Anjuman-i-Punjab’s contribution in enhancing Muhammad Hussain Azad’s career was immense. Azad with his chequered past and uncertain present, after wandering for several years, finally ended up in Lahore in 1864, at the age of thirty-four. He was born on June 10, 1830 in Delhi to Maulvi Baqir Ali who pioneered Urdu journalism by bringing out the Delhi Urdu Akhbar in 1836.
After his early education, Azad went to Delhi College in 1846 and enrolled in the Urdu-medium Oriental section, which offered Arabic and Persian rather than English. After completing eight year’s curriculum at Delhi College, Azad graduated, probably in 1854. Then he went on to join his father’s paper and in 1850s his name appeared as "printer and publisher" of books produced by the Delhi Urdu Akhbar Press. He continued to work for his father’s paper until 1857. Simultaneously, he developed a taste for poetry and took Zauq as his Ustad (teacher) whom he greatly revered throughout his life.
The events of 1857 rocked Azad’s life completely. His father was executed on the charge of treason, and his house and property confiscated. Next six or seven years, he was on the run until he came to Lahore and secured a temporary job at the Post Office. Subsequently he got employed in the Education Department at the recommendation of his old acquaintance, Pandit Man Phul. Azad had also been tutoring some Englishmen in Urdu to supplement his income. Fortuitously, Leitner was one of his tutees who came to think highly of him. Acquaintance with Leitner rewarded Azad in more than one way. He became a regularly paid lecturer on behalf of the Anjuman in 1866. The next year, Leitner made him secretary of the Anjuman. Azad worked diligently for the promotion of Anjuman and the objectives it stood for. Besides, he also edited the Anjuman’s journal.
All his labour and loyalty opened an avenue for further progress when on the recommendation of Leitner, he was appointed as assistant professor of Arabic at Government College Lahore. Here, indeed, the best period of Azad’s life began. In 1870, he started editing Anjuman’ newspaper, Huma-i-Punjab, which upset many for its pro-British opinions. However, the event that caused a stir happened on May 9, 1874 when the Punjab Government made an abortive attempt to renovate poetry. The same year Sir Donald Mcleod, addressed a letter to Holroyd, director public instruction, emphasising that the Text Book Committee of the Education Department, authorised to prescribe syllabi for higher and secondary schools should include in its recommendations a selection from Urdu poetry.
Read also:Leitner and the Anjuman
Thus, the stage for that controversial event was set with the audience comprising mostly of Englishmen of high official rank. On that occasion, Azad read his well-known manifesto in which he critically evaluated Urdu poetry in the light of the principles of English poetry which served as the foundation stone for the Movement of Modern Urdu Poetry. That manifesto was the starting point of modern literary criticism.
Extremely important and more widely quoted is Col. Holroyd’s speech in which he spoke at length about the decadent state of Urdu poetry and invited the attention of those present at the meeting to find ways and means for the development of Urdu poetry.
In the same speech, he announced holding mushairas which would have a distinctive feature of assigning a certain subject to the poet on which he was supposed to compose a poem. He also emphasised on the poets to write poems instead of ghazals in the rhyme of a given hemistich. Col. Holroyd unfolded a plan of convening monthly meetings and then he announced a topic ‘Barkha Rut’ (rainy season) for the poets to write for the next meeting. The poets, however, were at complete liberty to adopt any form whether mathnavi or musaddas.
Azad was quite prolific in Lahore, prose being his forte. The works like Sukhandan-e-Fars, Qisas-e-Hind and Aab-e-Hayat testify that assertion. Sukhandan-e-Fars runs into two volumes and deals with Persian language and literature. His other work Qisas-e-Hind is a collection of stories from medieval Indian history, meant for children. Factual accuracy of these stories can be questioned but in its "vivid re-creation of the past" Qisas-e-Hind is undoubtedly "a master-piece". Aab-e-Hayat is Azad’s magnum opus, which he wrote in four years and runs into two volumes. First volume focuses on the evolution and growth of Urdu language and the second one specifically deals with Urdu poetry.
Besides these books Azad also wrote Nairang-i-Khayal and Darbar-i-Akbari which failed to make any impression. However, Azad should be commended for adorning Urdu prose with the common/colloquial idiom of Dehli’s Shurafa (genteel class). Hence after Ghalib and Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Azad contributed quite significantly in reorganising Urdu prose on modern lines. The locus of this unique development in Urdu prose was Lahore. The title of Shams ul Ulema was conferred on him in 1887 for his services in education and literature.
