Urdu Adab, Canonisation and Preservation of Literary Memory: The Ideational Role of Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu

No literary journal can sustain a journey of more than a century without passing through periods of change and challenge. Urdu Adab, which began publication in 1921, has been no exception. Throughout its storied history, it has witnessed several shifts in orientation. This was only natural. Every editor brings to a journal his own literary preferences, intellectual commitments, and vision, and these invariably find expression in the journal's outlook and editorial direction.

Since its inception in 1921, Urdu Adab has distinguished itself as a journal devoted to literature and research. At a time when numerous Urdu periodicals were appearing, many of them centred on creative writing, Urdu Adab occupied a different space. Urdu was then a widely spoken language of Indian society and enjoyed an honoured place in every sphere of life.

The educated elite, who dominated public life and occupied the higher ranks of government service, possessed an equal command of English and Urdu. For them, Urdu was not merely a language of communication but an indispensable part of their intellectual and cultural life. Jamia Osmania had already been established in 1918 as an Urdu-medium university, where even disciplines such as medicine and engineering were taught through Urdu. The advisers of Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu played a decisive role in the establishment of both Jamia Osmania and Dar ut-Tarjuma, the university's translation bureau.

The cover photo of Urdu Adab (July 2024 to June 2025 edition). Photo provided by author.

It was within this milieu that Urdu Adab evolved under the editorship of Maulvi Abdul Haq. Dedicated largely to serious research and scholarship, the journal naturally reflected his literary tastes and intellectual priorities. There is, therefore, nothing surprising in the fact that it catered primarily to the interests of a particular class of readers. At the time, Urdu Adab had scarcely more than two hundred subscribers.

Partition transformed the entire landscape of the Urdu language. Indian society was compelled to endure upheavals and devastation on a scale few could have anticipated. Equally extraordinary and unforeseen were the reactions that followed. The publication of Urdu Adab was suspended amid the turmoil of Partition and the large-scale population transfers. When the Anjuman’s office was shifted from Delhi to Aligarh in 1948 and publication resumed under the editorship of Professor Aal-i Ahmad Suroor, the journal naturally acquired an orientation different from that which had characterised it under Abdul Haq.

The contrast between the two editors was significant. Haq was essentially a scholar and researcher of Urdu, whereas Suroor came to Urdu through a background in science and English literature, with literary criticism occupying the centre of his intellectual interests. Research, therefore, could not remain the journal’s principal concern.

Although Suroor belonged to the academic world, neither his scholarly pursuits nor his teaching career inclined him towards research in the manner of his predecessor. By the time the Anjuman’s office returned from Aligarh to Delhi in the early 1970s, Urdu Adab had, for a brief period, become somewhat removed from the literary identity it had painstakingly cultivated over the previous five decades.

Culture of the qasba

A new phase in the journal's history began when Aslam Pervez retired from the faculty of Jawaharlal Nehru University and assumed its editorship. A Delhiwaalah in the fullest sense of the term, Parvez possessed a deep appreciation of classical literature, particularly poetry. Indeed, poetry was the subject for which he was best known as a teacher.

During his tenure, contemporary literary criticism and the writing of the associated faculty positions at universities occupied a prominent place in the pages of Urdu Adab. His literary preferences were obviously different, and the journal showed a marked inclination towards writers associated with a particular understanding of literature. His affinity with them was not merely intellectual; it extended to personal association as well.

Ather Farouqui joined the Anjuman in September 2012, when the institution was undergoing one of the most turbulent phases in its history. A former student of JNU, he was fully shaped by the intellectually open atmosphere of the university. His engagement with language and literature has generally been informed by broader social and political concerns.

He does not align himself with any particular contemporary literary tendency, nor does he attach undue importance to literary reputations. Although attentive to literary quality, he approaches writers and texts without the loyalties that often accompany literary affiliations, and is not, in the conventional sense, a ‘votary of Ghalib’: hum sukhan-fehm hein Ghalib ke tarafdar nahin (we are connoisseurs of poetry, not just loyalists of Ghalib).

For Farouqui, the primary criterion for publication in Urdu Adab is that a contribution should meet the journal’s scholarly and literary standards and possess a discernible relevance to society. He also attaches considerable importance to matters of language and editorial presentation and has sought, as far as circumstances permit, to maintain standards comparable to those associated with well-regarded international literary journals. This explains the care with which he reads and reviews material intended for publication. The approach was not without its difficulties at first, but he chose to adhere to it despite the obstacles.

Farouqui’s interests extend across a wide range of literary, political, and social questions, including contemporary developments in Urdu literature. His literary formation owes much to the culture of the qasba (a large village), which has long shaped a particular literary sensibility among lovers of poetry. During his tenure, Urdu Adab has sought to engage not only with Urdu literature but also with significant developments in world literature. As a result, the journal’s range of reference and sphere of engagement have become broader than before.

