IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD…*

In art and literature, the global canons including our own embrace creatively written theological essays and summaries, faith-based parables, hymns and devotional poetry, religious music, and frescos and sculpture, etc. Later, in the 19th and 20th centuries, literature and music inspired by new political ideologies was also included. Such content and forms constitute a significant part of classical literature in many languages and our shared human civilizational history, impacting the individual and collective morality. Along with this, there were also resistance art and literature flourishing across cultures and civilizations.

After the Renaissance in Europe and arrival of the Romantic and Modernist literary movements, the age came when Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud deeply influenced the human mind. These developments were followed by de-colonisation and national liberations leading to a different appreciation of art and literature. It is contemporary literary criticism that promotes the role of political non-conformism and the critique of power at the heart of creative expression.

Apart from those involved in artistic pursuits or academic activities, the popular imagination even today would see ethics and morality as ideas leading to an individual’s submission to abstraction and divinity, and her subscription to social conservatism based on culture or tradition. On the contrary, the most powerful piece of art that moves you the most is the one which critiques and subverts the past and the present. Therefore, I find myself a little puzzled in how to approach the question the worthy editors want me to explore: “How does Urdu literature speak to the moral self that we bear today?”

This exploration may help understand if literature shapes the way we make judgments or take actions in our daily lives. Being a minor student of literature who has little or no theoretical grounding in psychology, cognitive science or ethics, I am responding to this question from a personal point of view using my hazy literary lens.

Urdu is a relatively new language compared to other major languages that are spoken in our part of the world. It is twinned with Hindi and both were together called by a variety of names including Hindi, Hindvi, Hindustani, etc. before registers were standardized anew by the British. Several dialects of Urdu were spoken in Deccan, Rajasthan and Punjab. However, it started becoming the lingua franca of Northern India with Deccan as an outpost in the South in the 17th century. In late Mughal court days and across many native states in the Subcontinent, people started using the language for ordinary conversations among them. The British made it into a semi-official and legal language for local legislators and lower courts. However, English remained the language of real power and Urdu remained subservient to English in the linguistic hierarchy. But due to being the lingua franca, it also became the language of resistance in anti-colonial and progressive political movements. Since those using Urdu by far outnumbered its native speakers, whatever was produced in the language reached greater number of people.

Urdu literature has contributed in shaping the worldview of its readers from the beginning but it was not until the 19th century, particularly after the 1857 War of Independence, that it assumed a definitive role in defining the moral and political choices its readership made and its indirect downstream consumers through its varied readership. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and his comrades were at the helm of the reformist movement. Interestingly, there is also an enormous body of religious literature in Urdu – not just about Islam but Hinduism and Christianity. But we are concerned here with literary writing.

After the sketchy background about Urdu literature and its relationship with our moral self, let me come to this day and age. In 2024, Urdu literature speaks to the moral self of two different kinds of persons. Both of them may want to act ethically with different ideological imperatives and conflicting social demands. One person comes from the Islamic religious strand and the other from the secular civilizational strand. In recent literary writing, from Qudratullah Shahab and Ashfaq Ahmed to Bano Qudsia and the likes resonate with the first kind of person. From Rajinder Singh Bedi and Saadat Hasan Manto to Fahmida Riaz and likes will resonate with the second person. Then there are many third, fourth or fifth persons who navigate and oscillate between the two types, knowing that there are only shades of gray in our world. Urdu literature continues to speak to its readers and impacts them in different ways. At the end of the day, it is art. To each his own.