Essay on Urdu Language!

The same Khari Boli that gave rise to Hindi also gave rise to Urdu around the 11th century AD. The Western Sauraseni Apabhramsa is said to be the source of the grammatical structure of Urdu though the vocabulary of the language, its idioms and literary traditions owe heavily to Turkish and Persian.

The term Urdu literally means ‘camp’. Amir Khusrau was the first to employ the language for literary purpose. However it was in the Deccan, in the Bahmani, Golconda and Bijapur courts, that it first achieved literary status.

Urdu poetry has its literary genres—the masnavi, a long amorous or mystical narrative poem; qasida, something like an ode, a panegyric; ghazal, lyrical poem composed of self-contained couplets with a single metre and mood; marsia (elegies); rekhtis and nazm.

Urdu writing in its various primitive forms can be traced to Muhammad Urfi, Amir Khusro (1259-1325) and Kwaja Muhammad Husaini (1318-1422). The earliest writings in Urdu are in the Dakhni (Deccan) dialect. The Sufi saints were the earliest promoters of the Dakhni Urdu. Sufi-saint Hazrat Khwaja Banda Nawaz Gesudaraz is considered to be the first prose writer of Dakhni Urdu (Merajul Ashiqin and Tilawatul Wajud are attributed to him).

The first literary work in Urdu is said to have been written by Bidar poet Fakhruddin Nizami (fifteenth century). Kamal Khan Rustami (Khawar Nama) and Nusrati (Gulshan-e-Ishq, Ali Nama and Tarikh-e-Iskandari) were two great poets of Bijapur. Muhammed Quli Qutb Shah, the Golconda king, wrote poetry focused on love, nature and social life.

Writers of Dakhni Urdu included Shah Miranji Shamsul Ushaq (Khush Nama and Khush Naghz), Shah Burhanuddin Janam, Mullah Wajhi (Qutb Mushtari and Sabras) Ibn-e-Nishati (Phul Ban) and Tabai (Bhahram-O-Guldandam) Wajhi’s Sabras is considered to be a masterpiece of great literary and philosophical merit.

 

Vali Mohammed or Vali Dakhni (Diwan) was one of the most prolific Dakhni poets who developed the form of the ghazal. His collection of ghazals and other poetic genres influenced the poets of Delhi.

The medieval Urdu poetry grew under the shadow of Persian poetry. Sirajuddin Ali Khan Arzu and Shaikh Sadullah Gulshan were the earliest promoters of Urdu in North India. By the early eighteenth century, a more sophisticated North Indian variation of the Urdu language began to evolve thanks to the writings of Shaikh Zahooruddin Hatim, Mirza Mazhar Jan-e-Janan, Khwaja Mir Dard, Mir Taqi Mir, Mir Hasan and Mohammed Rafi Sauda.

Sauda has been described as the foremost satirist of Urdu literature during this century (Shahr Ashob and Qasida Tazheek-e-Rozgar). Mir Hassan’s mathnavi Sihr- ul-Bayan and Mir Taqi Mir’s mathnavi provided a distinct Indian touch to the language. Mir’s works, apart from his six diwans include Nikat-ush-Shora (Tazkira) and Zikr-se-Mir (autobiography).

Shaik Ghulam Hamdani Mushafi, Insha Allah Khan (Darya- e-Latafat and Rani Ketaki), Khwaja Haider Ali Atish, Daya Shankar Naseem (mathnavi: Gulzare-e-Naseem), Nawab Mirza Shauq (Bahr-e-Ishq, Zahr-e-Ishq and Lazzat-e-Ishq) and Shaik Imam Bakhsh Nasikh were the early poets of Lucknow Mir Babar Ali Anees (1802-1874) wrote beautiful marsiyas.

Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, his verse typified by difficult rhymes, word play and use of idiomatic language authored four voluminous diwans. Shaik Ibrahim Zauq is considered the most outstanding composer of qasidas (panegyrics), next to Sauda.

