Growth of Urdu Literature in Delhi before Ghalib

Early 18^th century was a period of transition. The fortunes of the Mughal Empire, its aristocracy and the established nobility were on the decline. But despite the decline of the Mughal Empire and its aristocracy, there was an emergence of a new and affluent section in society whose source of the newly acquired wealth was a boom in the trading activities in Delhi and surrounding areas. They aped the ways of the nobility and were described as razil (upstarts) by the contemporary Persian poets. The new breed of Urdu poets was attached to the household of this new rich class and nobles as companions (masahibs), which not only provided patronage to the newly emerging literary medium but also helped to maintain certain cultural atmosphere in these households.

One of the greatest among the early Urdu poets of Delhi was Sirajuddin Ali Khan Arzu (1689-1756 AD).Arzu, not only played an important part in championing the cause of Urdu by asking his famous pupils like Dard and others to shift from Persian to Urdu, but also, along with others, undertook the task of enriching and purifying it by absorbing in to it as much as possible, Persian vocabulary, sentiments and imagery. Later, his pupils like Mir, Sauda and Dard carried this attempt forward. Thus, the movement in favour of Urdu was sponsored chiefly by the Indian Muslim scholars steeped in Persian culture, language and literature. Their advocacy of Urdu therefore, took the form of large importations from Persian in to Urdu poetry. Notable contemporaries of Arzu were Sharfuddin Mazmun (1689-1745 A.D) and Zahuruddin Hatim (1718-1739 A.D). Hatim was the leading poet of the age of Muhammad Shah, a great patron of arts and literature and during whose reign large number of poets assembled in Delhi. Despite the fact that early Urdu poetry was heavily inspired by Persian verse, these early Urdu poets of Delhi adopted words from dialects current in the vicinity of Delhi and wrote in the idiom of the day, without conforming to the prescribed usage, spelling or pronunciation of Persian and Arabic words.

In the later phase of the growth of Urdu literature in Delhi, before the arrival of Ghalib on the literary scene, prominent Urdu writers of Delhi were Mirza Mazhar Jan-i-Janan (1700-1781 A.D), Mir Taqi Mir (1720-1810 A.D), Mirza Muhammad Rafi Sauda (1713-1780 A.D) and Mir Dard (1719-1785 A.D). These ‘four pillars’ of Urdu are known not only for purifying and enriching it but also for introducing ghazal, which later became the most popular form of Urdu poetry. Mazhar was the first poet to write verses in Urdu modeled on Persian. Sauda was a versatile writer who introduced many verse forms in Urdu such as qasida (an ode) and was also to use satire to express his observations of the times. Mir used Urdu as a medium to throw light on the contemporary life of Delhi after the attack of Nadir Shah and his sack of Delhi. The brilliance of Sauda’s satires and the pathos and imagery of Mir’s love poems, showed the immense literary potential of Urdu for the first time. Dard was a famous ghazal writer and was another important figure in the purification movement of Urdu. By the end of the 18^th century, the efforts of these poets helped Urdu acquire both strength and credibility as a medium of literary expression. A modern biographer of Ghalib, Pavan K. Varma, opines that this development, coinciding with the social acceptance of Sufi tariqah (manner, etiquette) and the loosening hold of the Islamic orthodoxy, created an appropriate intellectual milieu for it to replace Persian as the de jure lingua franca of the Mughal court.