A MOCK trial, an imaginary defamation suit filed by Umrao Jan Ada — the eponymous heroine in the famous novel — against Mirza Hadi Rusva, the creator of the character, was hugely successful when staged in Karachi back in the late 1960s. Another performance that impressed all and sundry was Ghalib Ke Uren Ge Purze. Both the stage performances were written by Mirza Zafarul Hasan, the then secretary of Usmania University Alumni.

In January 1968, Sibte Hasan, a well-known writer and an old friend, made a phone call to Mirza Zafarul Hasan and informed him that Faiz Ahmed Faiz was fascinated by those two performances and wanted to see him. Faiz lived in Karachi in those days. When both met, Faiz said that in February 1969 Ghalib’s death centennial was going to be commemorated at a grand scale in India, Soviet Union and some other countries. We, too, must do something or else it will be a disgrace to Pakistan and all of us. You must set up an organisation and begin working on Ghalib centenary. But, warned Faiz, “You will be all alone. I will be with you but will not be able to do much work. Also, everyone will make promises, only to break them”.

Mirza Zafarul Hasan, a restless soul as he was, agreed. Faiz knew that starting a literary organisation from scratch and running it successfully without much help from either the government or the society was a task only workaholics and sincere persons like Mirza Zafarul Hasan could carry out. Faiz convened a meeting of the intellectuals and they made Faiz the founding president of the proposed organisation and Zafarul Hasan its founding secretary. Some well-known literary figures who joined hands were Sibte Hasan, Peer Hussamuddin Rashidi, Mumtaz Husain, Khwaja Moinuddin, Hajra Masroor, Shanul Haq Haqqee, Ibne Insha, Muslim Ziai, Ahmed Ali Khan, Sahar Ansari, Begum Majeed Malik, Mukhtar Zaman and many others. So an organisation, named Idara-i-Yadgar-i-Ghalib (IYG), was established to commemorate Ghalib’s centenary in a befitting manner. The moving spirits behind were Faiz and Zafar.

But a huge amount of money was required to materialise the plans chalked out to mark Ghalib centenary. The IYG’s was financially, as put by Zafarul Hasan, as weak as Ghalib was. So Zafarul Hasan did some innovative work to collect money: he got prepared Ghalib pencils and Ghalib calendars and each of them was bought by lovers of Ghalib’s poetry at very a high price. Some paid even Rs5,000 apiece, a huge amount in 1960s. The centenary was a resounding success as literary gatherings, musical performances and exhibition of books and manuscripts on Ghalib were part of the undertaking. Sadeqain presented his works of art inspired by Ghalib’s poetry. Six books on Ghalib published by the IYG were launched.

After the great fanfare, Faiz and Zafar realised that a permanent office building was must to accomplish the mission of promoting literature in general and Ghalib’s works in particular. Also, a library would be instrumental to facilitate the researchers who intended to work on Ghalib. So Ghalib Library came into being under the aegis of the IYG and was informally inaugurated in December 1969. On Faiz’s request, the KMC donated a piece of land in Nazimabad and Habib Bank got the building constructed. Ghalib Library began formal working in September 1971. It soon became a cultural and literary hub and a favourite rendezvous for intellectuals. Zafarul Hasan kept on collecting the printed material and today Ghalib Library takes pride in holding about 40,000 books and as many periodicals.

This story is told by Mirza Zafarul Hasan, not in an autobiography or article but through letters he wrote to many writers and intellectuals, seeking help from them to stabilise Ghalib Library and the IYG. What problems he faced, how he collected thousands of books, how he began publishing from the IYG and what his plans were for the future, all these are narrated in his letters. Many of these letters were addressed to Lateefuz Zaman Khan, a scholar, great admirer of Ghalib and incurable collector of Ghalib memorabilia.

The letters Khan Sahib wrote back to Zafarul Hasan were preserved at Ghalib Library. Khan Sahib had preserved Zafarul Hasan’s letters at his Multan residence. Dr Abrar Abdus Salam, a scholar from Multan, has now compiled these letters and penned a detailed intro, highlighting history of the IYG and Ghalib Library that unfolds through these letters, along with life-sketches of both the scholars and the books they wrote. Titled Ghalib Library Ki Kahani Mirza Zafarul Hasan Ki Zabani is just published by the IYG.

Dr Abrar is a researcher and heads the Urdu department at Multan’s Government Graduate College.

Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2025