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Manto - a new interpretation By Mushir Anwar Manto's quarrel with the progressives was not so much of an ideological discord as it is sometimes made out to be. Nor was it a mere intellectual sparring since while the contenders were not so sure of their stance, Manto's hurt and ire was genuine for he was nobody's but his own man. Politics is important, but it is not everything for every body. Manto whose interest centred on human behaviour had a field much vaster to traverse than of the progressives railroading on a doctrinal narrow gauge. And being the emancipated person that he was, not merely a liberal or a jolly good fellow at home with eunuchs and studs alike, who practices tolerance probably as an enforced self-discipline, Manto would feel asphyxiated in a goal- oriented group of fanciful strategists driven by hope, passion and glory. He existed on a much lower and mundane level of society at which men and women interact and play out their parts behind ludicrous facades of appearances - the stuff of his stories that he was not ready to trim or tailor to a set design. This assertion of his creative freedom coupled with condescension that one so free of mindsets is likely to treat the more committed lot with and which irks the latter more than open opposition of the reactionary class, might also have played its part in causing the natural rupture that Prof Fateh Mohammad Malik celebrates in his latest book, Manto - A New Interpretation, launched at a function at the Academy of Letters the evening before Eidul Azha. The point to ponder in the context of Prof Malik's book is whether, as he asserts, Manto's return from Bombay to Lahore, i.e., his physical migration, was his intellectual transformation also, from a non-communal, secular person and a Left camper to a (let's say for the convenience of meaning the appellation affords) Muslim Leaguer. The dejection and heart-break that the change in the outlook of his closest friends (actor Shayyam etc.) caused could have catapulted him to the other side. Whether that landing lasted the treatment he received both at the hands of brother Leaguers as well as his erstwhile comrades, and was he able to survive and contentedly live with the legal and intellectual prosecution in his chosen land to which he had fled from fear of communal persecution. It should not be difficult to imagine the dilemma such a situation would plunge anyone into. It speaks of his moral courage and intellectual nerve that he stuck to his guns and did not abandon his post. In Camus' Rebel the crucial turn is the moment when the fallen protagonist decides it is enough, when he says no to the tormentor. Manto had said that long ago because unlike many writers of the Zia days he did not don the white skull cap. Society was still fairly liberal then. Beside Manto's explicit stories and Niaz Fatehpuri's sex magazine, even Alfazal and Tulu-i-Islam were published without restriction and censor laws were more Victorian in their absurd prudery than sectarian or bigoted or holy and divine. Then infamy too had its pride of place in our rakish culture which was yet rich with the milk of human kindness. To be honest up until the first decade Pakistan was still very very livable for most as to be poor was not yet a stigma and to be poor and a writer at the same time was still something of a romantic thing. It was quite true of Pakistan also what Hemingway said of his Parisian life that in those days 'we were very poor and very happy.' Then Manto was not without his supporters. His conjunction with Hassan Askari was a stolid bulwark against the Left critics. At the same time the debate was not all that bitter, 'fought for a prize' as Intezar Hussain reportedly said at the Academy's Manto function. In fact the hair splitting would at times touch the comic because Manto's bare pen could only be provoked at great peril. Prof Malik's interpretation of Toba Tek Singh is unique indeed as the title of his book frankly admits. He won't have many votaries for reading this story in this light. The partition Pundits are bothered by it as it seems to present Manto among the doubters whereas his migration to Pakistan is believed to mean not only his acceptance of the two-nation theory but also his abandonment of the non-communal position. Such stretching of meaning would not be correct indeed as human beings are seldom consistent in their beliefs, nor do their thoughts or feelings necessarily follow a line of logic to its end. A little confusion and a little doubt hasn't hurt faith as much as faking certitude. It is not so much his allegiance to Pakistan or his progressiveness that matters as the impact on our literary trends of his fearless depiction of tabooed subjects, his emancipated humanism and his total rejection of prejudice, jingoism and bigotry. Manto wound up his good life in Bombay in favour of Pakistan, but he was not treated well here which is nothing extraordinary in moribund systems and is the price all good men must pay. Between the devil and the deep sea Manto became a lost soul. And now his ghost haunts our mansions of remorse and being the worshippers of the dead that we are, we must gather every now and then in small penitent groups to atone for the wrongs done to him with pompous eulogies and postage stamps. Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)
