The series of which this article forms the third part is aimed at capturing the essence of Pakistani Urdu writing — its history, milieu, towering figures and memorable writings.

The Urdu afsana, or short story, is younger than the Urdu novel by at least 30 years as its earliest pieces were penned in the beginning of the 20th century, but the swiftness with which it developed and surpassed most genres of Urdu prose in popularity, including the novel, is somewhat surprising. The short story in its nature and scope has an inbuilt capacity for popularity: it is short enough to be read in one sitting and concerns just one complete incident or one aspect of life. It is not only easier to read a short story, but to write one, too, as the novel tries to capture and recreate life.

The Urdu short story came of age within a short span of time and began reflecting the local milieu with realistic touches, though born with a propensity to occasionally flirt with the romanticism it had inherited from the imaginative elements found in the Urdu dastan. Premchand is a case in point: beginning with a romantic view of the world around him in his short story ‘Dunya ka sab se anmol ratan’ (1907), he ended with masterpieces like ‘Kafan’ (1936), a short story narrated with detached realism, emphatically portraying the poverty-induced callousness of human beings.

Interestingly, after Independence the tone, milieu and even the diction of some Urdu short story writers changed considerably. For example, Indian short story writer Rajinder Singh Bedi’s latter-day stories are quite different from the earlier ones. Similarly, Ghulam Abbas’s stories used to be set in Delhi or elsewhere in undivided India, but his latter-day stories, especially the ones written in the 1970s, speak of a different environment with cues to the markedly religious and politically divided society that Pakistan had become in the 1970s.

Tracing the history of Urdu short story writing

Syed Waqar Azeem (1909-1976) wrote in his Dastan Se Afsane Tak that the themes that dominated the Urdu short story till around the beginning of WWI included the conflict between Eastern and Western values and need for social reforms. In the second era, ending around 1930, Urdu short story writers were more concerned with political awakening, social issues and reformist thoughts, albeit some were still clinging to the old-fashioned romanticism. In the 1930s and 1940s, the Urdu short story came into its own, imbued with economic, political and ideological issues. But it was Angarey (1932), a collection of short stories, that sent tremors across the subcontinent’s conservative society as well as literary circles because of its iconoclastic tone and content. Penned by four Progressive writers — Ahmed Ali, Sajjad Zaheer, Mahmood-uz-Zafar and Rashid Jahan — Angarey was the harbinger of Marxist ideals as well as the Progressive Writers’ Association that was to be formed four years later.

Between 1930 and 1947 the Urdu short story had myriad themes: Marxists, romanticists, reformists, traditionalists, religionists — all were trying to establish their presence and disseminate their views, not to mention the influences from English, French and Russian literatures. Under the influence of Western literatures, new styles of writing were appearing in Urdu short stories. Qurratulain Hyder’s short stories exhibited a stream of consciousness. Mumtaz Mufti, Saadat Hasan Manto, Rajinder Singh Bedi and Hasan Askari presented sexual themes. Political themes, too, had found their way in as Manto’s ‘Naya qanoon’ suggests. But it is a fact that leftist bigwigs like Krishan Chander, Ismat Chughtai, Manto, Bedi, Ghulam Abbas and many others stole the show with their realism and empathy and stress on social and economic issues.

These trends were overshadowed by the tales of riots and killings during Partition. For the next few years, most Urdu short story writers were overwhelmed with issues that entailed migration and massacre, but many of the short stories written soon after Partition portraying the massacre, especially the ones written by the Progressives, were tailored to fit preconceived ideas that put the blame on both sides.

In her book Me’yaar Mumtaz Shirin severely criticised the Progressives, especially Chander, for striking an intentional “balance” between India and Pakistan, Hindus and Muslims, as Chander’s short story ‘Peshawar Express’ denotes. The short stories that were written a few years after Independence and depicted issues related to riots and migration were more moving than the ones hastily written in the immediate aftermath. In Pakistan, some remarkable short stories were written on migration, riots, rape, looting and bloodshed during Partition, but it is not possible to name them all here. However, Manto, Aziz Ahmad, Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, Khadija Mastoor, Hajra Masroor, Ashfaq Ahmed, Qudratullah Shahab, Syed Anwer and Mumtaz Mufti deserve a special mention. Intizar Husain and Hyder (while she was in Pakistan) wrote some fine short stories based on nostalgia, recalling memories of the land from which they had migrated.

The Urdu short story came of age within a short span of time and began reflecting the local milieu with realistic touches, though born with a propensity to occasionally flirt with the romanticism it had inherited from the imaginative elements found in the Urdu dastan.

Some other Pakistani short story writers who made their mark in the first decade or so after Independence include Ghulam Abbas and Shaukat Siddiqui. Several of the latter-day writers concentrated on sensuous content: Aziz Ahmad, Agha Babar, Zameeruddin Ahmed and Rehman Muznib wrote some shocking short stories — at least, they shocked some readers. Realism, romanticism and humour, too, were not missing. A. Hameed, at times, reminded one of old-fashioned love stories with a dreamy environment, but Shafeeq-ur-Rahman and Mohammad Khalid Akhtar’s art was essentially based on humour with a touch of romance. Ibrahim Jalees, a Progressive short story writer, was known for his satirical themes.

