By Intizar Husain 

WE may well take pride for what has been recognised as the best in Urdu poetry. Yet, can we really claim it as our own when much of it has been borrowed from a foreign tradition? To be more explicit, from the Persian tradition.

This awkward question has been raised by Professor Anis Ashfaq, a distinguished critic from Lucknow. Professor Ashfaq’s second collection of critical articles has come out under the title Bahs-o-Tanqeed. In it, he dwells on a number of topics ranging from Urdu ghazal of the classical period to contemporary fiction. But he concentrates more on the development of the ghazal and presents an understanding widely different from that of critics and readers in general. Professor Ashfaq questions the validity of what, according to the general perception, is best in Urdu poetry.

The whole fabric of Urdu poetry, according to him, is indebted to Persian poetry. This heavy domination of Persian influence, he feels, did not allow Urdu poetry to get in touch with local colour and evolve on its own. In search of this process, he turns to Deccan, where he is happy to see poets engaged in absorbing influences from local traditions rather than the borrowed Persian one.

However, Professor Ashfaq notes that the locally inspired poetic tradition could not resist the Persian influences for long. He does not explain the reason for this, which was that Deccani poets aspired for recognition from the elites of Delhi. For that they had to yield to their Persianised literary tastes.

Here he points to a fine distinction between the ghazal and nazm. While Deccani ghazal proved an easy prey to the dominating Persian influence, the nazm, from its early days, started imbibing local influences. He refers to Nazir Akbarabadi as the best example in this respect. In fact, Nazir was an exceptional case. The happy-go-lucky man cared little for the likes and dislikes of the literary elites of Delhi.

Professor Ashfaq argues that the idea of a poetic tradition rooted in local culture showed promise in Deccan but was lost under the growing influences of Persian tradition. For its return to life it had to wait for Firaq to appear on the scene of Urdu poetry.

Firaq, according to Professor Ashfaq, was in tune with Deccani poets when he laid emphasis on the significance of local culture. He went to the extent of saying that he was greatly influenced by the literature and fine arts of ancient India. Professor Ashfaq thinks that it was under Firaq’s influence that the trend for the search of cultural roots got a boost in Urdu poetry and fiction. Local influences became more visible in the ghazal. Persian vocabulary started receding, giving way to local vocabulary, along with signs and symbols steeped in local colour. Professor Ashfaq has provided a long list of words, signs and symbols such as basant, barkha rut, sawan, fakhta in place of qumri, peepal, neem, chandan.

It was during the 1950s that such signs became visible, indicating the birth of nai ghazal. Professor Ashfaq has given a list of ghazal writers who represent this trend. From Pakistan, he has picked up four names: Nasir Kazmi, Muneer Niazi, Zafar Iqbal and Ahmad Mushtaq. In their ghazals, they seem to be celebrating their own seasons, their own trees and their own birds. So we see here the emergence of a new landscape which may be seen as the emergence of a new sensibility. In the hands of these poets, Urdu ghazal undergoes a big transformation. In the process it sheds much of what was traditional and adopts what is local, bringing with it a whiff of freshness.

This is how Professor Ashfaq has explained the evolution of the new Urdu ghazal, represented in India chiefly by Khalil-ur-Rahman Azmi and Shahryar and in Pakistan by Nasir Kazmi, Muneer Niazi, Zafar Iqbal and Ahmed Mushtaq.