People's Democracy

MUMBAI

Seminar Pays Homage To Sajjad Zaheer

Ram Sagar Pandey

LATE Comrade Sajjad Zaheer was a down-to-the-core revolutionary who gave a new orientation to modern Urdu literature. This was the opinion expressed by veteran fiction writer Mehmood Ayubi who said the foundation of the Progressive Writers Association (PWA) in 1936 was a major event in the history of Indian literature and a vital part of our national liberation struggle --- an event that opened a new path for the writers of all the Indian languages.

Ayubi was addressing a seminar organised by the Mumbai district unit of Janwadi Lekhak Sangh (JLS) on October 28 evening, as part of the Sajjad Zaheer centenary celebrations. The venue of the seminar was St Xavier’s Boys Academy in the Churchgate area in Mumbai. Ayubi was also a member of the seminar’s presidium. 

Speaking on the occasion, Javed Siddiqui said Sajjad Zaheer was a man who became a movement and still later, a history unto himself. He constantly grappled with questions like how to change the situation in India, what should be the shape of the new Indian literature and what should be a writer’s responsibilities. 

Recalling his association with late Comrade Sajjad Zaheer alias Banne Bhai, Lajpat Rai said the latter was above all an excellent man, extremely sweet-speaking and amiable, never given to provocation, and it was these qualities that attracted thousands of writers from all the Indian languages to the PWA that he founded in 1936. His life was like that of a peasant who touches the soil and it yields a rich harvest. Rai also touched upon Sajjad Zaheer’s role after he migrated to Pakistan in 1949 and spent four and a half years in jail there in the cooked-up Rawalpindi conspiracy case. 

Veteran Urdu writer Inayat Akhtar described Sajjad Zaheer as a people’s writer who taught that literature must not be confined to the upper and middle classes; the working people too have a right to enjoy it. 

Novelist Sajid Rashid described how the collection Angaarey (Embers), published in December 1932, gave a new orientation to Urdu fiction in particular and to the Indian literature in general. 

Monthly Shabtaab editor Naresh ‘Nadeem’ detailed the major events of the period 1905-35, including the Jalianwala Bagh massacre, the non-cooperation and Khilafat movements and the anti-imperialist struggle waged by Bhagat Singh and his fellow revolutionaries, which shaped the thinking of Sajjad Zaheer’s generation. Referring to some of the short stories included in Angaarey, Nadeem said the attack launched by Sajjad Zaheer and his team (Ahmed Ali, Mrs Rashid Jahan and Mehmood-uz-Zafar) was not directed against Islam but against the clergy, against male chauvinism, etc. But then, the speaker stressed, whole of Urdu literature is replete with most vigorous attacks against the clergy and dogmatism. If the conservative lot raised a hue and cry against Angaarey and its writers, dubbed the latter as anti-Islam and demanded a ban on the book (and the British raj did ban the book within three months of its publication), it was because the book attacked the vested interests among the North Indian Muslims. Moreover, these vested interests also resorted to hypocrisy and outright lies (for example, by misquoting Premchand, the doyen of modern Urdu-Hindi fiction) to achieve its aim. Nadeem also described how the Rawalpindi conspiracy case of 1951, involving Sajjad Zaheer, Faiz Ahmad Faiz and others, was a cooked-up case from beginning to end.

On behalf of the presidium, JLS vice president Ram Prakash Tripathi dwelt on the continuing relevance of the struggle waged by Sajjad Zaheer in his time. He said the face of imperialism has now changed but it has become a far bigger threat to humanity. And imperialism is not only targeting Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries; it has penetrated even our textbooks, media and whole culture. This necessitates an intensification of the ideological struggle against imperialism, for which task Sajjad Zaheer’s life and work shows us the way. 

At the outset of the meeting, Shailesh Singh read out excerpts from Sajjad Zaheer’s article “Adab aur Zindagi” (Literature and Life). Mumbal JLS secretary Ram Sagar Pandey conducted the programme while Hridayesh Mayank proposed the vote of thanks.