By Intizar Husain 

The Pakistan Study Centre of the University of Karachi has brought out a collection of selected Urdu verses, Mahnat Kashon Kai Nam, compiled by the centre’s director, Dr Syed Jaffar Ahmad. As the title indicates, the poetry in the collection is a tribute to the working class.

The collection reminds me of the Progressive Writers’ Movement, which had idealised the working class and created awareness about its lot. At the same time, I sense a great change in the outlook of the progressives. It seems that with the passage of time their thinking and attitude has undergone a significant change. In the heyday of the movement, they demanded from writers a complete submission to the line dictated by the organisation. They had little tolerance for other points of view, even when those holding a different approach were sympathetic to their cause.

The present selection is a case in point. Had it been compiled during the 1940s, it would have remained reserved for the verses of the progressives alone, refusing to accommodate any other writer regardless of his or her sympathy to the cause of labour. But Dr Ahmad has made a wide departure from that line of thinking. The

attitude is inclusive rather than exclusive. Dr Ahmad grants that poets other than progressives have also written about the working class and we cannot afford to ignore their writings. “When compiling this collection we have not confined ourselves to selections from the progressive poets alone,” he writes. “We have also chosen to include verses from those poets who, in general, are not known as progressives or those who have not cared to be recognised as progressives. So, in addition to the progressives, poets such as Akhtar Shirani, Hafeez Jallundhri, Miraji, Noon Meem Rashid and Saleem Ahmad have also been accommodated in this collection. Not only this. We have gone beyond the period of the Progressive Writers’ Movement and have taken into consideration poets of the classical period as well.”

Paying attention to the classical period proved worthwhile. The collection has couplets from Vali Deccani, Mir and Ghalib. More than that, this period had surprises in store for the compiler. He stumbled upon Nazeer Akbarabadi, a sensational discovery. Dr Ahmad is all praise for Nazeer. “He compels us to wonder that a poet can really have such a deep insight into his society. Truly speaking, he deserves to be treated as the first of the progressives in Urdu poetry.” This glowing tribute to the people’s poet of the classical age by the compiler demanded a more generous inclusion of Nazeer Akbarabadi’s poetry but only two of his poems are part of this collection.

A selection from the following period shows Maulana Hali and Ismael Meeruti talking about the pains and pleasures of labourers with an awareness the newly emerged age brought for them. Significant is Hali’s poem where a shoe maker is seen singing  “Main Mauchi Kahlata Hoon”.

The non-progressives of our times included in this collection are Hamid Aziz Madani, Nasir Kazmi, Jamiluddin Aali, Zehra Nigah and Dr Fatima Hasan. In fact, the inclusion of verses from the non-progressives has added a new charm to Urdu poetry about the disenfranchised working class. It provides relief from the cliché-ridden expression which has come to stay with this kind of poetry. The banjara of Nazeer Akbarabadi, the kooza gar of Rashid, the mauchi of Maulana Hali are seen standing  aloft amid the crowd of mill workers and factory labour. They bring with them new vision, depth and meaning.