Hakim Momin Khan Momin wrote ghazals for expressing emotions of love. Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib (1797-1869), considered as one of the greatest of the Urdu poets, is famous for his originality. Ghalib brought in a renaissance in Urdu poetry. In the post-Ghalib period, Dagh emerged as a distinct poet. He used purity of idiom and simplicity of language and thought.

Modern Urdu literature covers the time from the last quarter of the 19th century to the present day. Altaf Hussain Hali (Diwan-e-Hali, Madd-o- jazr-e-lslam or Musaddas-e-Hali in 1879, Shakwa-e-Hind in 1887, Munajat-e-Beva in 1886 and Chup ki Dad in 1905) is considered the actual innovator of the modern spirit in Urdu poetry.

Hali was the pioneer of modern criticism, his Muqaddama-e-Sher-o-Shaeri being the foundation stone of Urdu criticism. Shibli Nomani is considered as the father of modern history in Urdu (Seerat-un-Noman in 1892 and Al Faruq in 1899).

Mohammed Hussain Azad laid the foundation of the modern verse in Urdu. Notable poets of the nineteenth- twentieth century’s include Syyid Akbar Husain Akbar Allahabadi, famous for his extempore composition of satiric and comic verses; Mohammed Iqbal; and Hasrat Mohani. Iqbal’s poetry underwent several phases of evolution from Romanticism to Indian nationalism and finally to pan-Islamism.

The contributions of poets like Fani Badayuni, Shad Azimabadi, Asghar Gondavi, Jigar Moradabadi, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Ali Sardar Jafri, Kaifi Azmi, Jan Nisar Akhtar, Sahir Ludhianvi, Majrooh Sultanpuri, and Ibn-e-Insha have taken Urdu poetry to great heights.

Urdu prose was slow to develop and it was Syed Ahmad Khan who set the style with a plain, matter-of-fact prose. The tradition was carried on by talented writers like Krishan Chander, Sajjad Zaheer, K.A. Abbas and Ismat Chugtai.

The field of fiction projects names like Ruswa (Umra Jan Ada) and Premchand. The short story in Urdu began with Munshi Premchand’s Soz-e-Vatan (1908). Premchand’s short stories cover nearly a dozen volumes. Mohammed Hussan Askari and Khwaja Ahmed Abbas are counted among the leading lights of the Urdu short story.

The Progressive Movement in Urdu fiction gained momentum under Sajjad Zaheer, Ahmed Ali, Mahmood-uz-Zafar and Rasheed Jahan. Urdu writers like Rajender Singh Bedi and Krishn Chander showed commitment to the Marxist philosophy in their writings.

Manto, Ismat Chughtai and Mumtaz Mufti were Urdu writers who concentrated on the ‘psychological story’ in contrast to the ‘sociological story’ of Bedi and Krishn Chander. Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi (Alhamd-o-Lillah, Savab, Nasib) is a noted name in Urdu short story.

In the post-1936 period, Intezar Hussain, Anwar Sajjad, Balraj Mainra, Surender Parkash and Qurratul-ain Haider (Sitaroun Se Aage, Mere Sanam Khane) emerged as leading lights of Urdu short story. Other leading fiction writers include Jeelani Bano, Iqbal Mateen, Awaz Sayeed, Kadeer Zaman and Mazhr-uz-Zaman.

Novel writing in Urdu can be traced to the nineteenth- twentieth century’s, particularly the works of Nazir 

Ahmed (1836 – 1912), composer of Mirat-ul-Urus (1869), Banat-un-Nash (1873), Taubat-un-Nasuh (1877), and others. Pandit Ratan Nath Sarshar Fasana-e-Azad, Abdul Halim Sharar Badr-un-Nisa Ki Musibat and Agha Sadiq ki Shadi, Mirza Muhammed Hadi Ruswa’s Umrao Jan Ada (1899) are some of the great novels and novelettes written during the period.

