Josh Mallihabadi: The poet of youth and revolution
(On his birth anniversary on December 5)
By Sohail Arshad
If critics have declared Josh Mallihabadi, who is known as the poet of youth and revolution, the greatest Urdu poet after Iqbal, there is no reason to challenge it. Great poets and writers of Urdu like Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Maulvi Abdul Haque recognized his poetic genius. Like Iqbal, Josh composed both ghazals and nazms, but his poetic genius and intellectual depth became more evident in his poems as he also wrote the poems mostly in ghazal form like Iqbal. The nature had bestowed on him great intelligence, creative abilities and power of observation by virtue of which he wrote poems even on the topics other poets generally ignore. His poetry deals equally with youth and beauty as well as cultural and ethical values, social and political issues and different aspects and phenomenon of nature. In addition to that, he had got a non-conformist attitude and a revolutionist mindset due to which though he left a deep imprint on literature and society of his time, he also suffered hardships in his entire life but he never compromised on his principles.
Josh was born and brought up in the lap of the Lakhnavi tehzeeb (Lucknow culture). His poetry too developed under the influence of the Lucknow school of poetry. The Urdu poetry of that age was marked by an appreciation of beauty and romance which sometimes condescended to vulgar expression of lust and passion. For example:
Wasl ki shab palang ke ooper
Misl cheetay ke who uchhalte hain
(On the night of union, she tosses on the bed like a tigress)
Josh’s romantic temperament and love of beauty was a gift of the feudal system in which he was born. Romanticism and nature-worship became a quintessential part of Josh’s inner self due to his upbringing in the unpolluted atmosphere of the village and his proximity to nature. But Josh’s unconventional thinking broke the traditions followed by the Lucknow school and set his own standards and evolved his own diction and style which was a class apart.
Mujhko to hosh nahin tumko khabar ho sahyad
Log kehte hain ke tumne mujhe barbaad kiya
(I am hardly in my senses to decide if you have spoiled me
Only you can tell
People blame you for my ruin)
Soz-e-gham deke mujhe usne ye irshad kiya
Ja tujhe kashmakash-e-dahr se aazad kiya
(Awarding me with the fire of sorrow, he pronounced
Go, you are free from the trials of this world)
Later, he took to the genre of nazm (verse) and adopted it as the medium of his creative expression. His first poetic collection Rooh-e-Adab consisted of both ghazals and nazms. However, in later years, he brought out more than ten collections of his nazms.
He was born in Mallihabad on December 5, 1898. Therefore, his was an age of great social and political turmoil in India. On the one hand the British subjected the Indians to all kinds of atrocities and on the other, the people suffered miserably due to the illiteracy and ignorance, tyranny, poverty and exploitation under the feudal system. The movement for India’s independence had also intensified. The social and political developments, therefore, had an impact on Josh’s psyche which helped in the formation of his poetic ideology, lending a revolutionary leaning to his poetic thought. As he roared:
Kaam hai mera taghaiyur, naam hai mera shabab
Mera naara inquilab o inquilab o inquilab
(Bringing change is my job, youth is what they call me
My slogan is revolution, revolution and revolution)
Josh’s father Bashir Ahmad Khan died in 1916 when he was still studying at Santiniketan. Consequently, he had to drop out to manage his ancestral property back home. During the time, he made a mark as a young poet in the poetic circle. At the age of twenty, he brought out his first book of marsia (poem narrating and eulogising the martyrdom of Hadhrat Hussain and his family In Karbala) titled Awaz-e-Haq in 1918.
Thanks to his mastery of Urdu, Arabic and Persian, he got a job at the Darul Tarjama (Dapartment of Translation) of Usmania University under the rule of Nizam of Hyderabad and he shifted to Hyderabad Deccan. He wrote a very emotional poem on his departure to Hyderabad addressed to none but the garden of nature expressing his pain and sorrow over leaving its company and hoped that nature too would miss his company. The birds, rain-drenched mango-orchards in the rainy season, the winds – all would feel sad when they wouldn’t see him around, he anticipated. At the end, he prays that he will come back to be buried in the soil of his beloved native town.
The poem reflects on his deep spiritual bonding with nature. His poetry has three distinct features: romanticism, nature-worship and revolution. His relations with nature are so deep that like the three romantic poets of English---Shelley, Keats and Wordsworth—he feels all the colours, freshness, and vivacity of nature, the sounds hidden in it and its tenderness through his senses and speaks to it about his sorrow and pain as one does to his close confidante. He says:
Itna manoos hoon fitrat se kali jab chatki
Jhuk maine ye kaha mujhse kuchh irshad kiya
(I am so close to the nature that when a little bud blooms
I bow and say, pardon, did you say something?)
