by Raza Rumi
Civilisations were not divisible into nations, national boundaries came and went, civilisations endured. Civilisational unity was perceived as being made up of long-term and contemporary bonds, the textures of lives, memories and friendships.3
Qurratulain Hyder’s historicity, albeit through fiction, was far deeper than her contemporaries and successors as she explored the complexities and contradictions of the history of Muslims in India. Her emphasis was on the fact that the history of the Indo-Pak subcontinent is a narrative of travellers where eras overlap, merge and concur. Her vision has been independently echoed by many historians while writing their own history books. For instance, Irfan Habib’s view is that the ‘idea’ of India as a cultural unity was not a modern secular invention but a much older one; that it was a product of conquest, travellers’ visions or a view from outside, while the affect-laden idea of India as a distinctive composite culture or a common heritage emerged from immigrants and converts.
Through her historical fiction, Qurratulain Hyder demolishes stereotypes that emerge from the particularism of religious identities. Her writings are not a set of propaganda tools that invoke the ‘one India’ stereotype. Instead, there is immense complexity that confronts communal versions of history and the Partition saga. In this complexity, the nationalism of Pakistan or India becomes a secondary issue. The religious or communal narrative also becomes a ‘constructed’ reality. The reader can see through it, feel with the author and flow with her grand sweep.
Not content with writing fiction, Ainee Apa set about rediscovering the essentials of the Indo-Muslim civilization. She dug out, what she claims, is the first sub-continental modern novel as we know it, entitled Qissa-e Rangin, authored by a late nineteenth-century East India Company official, Hasan Shah, in Persian. This invaluable Persian manuscript and its 1892 translation into Urdu as Nashtar were lying neglected and Qurratulain translated it into English and published it under the title The Nautch Girl in 1992. There were critics and skeptics, but she held her ground. This is an outstanding contribution to the corpus of South Asian, and indeed, world literature. Posterity will treat it as a major landmark in the evolution of sub-continental literature.4
When I met her the second time, Qurratulain, pre-empting my about-to-be-enacted melodrama, warned me, ‘Now don’t you do the conventional thing… it was great that I finally met you as I have been dying to meet you for so many years.’ She said this in pure Hindi. We laughed and laughed and I told her that all the clichés are true and need to be expressed shamelessly.
During this meeting we spoke extensively about The Nautch Girl. She was angry that no one bothered to find and study this novel until she unearthed the manuscript from the Patna Library. In fact, her rejection of contrarian views that this was not the first modern Urdu novel was emphatic. She recalled how a small-time official of the Company writing in those times, had such a fine sense of plot, dialogue and characterizations, exclaiming, ‘Arrey yeh novel nahee hai tau aur kya hai?’ (‘What is this if not a novel?’)
Then we talked of one of her characters, the Calcutta-based singer-courtesan Gauhar Jaan (who died in 1930), from her novel Gardish-i-Rang-i-Chaman. I told her that a musicologist friend had discovered some rare thumris sung by her in her original voice. I presented these CDs to her during my second visit and when we listened to them she was in a state of disbelief. She asked me to search for the music of Janki Bai, another luminary of the early twenteith century. I called my musicologist friend to request him to dig out Janki’s music and he was stunned when I tell him who I wanted it for. In addition to painting and writing, Qurratulain Hyder was also fluent in the language of music. She co-authored a book with Malti Gilani on Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan and, in her heyday, played the piano and the sitar.
As I left, I promised that I would return very soon to present her with Janki Bai’s music. I wrote about my meeting with this legendary woman in my journal which later turned into a piece for the Friday Times, a Pakistani weekly. ‘My undelivered letter to Ainee Apa is getting longer. I shall need a lifetime to complete it,’ I wrote. The letter was never completed and still lives somewhere in me.
A third meeting was never to take place. I remember that languid day of August 2007 when my friends from across the globe called me to commiserate on her passing away, as if I was related to her. I did not know what to do so I wrote this in my blog:
I have been upset the entire day. Perhaps it does not matter in the larger scheme of things. But this is a sad, sad day. Qurratulain Hyder, the literary giant of our times, is no more. At a personal level it is not just the death of another literary figure but it is far greater and deeper than that. She inspired generations of Urdu readers and there is not a single Urdu writer of the post-independence era who has not been influenced by her.
