KARACHI, July 24: Julia Sarwar, an MPhil student at the Urdu Department in the University of Karachi, was at her wit’s end while researching a topic for an assignment on Meeraji. Unable to find the required research material in her university’s library, her professor suggested to her that she get in touch with the Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu. “I had to write a critical analysis of Meeraji’s nazm ‘Samundar ka bulawa’ and give a presentation on it to my class. On the suggestion of my professor I went to the Anjuman’s library and found background information on my topic. The Anjuman is a treasure trove where one can find books that one cannot find anywhere else. Moreover, if one asks for a particular book, the library staff is so helpful that it provides us with related books,” says Ms Sarwar.

Indeed, the library housed in the second floor of a modest bungalow in Gulshan-i-Iqbal boasts an abundant collection of books, periodicals and manuscripts. According to librarian Mohammad Maroof, the Anjuman’s library has over 40,000 books, including an 1846 anatomy textbook in Urdu and Mir Taqi Mir’s Deewan printed in 1811 in Calcutta.

The Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu at a given time is full of activity. The reading room is usually occupied by PhD and master’s students, books are constantly being sorted out and in a sealed wooden-glass cabinet in the library’s corridor, fumigation of several books is going on by means of thymol vapours. “We have rare magazines and periodicals. We have lent some of our rare Urdu manuscripts to the National Museum where the manuscripts have undergone deacidification process preserving them for a long time,” says Mr Maroof.

Besides offering resources in Urdu literature and language, the Anjuman has initiated a series of seminars inviting master’s and PhD students to present their dissertations. The first such discussion group was organised in April this year. “This was an initiative by the late Syed Azfar Rizvi, honorary secretary of the Anjuman, who wanted to get the young generation involved,” says Dr Mumtaz Ahmed Khan, editor of Qaumi Zuban, a monthly literary magazine published by the Anjuman.

The scholars working at the Anjuman also attended the seminar and found it to be a learning experience for them as well. According to them they especially found the theses of Ms Sarwar and Mohammad Hasan for their master’s impressive and informative which they later published in Qaumi Zuban in its May issue.

Ms Sarwar’s thesis centered on themes and genres explored by Pakistani Christian writers and poets. “This was my MA thesis for which I travelled to Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Sheikhupura and Multan. When I started out I thought there would be hardly 15 to 20 such writers but by meeting Christian writers in different cities who put me in touch with other literary people I discovered more than 80 Christian writers and poets,” says Ms Sarwar. She also mentions television drama writers, actors and lyricists from the Christian community in her dissertation.

When asked how she found out about the seminar, she says, “Mr Rizvi from the Anjuman contacted us and planned the seminar. A list of MA and MPhil students of the Urdu departments was made, then it was shortlisted and my name appeared in the final list.” As for the overall experience, she says, “The presentation on the whole was a good experience for us. Other scholars who were present at the discussion group also appreciated our themes. I also found my colleagues’ theses educative.”

Mr Hasan’s thesis pertained to a critical analysis of Urdu prose in Baltistan that was also published in Qaumi Zuban. According to his research it was the Baltistani labourers that brought the Urdu language into their region when they started to regularly go back and forth to India in 1852. And Yousuf Hussainabadi was the first Urdu prose writer from Baltistan who wrote ‘Baltistan par ek nazar’ that was published in 1948. Mr Hasan also discusses travelogues written in Urdu by Baltistani writers and Urdu newspapers in Baltistan.

The Anjuman is one of the oldest literary institutions working towards the promotion of Urdu language and literature in the country. Helmed by well-known poet Jamiluddin Aali, who has been the Anjuman’s secretary since 1961, it has a long and fascinating history. Briefly, the Mohammadan Educational Conference was created by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan in 1886 that was later renamed Muslim Educational Conference which then set up an Anjuman or an association for the promotion of Urdu and named it Anjuman Taraqqi-i-Urdu. The Conference at its annual meeting in 1912 nominated Maulvi Abdul Haq as secretary. Maulvi Abdul Haq, who dedicated his life to the cause of Urdu, was among other things a lexicographer, linguist, critic, editor, translator, academic and was acknowledged as Baba-i-Urdu (Father of Urdu).

Before 1947, Mr Haq ensured the deputation of Urdu teachers to educational institutions, wrote Urdu textbooks, spread branches of the Anjuman throughout the country that held regular debates and conferences for the spread of Urdu. During his tenure the Anjuman published a comprehensive English-Urdu Dictionary, undertook translations of classics from world literature, introduced Deccani writers and poets among its numerous other activities. Post-partition the Anjuman continued zealously with its activities such as the establishing of Urdu Arts and Science colleges, created business and bank phraseologies.

“So far we have printed up to 500 publications and publish monthly Qaumi Zuban and quarterly research-based magazine Urdu,” says Mr Aali. Funded by the Pakistan Academy of Letters and the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, the Anjuman has 10 different books that are in various stages of production.

“We have also started to put up stalls of our publications at the Karachi and Lahore international book fairs leading to phenomenal sales of our books,” says Shahab Qidwai, assistant editor of Urdu.

“Our other activities include book launches, organising lectures by visiting Urdu academics, aiding postgraduate students by suggesting dissertation topics,” says Mr Khan.

All this is well and good but in this digital and internet age why does the Anjuman not have an online presence especially when it wants to reach out to the young people who rely on digital technology and the internet for information? The Anjuman apparently realises this deficiency and hence Mr Aali says the Anjuman is working towards a website which would be uploaded within the next six months. “A website of the Anjuman is badly needed and whenever it is uploaded they should also share its books online so that scholars, students, researchers can access their treasure trove,” says Ms Sarwar.