Angaray - A book that brutally infuriated the clerics of the Indian subcontinent.

In 1932, a collection of short stories called Angāre ( literal meaning burning coals) was published in Lucknow, British India. The collection brutally inflamed the egos the religious authorities and raised a huge outcry, especially among Islamic circles. The contributors of the short stories were four young progressive Muslim writers Sajjad Zaheer, Ahmed Ali, Rashid Jahan and Mahmud Zafar. Though the authors had penned the stories to be incredible provocative against the hypocrisy of the society, they were "most likely unprepared for the volume and pitch of the response that attacked their short story collection as filthy, piety destroying and shameless".[1]

Angāre, the publication of the anthology of ten provocative short stories was a turning point in the history of Urdu literature. The tone of the stories screamed of a youthful, rebellious, and energetic fervour of highly educated and freshly graduated young writers ( Sajjad Zahir and Mahmud Zafar had just returned after graduating from Oxford). It was the start of a movement of defiance against all traditional and religious pretences that had seeped deep into the collective imagination of the Muslim society.

The collection immediately attracted the wrath of Muslim clerics who were quick to issue fatwas against the authors. [2] Newspapers and journals published angry editorials and articles denouncing the book.[3] Majority of the Muslims leaders in all Indian Conference in Lucknow strongly condemned "the heart-rending and filthy pamphlet". The leaders called the collection shameless and disgusting which had wounded the feelings of the entire Muslim community by ridiculing God and his Prophets and which was extremely objectionable from the standpoints both of religion and morality.[4] Questions were asked on the Assembly of the United Provinces, and demands were raised for the proscription of the book. The punishments suggested for the authors by the ulema ranged from 'stoning to death' to 'hanging by the neck'. [5] The book was eventually banned by the British government under the blasphemy law, section 295 of the Indian Penal Code.[6]

The collection was unique in many ways, but most importantly, it was the very first ferocious attack on society in modern literature. Angāre was "a declaration of war by the youth of the middle class against the prevailing social, political and religious institutions.[7] The contributions, aimed at creating a direct impact on the portrayal of human existence, were an enthusiastic experiment in writing inspired from the writings of James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence, and in some cases from Marxist writings.[8]The content of the stories highlighted the hypocrisies of social and religious practices that claim to be based on absolute truth. The violent reaction against Angāre by the Islamic religious orthodoxy also portrayed the lack of freedom of speech that has always existed in the sacred space of Indian Subcontinent.

Angāre stood out not only because it was a stark criticism of the traditional and religious authority, but also because the literary style of the content was new and brought a fresh perspective to Urdu literature of the time. It broke the traditional way of writing to paint a picture of an imaginative euphoric society, completely or either partly devoid of the realities of the suffocation it was suffering from. Angāre, quite literally, was a slap on the face of a morally corrupt social order. The use of bold sarcasm, satire and rationality breathed a new life into the afsana nigari (short story writing) genre of Urdu literature. Finally, Angāre also reflected the author's use of symbolism and irony, most probably influenced by the many European writers of the time. [9]

In Sajjad Zaheer's Jannat ki Basharat (annunciation of heaven), for instance, the author uses sarcasm to ridicule the obsession of the Islamic clergy with the promised virgins of the afterlife. The short story revolves around a middle-aged maulvi (cleric) whose young wife is mentally exhausted and sexually unsatisfied in her marriage. The cleric, who in real life is very cautious of engaging in sexual activity with his wife at the expense of missing the prayer timings, when showed a dream of the alleged heaven, cannot stop drooling over the bodies of the virgins. Zaheer paints a graphic picture of a utopian chamber where behind each window stands a gorgeous virgin fully naked. To his surprise, the cleric finds himself completely nude as well. Encouraged by the absence of anyone else around, the cleric gains confidence and with a broad grin on his face, moves from one window to another to appreciate the beauty of long legs and bare chests of the virgins. The cleric, who always prefers praying and reading the Qur'an over being intimate with his wife, eventually jumps onto a virgin and hugs her tight only to suddenly wake up from the dream and watch himself drenched in sweat on the prayer rug, the holy book pressed against his chest. The cleric's obsession with the afterlife and total ignorance of his wife is a symbolic representation of the majority of clerics' obsession and sexual fantasies about the virgins of the afterlife. It is a perfect representation of the idea of heaven that is preached and impregnated among young adolescent men in madrassas—heaven, which is mostly about sexual gratification through the promised seventy-two virgins.

