlī Tāj.

23 Naʻīm āhir, in “Fankār aur Difāʻ-i Wa an,” op. cit., p. 36.

Also see: Aḥmad Nadīm Qāsimī, “Pākistānī adab kā nayā daur” [The New Age of Pakistani Literature], in Barg-i Gul, Mujāhid Nambar, Karachi, January 1966, pp. 282–84. “The immediate problem for all Pakistani writers and poets is to catch this moment in their art, this fleeting moment which in fact is equal to a century in the history of our nation. If the writers and poets fail to do justice to the demands of this moment, they shall be doing great injury to our literature, to our culture, and to our history.” p. 283.

24 Yugeshwar, op. cit., p. 23.

* Khaleel is an epithet of Abraham.