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December 8, 2002
REVIEWS: The story of Sindh
“On August 14, 1947,” writes Syed Mazhar Jamil, in his startlingly well-researched book, Aashob-i-Sindh aur Urdu fiction, “the first governor general of Pakistan’s nascent state, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah appointed Sir Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah the Governor of Sindh, while Mohammad Ayub Khuhro became Chief Minister, who brought together three other factions of the Muslim League to form the first provincial government.
“But, before the people of Sindh had even begun to enjoy the free atmosphere, the governor general of Pakistan announced on the July 12, 1948, that Karachi and its neighbouring areas (approx. 812 sq. miles) have been detached from Sindh, being given the status of Federal Capital, and from now on it will be looked after by an administrator in the federal hierarchy. ....This undemocratic decision created such negative effects directly on the developmental possibilities of Sindh, that they could never be undone in the coming years.”
Accomplishing a most onerous task, with an envious thoroughness and an over-all vision, Mazhar Jamil has actually ascertained the issuance of a most sought-after dossier on the socio-political mapping of Sindh during the last 55 years. This interesting book shows the mirror images of these socio-political upheavals in Sindh in Urdu literature. It brings into focus the various levels of sensibilities that can be observed in Urdu fiction during these years, and distinctively makes apparent the difference in perspectives evident in the Urdu fiction writers here and from across the border.
As a typical case for study, Quratulain Haider, the renowned novelist from India, pens a scathing criticism of the Karachi lifestyle, during her early visit, while Shaukat Siddiqui writes with much more sympathy and sensitivity about the travails of the people of this city, in his masterpiece, Khuda ki basti. This sort of contemporary comparison on what literateurs and the learned were feeling, saying and writing about the past and present of this most hospitable province of Sindh, is the stuff that keeps the readers riveted.
Considering the considerable area covered in Aashob-i- Sindh aur Urdu fiction, the writer has remained very flexible in his expressions and his paragraphing. In the first thick section of the book, after fully charge-sheeting the political culprits involved in the exploitation of Sindh, Mazhar Jamil then sets about presenting and assessing the biographical writings and media diaries that tell us much about life in Karachi and most of Sindh.
These writings belong to some of the top Muslim and Hindu literary personalities and political commentators, who were either left in Mumbai or migrated to this side of the border after the Partition. This is tremendous stuff. It opens up the book from the middle, and fills you in about all the details of how people adjusted to the conditions in the province. With riots, killings, felony and full-scale massacres rampant in those early days, these accounts reveal the love and sympathy that some sections of the populace showed to each other, amidst senseless mass murders and mob attacks.
Amongst the writers and journalists, whose accounts have been given, are Naumal Hotchand, the earliest local recounter of events, Sir John Brenton, a railway engineer in East India Company, Lutfullah, a multilingual interpreter on the payroll of the British, Peer Ali Mohammad Rashidi, Sobhogayan Chandani, Mohan Kalpana, a well-known story-writer of Sindh, and Gopal Das Khosla, a socio-political analyst.
The third section of the book tackles the literary side of the story, which is the axis of the book. It presents an expose of the basic thought patterns from the famous novels and short stories of top writers like Shaukat Siddiqui, Dr Ahsan Farooqui, Mumtaz Shirin, Quratulain Haider, Mohammad Khalid Akhter, Hasan Manzar, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Asad Mohammad Khan and others. There are lots of interesting details about what transpired with some of the rich and famous personalities of the subcontinent, who fell into bad patches or never recovered and died in penury.
The book is full of very rare details that were either uncommon knowledge or were just hidden in books that were lying under a thick layer of dust in the back rows of old libraries. Even for those who are not in the habit of reading thick volumes, Aashob-e-Sindh ... is a document to be treasured for posterity. The students of local history are bound to refer to it, once they leaf through it with an aim to get an insight into what bureaucratic antics were afoot from the beginning, to undermine this province.
This section touches the soul with some of the most brilliant prose that Yusufi Sahab has penned to describe the arrival of the Mohajirs and the extremely excruciating conditions they encountered here. In Aab-i-Gum, he shows you how sensitive and how cutting those apparently humorous words could be. Similarly, Khalid Akhter, in his Deeplu se Navankot tak, explores the horizon of imagination, as he finds scenery, where none exists. It’s a tremendous experience.
Hasan Manzar and Asad Mohammad Khan are equally outstanding in the way they describe the old Karachi, with Manzar’s memory of old Mauripur almost palpable, and Asad M. Khan’s word-portrait of old Saddar as vivid as a looking glass reflecting a picture.
But, this third section of the book is also lacking in balance, when it comes to taking excerpts from the relevant books. The major reason for this is ignoring the novelists and short story-writers; there are no excerpts from Shaukat Siddiqui, Hajra Masroor, Hameed Kashmiri, Saeeda Gazdar or Intezar Hussain, which could have added many colours to the larger section of this book.
It becomes slightly lacklustre in the middle part, banking on pure analysis and long passages of description. May be the author preferred to give just the excerpts from the books of those who have mentioned Sindh directly in passages, and left out those, who go about it in a roundabout way. But, in a novel, you enjoy passages which only touch, in passing, the subject, or mention the city in a subtle way, as you can notice in Shaukat Siddiqui’s Khuda ki basti, or more importantly in his short stories like Teesra aadmi or Raton ka shehr.
Similarly, Intezar Hussain is nostalgia personified, and one can’t believe that not one passage of such reflective description could be found in his novels to quote in the book. These excerpts would not have swelled the book more than ten pages, and not even that, if the analytical element had been shortened.
Ashob-i-Sindh aur Urdu fiction
By Syed Mazhar Jamil
Academy Bazyaft, Room #4, Urdu Centre, Urdu Bazar, Karachi 518pp. Rs300
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