Book conversations: Angarey

1932 was the year in which Angarey was first published by a group of liberal Muslim intellectuals.  Even though they did anticipate some trouble before they published the book, they were probably unprepared for the furore this book generated.  It was banned by the then British government, at the behest of a few individuals who took deep offence at the contents of the book.  Some, it seems, did not even bother to go through the contents of the book, as most often happens when any piece of art is proscribed, ostensibly for hurting the religious sentiments of a few.  However, the banning of the book did pave the way for the formation of the Progressive Writers' Movement.

It was only in the 1980s, after much water had flowed under the bridge, that the collection was put together again with great difficulty; so much so that they writers had to get the microfilm of the stories from that repository of colonialists' souvenir collections - the British Museum.  This Urdu version was utilised by Chauhan and Alvi, professors of English and Urdu respectively at the Zakir Husain Delhi College, to translate it into English. 

All through the reading, I was monitoring the content to spot anything that might have been objectionable to religious leaders of the 1930s India.  I could hardly find any.  Perhaps what was objectionable then, has with time, become more acceptable to pubic and pundits alike.  The original authors make use of the 'stream of consciousness' technique - a type of literary style that reveals the character's free-flowing thoughts, and jumps from one theme to another with scant regard for appropriate punctuation.  This is combined, in these short stores, with the prevailing social, religious (mostly Islamic), cultural and class issues of the time. 

The first five stories are by Sajjad Zahir, father of Nadira Z Babbar who has written the preface for the book.  The author's Left-leaning is obvious in these stories of class struggle, femininity, sarcasm poverty, agnosticism, and religious cynicism.  Perhaps the one story that might have ruffled quite a few religious feathers is that of the Maulvi who, unable to keep up his holy night vigil, falls asleep and dreams of his entry to heaven where he is greeted by naked houris.  Dripping with tongue-in-cheek humour and sarcasm, passages from Heaven Assured! might have been quoted quite a few times by those who sought a ban on the book.  

The two stories by Ahmed Ali are an exercise in free-wheeling outpouring of thoughts - the stream of consciousness in action - but there is hardly any blasphemous content in either of the stories.  The only female author of the group, Rashid Jahan provides a story and a play that highlight women's issues - their status in a patriarchal society, their woes, their coping mechanisms, and the manipulations that they resort to, in a hope of leading a better life.  Perhaps for this reason, and the fact that she was a woman, Jahan was targeted the most by the Puritans of 1930s India.  Her husband, Mahmuduzzafar, provides the sole story of self-deprecating Masculinity, which once again throws light on the plight of women vis-a-vis the male ego.

The translators provide a lengthy introduction to the book, which while it enlightens one on the making of Angarey and the controversy it generated, keeps one away from the actual content; the stories that one is itching to read, and from finding out why they were deemed 'objectionable' by some.  One wishes that the actual points and opinions raised in protest against the book were revealed explicitly, along with the reactions from the individual authors.

Nevertheless, one has to applaud the original authors, and the efforts of Chauhan, Alvi and their publishers, for undertaking the onerous task of upholding free speech in today's world.  A world, which even after 83 years of Angarey, is still marred by religious hypersensitivity, intolerance, protests in the form of vandalism, and unjustified proscriptions.        

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