Niaz Fatehpuri (1887-1966) and Qazi Abdul Gaffar (1862-1956) were the other eminent early romantic novelists in the language. However, it was Premchand (1880-1936) who tried to introduce the trend of realism in Urdu novel, in Bazare-e-Husn (1917), Gosha-e-Afiat, Chaugan-e-Hasti, Maidan-e-Amal and Godan. Premchand’s realism was further strengthened by the writers of the Indian Progressive Writers’ Association like Sajjad Zaheer, Krishn Chander and Ismat Chughtai.

Krishn Chander’s Jab Khet Jage (1952), Ek Gadhe Ki Sarguzasht (1957) and Shikast are considered among the outstanding novels in Urdu literature. Ismat Chughtai’s novel Terhi Lakir (1947) and Qurratul-ain Haider’s novel Aag Ka Darya are considered as important works in the history of Urdu novel.

Khwaja Ahmed Abbas, Aziz Ahmed, Balwant Singh, Khadija Mastur, Intezar Hussain are the other important writers in Urdu in contemporary times.

Urdu in the modern era has not been confined to only Muslim writers. Several writers from other religions have also written in Urdu, like Munshi Premchand, Firaq Gorakhpuri, Pandit Ratan Nath Sarshar (Fasana-e-Azad), Brij Narain Chakbast, Upendar Nath Ashk, Jagan Nath Azad, Jogender Pal, Balraj Komal and Kumar Pashi.

Prof. Hafiz Mohammed Sheerani (1888-1945) devoted long years to the field of Urdu literary criticism. Shaikh Mohammed Ikram Sayyid Ihtesham Hussain, Mohammed Hasan Askari, Ale-Ahmed Suroor, Mumtaz Husain, Masud Husain, Shams-ur-Rahman Faruqi, Gopichand Narang, Mughni Tabassum are other noted literary critics.

Farhang-e-Asifya was the first Urdu dictionary based on principles of the modern lexicography. It was produced in 1892 by Maulana Sayyid Ahmed Dehlvi.

Jnanpith Award winners for Urdu writing are Firaq Gorakhpuri (Gul-e-Nagma) and Qurratul-ain-Haidar (Aag ki Darya, Pathar ki Awaz). Urdu, incidentally, is written in the Persian-Arabic script as well as the Devanagari script.Bottom of Form

Ghalib’s Letters (Prose)

Mirza Ghalib’s literary genius was not only confined to verses but prose as well. His Urdu prose is mainly in the form of letters. He was a prolific letter writer and some scholars believe that, his place in Urdu literature would have been assured only on the basis of his letters. Hali in Yadgar-i-Ghalib, has even remarked that “wherever one looks, Ghalib’s fame throughout India owes more to the publication of his Urdu prose (i.e. his letters) than it does to his Urdu verse or to his Persian verse or prose.” Mirza Ghalib’s letters contributed immensely to the evolution of modern Urdu prose, as most were published in his lifetime. His letters provided the foundation to easy and popular Urdu. Before Ghalib, letter writing in Urdu was highly ornamental and artificial. Ghalib changed the whole course of Urdu letter writing by keeping it simple and replacing artificial with natural. He made his letters ‘talk’ by using words and sentences as if he were conversing with the reader. He once wrote to a friend “I have invented a new style through which correspondence has become conversation. From a distance of a thousand miles, you can speak through your pen, and enjoy company despite separation.” Although letters took some time to reach but until the institution of newspaper was introduced, it remained the most important source of dissemination of news. His letters were very informal and at times he would just write the name of the person and start the letter. This simple, direct and conversational style was definitely an innovation of Ghalib in Urdu letter writing. Urdu-i-Hindi and Urdu-i-Mualla are his two famous books of Collection of Letters.

