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April 14, 2002
AUTHOR: Poet, critic, academic
PROF Alay Ahmed Suroor, poet, writer, scholar and teacher, was the moving spirit behind the promotion of Urdu in India, just as Molvi Abdul Haq was in Pakistan. Suroor dedicated a major part of his working life to the progress of Urdu and was closely assisted with the Anjuman Tarraqqi-i-Urdu (Hind). It appears that Suroor Sahib’s recent passing away (in Aligarh at the age of 91) has not received the notice in Pakistan that it deserved. Except for an odd obituary or tribute to his literary achievements, published by some news journal or the other, not much has been written here to acknowledge his stature as a scholar and writer of Urdu, the language he was devoted to.
The late Suroor Sahib’s efforts to steer the Anjuman Tarraqi-i-Urdu (Hind) through a particularly difficult phase in the sixties and the seventies in India is perhaps not known to many people in Pakistan, at least not to the extent that it deserves. Suroor Sahib fought for the rights of Urdu even at times when the officialdom in India was hostile to Urdu and to Muslims.
Urdu in India had suffered an irreversible setback when Hindi (and not Hindustani, as suggested by Mahatma Gandhi) was adopted as the official language in the Indian Constitution. Hindustani is basically Urdu written in the Arabic/Persian script. However, its grammar, particularly the verbs, is derived from Sanskrit.
There was nothing in it which should have identified it exclusively with the Muslims or the identity of the one time Muslim rulers of India. The official language of the Mughal court was Persian. With Partition, Urdu came to be identified with Muslim nationhood although etymologically or culturally it should have been treated as a secular language. However, the rulers of post-Independence India also deemed it fit to treat Urdu as a vestige of an alien (Muslim) tradition and preferred to send it into exile.
Paradoxically, in spite of the treatment that Urdu has received at the hands of the bureaucracy in India, the language has continued to thrive and even receive official patronage in many ways. There are a large number of institutions in India for the promotion of Urdu, enjoying the support of scholars and the common people alike. There are Urdu academies in several states of India which receive official grants. The Anjuman Tarraqqi-i-Urdu (Hind) is a major recipient of government patronage and funds.
The Anjuman served as a vehicle for Prof Alay Ahmad Suroor’s endeavours for the promotion of Urdu. He was a scholar and intellectual of outstanding merit. He had some 24 published works to his credit. Apart from his collections of poetry, most of them were research work of a high order. Ten of his critical works were about Iqbal whom he admired as one of the greatest men of letters and wrote profusely about his life, poetical work and philosophy. His other major field of interest was Ghalib. Suroor Sahib is regarded as a foremost authority on both poets.
Suroor Sahib’s prose and poetry both had substance and style and are universally admired. He had imbibed the cultural and literary values of both East and West. Though basically a scholar of Urdu he had kept himself in touch with Western literatures. Under the influence of other senior scholars including Khwaja Manzoor Hussain, Dr Mahmud Husain, Rashid Ahmad Siddiqi and Sir Ross Masud, he made a systematic study of contemporary writings in English and other European languages.
To begin with he cherished the ambition of being a poet of English. But, by his own admission, he soon realized that what he wrote did not satisfy him and he changed over to writing poetry in Urdu in which he made a niche for himself. He published at least three collections of his poetry in his lifetime and won critical acclaim from many leading critics. It is no exaggeration to say that among the Urdu poets of his time, he ranked amongst the best.
When Suroor Sahib made his debut as an intellectual, around the mid-1930s, the divide between the progressives and the rest had begun to widen and most writers and poets had declared their loyalty to one school of literature or the other. Suroor Sahib was inclined to be on the side of the progressives but as the Progressive Writers Association, founded in 1936, increasingly aligned itself with the Communist Party of India, he began to distance himself from it.
Like Prof Ahmed Ali, who was one of the three or four original founders of PWA, Suroor Sahib believed that literature should not become the mouthpiece of a political party. While he maintained his link with the PWA, Suroor Sahib felt somewhat estranged from it. Prof Ahmed Ali migrated to Pakistan and engaged himself in his literary pursuits here; Suroor Sahib felt that Urdu was under siege in India and decided to stay back and do whatever he could to help it survive.
He served on the staff of Lucknow University and later, for a considerably longer period, Aligarh Muslim University, where he was on retirement granted the status of professor emeritus. As the honorary secretary of the Anjuman Tarraqqi-i-Urdu (Hind), he had the honour of inviting many celebrities to its meetings. They included Maulana Abul Kalam Azad who addressed the Anjuman’s annual conference on February 15, 1958 and that proved to be the Maulana’s last public appearance.
Suroor’s autobiography, Khwab baqi hain, contains a graphic account of the vicissitudes which Urdu has had to face to survive in India. Curiously, some of the toughest challenges to the survival of Urdu came from the political leadership of Uttar Pradesh, despite Lucknow being its capital. With Lucknow, as with Delhi and Deccan, Urdu has enjoyed a close pristine relationship.
Suroor also spent a few years in Srinagar, first as chairman of the Iqbal Chair and later as director of the Iqbal Institute.
Towards the end of his life, he seemed disappointed at the neglect of Urdu in India. In his autobiography he lamented that those who claimed to be the friends of Urdu were doing nothing about its preservation and progress. He wanted Urdu to be accepted as a medium for higher learning and scholarship but laments that the promoters of Urdu do little more than give statements and submit memoranda to the government.
He had hoped that one day Urdu universities would be set up in northern and southern India. It would require a colossal effort and resources as well as a commitment of the genuine lovers of Urdu to realize this goal. The government in India should not be expected to invest the necessary time and resources, nor perhaps it would be inclined to do so.
On his 75th Birthday
Seventy-five years has it been today Sight’s fire runs low, blood dances slow
Steps are lazy and long run the shadows
Who knows when a call is called from atop the mountain?
Putting out this play, of breath, of desire.
I have seen, thought, desired and collected aplenty
A content vision, a settled heart, an enlightened thought
On these have rested many dreams; these many a memory consoled
My flowers’ scent, my buds’ resolve
My attempt to be true, to be in mad pursuit, to be restrained
Thousands of dreams lie shattered; but dreams remain.
The journey of lights will go on through my beams
What if stars fade? Suns also sprout
What will these shadows take away? The cloak?
Stirring in the haze of dusk, together with a shining star
Streaks of light will give birth to a new magic
To dream new dreams, to start a new mad pursuit.
— Translated by Murtaza Razvi
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