THE ambitious project of an exhaustive history of Urdu literature, as envisaged by scholar Dr Jameel Jalibi, has progressed slowly but steadily. Its first volume, running to almost 791 pages, made its appearance during the 1970s. Now, its fourth volume, running to 1,625 pages, has come out in February, 2012. With the arrival of the next volume, which is expected to be released soon, the proposed history will come to its completion. With this stupendous work to his credit, the esteemed scholar will deserve recognition from the Urdu world. Majlis-i-Taraqqi-i-Adab too can take credit for managing the publication in a befitting manner.

In the foreword of the first volume, Dr Jalibi argued that in the realm of literature all factors — intellectual, cultural, socio-political and lingual — come together to mingle and are transformed into one big whole. The history of literature should serve as a mirror of this phenomenon. He added that it is with this point of view and with this awareness that he has chosen to make a study of Urdu literature.

Of course, Dr Jalibi has been true to this assertion. Talking about the study of classical literature, he says he has marked two influences at work, one after the other. The first was the influence of the Hindvi tradition. It was, he says, at work during the times when Urdu literature was engaged in assimilating different factors coming from this tradition — words, forms of expressions, myths, legends, allusions, and dictions.

After assimilating to its heart’s content from Hindvi tradition, the creative mind of Urdu literature turned to the rich tradition of Persian literature and began absorbing influences coming from this highly developed literary tradition. And, no doubt, Persian influences enriched Urdu literature immensely. “I have,” says Dr Jalibi, “tried my best to trace Urdu literature’s journey from the Hindvi tradition to the Persian tradition and have tried to show the two sensibilities engaged in a tussle with each other.”

Dr Jalibi advises his readers to first go through the preface of the third volume and then read the foreword of the fourth. These two, along with the volumes, three and four, bring out the complete scenario of the 19th century. In the foreword of the latter volume, while referring to the revolt of 1857 and the re-emergence of the British as victors, Dr Jalibi in particular highlights Sir Syed’s reformative movement and Syed Ahmad Shaheed’s Tehrik-i-Jihad.

Dr Jalibi is of the view that Syed Ahmad Shaheed’s movement of jihad erupted in reaction to British imperialism. But the actual situation was that jihad had been waged only against the Sikh rulers in northern areas. This movement, according to Dr Jalibi, deeply influenced the Urdu poets of those times, particularly Ghalib. For his thesis he has solely relied on Khawaja Manzoor Hussain, who, in his book, Moazoo-i-Sakhum, has taken pains to trace the influence of this movement in the verses of Ghalib. But Khawaja Sahib’s laborious attempts in favour of such interpretation of Ghalib’s verses hardly convince us.

But there should be no doubt about Hakim Momin Khan’s allegiance to the movement. His masnavi on jihad speaks of his deep sympathy to the cause. So Jalibi has here been spared the effort to dig out the required meanings from his ghazals.

The third and fourth volumes trace the development and evolution of modern Urdu prose very ably. But, strangely enough, due attention has not been paid to the contribution of Delhi College in this respect. At least Master Ram Chander and Pyare Lal Ashok deserved very much to be accommodated in the chapters devoted to the development of modern Urdu prose.

But the raising of questions on certain points here and there should not be taken as an attempt to belittle the worth of this stupendous work by Dr Jalibi. In fact, usually for such projects boards comprising eminent scholars are constituted.

However, Dr Jalibi has been quietly doing the whole work single handedly and has almost achieved what the boards enjoying heavy grants and the services of eminent scholars have in general failed to achieve. Such ambitious programmes need for their success a sense of devotion to a cause and the zeal of a missionary. And Dr Jalibi has in him enough of such a quality.