September 22, 2002

Talking of Sajjad Baqar Rizvi, I am reminded of the time, say the late fifties, when he had arrived in Lahore to join Islamia College, Civil Lines, as a teacher of English. He came to the city with a bang. Within a week of his arrival, we knew that a young talent from Karachi had stormed the literary scene of the city.

After taking charge in the college, he came to the Tea House and went straight to Qayyum Nazar, then secretary and the dominating personality of Halqa-i-Arbab-i-Zauq. He introduced himself to him by giving a reference of his mentor, Mohammad Hasan Askari. That evening he appeared to be meek and submissive. But the very next evening while discussing literature with writers newly introduced to him he showed his teeth. He was assertive about his views and was ready to cross swords with anybody and everybody, junior or senior, who was reluctant to agree with him.

Sajjad Baqar Rizvi was extraordinarily meek and submissive in his personal behaviour. But when engaged in a literary discussion, he was a changed man, arguing strongly in defence of his point of view. He had made his appearance on the literary scene with an ardent faith in tradition and was ever ready to challenge those, who in the name of modern poetry, demanded a revolt against tradition.

And such people in those years were not few in number. Quite a large number of young writers were in a rebellious mood and were playing havoc with the language and the accepted modes of poetic expression in the name of experimentation.

The group of senior poets associated with the Halqa had already played the role of rebels under the influence of Miraji. In this situation, Baqar found a cause to fight for. And he loved to fight for one cause or the other. He upheld the cause of tradition and came out with the view that Urdu poetry had, in previous decades, embarked on the journey of experimentation. The purpose of the journey had been fulfilled. Now is was time for a synthesis of what we had in the form of tradition and what we had gained through experimentation.

With the same vehemence, he wrote critical articles and was soon recognized as a critic with a point of view stressing on tradition. His love for dialogue and discussion took him to the Halqa meetings where he was welcomed as an enthusiastic young writer and was soon elected joint secretary of the organization. In later years, he worked as the secretary of the Halqa.

But his crusade did not remain confined to the field of literature alone. Soon, he discovered for himself one more cause to fight for, a cause which had national dimensions. Those were the years when the question as to what was the Pakistani culture had triggered a heated debate. He plunged into this controversy with the zeal of a missionary and took upon himself the arduous task of defining the Pakistani culture.

While fighting for the cause of tradition, he had relied mostly on Eliot with particular reference to his famous article, “Tradition and individual talent”. In those years, he was greatly under the influence of Eliot. But now armed with his vast knowledge, more particularly of modern psychology, he propounded a theory, which helped him to define Pakistani culture in a convincing manner. In addition, it also helped him to explain Urdu tradition in a better way.

This theory led him to see at the core of every creative act an interplay of two principles, the mother principle and father principle. Ignoring any one of the two principles leads to barrenness. Armed with this theory he dismissed both the extremist views of Pakistani culture, the one advanced by the regionalists, and the Islamic one propounded by religious groups.

Those who defined Pakistani culture in purely Islamic terms were wrong as they ignored the regional factor of this culture pointing out to the mother principle. On the other hand, those who explained this culture in regional terms alone were, according to him, equally wrong as they negated the other essential factor, the Islamic ingredient pointing out the father principle.

Contradicting them both he defined Pakistani culture in terms of an interplay of the regional and the Islamic factors pointing out to the confluence of heaven and earth, of the father principle and the mother principle. In this fusion, he thought, lay the secret of the creative richness of this culture.

Such concerns in relation to Pakistan didn’t allow him to see and understand literature in purely literary terms. He saw and judged literature in the social and cultural perspective and, at the same time, kept in mind the literary values.

This attitude can also be traced to his verse. After all, he was not merely a critic. He was also a poet having to his credit two collections of ghazals, titled Taisha-i-Lafz and Joo-i-mani. True to his faith in tradition, he sticks to the ghazal. Steeped in the classical tradition of the ghazal he observes all the rules of this genre. Yet he is not a traditional ghazal writer. This has been best explained by Nasir Kazmi in his foreword to his first collection. As explained by him, Baqar’s ghazals were informed by a social awareness. He appears to be acutely conscious of a certain sterility around him. His ghazal turns into a protest against the attitudes prevalent in society, which are responsible for this sterility. What makes him a different poet is the fact that being a scholar and a critic, he has thought deeply on problems of his age. With this awareness, he turns to the ghazal. However, his thoughts and ideas while seeping into his verse, go through a creative process, and so, as pointed out by Nasir, we see in his ghazal “a fusion of reason and emotion.”

Apart from being a critic and a poet, Sajjad Baqar was also a teacher. And teaching for him was not a mere profession. After teaching English for a few years in Islamia College he joined the Oriental College as a teacher of Urdu. Sensing his growing involvement in teaching, I asked him, “I feel you are now more involved in teaching than in writing verse. Why?”

“Perhaps it is so,” he replied, “For me teaching boys is an activity no less serious that writing poetry. I treat it as a creative activity. I chisel my boys the way I chisel words for my ghazals.”

Sajjad Baqar Rizvi: profile
Born in 1928 in Azamgarh (UP)
Education: Went to school and college in Allahabad before migrating to Pakistan in October 1947. Studied in Islamia College, Karachi from where he passed his BA (Honours) and MA in English (1956). Also passed his LLB from SM Law College, Karachi. Later on he passed his MA examination in Urdu and went on to get a PhD in Urdu from the university of Karachi
Professional life: Joined Islamia College, Lahore, as lecturer in English. Later he joined the Oriental College, Lahore, as a lecturer in Urdu.
Died on August 13, 1993
Publications: Poetry: Taisha-i-Lafz and Joo-i-Maani. Literary criticism: Tahzib-o-Takhleeq, Maghrib kay tanqidi usool, Vazahatain, Maroozat, Batein and Classiki Urdu shairi mein tanz-o-mazah. Translations: Jadid Ameriki novel nigar, Dastan-i-Mughliya, Uftadgan-i-Khak, Hazrat Bilal, Badalti duniya kay taqazey and Spinoza

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