Author Archives: Thebookreviewindia

The All India Progressive Writers Movement (AIPWM) has been one of most dominant, indigenous, 20th century countrywide movements taking in its sweep most writers of vernacular literature.

Zahida Zaidi was a poet, dramatist, translator and critic whose literary contributions belong to the realms of both Urdu and English literatures. She was a prolific writer passionately concerned with the pulse of the times so one comes across varied political, cultural and social themes in her work. She was innovative too in her use of various literary forms. Sham-e-Tanhai was Zahida.

I run my hand over this large volume with a pictorial cover of a brown prison wall, pierced diagonally with barbed wire, a patch of a sky, a few forlorn trees standing behind parallel search lights and a sentry standing erect before a guard room.

The five almost undisputed leaders of modern Urdu poetry, chronologically by year of their of birth, are N.M. Rashid (1910-1975), Faiz Ahmed Faiz (1911-1984), Meeraji (1912-1949), Majeed Amjad (1914-1974) and Akhtarul Iman (1915-1996).

Khalid Hasan, the one-time compatriot and Press Secretary to Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and journalist par excellence is well known for his literary writings. For years the life and times of Madame Noor Jehan have been celebrated in his writings.

Rajinder Singh Bedi (19151984) began his working life as a postal clerk but soon carved a place for himself in the canon of modern Urdu short stories with his very first collection, DanaoDam, published in 1940.

Literature is not only a mirror but also a major source of inspiration. With the formation of the Progressive Writers Movement in India in 1936 a radical shift emerged in the consciousness of Urdu writers. This book examines the role of progressive writing in the history of India.

There is one kind of lament about Indian politics that has become commonplace: politics has become characterized only by corruption, selfindulgence, and venality.

This like all books on the Progressive Writers Movement is to be heartily welcomed as an attempt to redress a very serious historical neglect. To subtitle it an episode is however to acknowledge and reinforce the overarching and unquestioned authority of the national question over all other approaches and framings of this period.