WAS idealism just a pose with Dr Zakir Husain? Or should we say that his idealism had a mix of a bit of pragmatism and opportunism?
At least Prof. Asloob Ahmad Ansari thinks so. Asloob Ahmad Ansari is chiefly known as a literary critic. His contribution to Urdu literary criticism has already been discussed in this column. But now after seeing much in life, he has chosen to talk about his contemporaries in the literary world and colleagues in the university he was associated with. With me is his collection of such writings published by the Universal Book House, Aligarh, under the title Aina Khane Mein.
In these articles, he makes an assessment of some of the most distinguished personalities of our time such as Dr Zakir Husain, Dr Abdul Aleem, Prof Rasheed Ahmad Siddiqui on the basis of his personal relationship with them.
Asloob Ansari is a man of strong likes and dislikes. He doesn’t mince words in expressing his dislike of the man in question. He is all praise for Khawaja Manzoor Hosain and Prof Rasheed Ahmad Siddiqui but has no word of praise for Prof Alay Ahmad Suroor. He has great admiration for Malik Ram both as a scholar and as a man, but he cannot help expressing his displeasure at his choice to include Niaz Fatehpuri and Yagana Changezi in the august company of the personalities portrayed by him. More annoying for him is the inclusion of Yagana Changezi, whom he has labelled as a blashphemer. His anger against the poet can be gauged from the fact that the man was refused a place among the poets included in his Ghazal Tanqeed.
He holds Dr Zakir Husain in high esteem and regards him as an embodiment of the most admirable virtues but he cannot help point out in him traits that are hardly admirable. He finds him flattering Pandit Nehru in his address to him and feels that it was more a qasida than an address. This kind of behaviour on different occasions as observed by him leads him to conclude that Dr Zakir Husain’s idealism was tainted with a bit of pragmatism.
While talking about Dr Zakir Husain, he also betrays his hostility towards certain leaders, especially those who at one time had staged a revolt against the MAO College, Aligarh. Maulana Mohammad Ali was, in his opinion, a kind of leader, immature, unreliable, and imprudent.
Asloob Ahmad’s likes and dislikes have been much influenced by his strong ideological bias. One reason for his reservations about Dr Zakir Husain is the latter’s attachment with leaders who believed in the One-Nation Theory such as Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. Again, though an ardent admirer of Dr Abdul Aleem, he has some reservations about him because of his commitment to Marxism.
At the moment I have before me one more book of character sketches, which incidentally offers a contrast to the volume under discussion. Asloob Ansari has chosen to talk about distinguished personalities, scholars, celebrated teachers and ex-Vice-Chancellors, and has discussed them with reference to their ideas and ideological commitments and judged their character from the moral standpoint. But the character sketches included in Najma Suhail’s collection Lafz Aina Banay are of a different nature. Here human relations, rather than ideas and ideologies reign supreme. Najma Suhail little bothers whether the person she is talking about is a celebrity or a nonentity. The woman called Amman Nanni is surely a nonentity. But there is something in her which attracts Najma Suhail. She takes interest in her, develops some kind of relationship with her, and feels inclined to write about her. And we have a fine portrait of Amman Nanni in consequence.
Then there is the portrait of a mother written by a daughter. We have in Urdu a number of fine portraits of mothers but they in general have been written by their sons. But here is a portrait of another written by her daughter. And that makes a difference. Sons as compared to daughters are in general dearer to the mothers. But in spite of this, mothers have a tendency to confide more in daughters than in the sons. So the mother-daughter relationship is more intimate as compared to the mother-son relationship. Perhaps that is why we find here a deeper sense of mutual relationship and warmth of love and affection than we find in the sketches written by the sons.
We also find two writers, Sajjad Baqar Rizvi and Zamiruddin Ahmad portrayed here. However, Najma has chosen them not because they are writers but just because one of them happens to be his khaloo and the other her teacher. It is in the process of the relationship that she has discovered some precious human qualities in them.
The way Najma depicts people, they come alive to us with what is best in them. So we have here a little assembly of good people, each having some human quality which endears them to us.
WAS idealism just a pose with Dr Zakir Husain? Or should we say that his idealism had a mix of a bit of pragmatism and opportunism?