His poems titled Albeli subah (flambouyant morning), sawan ke mahine, ghata, sham ka roman and garmi aur dehati bazaar are ones that are excellent poetic pieces on different aspects of nature. But they are not mere descriptions of nature’s beauty. He expresses his romantic yearnings and passion in the backdrop of nature with the help of unique similes, metaphors and imagery.
Josh has great sense of humour and wit which not only reflected in his poetry when he takes jabs at the hypocrisy and show of piety by religious icons like the maulvi or the preacher, the eternal punching bags of Urdu poets, he is best known for his humour and wit in his day to day life as well.
As he migrated to Pakistan in 1956 alongwith some other senior Urdu poets and writers, he started learning Punjabi language which was the principal language of Karachi. Asked by someone the reason behind it, he said,”I am well aware that after my death, I will be sent to hell and I have heard that Punjabi will be the official language of Pakistan”.
In his book Adeebon ke latife (Anecdotes of writers), Narang Saqi narrates one such interesting incident involving Josh. At the end of a mushaira in which Josh and Parween Shakir, the young Pakistani poetess were also present, the latter started serving tea to all the poets. She asked each of them how much sugar and milk they would like to take and then served them tea accordingly. When she came to Josh and asked, “Josh sahab, doodh kitna?”(how much milk?), Josh curtly replied, “Bas dikha dijiye.”(just show me).
Josh Mallihabadi’s revolutionary poetry is full of force and intensity which egged the people on not only to rise against the tyrant British rule but also to raise their voice against the exploitative feudal system. His message to the common people was that a moment of freedom was better than a lifetime of slavery. He had a revolutionary and unconventional attitude towards society due to which he was criticised and victimised regularly. During his stint at the Usmania University, he wrote a poem protesting Nizam’s exploitation of his subjects. As a punishment he was fired from his job. But instead of dampening his revolutionary spirit, the incident gave it a boost. He published a monthly magazine Kalim and started spitting fire against the British and all the oppressive powers in the society through his poems. The British government banned his poem titled ‘To the sons of East India Company’ that sang about their persecution of the Indians in harshest possible words. His revolutionary poems won him the title ‘shair-e-Inquilab’ from the people of India. Some of the poems were even broadcast from German Radio during the Second World War. His other poems ‘kisan’ (farmer), baghawat (rebellion), matam-e-Azadi etc are remarkable in their verve, intensity and use of language.
He was the editor of the Ajkal, the mothly literary magazine of the government of India and also the advisor of All India Radio. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan for his remarkable contribution to society and literature. The first Prime Minister of India was a great admirer of Josh but they fell apart after the partition. He was not happy with some of Nehru’s policies. Secondly, after partition, Urdu was sidelined making Hindi the national and official language of India. This was a cause for great disappointment for him and of his disillusionment with India. A sense of insecurity about the future of Urdu compelled him to decide to leave India and settle in Pakistan, a decision he regretted in his later life as he felt suffocated in his adopted country because of the treatment he got in Pakistan.
He invited trouble in 1974 when he recorded an interview with Radio Pakistan on the topic ‘Religion and Pakistan’ on condition that the interview will be broadcast after his death. The information minister of Pakistan government Mahmood Azam Farooquee who was associated with Jamat Islami which tried to turn Pakistan into an Islamic State, conspired to put Josh in trouble and got the interview published in a right wing magazine ‘Zindagi’. Subsequently, the government of Pakistan blacklisted him from TV and Radio.
In short, Josh Mallihabadi was a poet and writer who lived life on his own terms. He contributed greatly to the Urdu poetry and to India’s freedom struggle. But ironically, while his work is being appreciated and recognised by the comtemporary literary society in Pakistan, there is no such enthusiasm seen about his work in India. In Pakistan there are critics and fans who have devoted themselves to the research in and popularisation of Josh’s literary work, but no such co-ordinated effort is seen in the literary circles in India.
The author is a freelance journalist and a literary critic.He can be contacted at sohai.arshad07@gmail.com
Sohail Arshad is a regular columnist for New AgeIslam.com.
URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-culture/josh-mallihabadi-poet-youth-revolution/d/3765