By Intizar Husain
Created: 10/16/2011 11:05:38 PM

Languages the world over are said to be threatened by the newly emerged global order, which is said to have transformed the whole world into a global village. Has the world of Urdu tried to understand the challenges this phenomenon has brought for its language and literature? It was with this realisation that an international Urdu Conference was organised by the Express Media Group. Urdu scholars from different countries engaged in discussing problems faced by Urdu as a consequence of this changing world.

A number of questions, linguistic as well as literary, came under heated discussion in the two-day conference. One session which in particular attracted my attention explored Urdu’s literary position vis-à-vis world literature. The distinguished Urdu critic, Prof Shamim Hanafi from India, was perhaps the most concrete and blunt in his paper.

He quoted Firaq Gorakhpuri, saying that Asian literature has little worth in comparison to European literature produced after the Renaissance. Hanafi also talked in the same vein when discussing Eastern literature, with particular reference to Urdu literature. He referred to a millennium survey published by The Times Literary Supplement at the end of the 20th century.

He pointed out with regret that this esteemed list of the greats of the world included only one figure from the East: Ibn Khaldun. And how unfortunate, he added, that the government of India designated Kaifi Azmi as the poet of the millennium ignoring such greats as Amir Khusrau.

Of course it is unfortunate and ridiculous to designate Kaifi Azmi poet of the millennium in the presence of giants like Tagore, Iqbal, Ghalib, Mir, Kabir Tulsi Das and Amir Khusrau. But for a while let us set aside this unfortunate event and pay attention to what Firaq Sahib has said, which does have a grain of truth. But his tone of acknowledgement betrays a sense of abject submissiveness. At the same time we should keep in mind one great fact regarding our literary history; since the revolt of Hali and Azad against the classical poetic tradition, our writers have been in awe of Western literature. Of course there is the one exception of Allama Iqbal.

Moreover, a significant change was seen in our literary world’s attitude in recent decades. Previously we called this awe-inspiring stock of writings European or the Western literary tradition and tried to draw inspiration from the great masters of this tradition. This practice brought new trends resulting in the emergence of a new sensibility in our literature. Now our literary world has come to acknowledge it as the world or global tradition of literature, while the tradition insists on being seen as exclusively Western denying any place to the East. On the other hand, our writers are no more content to just draw inspiration from writers of that tradition. At the same time, they aspire to be recognised from the institutions of that tradition to become internationally known writers as this is possible only through English. So there is a craze among writers to get their works translated into the global language known as English.
Here I am tempted to refer to an Indian scholar who seems to think in a way different from Firaq Sahib. He is late Sisir Kumar Das, a distinguished scholar, critic, and literary historian. In one of his lectures titled, “The Hegemony of English and Modern Indian Literatures”, he speaks in an ironical tone telling us that “the linguistic history of the last 50 years in India is a strange record of simultaneous attempts to empower the Indian languages and to perpetuate the hegemony of English. The class that Macaulay wanted to create has been finally born.”

According to Das, the social base of the writings of these English writers is incredibly narrow but “the globalisation of English and the patronage of foreign publishers have greatly contributed to their success.”

He has referred to Pudhumaipithan, the avant-garde Tamil short story writer, who while commenting on the publication of R.K. Narayan’s novel, The Bachelor of Arts, said “the thoughts which are closest to the life and being of a people can only be expressed in the language that is closest to their hearts. That alone becomes literature. However fine a testimony The Bachelor of Arts might be to Shri Narayan’s skill, the story it tells will remain counterfeit.” Das adds that “unfortunately, however, [Indian writing in English] is often mistaken as the most important one and, at times, the true representative of Indian literature by the western world, because it is written in English.”

Coming back to Urdu we have two strong attitudes opposed to each other. On one side are those who are all praise for the western literary tradition to the extent of the outright dismissal of their own. On the other side are those who are stuck to their tradition to the point of giving the impression of being outdated. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Source: http://kashmirmonitor.org/10162011-ND-urdu-in-a-globalised-world-13106.aspx