Hyder primarily wrote for herself but reached out and made her mark, and in the process she connected with millions of readers. And I am just one of them. My friends and I have talked today and we knew how she shaped our inner lives. I have at least avoided regret… I met her after years of longing to do so…
But there will be nobody in that NOIDA house, though that little temple opposite her house will remain and the sound of azaan from a neighbouring mosque will also be heard. But the hearty laughter, quick repartee and inimitable writings have ended. However, as a friend said, ‘writers die, their stories don’t makes me a little happy.’
Several months later, when I visited Delhi, I was among her admirers, critics, researchers and the Urdu-walas of Delhi at the Jamia Millia University to read a paper on her work. In order to avoid a clichéd review of her work, I chose to speak on the enigma of Qurratulain’s dual belonging and her popularity among Pakistani readers. She lived in India, but was immensely popular in Pakistan as she presented an alternative view of history and selfhood. She remained a unique bond between India and Pakistan until she died.
On a chilly February morning, I was in a session chaired by the towering littérateur of Urdu literature, Gopichand Narang, who incidentally is not a Muslim, which is yet another defiance of stereotypes. At the same symbolic site of Jamia Millia that passionately attempted to merge Hindus and Muslims only to see the splintering later, I recalled Qurratulain’s remarks in her acceptance speech at the 1991 Jnanpith Award function:
My concern for civilisational values about which I continue writing may sound naive, woolly-headed and simplistic. But then, perhaps, I am like that little bird which foolishly puts up its claws, hoping that it will stop the sky from falling.5
I wonder what her legacy is after all. Is it just another woolly-headed, quaint vision of a secular India? Such a cliché will not do justice to her magnificent writings. They are beyond the labels of ‘secular’, ‘Muslim’, ‘Indo-Muslim’ and so on, arresting as they are for their complexity and richness, and the inextricability of Muslim and non-Muslim cultures in terms of literature, poetry and music, colonization and Independence. But, above all, her writings depict her quest for humanism, love, belonging and a search for enlightenment. This is what most of her characters end up doing in the vast canvas of her books.
Adjacent to the Jamia Millia Islamia University, the settlement of Jamia Nagar has a small graveyard where Ainee Apa is buried. The Jamia Millia Islamia University of today is a bustling, growing campus where thousands of students from all over India study modern disciplines. Its Urdu department is well staffed and plays a vital role in the growth of the language as well as its literature in India.
Jamia has its own way of paying tribute to great people. A small lawn is called Baagh-i-Ismat Chughtai, named after an iconoclastic and progressive Urdu writer. A Dabistan-i-Mir or the literary world of Mir, the poet, is under construction. There is a Munshi Prem Chand Museum to honour his powerful writings both in Urdu and Hindi. Prem Chand exemplifies Jamia’s ethos of blending tradition with modernity and a strong, secular worldview. Most recently, Jamia has established a museum in memory of Qurratulain Hyder where her personal belongings
, including her collection of books and paintings, are displayed.
Rakshanda Jalil was my guide to this little shrine for Qurratulain with its neatly arranged shelves and glass cabinets. The paintings and the books reminded me of those monsoon afternoons spent at her house in NOIDA. There was an old painting of her Dehradun home—a fireplace, book-lined teak shelves and a velvety couch. Little did she imagine that one day, this vision of domestic bliss would end up in a nondescript gallery of sorts as memorabilia.
Jamia Millia Islamia was originally established in Aligarh in 1920 and moved to Delhi fifteen years later. Its present campus in Okhla came into being in 1936. Nationalist Muslims like Dr Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari and Mufti Kafayattullah of Delhi, including Allama Iqbal, Pakistan’s national poet, were instrumental in its creation. Other luminaries like Maulana Shabbir Ahmed Usmani, Maulana Husain Ahmad Madni and Chaudhury Khaleeq-uzzaman from UP were members of its foundation committee. Most of them were to become freedom fighters and torchbearers of modern Indian nationalism.
In 1920, Delhi’s well-known renaissance personality Hakim Ajmal Khan was elected as the first chancellor of Jamia while the firebrand Mohammad Ali Jauhar became the first vice chancellor. Allama Iqbal did not accept the offer of vice chancellorship. I asked the Jamia-walas about his refusal. They said that Iqbal did not want to move from Lahore. Quite plausible as we all know that Iqbal was a homely man and a dreamy poet, not exactly cut out for executive humdrum.
