Politics, Public Issues and the Promotion of Urdu Literature: Avadh ...

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ULRIKE STARK • 91nation with Cervantes’ Don Quixote, which had already inspired Fas≥na-e¥z≥d, and complete a long-cherished project of preparing an Urdu versionof that great picaresque novel. His Khud≥’µ Faujd≥r was published fromthe NKP in 1894. 70It is difficult to reconstruct the various editors of AA after Sarsh≥r, thereason being a shift in the paper’s organizational structure. In the issue of11 February 1880 it was announced that in future the NKP would takecharge of the paper and no formal editor would be appointed. Instead, agroup of “excellent and experienced persons” would be employed to runthe paper. 71How strictly this policy was adhered to cannot be said.Among those subsequently associated with the editorship were Ghul≥mƒasnain Qadr Bilgr≥mµ (d. 1884), Maulvµ A√mad ƒasan “Shaukat”M®raª^µ, Mirz≥ ƒairat Dehlavµ and Munshi D®bµ Parsh≥d “Si√r.” By far themost outstanding figure on the editorial staff during the period, however,was ‘Abdu ’l-ƒalµm Sharar (1860–1926), the great Urdu essayist andcultural historian of Lucknow. Having spent his early childhood inLucknow, in 1860 Sharar joined his father at the court in exile of V≥jid‘Alµ Sh≥h in Matia Burj, from where he contributed his first articles toAA. When, in 1880, he returned to Lucknow in search of a job, he waspromptly employed by Naval Kishore as assistant editor at a monthlysalary of Rs. 30. With Sharar as editor, AA went a step further inaccording Urdu prose writing a prominent place in its columns, and alsogave increased coverage to subjects of cultural and social interest.Contributing articles on a great variety of topics, Sharar remained withAA until at least 1884, when we went to Haidarabad as a specialcorrespondent of the paper. Soon after, he started his own monthlymagazine Dilgud≥z. 72Next to its formal editors, AA also attracted the contributions ofeminent Urdu literati, not least because it was among the first Urdu70 Mookerjee, p. 229.71 AA of 11 February 1880, quoted in Khurshµd, pp. 184–5. This also explainswhy from 1883 onward the SVN lists Munshi Shiv Parsh≥d, the manager of theNKP, as the editor/publisher of AA.72 Sharar’s famous literary controversy with Pan≈it Brajnar≥yan ≤akbast overthe foremost ma¡navµ-writer of their times did not, as sometimes claimed, takeplace in AA but in the columns of Dilgud≥z and Avad^ Pan± in 1905. The NKP,however, published the debate in book form as Mub≥√a¡-e Gulz≥r-e Nasµm, Ya‘nµMa‘rka-e ≤akbast va Sharar (Lucknow: Naval Kishore Press, 1913).
92 • THE ANNUAL OF URDU STUDIESpapers able to offer remuneration to its contributors. Unfortunately thesources are silent as to the customary amounts paid. Inviting “useful,excellent and interesting articles written in idiomatic and fluid English orUrdu,” notices in the paper made a discrete promise of k≥fµ mu‘≥va¤a(“adequate compensation”). The best known outside contributor in the1860s was none other than Mirz≥ Gh≥lib who submitted articles on anumber of topical themes. Gh≥lib from the outset was a keen reader ofAA. His correspondence suggests that within the first year of its existenceAA was already circulated and read by the Urdu intelligentsia across awide geographical region. When, in November 1859, Gh≥lib’s friend andpublisher Munshi Shiv Nar≥yan “¥r≥m” forwarded him a copy of AA fromAgra, Gh≥lib returned it with the comment that there was no need towaste postage since he already received the paper through his cousin‰iy≥’u ’d-Dµn Kh≥n who subscribed to it. 73 Several months later, in a letterto Munshi Naval Kishore dated 18 July 1860, Gh≥lib announced hisown subscription to AA. 74 About to enter into a publishing agreementwith Gh≥lib, Naval Kishore did not deem it suitable to ask the venerablepoet for payment and started sending him the paper free of charge. In aletter to ‘Al≥’µ dated 13 December 1863 Gh≥lib, who was in continuousfinancial distress at the time, gratefully acknowledged the savings of Rs.24 that his “respected friend” Naval Kishore had thus afforded him.“True,” he hastened to add with his customary pride, “I send forty-eightstamps every year to cover the postage.” 75Among Gh≥lib’s sh≥girds who contributed to AA we find Ghul≥mƒasnain Qadr Bilgr≥mµ (for whom, incidentally, Gh≥lib had secured employmentat the NKP in 1861), Hargåp≥l Tufta, and Nav≥b Mard≥n ‘AliKh≥n “Ra‘n≥” (d. 1879). The latter, a ra’µs of Murabadad, was a regularcontributor to the paper in the 1860s and continued to write for it evenafter his rise to the position of Chief Minister in Jodhpur State in 1870.The way in which these representatives of Urdu literature adopted themodern medium of the newspaper to publicly expound their views notonly on literary but also social and political affairs, to either engage in acritique of colonialism or to extol the benefits of Western civilization,73 Ralph Russell and Khurshidul Islam, eds. and trans., Ghalib, 1797–1869:Life and Letters (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 220.74K≥ im ‘Alµ Kh≥n, “Gh≥lib aur Munshµ Navalkishår,” Nay≥ Daur, Vol. 35,Nos. 8–9 (1980), p. 140.75 Russell and Islam, p. 295.
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