OUDH PUNCH, or Avadh Punch, was an Urdu humour magazine. Launched on Jan 16, 1877 and published weekly from Lucknow, it used satire and humour as weapons against some social, political, linguistic and literary issues.

The wrong notion that Oudh Punch ceased publication in 1936 is widespread. Many books and articles have repeated the mantra, but the fact is it continued publication until, at least, December 1937. This writer has had the opportunity to see some 1937 issues of Oudh Punch, preserved at Mushfiq Khwaja Library, Karachi. The collection also includes Dec 23, 1937, issue of Oudh Punch.

It had many distinctions and one of them was being one of the earliest Urdu humour magazines. Urdu’s first humour magazine was Mazaaq. Owned by Hakeem Ahmed Raza and edited by Abdul Jaleel No’mani, Mazaaq was launched from Rampur on Jan 7, 1855. Oudh Punch outlived most of its contemporaries. Launched in 1877, though weekly, Oudh Punch had to be closed down in 1912, it was launched again in 1916 and it continued till, at least, Dec 1937. All in all, this comes to around 56 years.

Oudh Punch proved to be a trendsetter and after its success a large number of humour magazines followed suit. Dr Tabassum Kashmiri has mentioned the names of 45 punch magazines published in Urdu, but Mushirul Hasan has put the figure at 70. But none of them could rival Oudh Punch. It is a fact that Oudh Punch played a vital role in popularising humour in Urdu journalism as well as literature. Its founder-editor Munshi Sajjad Hussain Kakorvi was a humorist himself and would write many articles by different pseudonyms. With a keen eye on national and international political issues, he would often satirise the British policies. For him, journalism was not a profession, it was a mission.

Oudh Punch’s other contributors included Akbar Allahabadi, Pandit Ratan Nath Sarshar, Syed Mohammad Azad, Tribhavan Nath Hijr, Machchu Baig Sitam Zareef, Javala Prashad Barq, Ahmed Ali Shauq Qidvai and a large number of other writers who penned humorous poetry and prose for Oudh Punch over a period of more than half a century.

Ironically, the standard of humour presented by Oudh Punch was erratic. Some of its contributors, such as Syed Mohammad Azad, had mastered the subtle art of irony and others like Sajjad Hussain at times showed a talent for repartee, but many of them could not rise above banter and raillery.

Although its motto was ‘Life is Pleasure’, published on the front page of every issue, Oudh Punch was among the first few publications in the 19th-century British India with a well-defined political, literary and social stance. Though styled and edited on the lines of London Punch, Oudh Punch was fiercely against the British and the West. It also ridiculed Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Aligarh Movement. But it zealously favoured Hindu-Muslim unity and Shia-Sunni unity. It raised its voice against the annexation of Oudh. In those days, the Ilbert Bill Controversy was raging and Oudh Punch fearlessly supported this bill, introduced in 1883 by a member of the viceroy’s council Sir C.P. Ilbert.

According to the proposed bill, Indian judges could hear the cases involving Europeans. It was vehemently opposed by the colonialists and was enacted in a much diluted form. Some historians believe that the bill was a precursor that later on led to the formation of the All India National Congress in 1885.

On social front, Oudh Punch was very particular about some Hindu and Muslim festivals, religious or otherwise, and would celebrate them by publishing humorous articles and satirical verses. Be it Holi or Eid, Muharram or Ramazan, Basant or Nauroz, the arrival of monsoon or the new year, Oudh Punch would take special care to mention them in its own peculiar way.

Aside from humorous and satirical tone, one of the most interesting aspects of Oudh Punch’s features was its linguistic purism and spoofing of certain literary masterpieces and literary figures. First of such skirmishes took place when Sarshar left Oudh Punch, joined the rival Oudh Akhbar and began serialising his hugely popular humorous work Fasana-i-Azad.

Oudh Punch took to task Altaf Hussain Hali for his criticising Lucknow poets and their traditional love poetry in his Muqaddama-i-Shear-o-Shaeri. Daagh Dehlvi, too, could not avoid Oudh Punch’s wrath as writers of Oudh Punch thought Daagh was not a poet at all and it was only his pupils’ propaganda. The longest running literary feud unleashed by Oudh Punch was against Masnavi Gulzar-i-Naseem.

It all began with the publication in 1905 of a new edition of the famous masnavi, edited by Brij Narayan Chakbast. Abdul Haleem Sharar was first to criticise it for certain lapses. Chakbast published a rejoinder. Oudh Punch jumped into the fray and thus began one of the most well-known literary skirmishes in the history of Urdu literature. During its second period, beginning in 1916, Oudh Punch spoofed Allama Iqbal’s allegedly incorrect Urdu, but Iqbal never bothered to reply.

Oudh Punch was one of the pioneers of certain trends in Urdu journalism and literature as well as political and social scene.

drraufparekh@yahoo.com

Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2019