Another poet laureate who was temperamentally and intellectually the fittest person to herald the new movement was Altaf Hussain who composed poetry under the nom de plume of Hali (1837-1914). Born to a middle-class family of Panipat, he had a haphazard instruction of the most elementary Arabic and Persian texts at home. Hali had orthodox upbringing; therefore, when he came to Delhi in 1854 to pursue his studies he preferred a traditional seminary Madrisa-i-Hussain Bakhsh near Jamia Masjid over an institution like Delhi College. In Delhi, Hali turned to poetry on Ghalib’s advice.
His stay at Delhi was cut short because of his family problems at Panipat. However, he came to Delhi again in 1862 with the approval of his family. Shortly afterwards, he became acquainted with Mustafa Khan Shaifta, Nawab of Jahangirabad in Bulandshehr district who wanted a tutor for his son. Hali tutored Shaifta’s son Naqshband Khan for 7 years. Besides, he imbibed his patron’s poetic vision and style, and attributed his success as a poet to Shaifta.
With Shaifta’s passing away in 1869, Hali not only lost his benefactor but means of livelihood too. Hence, the quest for employment led Hali to Lahore where he took up a job with Punjab Government Book Depot as Assistant Translator. Here Hali acquired a general liking for English literature, and his admiration for Eastern -- and above all Persian -- literature started diminishing. In Lahore, Hali met Azad and the cursory acquaintance gradually turned into closer intimacy. Hali also took part in Mushairas at the behest of Leitner and Azad. During the four years of his stay at Lahore, Hali participated in four Mushairas and recited his poems, which were in masnavi form on the themes of Barkha Rut (The Rainy Season), Nishat-i Ummid (Pleasures of Hope), Hubb-i Watan (Patriotism) and Munazara-i Rahm-o-Insaf (Dialogue between Clemency and Justice). Hali’s poems were extolled as "the only glory of these gatherings". In these Mushairas, Hali seemed to have eclipsed Azad. Hali’s stealing the limelight did not sit well with Azad, which resulted in some misgivings between the two. Mercifully, the relationship did not deteriorate to an extent of complete alienation.
In 1875, Hali went back to Delhi partly because of his nostalgia for the city and partly because Lahore’s climate did not suit his health. More importantly, however Anglo Arabic College’s offer was the most effective persuasion for Hali to move to Delhi where he taught for twelve years. During that time, he came in contact with Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. Coupled with the influence that he imbibed from Lahore, Sir Syed’s galvanising effect brought the very best out of Hali in the form of Musaddas-e Hali in 1879. The poem called Madd-o jazr-e Islam (The high tide and low tide of Islam) consists of 456 six line stanzas which published first in Tahzib ul-Akhlaq. In that poem, Hali deplored the attenuating state of Indian Muslims in general.
Simplicity of style and refrain from excessive verbosity was his signature which was also evident in the biographies, a genre that Hali pioneered. He started with Hayat-i-Saadi (The Life of Saadi), published in 1886. Subsequently he wrote biographies of Ghalib (Yadgar-i-Ghalib) in 1897 and Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (Hayat-i-Javed) in 1901.
However, Hali broke new ground in Urdu literature by adding into its repertoire, literary criticism by writing Muqadma-i-Sher o Shairi in 1893. That in fact was a long essay that he wrote as an introduction to his collection of poetry which subsequently became a small book in its own right. It was not only the first attempt at literary criticism but by far the most influential work of Urdu literary criticism ever written. Thus the influence that Lahore cast on Hali played a decisive role in the way his poetry and prose subsequently shaped up.
He moved to Lahore once again in January 1887 as superintendent of the Aitchison College hostel. The people from College administration probably knew him previously when he was in Lahore, therefore they extended him an offer, which "bespeaks very highly of his character and integrity". Hali did not find Lahore a convenient place to live indefinitely and resigned within six months in June 1887. The services that he rendered for education and literature were acknowledged; the title of Shams ul Ulema was conferred on him in 1904.
Despite pecuniary incentive attached for the poets who distinguished themselves, the Mushairas could not go beyond March 1875. The nine Mushairas were held in an ambiance reeking with acrimony, personal conflicts, rivalries and trenchant criticism on Azad’s role as the organiser as well as on the merit of his poetry. Thus the Mushairas evoked mixed responses. Muhammad Sadiq (author of A History of Urdu Literature) pronounces the holding of the Mushaira series an abject failure because the academic verse it produced failed to touch the heart of the generation to which it was addressed.
Leitner’s prognosis was slightly different -- as poets had no choice but to accept "dictation in poetic inspiration" which they refused to acquiesce in. However, Sadiq and Leitner’s respective pronouncements on Mushairas as a failure stand substantially invalidated as subsequent pattern of Urdu poetry betrays a very strong influence regarding both its contents and forms. Generally, the Persian sway on the Urdu poetry waned quite considerably, giving way to an influence from the English literary tradition regarding its genre and the poetic style.
(concluded)