Jamia’s silver jubilee function in 1946 was indicative of the split among Muslims. On the dais, Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan were seated on one side of Dr Zakir Husain, the vice chancellor, while Jawaharlal Nehru, Asaf Ali and Sir Rajagopalachari sat on the other side. It was a miniature painting that foretold the events to come, echoing Azad’s prophecies about Muslims splitting and losing the plot. Well, that is what the Indian nationalist discourse would have to say. As a Pakistani, these postulates appear so remote and academic. I come from a country that actually exists and is as real as life itself. One has to move beyond the notion that a country of 180 million can just be a historical aberration. Pakistan is a reality now and the burgeoning youth relates with this ‘identity’ alone.
Post Independence, Jamia grew as an academic institution, but its journey to getting recognized as a Central University ended only in 1988. NDTV newscaster, Barkha Dutt, Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan and cricketer Virender Sehwag are the better-known alumni of Jamia. This institution is perhaps one of those few places in India where buildings are named after not-so-mainstream thinkers like Naom Chomsky and Edward Said.
Quite poignantly, the seminar I attended was held next to the Yasser Arafat Hall. But outside Jamia’s little world, in the politics of New Delhi, the Palestinian issue is no longer that of an ‘occupation’ but more in line with the global media consensus that it is an issue of ‘terrorism’ against Israeli citizens. And names such as ‘Chomsky’ sit strangely marginalized as the mainstream Indian corporate media collaborates with the ultra capitalist Fox News. This is something about India that hit me each time—the relatively illusionary comfort with which opposites seem to co-exist.
But somewhere in the large campus, amid the old and the new unappealing buildings and manicured lawns, there remains something of its original beginnings. The ‘missionary’ purpose of Jamia has acquired a plural and multifarious colour compared to the pre-1947 years. That is evident from the many Muslims in the faculty and students, but a larger number of non-Muslims, validating the secularist vision that led to Jamia’s creation in the first place.
Jamia’s tarana composed by Khaleeq Siddiqi reiterates the essential spirit that has been described by him in a rather quaint fashion:
Different are the dancing cups
And different is their dance
Here drinking begets thirst anew
And different is this tavern’s call
‘Tavern’s call’ might be a little too romantic for those studying dentistry, but it manages to reinforce its commitment to knowledge. Jamia has survived, like Indians, the multiple crises of existence, revolutions and geography.
The first time I met Rakhshanda Jalil was on the shores of the Bosphorus in Istanbul. We bumped into each other in the sprawling Topkapi Museum. Her Urdu was crisp and eloquent and echoed amidst the arches. We exchanged our personal contacts and like innumerable such encounters, forgot about it. It was not until a couple of years later that we re-established contact. Rakhshanda, it so happened, was the moving hand behind the creation of Jamia’s little museum in memory of Qurratulain Hyder.
We met in Delhi again on the Jamia lawns on a sunny December afternoon where the little group of persons included the former vice chancellor, Mushirul Hasan and Sadia Dehlvi. Rakhshanda, in those days, worked at the Jamia Millia Islamia University as media and cultural coordinator and had infused youthfulness to the office by constantly breaking the clichéd boundaries that a media relations office entails. Instead of merely issuing press releases, Rakhshanda organized substantive discussions, co-authored books with the Jamia staff and innovated on Jamia’s outreach within India and outside.
This impromptu lunch, which was primarily made up of sandwiches, pakodas and fried fish, followed a special viewing of the numerous calligraphic works of Ameena Ahmed, who has donated her choicest selection to the university. Dressed in a flowing silk sari, Rakshanda appeared to be completely professional with a quick wit and an amazingly sharp memory. Her jokes about Pakistan were a little sharp at times but since it was all in good humour, I took them in my stride.
Rakhshanda, prior to joining Jamia, had taught English at the universities of Delhi and Aligarh. Her special contribution to languages has been the introduction of Urdu literature to a wider English-speaking audience within India and abroad. She has translated renowned Pakistani Urdu writers such as Intizar Hussain among others and has several publications to her credit. Her interest in Pakistan is not in its geo-politics but in the politics of its language(s) which is, in some ways, similar to India. She says, with a twinkle in her eye, ‘Except that in India, we rue the ‘oppression’ of Urdu whereas in Pakistan, it is Urdu that is the oppressor!’