Most of Ghalib’s letters were addressed to his friends and patrons, his shagirds (Pupils) and admirers, belonging to all sections and classes of society. Ghalib expended a great deal of time and effort in their composition as he considered this to be a literary pursuit. Interestingly, his Hindu shagird, Munshi Hargopal Tufta, was the recipient of the largest number (totaling 123) of his letters. Aspiring poets also sent him their compositions to seek his advice. In his replies, he invariably put in a couplet or two of his own and gave a detailed account of how the aspiring poet was faring. Free of conventional artifice, his letters contained vivid descriptions and witty dialogues, literary and lexicographical insights, political commentary and more - all in a simple and supple language.

Thematically speaking, Ghalib’s letters not only give an account of the happenings in the life of the poet but are also a live testimony to the tumultuous times that he lived in. He was a witness to the age of decline and end of the Mughal Empire and also lived to see the Revolt of 1857, and its bloody aftermath. Thus, apart from his literary significance, these letters also have a historical relevance as they provide a detailed first-hand account of the life and times of Delhi during that period. Ghalib’s letters, especially those after the revolt and re-capture of Delhi by the British, reveal the poignant pain and agony of a man who sees his city and also his way of life that he so loved and admired, brutally ravaged and destroyed by the British. But more than the absence of friends and familiar faces, what hurt Ghalib the most was the absence of people who could speak his language in intellectual and emotional terms. Thus, in 1861, in one such letter he wrote to his friend “Delhi people now mean Hindus, or artisans, or soldiers, or Punjabis or Englishmen. Which of these speak the language which you are praising? ........where is Zauq? Where is Momin Khan? Two poets survive: one Azurda- and he is silent; the other Ghalib- and he is lost to himself, in a stupor. None to write poetry and to judge its worth……” In this manner, his collected letters in Urdu, provide an interesting insight in to 19^th century colonial India.

Mirza Ghalib and his Age

At the time Mirza Ghalib was born (1797), the Mughal Empire was hastening to its decline. The Mughal royal family had suffered humiliation at the hands of the Rohillas and then by the Marathas, who occupied the city for a brief period. The British entered Delhi in 1803 as victors after defeating the Marathas. Very quickly the infrastructure of British control was established. The Mughal ruler was made British pensioner and though the Empire lingered for another 50 years, it was shorn of all its power and authority. Theoretically however, the Mughal Emperor was still the sovereign ruler and the Jats, Rohillas, Marathas as well as the British needed the Mughal Emperor’s name to give political legitimacy to their de facto power. The court etiquettes and rituals continued as before, even though the grandeur of the past was missing. The transformation of power to the British was imminent but the survival of the Empire was crucial for the sustenance of arts and literature.

Mirza Muhammad Asadullah Khan Ghalib (1797-1869 A.D), who was born in this political background, had an aristocratic lineage. His father, Abdullah Beg Khan, was an officer in the Rampur army. After his death, Ghalib came under the ward ship of his uncle, Nasrullah Khan, who was a cavalry officer in the British army. After his death, when Ghalib was just nine, the latter’s childhood was spent in his maternal grandparents home in Agra in comfort and shelter. He started writing Persian poetry at an early age, showing his preference to linguistics and literature over traditional sciences. His guide, Abdus Samad, who was addressed as ustad by Ghalib, was a noted scholar of Persian and Arabic. Ghalib started writing in Persian at a young age. But Ghalib’s earliest biographer, Altaf Husain Hali, in his Yadgar-i-Ghalib (Memoir of Ghalib, 1897), tells us that even at this young age he wrote in Urdu as well. It was sometime during 1813-1815 (some say 1810) that Ghalib decided to move to Delhi, determined to take his place among the aristocracy and get his rightful due as a poet. The move perhaps, was also guided by the fact that the untimely death of his father and uncle had deprived him of an assured niche in the Mughal capital. Besides, Delhi, the seat of the Mughal court, was a more appropriate setting for Ghalib than Agra. This aspect needs a little elaboration.

