It didn't sound strange to me that Urdu International (Canada) organised Sajjad Zaheer International Seminar this year. Sajjad Zaheer & Canada! There appears to be no connection between him and Canada.
He didn't visit Canada during his lifetime but I hope that the thoughts of Ghadar Party of India, formed by Indian Canadians in the second decade of the last century, the precursor of the Communist Party of India, should have provided some form of kinship with Canada.
Sajjad Zaheer alias 'Banne Mian' was the son of Sir Wazir Hasan, Chief Justice of the Oudhe High Court, Lucknow. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he chose to identify himself with the lot of the down toddler in his youthful days.
It was during his student days at Oxford (1924 - 1928) that he studied dialectical materialism and the politics of European left. He also studied Bertrand Russel, Anatole France and other radical thinkers and writers of the left.
He returned to India in 1928 and found the sub-continent astir with the fervour of the Indian independence. Now coupled with the struggle for independence of the sub-continent, was the question as to what the polity of independent India was going to be.
It was in this context that the India of peasants and working class became the main issue which engaged Sajjad Zaheer and his friends' attention.
There were two sessions of the seminar. One was to be presided over by this writer and the other by Ahmed Faraz.
In the first session Himayat Ali Sahir and Zubair Rizvi, editor Zehn-e-Jadeed of India, read out their papers. Himayat Ali Shair took a broad view of Sajjad Zaheer's work. He thought that he was a poet, fiction writer and critic of great merit and it was a pity that the creative side of his output was side-tracked.
Zubair Rizvi also said that being an ideologue, Sajjad Zaheer was not a rigid and inflexible man of letters. Rather he was more flexible than most of the leftist writers. He was a liberal artist who believed in the primacy of Art.
The second session was presided over by Himayat Ali Shair instead of Ahmed Faraz as he was not feeling well. Professor Ludmilla Vassilieya of the Oriental Institute of Moscow read out her paper. It was on the last day of Sajjad Zaheer's life in Alma Ata where he had gone to attend the Afro-Asian writers' Conference. She graphically recounted Sajjad Zaheer's enthusiastic participation in the Conference.
He was liked by the foreign delegates very much. He died of heart failure before the Conference ended on September 13, 1973. Faiz Ahmed Faiz travelled with his dead body from Alma Ata to Lahore even though he didn't have Indian visa. It was officially conveyed to Faiz that he was welcome to New Delhi without the travel-document. Faiz Ahmed Faiz could be treated as someone above the law.
Faiz Ahmed Faiz's elegy on the death of Sajjad Zaheer is a moving poem. Ludmilla Vassilieya read out the poem so movingly that she moved the entire audience with her rendering.
My paper dealt with those facets of Sajjad Zaheer's work which were truly a pioneering contribution. The paper dealt with the introduction of the 'stream of consciousness' in Sajjad Zaheer's short story Neend Nahin Aati and novelette London Ki Ek Raat. Sajjad Zaheer's pioneering role in writing prose-poetry which even Faiz Ahmed Faiz had not accepted as poetry during his lifetime was also highlighted with reference to his only collection of poems "Pighla Neelum". And the most important of all was Sajjad Zaheer's advocacy of the mystical poetry of Persia of the 12th and 13th centuries ridiculing its opponents' blame that it tended to support feudalism. Sajjad Zaheer thought that mystical poetry was understandable as an authentic voice of humanism when the Hun's carnage of Central Asia, Iran and Iraq was at its worst.
Sajjad Zaheer's acceptance of mystical poetry and his opposition to Zoe Ansari and Waheed Akhtar on many rigid formulations of Art reinforced Marxist stand that literary standards of a work of art couldn't be side-stepped in any case.
Very few critics have done justice to Sajjad Zaheer. He is regarded as a hard-one ideologue who doesn't settle for anything less than ideologically defensible statement of 'ideology' whether it is shorn of artistic canons. Far from that Sajjad Zaheer loved Hafiz, Khusro, Saadi and Jami. He was for the sweetness of ghazal carrying all the bitterness of the age capsuled into it.
I believe that his articles emphasising the canons of art should be read with due attention. He was a pioneer of Urdu's progressive criticism and distinguished propaganda from art. He has written near about 20 articles on literature besides many columns in Qaomi, Jang, Awam, Dawn and Hayat.
Faiz Ahmed Faiz in his tribute to Sajjad Zaheer in his poem 'Sajjad Zaheer Ke Nam' recalls his memorable days with him:
Na ab ham sath Sair - i - gul karain ge
Na ab milkar sar - i - Maqtal Chalain Ge
Hadis - i - dilbaran baham karen ge
Na khon-i-dil se sharh-i-gham karen ge
Na Laila - i - Sukhan ki dost dari
Na gham hai watan Pe ashk bari
Sunain ge naghma - i - zanjeer milkar
Na shab bhar milke chalkaen ge saghar
The poem goes to its finale:
Pio ah ek jam - i - alwidai
Pio aur pi ke saghar tor dalo
No doubt a great finale to a wonderful friendship. Actually Sajjad Zaheer's contribution to add charisma to Faiz's stature has not been studied as yet. To say the least Faiz Ahmed Faiz, without Sajjad Zaheer's tremendous efforts to make Faiz an icon of his age, resulted into quite a few Russian and Afro-Asian poets canonising him as an icon.
And it is mainly because of Sajjad Zaheer.
WAHID BASHIR'S LOVE FOR GHAZALS:
Wahid Bashir's collection of poetry "Jo Aitbar Kiya" reinforces my belief in the progressive realisation of the importance of the primacy of Art in an art form. The viewpoint of a poet could never be redundant or unnecessary as some advocates of structuralism and post-structuralism have believed.
Wahid Bashir's collection, published by Irteqa Matboaat, Karachi, appears some years after Cactus Ke Phool. The symbolism of the first book suggests that one should go on serving regardless of the consideration of harvesting. The French philosopher, Voltaire, made this point so casually in his "Candide" that I would like to believe that serious issues acquire more pungency when they are casually phrased.
Wahid Bashir's first collection of poetry comprised Nazm poetry while this collection has ghazals to offer. Wahid Bashir is an optimist in this collection as was expected of him. He knows that he is dealing with a form of poetry which doesn't admit of anything as ghazal stuff if it defied the basic norms of ghazal. It demands of its practitioner total surrender to one's 'sweetheart' (no matter it is one's ideology). That's why may anti-poets couldn't survive as ghazal poets though they tried to pass their ghazal poetry under the name of Nai ghazal, Jadeed ghazal or Mazhar Imam's Langri ghazal.
Poet Zafar Iqbal has tried to introduce a great deal of off-beat themes and manner in his ghazal. He has, at times, succeeded in giving us a different flavour. Shams-ur-Rahman Farooqi has tried to eulogise this extension in ghazal's territory as a breakthrough. However, the fact remains that Tagghuzzal still haunts most ghazal fans as the prerequisite of ghazal poetry. Faiz Ahmed Faiz was a revolutionary poet who operated on three different planes in his ghazal - a romantic, a revolutionary and a typical traditionalist in the footsteps of Amir and Asir of the Rampur School. Faraz pillows the lead given by Faiz.
Wahid Bashir achieves in this collection a good deal of 'blessings of the muse'. He has proved that he likes Faiz, Makhdum and Sardar Jafri of the first phase.
"Jo Aitabar Kiya" is a good collection of a poet who loves his country as his sweetheart and considers no sacrifice too big to consummate his love with his Laila-i-Watan.
Any Message? Yes! There is one. Love your people if you want to achieve its glory.