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| Critics criticised at International Urdu Conference |
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Saturday, November 21, 2009
By our correspondent
Karachi
Quality work in the field of Urdu literary criticism has become rare in recent times and the standards of literary criticism have become very poor. Criticism has great importance in literature as it attempts to evaluate and understand the creative writing and decides the merits or demerits of a literary work but no quality literary criticism is being seen by modern Urdu critics. These views were expressed at the first session on the fourth day of the five-day International Urdu Conference at the Arts Council on Friday.
Noted critic Dr Muhammad Ali Siddiqui’s views were straightforward when he referred to most of the Urdu critics in Pakistan as mercenaries. He said that the modern Urdu critics have the habit of conveniently forgetting or ignoring the struggle by the writers against the capitalist countries that are stunting the growth of poorer nations.
Globalisation received some fierce criticism from him too as he said ‘stop the world from being a melting pot’. Meanwhile he advised the Urdu critics to mingle their critique with the regional languages of Pakistan to enrich Urdu while helping other languages to flourish.
Siddiqui said that the Urdu writers in India too are producing literary work that had no semblance of reality regarding the Muslims of that country and alleged that those writers “are on the pay roll of the Bharatiya Janata Party”. Moreover the Pakistani universities also received the flaks from Dr Siddiqui when he said that impact factor of the criticism from the universities is zero and most of the criticism penned by the critics is esoteric.
On the occasion Dr Qazi Abid from Multan said that Urdu critics had no inkling of philosophy compared to the western critics. The lack of philosophical knowledge and understanding results in the shallow critique in Urdu where the critics mostly grope in darkness, he said.
Dr Nauman ul Haque, a Professor in LUMS, Lahore said that the scarcity of historians in Pakistan has localised the Urdu criticism. In his opinion any literary wave could not flourish until it is in the global context. Dr Haq also advised the writers and the poets to use regional languages in their work to give their work authenticity and aesthetic value.
Moreover columnist Masood Ashaar claimed that the critiques are producing substandard work. He agreed that in such a scenario those who were creating standard work should be praised profusely.
Chairman and Professor at the Department of Urdu, University of Karachi (KU) Dr Zafar Iqbal presented his research paper on “The work on criticism at KU”. He mentioned the names of literary giants like Maulvi Abdul Haq, Dr Ghulam Mustafa Khan, Dr Abul Lais Siddiqui, Dr Farman Fatehpuri, Dr Aslam Farrukhi, Dr Abul Khair Kashfi, Dr Waqar Ahmed Rizvi, Shamim Ahmed and Sahar Ansari who were associated with the university and proved their mantle in the literary world. He said they maintain a wonderful balance between old and modern criticism.
Moreover Dr Iqbal praised Dr Fatehpuri’s criticism. He said that Fatehpuri’s criticism is very solid and there is no ambiguity in it. His critique is unbiased and very balanced. “Shibli Nomani, who had begun the culture of criticism on the literary and technical qualities of ‘Urdu Marsia’ in comparison between Anees and Dabeer, Dr Fatehpuri has advanced the same on the serious foundation nearly hundred years later. He had relation with the humans instead of celestial objects”, he asserted.
—Perwez Abdullah
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