With the imposition of martial law in 1958 and decline of Progressive literary trends, realism and Progressivism waned considerably, but no new trend or technique was being offered and the Urdu short story was beginning to sound stale. Maulana Salahuddin Ahmed’s Adabi Dunya, a literary journal, stopped publishing short stories with the excuse that no good short story was being written any more and that “the golden age of the Urdu short story” was over. Askari had declared that Urdu literature had become a prey to “jamood” (inertia). Some other critics, Mumtaz Hussain, Ibadat Barelvi and Syed Waqar Azeem, for instance, realised the monotony that had set in, but they were not as pessimistic as Askari who had announced “the death of Urdu literature” in the September 1953 issue of Saqi (Karachi). The heated debate that followed led to a search for new styles and new themes. Modernism and symbolism came as answers for some writers.

Modernism had arrived here in the late 1950s, and with it, symbolism. Some critics feel that symbolist fiction had an unconscious connection to the dastan. It is also said that the rise of symbolism in Urdu short stories during the early 1960s was but a manifestation of the curbs and suppression after the imposition of martial law in 1958. But Shahzad Manzar in his Pakistan Mein Urdu Afsane ke Pachaas Saal has rightly attributed it to a number of factors. Firstly, writes Manzar, it was the question of identity and getting oneself recognised through a different style that prompted the new short story writers to turn to symbolism. Secondly, it was the crude realism and monotony of the Progressive narrative that caused boredom and gave rise to symbolic writings, though the “indirect curb on freedom of expression”, too, was a reason, he adds. Manzar also agrees with Intizar Hussain when he says that in the early 1960s, a semi-religious trend entwined with historicism fascinated the short story writers of Urdu. Symbolism also paved the way for abstraction, which in turn created a tendency to write plot-less short stories in the 1960s and early 1970s.

Intizar Husain, Anwar Sajjad, Rasheed Amjad, Sami Ahuja, Ahmed Hamesh and some others wrote short stories with symbolic notions or abstraction. Side by side, the vet erans like Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, Ghulam Abbas, Bano Qudsia, Ashfaq Ahmed, Shaukat Siddiqui and others carried on with their conventional ways, though for some time the symbolic and abstract short story was the dominant trend. But the short story is essentially the art of telling a story and the abstract short story lacked this craft, hence it fell out of favour and almost disappeared in the late 1970s, though only to resurface later under the garb of a new or modernist mode.

The abundance of some pseudo-symbolist writers blindly following the trend and rendering the short story unreadable in the process caused readers to lose interest for a while. This was, perhaps, one of the reasons why ‘digests’ did roaring business and smashed all popularity records in the early 1970s. The digests — Alami digest, Subrang digest, Suspense digest, Jasoosi digest, to name but a few — or Urdu monthlies, mostly published from Karachi and printing conventional but select Urdu short stories along with translations of Western short fiction, such as stories by Guy de Maupassant, Anton Chekhov, Somerset Maugham, Edger Allan Poe, Agatha Christie, Leo Tolstoy and O. Henry et al, became bestsellers.

This was, indeed, a sign that readability was what readers wanted, something symbolist and abstract short stories lacked. Popularity may not be a reliable yardstick of great literature, but the rise — and ultimate decline — of digest literature, often referred to scornfully in Urdu as digesti adab, was a phenomenon that needs some research and serious thought. Here one should not forget or underrate some of the modernist and symbolist short story writers who enriched Urdu literature with their ingenuity and creativity and altogether changed the style and tone of Urdu short stories. They are, for instance, Intizar Hussain, Anwar Sajjad, Rasheed Amjad, Sami Ahuja, Asad Mohammad Khan, Khalida Hussain, Muhammad Mansha Yaad, Ejaz Rahi, Ahmed Javed, Arsh Siddiqi, Masood Ashar, Younus Javed, Afsar Azar, Najmul Hasan Rizvi, and many more.

The war of 1965 caused patriotic feelings and a sense of belonging to emerge in Pakistani society. It is a fact that the war of 1965 strengthened unity among Pakistanis, and the country was immersed in overwhelming nationalistic sentiments. But while poets contributed much to the literary scene of the time, Urdu fiction, both in short form and long form, could not come up with as marked a manifestation of patriotic emotions. Many intellectuals maintained their so-called noncommittal stance as they did not want to jeopardise their secularism. However, Masood Mufti’s collection of short stories, Rag-i-Sang, and Ghulam-us-Saqlain Naqvi’s collection Naghma-o-Aag, consist entirely of stories written with the 1965 war as the theme. Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, Intizar Husain, Khadija Mastoor, Altaf Fatima, Akhtar Jamal, Razia Fasih Ahmad, Farkhanda Lodhi, Sadiq Hussain, Ahmed Shareef and some others penned some moving stories on war.