The young contributors of Angāre, three men and a woman, inevitably seemed fed up with the religious orthodoxy of the time. Their writings portray a strong sense of rebellion against the ever-increasing conservatism and hypocrisy of the society in the Indian Subcontinent. In his story, phir ye hangama ( another ruckus ) Sajjad Zaheer introduces a new technique of story writing in Urdu literature that uses several characters and plots one after another to paint an image of around a specific theme. The story deals with many important subject matters such as religious dogmas, class hierarchy, hypocrisy in moral values as well as deep existential questions. The protagonist encounters an angel in his room while reading a book and thinks that the angel is the notorious Iblees who wants to indulge in a religious debate; however, the angel reveals that he is not Iblees but in fact, Gabriel.

"I am not Iblees, and I am Gabriel. I do not blame you for thinking; otherwise, after all, Ibless is also an angel just like me….even the prophets took me for Iblees. The truth is, I am the angel of peace…had I been given the beautiful looks of Iblees, people might have treated me differently…why did you assume I wanted to start a theological debate with you? When it comes to religion, a debate is utterly useless, because the root of religion is faith. It has nothing to do with intellect or reason…religion actually is a perfect thing." [10]

The quick interaction with the angel Gabriel on the topic of religious debates might have been a sarcastic take on the prevailing culture of Munazara (religious debates) among various sects of Islam in the Subcontinent at the time. The Munazara culture was primarily aimed at using polemic narrative to declare each other infidels, and this was a culture at rising during colonial India. The story further dwells into the issues of free will and predestination and challenges a God who watches upon all the sufferings that take place on earth and does nothing at all. In that, the story does not only challenge the religious authority but the very basis on which the authenticity and credibility of this authority stand. Faced with hard questions and challenged in so many ways, it does not come as a surprise that the reaction from the religious circles was anything but seething and ferocious.

Other short stories in the collection follow the same theme of criticism, although the subject matter shifts from religion to societal issues such as female subjugation, racism, male egoism, and grotesque moral standards of the society. Rasheed Jahan, the only female contributor to the collection, highlights a cultural theme of taking women for granted as objects. Mahmud Zafar's 'Jawanmardi' (Manhood) was a blatant criticism of the male chauvinism prevalent in Indian society. In summary, Angāre was a book that shattered the fragile egos of the male dominant religious authority of colonial India. It took the masks off all the faces that preached freedom of speech, peace and tolerance and brought their real faces for the world to see. However, most importantly, Angāre started a movement of resilience and a culture of criticism of religious orthodoxy in the Indian Subcontinent.

Despite life threats and enormous pressure from society and their families, the authors of Angāre did not back off. They stood firm in the face of religious and political bigotry. The statement 'In the Defense of Angāre. Shall we submit to gagging? Drafted by Mahmud Zafar and published in the Leader remains an excellent example of rebellion and critique against religious authority to date. The statement read:

"Shall we submit to such gagging? That is the question I wish to raise here.…… Nobody can deny the truthfulness of those portraits, and anyone who chooses to exert himself can see that they are not drawn for the sake of literary 'flair', but spring from inner indignation against 'this sorry scheme of things.' 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. They have chosen the particular field of Islam, not because they bear any 'special' malice, but because, being born into that particular society, they felt themselves better qualified to speak for that alone."[11]

It is hard to say if Angāre had a set political agenda or a 'set goal' at the time or the collection was simply a result of a creative urge of a few young writers influenced by the social conditions and the degrading state of the society.[12]Regardless, it laid the foundation for the formation of a powerful movement of like-minded poets, novelists, journalists and academics in 1935 in a restaurant in London called The progressive Writers' Association(PWM).[13] Over the next three decades, the members of PWM became a powerful and undeniable force that left a permanent dent in the political, social and literary canvas of India and Pakistan. The real strength and the real contribution of the PWM was rooted in the common cause that the likeminded people were able to converge on concerning a host of issues such as secularism, feminism, and anti-fascism.[14] The members of the PWM influenced several minds both before and after partition to raise their voice against the rotten norms of the society, and religious authority was one of the ideas they resisted.