The political turmoil of the 18^th century had forced great poets like Mir and Sauda to leave Delhi and seek patronage at Lucknow, the capital of the British allied state of Oudh. But at the beginning of the 19^th century, the British colonial presence in Delhi had imposed a relative political calm and a sense of security in and around Delhi by suppressing lawlessness and brigandage. This went a long way in providing an atmosphere in which intellectual flowering could take place. Ralph Russell, another modern biographer, opines that in the half a century of internal peace, that followed the British political control, Delhi experienced something like a renaissance, a flowering of literature and learning. This renaissance was manifested in various ways, one of which was the radical Muslim religious reform movement, led by the family of Shah Waliullah, one of the most important thinkers in the history of Indian Islam. This resulted in a long-drawn out conflict between the traditionalists and the radical reformers. As a corollary to this, Delhi developed as a famous centre of Persian and Arabic studies related to theology, attracting students from as far as Balkh and Bukhara in central Asia. The exodus of the poetic talent to Lucknow was also halted and Delhi again became the centre of a group of distinguished poets. Urdu too received a new impetus. Shah Waliullah’s son, Shah Rafiuddin produced in 1803, an Urdu translation of Quran, a significant event not only in the history of religious movements but also in the history of modern Urdu prose, of which it was a pioneer work.

This revival of poetry also owed a great deal to the encouragement of the Mughal court which, deprived of all far-reaching political power, turned more and more to cultural interests. It patronized Urdu poetry just as its predecessors had patronized Persian. Under the reign of Bahadur Shah, who himself was a great Urdu poet and wrote under the title of Zafar, the Mughal court became the pivot, guiding the efflorescence in Urdu writing. Regular poetic symposiums (mushairahs) were held at the palace as well as other places in the city. Gradually, the writing and appreciation of Urdu poetry became essential learning for any aspirant to the cultural life of the city. Ghalib took his place among the city aristocracy on equal terms and was fully involved in the intellectual life of Delhi. Prominent contemporaries of Ghalib in the Urdu literary circle were Momin and Zauq, latter being the officially appointed poet laureate of the Mughal court and personal ustad of Bahadur Shah Zafar.

Since patronage was still a major pre-requisite for the growth of literature and the Mughal Empire seemed capable of providing semblance of it even in the face of its obvious decline, poets still hankered for the king’s attention. However, one important point to note about patronage in the Mughal period is that patronage of learning and letters was one of the expected social functions of the nobility and the established poet could look to receive patronage simply because he was an accomplished poet. An occasional panegyric of his patron and odes on special occasions was expected of him, but this was not the basis of this ‘patron-client’ relationship. Thus, Ghalib never considered writing occasional panegyrics for, both his Mughal and later British masters, as injurious to his self respect. But the biggest irony facing the leading poets of the times, including Ghalib, was that despite Bahadur Shah’s patronage, the political condition had only left the Mughals with the sensitivity to appreciate poetry, but not much resources to financially reward those who wrote it. Ibrahim Zauq was the royal tutor and did receive financial remuneration for his services but it was not possible for the court to extend its largesse to many others. The rivalry between Ghalib (poet laureate of the city) and Zauq (poet laureate of the Mughal court) can be explained in this background.

It is not surprising to see Ghalib, invoking past in his writings, which was in sharp contrast to his own financial difficulties in the present. Ghalib’s publicly stated preference for Persian over Urdu has also been explained in the background of the above phenomenon. It has been argued that, even though Urdu was the popular living language of the time, it was a product of political chaos and decline and was also not the lingua franca of the surviving imperial order. Thus, Hali noted that Ghalib did not consider writing in Urdu as an accomplishment. One of his frequent lament was that while there were admirers enough of his Urdu ghazal, there were none to appreciate his Persian odes. Pavan Varma opines that Ghalib’s reaction was in keeping with the times: an attempt to glorify his past and assert his continued relevance in order to escape the unpalatibility of the present. But unlike his predecessors and contemporaries, whose thoughts were dominated by bitter awareness of the decline of the Mughal Empire and yearning for the return of the former glory, Ghalib did not feel this loss and was prepared to come to terms with the British dominance. He was fascinated by the material achievements, on which British power was based and the possibilities for the future, which these achievements opened up.

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.