Progressive Writers' Movement

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Progressive Writers' Movement
Members
Urdu writers

English writers

Bengali writers

Punjabi writers

Hindi writers

Kashmiri writers

Marathi writers

Notable works
Related Organisations

The Progressive Writers' Association or the Progressive Writers' Movement of India or Anjuman Tarraqi Pasand Mussanafin-e-Hind (

British India. Some branches of this writers' group existed around the world besides in India, Kashmir and Pakistan[1]

These groups were

left-oriented, and sought to inspire people through their writings advocating equality among all humans and attacking social injustice and backwardness in the society.[2]

According to the

Sir Syed's education movement. The progressives contributed to Urdu literature some of the finest pieces of fiction and poetry. Undoubtedly, they were the trend-setters for the coming generation of writers."[3]

Organizations

History

Origin

The origin of the Progressive Writers' Movement can be traced to the publication of Angarey (Embers or Burning Coals),[5] a collection of nine short stories and a one-act play by Ahmed Ali, Sajjad Zaheer, Rashid Jahan and Mahmud-uz-Zafar in 1932. The publication was met with outrage from civil and religious authorities and was banned by the government of United Provinces.[6] On 5 April 1933, Mahmud-uz-Zafar published a statement titled In Defence of Angare: Shall We Submit to Gagging? in The Leader:

The authors of this 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... Whatever happen to the book or to the authors, we hope that others will not be discouraged. Our 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 those who are interested in this idea to get in touch with us.[7]

The idea of forming a League of Progressive Authors was presented for the first time in this statement which later expanded itself and became 'Indian Progressive Writers' Association'.[8][2]

Indian Progressive Writers' Association, London

After the publication of Angarey and the furor that followed, Zaheer was sent to

Hajra Begum.[11] He also came into the contact of Communist revolutionary Ralph Winston Fox who encouraged him and Anand to form the Indian Progressive Writers’ Association in London. The association, composed mostly of Indian university students from Oxford, Cambridge and London, met for the first time on 24 November 1934 in a back room at the Nanking Restaurant, a Chinese restaurant in Denmark Street.[12] Anand was elected as the president while Sengupta acted as the secretary of the association.[13]

In 1935, he and Mulk Raj Anand went to Paris to attend the International Congress for Defense of Culture organised by André Gide, Henri Barbusse and André Malraux.[14] Influenced by the conference the group decided to solidify the association and draft a manifesto to formulate the aims and objectives of the association.[15]

The Manifesto of the Progressive Writers’ Association was finally drafted in 1935 in London by Zaheer, Taseer, Anand, Sengupta, and Jyoti Ghosh.

Hiren Mukherjee and Premchand.[17] Premchand translated the manifesto into Hindi and published it in the October edition of Hans in 1934 while the English version of the manifesto was published in the February 1936 issue of the Left Review.[18]

The manifesto was widely circulated among Indian students with literary interests and the group began to meet once or twice a month to read and critique each other’s works.[19]

First all-India Progressive Writers' Conference

In the summer of 1935 Zaheer returned to India and started working on setting up the All India Progressive Writers’ Associated in India.

Maulvi Abdul Haq, Josh Malihabadi, Munshi Daya Narayan Nigam.[21]

In January 1936, Zaheer travelled to

Sufi Ghulam Mustafa Tabassum, Akhtar Sheerani, Abdul Majeed Salik, Chiragh Hasan Hasrat, Mian Bashir, and Firoz Din Mansoor, garnering support for setting up a branch in Lahore.[22] Sufi Tabassum was appointed its secretary.[23]

After the establishment of branches in various cities, it was decided to hold an All-India conference on the sidelines of the annual session of the

Jai Prakash Narayan, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, and was supported by Congress leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru and Sarojini Naidu.[16]

The first conference laid down the basic organisational structure of the movement. A national body under the name All-India Progressive Writers' Association (Anjuman Taraqqi Pasand Musannifin-e-Hind) was established. An All-India Committee consisting of representatives of the various regional branches, a Publication Committee and an Executive Committee was also adopted.[27] The Constitution of the Association, which was drafted by Mahmud-uz-Zafar, Sajjad Zaheer, and Abdul Aleem was adopted by the conference. Zaheer was elected as the Secretary General of the All-India Progressive Writers Association (AIPWA).[16] Important resolutions passed in the conference included a demand to the government for freedom of speech.[26] Zaheer had traced the account of its formation in his book Roshnai.[28]