Much of Farouqui's first decade at the Anjuman was devoted to addressing administrative and organisational issues, the institution then being in the midst of one of the most difficult phases in its history. After assuming the editorship of Urdu Adab, he likewise made the journal one of his principal concerns, and it gradually came to occupy a more central place in the Anjuman’s intellectual and literary activities. Farouqui has generally remained distant from literary coteries and literary politics.

During his tenure, there were occasions when he declined contributions from individuals whose work editors often found difficult, to the extent of being impossible to refuse. At the same time, he published articles that other journals were reluctant to publish, often because their subject matter lay outside the editors' familiarity. His involvement was not confined to Urdu Adab alone. He also sought to connect the Anjuman's broader work with readers and writers who continue to regard literature as an important component of intellectual and cultural life.

Steadily shrinking domain

Over the past quarter-century, a succession of turbulent developments, including rapid technological innovations, has inflicted unexpected and far-reaching damage on periodicals and newspapers of every kind, literary and non-literary alike. By 2021, the number of subscribers to Urdu Adab had fallen to fewer than ten. The same fate had befallen Hamari Zaban, the Anjuman’s weekly publication. Yet both publications ultimately recovered. The challenge posed by technology can only be met by engaging with it rather than retreating from it. Today, the number of Urdu Adab subscribers through Amazon exceeds that of any other Urdu magazine, and it now reaches readers around the world.

The extraordinary response received by the July–December 2025 issue of Urdu Adab necessitated three reprints, a distinction without precedent in the journal’s history.

The steadily shrinking domain of the Urdu language is undoubtedly a matter of grave concern. The vitality of literature ultimately depends upon the overall health and progress of the language to which it belongs. Urdu literature today faces a difficult situation. In the modern world, the comprehensive development of any language is inseparable from the strength of its systems of teaching and learning. The reality today is that Urdu is taught primarily either in institutions of higher education or in religious seminaries.

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In Uttar Pradesh, in particular, Urdu’s connection with school education has been almost entirely severed, despite the fact that school education forms the very foundation upon which the future of a language rests. The erosion of Urdu at the school level, the most crucial stage of education, constitutes not only a setback for the language but also a loss to India’s cultural and civilisational heritage.

Its consequences are increasingly visible in contemporary Urdu literature. With Urdu’s education at the primary and secondary levels in the secular education curriculum, its teaching in university departments is meaningless.

The growing presence of madrasa graduates in university departments of Urdu is undoubtedly a significant social phenomenon, yet it has seldom been subjected to serious scholarly scrutiny. The process of recognising madrasa qualifications as equivalent to university degrees began nearly half a century ago, but remarkably little intellectual debate accompanied it.

If the admission of madrasa alumni to BA and MA programmes is to continue, religious seminaries must make a serious effort to accord Urdu literature a clearly defined place in their curricula. Only then can their graduates acquire the familiarity with literary traditions of Urdu and its movements expected of other students entering these programmes. Religious seminaries and institutions of higher learning, particularly university departments of Urdu, need to sustain a continuing dialogue on this question.

It is hoped that the present issue of the magazine will prove useful to students and stimulate discussion on matters that have long remained neglected. At present, Urdu-speaking communities and many Urdu institutions appear preoccupied with anxieties that have little basis in reality. One such anxiety concerns the Nagri script. Confident in the continued vitality of Urdu in its own script, Urdu-speaking people would do well to devote their attention to more pressing scholarly concerns. The question of Urdu’s survival is no longer the primary issue before us.

Aadha Gaon in Urdu will be a milestone

Institutions devoted to language and literature, such as the Anjuman, possess a significance of their own and cannot be expected to perform the functions assigned to other organisations with different objectives. Since 1903, after becoming an independent, nationalist institution, the Anjuman has addressed fundamental questions concerning language and literature. One of its earliest achievements was the standardisation of Urdu orthography, a task that no other institution had previously undertaken.

Under the influence of Arabic and Persian traditions, many Urdu words were then written in multiple forms and with different spellings. Another important contribution was the canonisation of Urdu literature. Among the Anjuman’s enduring objectives has been the promotion of literature that transcends the divide between elite and popular readerships and acquires the status of recognised literary excellence.

Such efforts seek to secure a place for this literature in educational curricula while highlighting the distinctive qualities of the language’s creative achievements. In the field of poetry in particular, the Anjuman published selections by emerging poets, thereby contributing to the expansion of the Urdu literary canon.

