THE Battle of Plassey was fought on June 23, 1757, between the British East India Company and Siraj-ud-daula, the Nawab of Bengal. British victory decided the future of Indo-Pak subcontinent: it was beginning of a reign that lasted for 190 years and ended in August 1947.
Aside from political and economic impact, a major influence of the British Raj was on culture, language and literature. Travelling to Europe by ship from the subcontinent had begun in 17th century, but writing about it was not so common. Though Urdu travelogue-writing began in 1847 with Yousuf Kambalposh’s Ajaibaat-i-Farang, Persian travelogue-writing in the subcontinent has a longer history as a few locals had written some travel accounts in Persian before Kambalposh wrote his Urdu travelogue.
As to the question which was the first-ever travel account of Europe written in India, we have a couple of possible answers: usually it is said that Mirza Abu Talib Khan, also known as Abu Talib Londoni, or Londoner, went to London in 1799 and spent two years there. On his return he penned a travelogue in Persian, but it could not be published in his lifetime. In 1228 Hijri/1813 AD, some six years after the author’s death, it was published from Calcutta (now Kolkata) under the title Masir-i-Talibi Fi Bilaad-i-Afranji or Talib’s journey to European cities. Its Urdu translation by Dr Sarwat Ali was published from Delhi in 1984.
But Dr Asghar Abbas thinks the earliest Persian travel account of Europe written in India was the one that Sheikh Eitesamuddin wrote. He had visited London in or around 1765. According to Dr Sarwat Ali, Shangraf Nama-i-Vilayat, the travelogue penned by Eitesamuddin, is very brief and does not give enough information.
But now Dr Najeeba Arif has come up with two rare eighteenth-century Persian travelogues written in India and they seem to be older than any reported earlier. Dr Najeeba’s book Junoob Asiai Musalmanon Ka Tasavvur-i-Maghrib: Attharhveen Sadi Ke Do Nadir Safarname offers compiled and annotated versions of these two travelogues. Along with a scholarly preface and annotations there are Urdu translations of both the rare Persian works.
The first of them is Safarnama-i-Roos-o-Cheen, or travelogue of Russia and China. Written probably between 1762 and 1771 by Muhammad Abdullah, virtually an unknown author, it is a very brief travelogue and consists of 16 pages. But it is quite rare and it is the only manuscript held by British Library. Though Charles Rieu (1820-1902), the famous orientalist and professor of Arabic at Cambridge University, has mentioned it in his catalogue of Persian manuscripts, its complete text has never been published before. The book offers the Persian version and Urdu translation for the first time.
During her London University Fellowship for post-doctoral research, Dr Najeeba ultimately found another rare Persian travelogue of Europe --- written in Persian in the subcontinent. She had been hunting for it all along. It is named Tareekh-i-Jadeed and was penned by Munshi Ismail between 1771 and 1773, describing the author’s travels in Europe. Munshi Ismail was an employee of East India Company and had accompanied his boss Claud Russell, an officer of the company. Dr Najeeba thinks that this travelogue by Munshi Ismail is older than Eitesamuddin’s Shangraf nama as Munshi Ismail had penned his travel account during his journey and as soon as he got back to Calcutta in 1773, he gave it to the calligrapher while Shagraf nama was committed to writing in 1785.
An important aspect of these travelogues is that through them we can see how the people of the subcontinent perceived the West and Western people. These are contemporaneous evidences, albeit the general tone of the writers of these works is full of praise and almost all the travelogue writers, including Kambalposh, seem to be much impressed with the West, their cities and their way of life. Another point that strikes one is that some of these writers might have been on a secret mission, such as spying, for the British government, as opines Dr Najeeba on the basis of these travel writers’ reticence about what exactly inspired them to take such a venture, especially travelling to Russia and China.
The book, published by Al-Faisal, Lahore, offers the facsimiles of the original manuscripts, a very valuable index and a condensed English translation of Tareekh-i-Jadeed by Simon Digby, an orientalist whose treasured collection of manuscripts included the only manuscript of the work. The Persian works’ Urdu translations by Dr Sarfaraz Zafar and Jawad Hamdani have been included.
Dr Najeeba Arif is a scholar of Urdu and dean of Faculty of Languages and Literature at Islamabad’s International Islamic University. She has a number of creative and research works to her credit.
Published in Dawn, May 9th, 2022
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