In 1936, Sohail Azimabadi set up a branch of the PWA in Patna while Hasrat Mohani set up a similar branch in Kanpur.[29] Shyam Kumari Nehru organised a major conference of the Hindi and Urdu writers in 1937 in Allahabad which was attended by writers such as Maulvi Abdul Haq, Acharya Narendra Dev, Pandit Ram Naresh Tripathi, Shivdan Singh Chauhan, Narendra Sharma, Ramesh Chandra Sinha and Om Prakash Singhal among others. Bishambhar Nath Pande the then secretary of the Allahabad branch of the PWA organised another similar conference in 1938 in Allahabad.[30]

By the summer of 1938, when Anand returned to India after attending the international writers’ conference held in Madrid and Barcelona, the association had already become an influential organisation with various regional and linguistic branches.[13]

Second all-India Progressive Writers' Conference

The second conference of the association was held in

Calcutta in 1938. The inaugural address of the conference was sent by Rabindranath Tagore who could not attend it due to ill health.[31] Abdul Aleem was elected as the new General Secretary succeeding Zaheer and a newly amended constitution was adopted in the conference. The PWA also launched a monthly bulletin and a quarterly English journal called New Indian Writing.[13]

Third all-India Progressive Writers' Conference

The third conference was organised at the Hardinge Library in Delhi in 1942.[32] Krishan Chander, who was then working for the Delhi Radio Station, was the convener of the conference.[33]

Fourth all-India Progressive Writers' Conference

The fourth all-India conference was held in

K. A. Abbas as joint secretaries and Mama Varerkar as the treasurer. The central office of the association was also moved from Lucknow to Bombay.[35]

It could be said that the Urdu writers were in the forefront of 'Anjuman Taraqqi Pasand Musannifin', but later on almost all the writers of Indian languages had their own organisations with the same aims and objectives: struggle against British imperialism for the liberation of India from the foreign yoke; struggle against the henchmen of imperialism, land for the tillers of the soil. The organisation regarded socialism as the proper economic system, which could end exploitation.

Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Professor Majnun Gorakhpuri, Rashid Jahan, Sahibzada Mahmood uz Zafar, Professor Manzoor Hussain
and Abdul Aleem were some of the stalwarts whose active or lukewarm support was with the Anjuman Taraqqi Pasand Musannifin.

The words "progress and progressive" have a history of their own. In 19th century England, the word "progressive" was the battle cry of all those who wanted a better deal for the underprivileged and wanted science and technology to spearhead the movement for social development. The 'movement for progress' touched all spheres of human development. It stood for liberation and democracy. It was a movement for the freedom-loving writers who were opposed to the status quo in the feudal-dominated Indian society. They thought that unless the Indian society was transformed and the common masses were in the driving seat, nothing could change. Writers like

Majaz Lucknawi
made it the strongest literary movement.

Pre-independence period

Leading Progressive Writers of Urdu such as Majaz, Kaifi Azmi, Josh Malihabadi, Makhdoom and others strongly campaigned for Pakistan through their works viz. poem by Majaz, Pakistan ka Trana; poem by Kaifi titled Ab Agli Id Ek Azad Pakistan Main Hogi and Josh Malihabadi’s epic poem projecting Mother India addressing Congress, League and the Communist Party.[36]

Post-independence period

India

After the independence of India in 1947, the movement lost its momentum in India. It further declined in growth after the split of the Communist Party in 1964.[37] In 1975, the Association was renamed as the National Federation of Progressive Writers. Since then, the Federation has had four Conferences, at Gaya (1975), Jabalpur (1980), Jaipur (1982) and the Golden Jubilee Conference in Lucknow (1986). The Golden Jubilee Conference was inaugurated by Mulk Raj Anand. Sibte Hasan also attended the conference.[31][37]

Despite the absence of an institutional movement, the progressive movement remained vibrant in India, especially in Urdu poetry. Poets like Jan Nisar Akhtar, Ali Sardar Jafri, Kaifi Azmi, Sahir Ludhianvi and Makhdoom Mohiuddin wrote stirring poems celebrating the working class, condemning religious sectarianism and celebrating international figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., Patrice Lumumba, Jawaharlal Nehru (in the context of his international efforts) and Mao Zedong.[38]

Pakistan

The All Pakistan Progressive Writers' Association was set up formally in December 1949 although several branches of the Progressive Writers Movement already existed in cities like Lahore and Karachi. The Progressive Papers Limited, a company established by

Pakistan Times, Daily Imroze and Lail-o-Nihar which were edited by Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi and Sibte Hasan respectively.[18]

The partition of the sub-continent also portioned the movement and with the sway of the

Qazi Abid its joint secretary and Maqsood Khaliq, its deputy secretary co-ordinator. Soon after the election, South African Free Media Association (SAFMA) invited the new office-bearers at a dinner presided over by Munnu Bhai, Dr Muhammad Ali Siddiqui
, newly elected president of PWA, and Rahat Saeed, the outgoing Acting Secretary General were the guests of honour. Replying to a question by the journalist Imtiaz Alam as to what challenges the PWA of today, considered relevant, as the previous contention of the PWA, 'the battle of ideas', had become irrelevant, the newly elected president PWA contended that the battle of ideas is still going on. And how could it be considered a closed chapter, when a few hundred multinationals in the world had in their coffers 50 percent of the world's GDP. He thought that, in Pakistan, the rate of poverty was rising alarmingly and even if the rate of illiteracy as a yardstick of poverty is taken into account, more than 50 percent of the people were not literate.