Our exchanges on literature resumed when we met at her apartment in Okhla. She had a full house as her sisters were visiting from Mumbai and London. Three confident, modern women in charge of their lives co-existed with their lesser privileged and conservative Muslim counterparts elsewhere in India. Chaste Urdu intermingled with public school English. I saw how traditional Delhi-Muslim cuisine was as popular here as were cucumber sandwiches. Proximity to Jamia was the key reason to live in Okhla; most people may wonder why an educated, well-to-do Muslim couple would choose to live in the cleaner part of a large Muslim ghetto.
Rakhshanda had prepared a lavish dinner. There were various types of mutton dishes from bhunna gosht cooked in the Shahjahanabad style to the ubiquitous nihari, from a traditional meaty stew to a tenderly cooked biryani bringing together the quintessential Dilli menu. Indeed, mutton dominated the spread, and in fact defined it. After dinner, we sat around the heater in her cosy living room attempting to warm ourselves in the cold wave that grips Delhi during the winter.
Najmi Waziri, Rakhshanda’s husband, is a leading lawyer at the Delhi High Court and also an activist. Tall and athletic, he is passionate about exposing the mafia groups around the Jama Masjid, Hazrat Nizamuddin’s dargah and other places where the self-serving Muslim clergy exploits their ‘minority’ privileges for personal gain. At the shrines, small groups appropriate for themselves the financial contributions made by devotees. Similarly, the outer precincts of Jama Masjid are also used as an income-generating device for the family of the Shahi Imam instead of the community at large.
Najmi has therefore invoked the ire of the conservative sections of the Muslim clergy which has resulted in threats to his life, making it necessary for the government to provide him with security. He told us all this with a chuckle and a lawyer’s eloquence.
Our conversation
s, as always when Indian and Pakistani Muslims meet, lead to the thorny issues of Partition, identities and contemporary politics. Indeed, Partition creeps into discussions much more in Delhi than in Pakistan where the subject is closed at least in the public domain. I hear jibes about Pakistan and how the Indian Muslims are better off than their counterparts in Pakistan. The educated and liberal Muslims are more likely to articulate their nationalism compared to those who live on the margins of subsistence. I am never in a mood to enter into a polemic, but I do my little speech on Pakistan, on how it is progressing despite the turmoil of recent years and how wrong the perceptions in the media are.
Of course, I have no definitive judgments to pronounce except that I am a Pakistani and proud of it—the only country I have. But I emphasize that heritage and cultures, languages and civilizations can be shared beyond national boundaries. Why is there an exclusivism and a hankering after final solutions when nationalisms encounter each other?
If anything, those who understand Delhi can see how states and boundaries, glories and kingdoms are ephemeral. What is permanent is the indomitable human spirit and shared civilizational values that need not be boxed in or limited to labels.
India’s eminent historian, Mushirul Hasan, was Jamia’s vice chancellor for a long time and consolidated Jamia into a formidable institution. Mushir is erudite, a prolific writer and an inspirational figure. His refined UP mannerisms blend in with a modern sensibility—the sort of figure that Azad may have envisioned as a model Indian Muslim. He speaks in a mellow tone but with force of conviction. A formidable intellectual, his writings, more often than not, discuss contemporary communal issues as well as take on the daunting task of rewriting the histories of India, and by default, that of Pakistan. Mushir has over a dozen books to his credit and countless papers and articles.
In his recent book, Moderate or Militant: Images of India’s Muslims,6 Mushir investigates the complexities of pluralism, secularism, jihad, discrimination, education and all that afflicts the Muslims of India. In particular, the book brings together several of Mushir’s earlier works on Muslims, their place in twenty-first-century India, their fears, deprivations and potential to play a role in the future of Indian society and polity. India’s Muslims are neither moderates nor radicals, but plain Indian citizens who could be secular or non-secular as any other community. He writes, ‘India will remain quintessentially secular and pluralistic as long as there is ‘inter-community intermingling, and if the Muslims manage to shape their lives in a democratic India even if secularism is undulating.’ Could it also mean that they must reconcile with the mainstream or perish?