THE publication of Professor Sahar Ansari’s collection of critical articles titled Tanqeedi Ufaq appears a bit puzzling. How strange that though Ansari has remained engaged in writing literary criticism since the early 1960s, he never cared to assert himself as a critic and bring out a collection of his critical writings to allow wider access to those beyond the city of Karachi. As he himself tells us, it is for the first time that a collection of his critical writings has come out.

This appears puzzling and so it compels me to seriously think about the role of Ansari as a critic. On visits to Karachi, I always felt his presence as a leading critic. From what I observed during my stay there, I concluded that Ansari is the most sought-after critic in the literary world of his own city. And that he is much in demand at literary functions, in conferences and seminars held in Karachi. He, on his part, is a perfect gentleman, declining to participate in any of the literary functions. Should I assume from this that he felt satisfied with this easily-won popularity? Not being an ambitious soul, he never took the trouble to come out of his city-bound shell, move to the wider literary scene and assert himself as a critic? And as a critic he enjoyed the advantage of being affiliated with a school of thought that had a hold on the hearts and minds of a large section of Urdu readership. But perhaps there lies the rub. The progressive writers were seen writing with the zeal of missionaries. The critics associated with this movement acted as the defenders of faith, every ready to cross swords with the adversaries.

The case of Sahar Ansari is a bit different. He is all praise for the progressive writers and for what they stand for. But he takes care not to behave as a partisan. So with all his praise for progressive thought, he will also be seen in his literary surveys accommodating those writers as well who stand discredited in the eyes of Marxist critics. He seems to believe in peaceful co-existence of different schools of thought flourishing in a literary tradition. Call him an accommodative progressive, if you have a liking for this kind of moderation.

Perhaps with this kind of literary behaviour, Ansari was in a better position to cater to the literary needs of Karachi in contradistinction to Saleem Ahmad or Mohammad Ali Siddiqui. In fact, the city of Karachi itself stood in urgent need of the peaceful co-existence of many elements, which were hardly in tune with each other but were being compelled to live together. Ansari, without being conscious of it, has played his role well. He wrote his article, ‘Hasrat, Aik Ishtaraki Muslim,’ and appeared moulded the same way.

In his next article he turns to Iqbal and intends to make a survey of his poetry and thought in the light of secularism. And he explains that the term secularism has wrongly been translated into Urdu as “la diniyet”. Its correct translation is “hama dinyet,” which in English means acknowledgment of all religions. The term secularism was meant, according to him, to highlight ground realities and extricate religion from the clutches of religious clerics. And then, in the light of these meanings of secularism, he starts quoting Iqbal, showing how much of a secularist he appears to be. And then he goes on to give grace marks to different poets belonging to the classical tradition, who in the early years of the progressive movement had been condemned after being charged as decadents and escapists.

Here Ansari appears acting under the guidance of Sajjad Zaheer, who had severely admonished his disciple Zoe Ansari for condemning Hafiz on the basis of the above-mentioned charges. His book on Hafiz appears to provide a revised guideline to his followers with respect to the evaluation of literature, more particularly in the case of our greats such as Hafiz.

It was now left for the Chinese brand revolutionaries to condemn the great masters of progressive movement on the charge of revisionism. But the moderates heartily welcomed this revised guideline and started behaving in accordance to it. The age of extremism had passed. Ansari was born in the age of revisionism. So he was in a better frame of mind to heartily accept the revised guidelines coming from a seasoned guide, who had outgrown his early extremism, and was now seen speaking as a wise old man. This is what makes Sahar Ansari a critic acceptable to all sections of our literary world, more particularly to those living in Karachi.