Sajjad Zaheer
Syed Sajjad Zaheer ( ur, ) (5 November 1899 – 13 September 1973) was an Indian Urdu writer, Marxist ideologue and radical revolutionary who worked in both India and Pakistan. In the pre-independence era, he was a member of the Communist Par ...
,
Rashid Jahan
Rashid Jahan (25 August 1905 – 29 July 1952) was an Indian writer and medical doctor known for her Urdu literature and trenchant social commentaries. She wrote short stories and plays and contributed to ''Angarey'' (1932), a collection of ...
, Mahmud-uz-Zafar and Ahmed Ali first published in 1932 and generally considered to have marked the beginning of the
Progressive Writers' Movement
The Progressive Writers' Association or the Progressive Writers' Movement of India or ''Anjuman Tarraqi Pasand Mussanafin-e-Hind'' (( ur, ) or ''Akhil Bhartiya Pragatishil Lekhak Sangh'' (Hindi: अखिल भारतीय प्रगति ...
in
Indian literature
Indian literature refers to the literature produced on the Indian subcontinent until 1947 and in the Republic of India thereafter. The Republic of India has 22 officially recognised languages.
The earliest works of Indian literature were o ...
. The release of the book was marked by protests and it was subsequently banned by the government of the United Provinces a few months after publication.
Content
The volume consists of nine short stories and a one-act play.
* ''Garmiyon ki Ek Raat'' (A Summer Night) - Sajjad Zaheer
* ''Dulari'' - Sajjad Zaheer
* ''Jannat ki Basharat'' (Heaven Assured!) - Sajjad Zaheer
* ''Neend Nahin Aati'' (Insomnia) Sajjad Zaheer
* ''Phir Yeh Hungama'' (The Same Uproar, Once Again) - Sajjad Zaheer
* ''Dilli ki Sair'' (A Trip to Delhi) - Rashid Jahan
* ''Jawanmardi'' (Masculinity) - Mahmud-uz-Zafar ''Jawanmardi'' was originally written by Mahmud-us-Zafar in English and was translated by Sajjad Zaheer to Urdu for this book .
* ''Badal Nahin Aate'' (The Clouds Don’t Come) - Ahmed Ali
* ''Muhavatton ki Ek Raat'' (A Night of Winter Rain) - Ahmed Ali ''Muhavatton ki Ek Raat'' was first published in the literary journal ''Humayun'' in January 1932 .
* ''Parde ke piche'' (Behind the Veil: A One Act Play) - Rashid Jahan
Themes
Sajjad Zaheer, Rashid Jahan, Ali Ahmed and Mahmud-uz-Zafar were all educated in
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
and were heavily inspired by the writings of
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...
,
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.
Woolf was born i ...
and
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English writer, novelist, poet and essayist. His works reflect on modernity, industrialization, sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity and instinct. His best-k ...
and in some cases from
Marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
writings. They were not only critical of conservative elements within the Muslim community but also of the corrosive effects of British imperial rule in India. The stories of Zaheer related enslavement to social and religious practice based on ignorance. They protested against the prevailing social, religious and political institutions and the economic inequality of the society. Zaheer's stories also dealt with sexual desire and sexual repression and highlighted the ways that religious and social restrictions unnecessarily damage the human psyche. The stories of Rashid Jahan dealt with oppressive worlds of Muslim women and the outdated religious and social dogma their societies. Ali's stories delved primarily on the condition of women like poverty, domestic abuse, sexual desire and longing experienced by widows.
Controversy
Reception
Angaray was first published in December 1932 by the Nizami Press,
Lucknow
Lucknow (, ) is the capital and the largest city of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and it is also the second largest urban agglomeration in Uttar Pradesh. Lucknow is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous district and division ...
. The book created controversy in the
Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
community of the
British India
The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
upon its release and was met with outrage from both the religious and civil authorities. Newspapers and journals wrote angry editorials denouncing the book. Hindustan times carried an article ‘Urdu Pamphlet Denounced: Shias Gravely Upset' quoting a resolution passed by the All India Shia Conference Lucknow condemning the publication of the book. Agitations were held in Lucknow and
Aligarh
Aligarh (; formerly known as Allygarh, and Kol) is a city in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. It is the administrative headquarters of Aligarh district, and lies northwest of state capital Lucknow and approximately southeast of the capita ...
and the copies of the book were burnt in public.