Palestine and its Muslims facing Israeli atrocities, too, became a theme in some Pakistani Urdu short stories. Mazharul Islam, Khalid Suhail, Anwer Khwaja, Jameel Ahmed Adeel and some others wrote short stories highlighting the Palestine issue. Similarly, the Kashmir issue is a subject that could not draw the attention of fiction writers the way it should have. Political and ideological commitments may have been the reason. As put by Fateh Muhammad Malik, “writers of Urdu have strived to keep themselves detached from the Kashmir issue ever since it surfaced because showing solidarity with the Kashmiri people — who are Muslim and who have been suffering from human rights violations — would mean renunciation of their Progressivism and liberalism”. Manto, Qudratullah Shahab and some others wrote a few short stories set against the backdrop of the Kashmir issue.

A very large number of writers were writing short stories in the 1960s and 1970s and it is simply not possible to name them all here. However, in addition to the names mentioned above, some more that come to mind include Abdullah Hussain, Jamila Hashmi, Muhammad Saleemur Rahman, Hameed Kashmiri, Saleem Akhter, Rasheeda Rizvia, Saira Hashmi, Akhtar Jamal, Muneer Ahmed Sheikh, Salma Awan and Agha Sohail.

In 1971 the separation of East Pakistan took place, which was a national tragedy, but our fiction writers could not come up with the kind of response that they showed in the wake of 1947. Still, many good short stories recorded the debacle, especially by Masood Ashar, Shahzad Manzar, Jameel Usman, Masood Mufti, Intizar Hussain, Razia Fasih Ahmed, Akhtar Jamal, Rasheed Amjad, A. Hameed, Farkhanda Lodhi, Agha Sohail, Ahmed Zainuddin, Ghulam Muhammad, Ibrahim Jalees, Umm-e-Ammara, Shahnaz Parveen and some others.

With the imposition of martial law in 1977, the trend to write symbolic and modernist short stories re-emerged, and some prominent writers who wrote with a flair for readability were appreciated by readers and critics alike. Another trend was what is dubbed as ‘resistance literature’, protesting against Gen Ziaul Haq’s regime. These stories are full of anger, disappointment and protest. Some of the stories have silence as their theme, alluding to martial law’s curbs. Many fine short story writers emerged in the era which began around 1977 and ended with the restoration of democracy in the country in 1988.

In the 1990s, several short stories reflected Karachi and Sindh’s political turmoil and law and order situation. Later on, burning issues of the day such as terrorism, Gen Pervez Musharraf’s martial law, 9/11, and unrest in Balochistan were all made the subject of short stories.

Though the majority of Pakistanis live in rural areas, our literature scarcely touches upon this segment of society. This is because most of our writers are from urban areas and they talk of issues related to big cities and industrial culture. Along with Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, a few writers portrayed rural Pakistani culture and the issues concerning the agrarian economy: Ghulam-us-Saqlain Naqvi, Sadiq Hussain and Jamila Hashmi. Abul Fazl Siddiqi’s settings included villages, jungles, animals and hunting. Many stories by Rafeeq Hussain portray animals. Some stories by Shamshad Ahmed and Ahmed Javed also presented animals as characters, but in a symbolic way.

It is very difficult to name all Pakistani Urdu short story writers here and no matter how hard one tries some names might skip one’s memory since innumerable short story writers adorn our literary horizon. Some of them are (these names are listed randomly and are not in order of preference or seniority): Mirza Adeeb, Hijab Imtiaz Ali, Mustanar Hussain Tarar, Mazharul Islam, Zahida Hina, Ahmad Dawood, Mirza Hamid Baig, Firdous Hyder, Shakeela Rafeeq, Sultan Jameel Naseem, Naeem Arvi, Nasir Baghdadi, Nazrul Hasan Siddiqi, Qamar Abbas Nadeem, A. Khayyam, Muhammad Hameed Shahid, Neelam Ahmed Bashir, Ahmed Zainuddin, Hasan Manzar, Fehmida Riaz, Mohammad Ilyas, Mubeen Mirza, Asif Farrukhi, Anwaar Ahmed, Masarrat Laghari, Naeem Siddiqui, Lala-e-Sehrai, Jeelani B.A., Nighat Mirza, Fareeda Mirza, Taqi Hussain Khusrau, Nasim Satrakhi, Ali Hyder Malik, Agha Gul, Muhammad Ameenuddin, Akhlaq Ahmed, Iqbal Khursheed, Amjad Tufail, Khalid Fateh Muhammad, Sher Shah Syed, Tahir Masood, Tariq Mahmood, Muhammad Saeed Sheikh, Mushtaq Qamar, Naseem Durrani, Musharraf Ahmed, Mirza Riaz, Shahnaz Shoro, Noorul Huda Syed, Shahida Tabassum, Rahman Shareef, Abbas Rizvi, Ali Akbar Natiq, Faisal A’jami, Asim Butt, Mansoor Qaiser, Nasim Anjum, Azra Abbas, Tahira Iqbal, Neelofer Iqbal, Khalid Saeed, Ikramullah, Hafeez Ahsan, Mahmood Wajid, Rizwan Siddiqi, and many, many more.

The writer is a former chief editor of the Urdu Dictionary Board and now teaches Urdu at the University of Karachi.

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, November 27th, 2016