THE book I am reading now is a researched study of Halqa-i-Arbab-i-Zauq. The situation appears to me a bit ironical. The Halqa, while still lingering on, has turned into a subject of research. Researchers are always in search of something which is long dead and forgotten. Things living don’t suit them. As for the Halqa, I can only say that its glorious period has long since evaporated. It now appears to have exhausted itself. And yet it goes on lingering.
The Halqa and the Progressive Writers Association, better known as Anjuman-i-Taraqqi Pasand Mussanafin, were contemporaries. The Anjuman was not destined to have a long life. For a brief period, it played its role well and then came to an abrupt end for reasons other than literary. Now it is part of our literary history. The Halqa, as opposed to it enjoyed a long life. But this longevity has become a burden for it. It seems to have exhausted itself, and yet is compelled to linger on.
In this particular case the researcher appears to be impatient. In the exhaustion of the body he found a justification for his research, which is based on the supposition that the Halqa in its true form no more exists. The present study is an attempt to re-discover what it once was.
The researcher is Yunus Javaid, who has already to his credit a book on the Halqa. The present work is meant to be an in-depth study. Yunus Javaid had started as a short story writer. But he was destined to win fame and popularity as a TV writer. His serial, Andhera Ujala was a tremendous success and won for him great popularity. But this popularity did not disturb his involvement with literature. However, then came a diversion in his short story writing. He found himself inclined to do research work. His main work in this field is his research on Nasikh. His research article on Nasikh along with all his poetry have now been published in two volumes titled, Kulliyat-i-Nasikh.
And now he has come out with his research work on the Halqa. This literary body, the Halqa-i-Arbab-i-Zauq, had made its appearance at the end of the thirties. That was the time when the literary scene of Urdu was under the sway of two newly emerged trends, progressivism and the modernism. These two trends were opposed, and yet linked with each other. In fact, this division was made at a later stage. In the initial stages, one was taken for the other. In the growing division of the two trends, the Anjuman-i-Taraqqi Pasand Mussnnafin emerged as a literary body exclusively representing the progressive trend in literature, while the Halqa developed as a forum for new writers dominated by modernism.
The moving spirit in the Halqa was Miraji. It was under his influence that young writers came under the sway of modernism, and that was why these young writers were mostly poets writing free verse. Miraji did not for long stay in Lahore. He went to Delhi and from there proceeded to Bombay, where he breathed his last. But his influence was deep and abiding.
With this background, the Halqa in Lahore flourished for about three decades. It was at the end of the sixties that a process of disintegration set in. Yunus Javaid has now probed into the history of the Halqa and after much search and research has recorded it in a systematic way. He has dug out facts hitherto unknown to us and has presented things in their proper perspective.
The Halqa had never its own meeting place or any kind of office. So its papers were in different hands. The registers where the proceedings of the weekly meetings and those of the working committees were recorded could not be kept in one place. Those who in different years worked as secretaries of the Halqa were expected to be in possession of those records. Yunus Javaid had to take much pains in wresting them from their clutches. He probed into these records spread over thousands of pages and sifted facts from cobwebs around them. Thus collected, these facts have been pieced together so as to make and bring before us a coherent picture of the Halqa. Yunus Javaid loves to go into details. That helps him to give an exhaustive account of all that happened in the Halqa over the years.
He has presented all this in chronological order. But at places he seems confused and so the chronological order appears disturbed. For instance, while talking about what happened during 1962-63 he abruptly stops and then talks of the death of Miraji and about the Halqa’s reaction at this sad news. Here we find a full account of the steps the Halqa took to commemorate the death of its spiritual guru. But it had happened in November, 1949 and in the following months. What prompted him to insert the proceedings of those months of 1949-50 into the account of the sixties?
THE book I am reading now is a researched study of Halqa-i-Arbab-i-Zauq. The situation appears to me a bit ironical. The Halqa, while still lingering on, has turned into a subject of research. Researchers are always in search of something which is long dead and forgotten. Things living don’t suit them. As for the Halqa, I can only say that its glorious period has long since evaporated. It now appears to have exhausted itself. And yet it goes on lingering.
