COLUMN: Spirit of rebellion -DAWN - Books and Authors; January 06, 2008

January 06, 2008

COLUMN: Spirit of rebellion

By Intizar Husain

IN THE early decades of Pakistan our newspapers and periodicals were very enthusiastic in bringing out special editions at the end of the year which included annual surveys of activities in different fields of our national life including arts and literature. In early years these surveys carried with them a sense of achievement which added to our newly born national pride.

If these annual special editions have come to a stop, one reason among others should be the sense that as a whole our failures have sharply outweighed our achievements.

Strangely enough, this practice of annual surveys still lingers on in respect to literature. The credit for this should be given to two enthusiastic critics, Dr Saleem Akhtar and Enver Sadeed, who, encouraged by one or two Urdu dailies, come out at the close of every year with their carefully written surveys, accommodative enough to include every piece of writing, good or bad, published during the year. In fact, each of the two rivals the other, trying to enlist as many known and unknown writers in his survey as possible, so as to appear more comprehensive in his account than the other.

The fact is that the number of writers and the quantity of writing doesn’t count much in literature. What counts more is something else; a new wave of thought or feeling that challenges the prevalent literary norms and provides a thrill to the creative minds. A wave that may trigger off a controversy and enliven the literary atmosphere; providing some new food for thought and feeling.

We have seen in recent years a new trend emerging with force, one that gives the impression of being the representative of the new spirit of rebellion in our literature. Two senior writers, Fahmida Riaz and Kishwar Naheed, appeared to be leading this feminist trend. But Fahmida is a restless soul; after devoting herself to feminism and feminist poetry, she suddenly made a long jump on to Rumi and was seen dabbling in his mystic poetry.

The last controversy still fresh in our minds owes its provocation to those rebel poets, who had discovered for themselves a new mode of poetic expression known as prose-poem. This came as a challenge to those senior poets who, with their free and blank verses, were now enjoying the status of socially accepted poets. They refused to recognise prose-poem as genuine poetry and so a controversy flared up which took years to die out.

I have just received a special issue of Adabiyat devoted to prose-poem. Adabiyat, as we know, is the organ of the Pakistan Academy of Letters, which enjoys an official status. Officially established or recognised educational, academic and literary bodies are, as a rule, conservative in their outlook. So when a literary trend, known as rebellious turns acceptable to these bodies, it means that it has now come to stay as something acceptable to all in the society.

Since prose poetry no more represents the rebellious spirit in Urdu poetry, our literature at present stands in dire need of some new wave strong enough to jolt our literary minds. Of course in recent years we saw some controversy regarding the newly arrived concepts of structuralism, post-structuralism, deconstruction, and post-modernism. But these discussions remained confined to the scholars and critics alone. They had to be so. They did not and could not have an access to the creative minds as they were pure intellectual subjects with no reference to living human situations. With reference to literature, they negated the writer by laying emphasis on the text alone. Of course we can study philosophy without any reference to the philosopher. Philosophy is something impersonal; literature is not. We cannot read poetry without reference to the poet; even his idiosyncrasies are part of his poetic experience. With his poetry he comes alive to us.

Oh yes, we had one heated controversy during 2007. That was provoked by Dr Giyan Chand Jain’s book which he wrote in his last years. But it remained confined to the Urdu circles of India alone. Moreover it concerned questions other than those pertaining to creative writing.

However, we have seen in recent years a new trend emerging with force, one that gives the impression of being the representative of the new spirit of rebellion in our literature. And it is through this trend that our literature seems to be keeping pace with the changing social situation around us. We can trace this trend in the feminist Urdu poetry written in recent years which has, of course, drawn inspiration from the feminist movement going on in Pakistan. And the history of our literary movements tells us that a literary trend has more chance to develop and turn into a movement if we link it to some social or socio-political problem of our times.

The fact that this trend has not got the attention it deserves from the critics and other men of opinion can easily be attributed to male chauvinism. But the standard bearers of this cause are also partly responsible for this. Every cause, literary or social, asks for a few devoted souls, who identify themselves with it and show perseverance in sits pursuance. Two senior writers, Fahmida Riaz and Kishwar Naheed appeared to be leading this feminist trend. But Fahmida is a restless soul; after devoting herself to feminism and feminist poetry, she suddenly made a long jump to Rumi and was seen dabbling in his mystic poetry.

As for Kishwar Naheed, perhaps not content with limiting herself to feminist verse alone, she seems aspiring for a bigger role in the feminist movement. In consequence we saw the mini-movement of feminist poetry slow down during 2007.