The book was reviewed by scholars and critics like Akhtar Hussain Raipuri, Munshi Daya Narain Nigam and Muhammad Mujib of
Jamia Millia Islamia
Jamia Millia Islamia () is a central university located in New Delhi, India. Originally established at Aligarh, United Provinces (present-day Uttar Pradesh, India) during the British Raj in 1920, it moved to its current location in Okhla in ...
who wrote detail critique on the book.
Ban
Four months after publication, on 15 March 1933, the book was banned by the government of the United Provinces under Section 295A of the
Indian Penal Code
The Indian Penal Code (IPC) is the official criminal code of India. It is a comprehensive code intended to cover all substantive aspects of criminal law. The code was drafted on the recommendations of first law commission of India established in ...
. All but five copies were destroyed by the police, two of which were sent to British Library’s Oriental and India Office Collections.
However, even after Angarey was proscribed, the four authors refused to apologize for it. On 5 April 1933, Mahmud-uz-Zafar wrote an article, ‘In Defence of Angarey’ for '' The Leader'', a newspaper published from
Allahabad
Allahabad (), officially known as Prayagraj, also known as Ilahabad, is a metropolis in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.The other five cities were: Agra, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Lucknow, Meerut, and Varanasi (Benares). It is the administrat ...
. The piece was also reproduced in some other papers, including the Hindustan Times. Subtitled ‘Shall We Submit to Gagging?’ it read:
The authors of this book do not wish to make any apology for it. They leave it to float or sink of itself. They are not afraid of the consequences of having launched it. They only wish to defend 'the right of launching it and all other vessels like it' ... they stand for the right of free criticism and free expression in all matters of the highest importance to the human race in general and the Indian people in particular... Whatever happen to the book or to the authors, we hope that others will not be discouraged. Our practical proposal is the formation immediately of a League of Progressive Authors, which should bring forth similar collections from time to time both in English and the various vernaculars of our country. We appeal to all those who are interested in this idea to get in touch with us.
Impact
The banning of Angaaray directly led to the formation of the All India Progressive Writers’ Association, which later attracted writers like
Saadat Hasan Manto
Saadat Hasan Manto (; Punjabi, ur, , ; 11 May 1912 – 18 January 1955) was a Pakistani writer, playwright and author born in Ludhiana, who was active in British India and later, after the 1947 partition of India, in Pakistan.
Writing ma ...
,
Ismat Chughtai
Ismat Chughtai (21 August 1915 – 24 October 1991) was an Indian Urdu novelist, short story writer, liberal humanist and filmmaker. Beginning in the 1930s, she wrote extensively on themes including female sexuality and femininity, middle-class ...
and
Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Faiz Ahmad ''Faiz'' (13 February 1911 – 20 November 1984; Urdu, Punjabi:
فیض احمد فیض) was a Pakistani poet, and author of Urdu and Punjabi literature. Faiz was one of the most celebrated Pakistani Urdu writers of his time. Out ...
.
Republication
In 1987 the microfilm of the book was found to have been preserved in the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
in London and was brought back to India by Qamar Rais, the head of the Urdu department of
Delhi University
Delhi University (DU), formally the University of Delhi, is a collegiate university, collegiate Central university (India), central university located in New Delhi, India. It was founded in 1922 by an Act of the Central Legislative Assembly and ...
. The stories were then edited by
Khalid Alvi
Khalid Alvi also known as Khalid Mustafa Alvi is a professor at the University of Delhi, critic, and Urdu poet. He has written twelve books and edited the English journal ''Furtherance'' and the Urdu monthly ''Shahkaar''. Some of his works have ...
and the book was published as Angarey in Urdu by Educational Publishing House, Delhi, in 1995.
Translation
The book has been translated into English twice. The first translation, "Angarey" printed by
Rupa
Rupa may refer to:
Places
* Rupa, Croatia, a town in northwest Croatia
* Rupa, Arunachal Pradesh, a town of Arunachal Pradesh
* Rupa gold mine, an artisanal mine in Uganda
* Rupa Lake, a freshwater lake in Nepal
Science
* ''Rupa'' (beetle), a b ...
, is authored by Vibha S. Chauhan and Khalid Alvi. The second book titled "Angaaray" is translated by Snehal Shingavi, an academic at the University of Texas and printed by
Penguin
Penguins (order (biology), order List of Sphenisciformes by population, Sphenisciformes , family (biology), family Spheniscidae ) are a group of Water bird, aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: on ...