Representative image. Photo: Canva

As part of its new publishing initiative, the Anjuman has undertaken to make major Urdu works available in other languages. At its encouragement, publishers working in other languages have begun bringing out Urdu texts that have attained the status of modern classics. In this regard, Speaking Tiger has published Is Abad Kharabe Mein, the autobiography of the eminent Urdu poet Akhtarul-Iman, in English under the title In This Live Desolation. Similarly, Setu Prakashan has published selections of his poetry in the Nagri script.

There is no doubt that the Anjuman must continue to perform those scholarly and literary functions that remain neglected elsewhere. At the same time, it would do well to refrain from activities that numerous other institutions already undertake in abundance, such as seminars on general themes and routine book-release functions. Its energies should remain focused on the specific objectives that arise from its distinctive character and historic mission.

When Premchand began writing in Hindi, his objective was ostensibly no more than to transfer his writings into the Nagari script. Yet this occurred at a time when ‘modern Hindi’ was being fashioned in a highly organised and systematic manner. Its purpose was not merely a change of script but the recasting of a literary tradition into a form consciously distinguished from Urdu at every level.

A comparison of Premchand’s Hindi publications with his original manuscripts would readily demonstrate that what took place was far more than a simple transcription into another script. His works became part of the larger project of ‘modern Hindi’ and were subjected to systematic alteration in accordance with its agenda. Regrettably, no serious scholarly effort has yet been made to undertake such a comparison.

The immense loss suffered by Urdu literature in the wake of Premchand’s migration from Urdu to Hindi ought to serve as a caution against allowing another major Urdu writer, Rahi Masoom Reza, to be similarly appropriated. For the past six decades, every conceivable effort has been made to present Rahi as a Hindi writer. In this regard, the Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu (Hind), along with other literary and academic institutions, must undertake organised and sustained efforts of its own.

The Anjuman should also publish Aadha Gaon in Urdu. This assumes particular importance because the novel was originally written in Urdu in 1965 and was intended for publication by the Anjuman. Owing to the Anjuman’s refusal to publish it, however, it appeared instead in the Nagri script due to Rahi’s personal problem at the time. Indeed, it has not been published in Urdu in its original form. That 1965 decision by the Anjuman was unfortunate.

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The subsequent Urdu version of the novel was issued under the name of an individual who claimed to be its translator, although what was published was, in fact, Rahi’s original Urdu text. The claim of translation was therefore profoundly misleading. It must be clearly stated that no translation from the Hindi version had taken place. What emerged instead was a crude and deeply damaging mutilation of Rahi’s original text.

Numerous words, phrases and sentences were omitted, with the result that Aadha Gaon came to be counted among those Urdu texts remembered more for what was removed from them than for what they contained. A special issue of Urdu Adab devoted to Rahi is also necessary so that younger generations may become acquainted with the work of this major Urdu writer.

In many respects, Rahi received the same treatment that had earlier been meted out to Premchand. It was owing to a personal circumstance that Aadha Gaon was published in the Nagri script. Rahi was my senior at Aligarh Muslim University, but we enjoyed a close friendship. All his earlier writings had appeared in Urdu. Yet once this particular novel was published in Nagri, claims were advanced, in the manner of Premchand, that he was essentially a Hindi writer. Nothing could be further from the truth. Rahi wrote in Urdu throughout his life.

His cultural roots lay in the composite literary traditions of the region. Bhojpuri, Urdu, Persian and Awadhi all played a decisive role in shaping his imagination and sensibility. Bhojpuri itself is a powerful independent language with a rich literary inheritance, while the other languages of the region have likewise contributed to its cultural and linguistic life. Yet, as part of a larger and organised political project aimed at subsuming the languages of North India within the fold of ‘modern Hindi’, Rahi too came to be projected as a writer belonging to that tradition. This perception must now be challenged.

Moreover, while Aadha Gaon was being transferred into the Nagri script in 1965, the text was subjected to the same kinds of distortions that had earlier been inflicted upon Premchand’s writings. Fortunately, through the efforts of Farouqui, the Anjuman is now in possession of Rahi’s original manuscript. It is an invaluable literary treasure, and the Anjuman intends to publish it in the near future while preserving the text’s integrity and purity.

The publication of the original Urdu version of Aadha Gaon will mark a significant milestone in the history of the Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu (Hind) and Indian languages, one fully consistent with the institution’s intellectual legacy and long-standing commitments. It will also reaffirm that the Anjuman remains mindful of its ideational character and the historic responsibilities of standardisation and canonisation entrusted to it by its founders.

Rahi has always been recognised as an Urdu poet and will continue to be remembered as one. One hopes that Aadha Gaon, along with his other novels and poetry, will in due course find its rightful place in academic curricula.

Sadiq-ur-Rahman Kidwai is one of the founding faculty members of JNU. He also served as dean of the Faculty of Languages at the School of Languages, JNU. Now he is president of Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu Hind, the premier and the only nationalist institute which does not accept any government grant.