The first convention of PWM held in Lucknow in 1936 adopted the manifesto that declared: "Indian writers must give full expression to the changes taking place in Indian life and promote scientific and radical outlook and set such critical standards that could adequately combat outdated ideas and beliefs about family, religion, sex, war and society. It is incumbent upon them to check the growth of such ideas and trends, which advocate communalism, racial prejudice and human exploitation."[15] The progressive writers' movement was not an exclusive rebellion against religious authority. However, there is no doubt that in one way or the other, the issues it set out to tackle did affect the religious authorities of the time such as female sexuality, religious dogmatism and freedom of speech.

Controversial though the progressive writers' movement was in its time, and still is, one of its undeniable contributions was its assumption for the first time of an attitude of protest.[16] The movement gave poets and writers of incredible stature to Urdu literature without whom Urdu literature will be considered incomplete. The names of progress, rationality, and reason such as Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Munshi Prem Chand, and later the likes of Sadat Hassan Manto, to name just a few.

Refrences:

[1] Snehal Shingavi, "Why Fundamentalists Got This Urdu Book Banned In 1933", Scroll.In, 2020, https://scroll.in/article/666833/why-fundamentalists-got-this-urdu-book-banned-in-1933. [2] Maleha Malik, Colonial And Post-Colonial Governance Of Islam (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2011), 200. [3] Ahmed 'All, 'The Progressive Writers Movement and Creative Writers in Urdu', in: Marxist Influences & South Asian Literature, ed. Carlo Coppolla (Michigan, 1974), p. 36. [4] Shabana Mahmud, "Angāre And The Founding Of The Progressive Writers' Association", Modern Asian Studies 30, no. 2 (1996): 447-467, doi:10.1017/s0026749x0001653x. [5] Mahmud, Angāre And The Founding Of The Progressive Writers' Association, 449. [6] Section 295 of the Indian Penal Code: Injuring or defiling place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class.—Whoever destroys, damages or defiles any place of worship, or any object held sacred by any class of persons with the intention of thereby insulting the religion of any class of persons or with the knowledge that any class of persons is likely to consider such destruction, damage or defile­ment as an insult to their religion, shall be punishable with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both. [7] 'Aziz Ahmed, Taraqql pasand adab (Hyderabad,Deccan), 1945 [8] Mahmud, Angāre And The Founding Of The Progressive Writers' Association, 447. [9]S.P Jain, "'Angare' : A Reappraisal: About A Proscribed, Trend-Setting Anthology", Indian Literature 30, no. 4 (1987): 120. [10] Sajjad Zaheer et al., Angare, 1st ed. (repr., Lucknow: Nizami Press Victoria Street, 1932), 55. [11] Published in The Leader (Allahabad), April 5, 1933). Also in : Ahmed, Talat (2009), Literature and Politics in the Age of Nationalism, The Progressive Writers' Movement in South Asia, 1932-56, New Delhi: Routledge Publications, pp.181-182. [12] Mahmud, S. (1996). Angāre and the Founding of the Progressive Writers’ Association. Modern Asian Studies, 30(02), 447. doi:10.1017/s0026749x0001653x [13] SAHNI, BHISHAM. "The Progressive Writers' Movement." Indian Literature 29, no. 6 (116) (1986): 178-83. Accessed July 5, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/24159089. [14] Rakhshanda Jalil, "Loving Progress, Liking Modernity, Hating Manto", Social Scientist 40, no. 11 (2012): 43-52. [15]Akhtar, Javed, and Humayun Zafar Zaidi. "Progressive Writers' Movement in Urdu Literature." Indian Literature 50, no. 4 (234) (2006): 140-62. Accessed July 5, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/23346444. [16] Akhtar, Salim, and Leslie A. Flemming. "Is Manto Necessary Today?" Journal of South Asian Literature 20, no. 2 (1985): 1-3. Accessed July 5, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/40872770.