In their Karachi meeting in 2007, some of Pakistan's progressive writers planned to reactivate the Progressive Writers Association as a body again after a lapse of 53 years, and elected the veteran Hameed Akhtar as the secretary-general of the association.[39]

Writers

Prominent members of the movement have included:

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Historical facts about the Progressive Writers Association listed on The Open University (UK) website Retrieved 9 May 2018
  2. ^ a b c d e History of Progressive Writers' Movement on The Indian Express newspaper Published 26 April 2014, Retrieved 9 May 2018
  3. ^ a b c The last of the Mohicans (Progressive writers) Dawn newspaper, Published 1 October 2004, Retrieved 9 May 2018
  4. ^ "Progressive Writing, Regressive Caretaking". Lucknow Observer. 5 August 2015. Retrieved 9 May 2018.
  5. ^ Also transliterated as Angaaray, Angarey, Angaarey, or Anghare. See "Angaarey". Sangat Review of South Asian Literature. 25 November 2014. Retrieved 9 May 2018. and "Progressive Writers' Association". Making Britain. Retrieved 9 May 2018.
  6. ISSN 0971-751X
    . Retrieved 2021-01-05.
  7. ^ Mahmud 1996a.
  8. ^ a b Writer 'Ahmed Ali' on Encyclopædia Britannica Retrieved 9 May 2018
  9. ^ Jalil 2014, p. 192.
  10. ^ Jalil 2014, p. 196.
  11. ^ Jalil 2014, p. 199.
  12. ^ Coppola 1981, pp. 63, 64.
  13. ^ a b c Ramnath 2019.
  14. ^ Coppola 1981, p. 64.
  15. ^ Jalil 2014, p. 200.
  16. ^ a b c Malik 1967.
  17. ^ Jalil 2014, p. 201.
  18. ^ a b c Mir & Mir 2006a.
  19. ^ Jalil 2014, p. 203.
  20. ^ Jalil 2014, p. 204.
  21. ^ a b Jalil 2014, p. 220.
  22. ^ Jalil 2014, pp. 220, 221.
  23. ^ a b Jalil 2014, p. 221.
  24. ^ Jalil 2014, p. 222.
  25. ^ Jalil 2014, pp. 224–227.
  26. ^ a b Jalil 2014, p. 228.
  27. ^ Ahmed 2009, p. 32.
  28. ^ "Sajjad Zaheer's Progressive Ideas Live on in Writers' Dissent". The Wire. Retrieved 2021-01-06.
  29. ^ Jalil 2014, p. 245.
  30. ^ Jalil 2014, p. 246.
  31. ^ a b Sahni 1986.
  32. ^ Jalil 2014, p. 260.
  33. ^ Zaheer 2006, p. 186.
  34. ^ Jalil 2014, p. 251.
  35. ^ Jalil 2014, pp. 252, 253.
  36. ISBN 8171694268
    .
  37. ^ a b Aslam, Mohammed (May 15, 1986). "Lucknow plays host to commemorate 1936 Progressive Writers Association conference". India Today. Retrieved 2021-01-05.
  38. ^ Mir & Mir 2006a, pp. 68–81.
  39. ^ a b Progressive Writers Association meeting in 2007 plans to reactivate body Pakistan Press Foundation website, Published 3 May 2007, Retrieved 9 May 2018

Cited sources

Further reading
  • 'The Journal of Indian Writing in English', A Tribute to Ahmed Ali, Editor, G.S. Balarama Gupta, Vol. 23, January–July 1995, Nos. 1-2.
  • Ali, Orooj Ahmed, Sajjad Zaheer, Dawn-Letters, January 15, 2006.
  • ahsaas 1,2,3 a journal of progressive literary writings June 2013 peshawar.kpk province,Pakistan
  • Alvi, Dr. Khalid. Angare Ka Tarikhi Pusmanzar aur Tarraqi Pasand Tahrik, (Historical Perspective of Angare and The Progressive Writers' Movement), Educational Publishing House, Kucha Pandit, Delhi 1995.

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Progressive_Writers%27_Movement&oldid=1219231021"