From the memoir: Poet Akhtarul Iman on the conflict between Urdu writers’ groups in India

The Hyderabad Urdu Conference of 1944 was held on a grand scale. It was dominated by the Progressives, who were its driving force. I will not go into the various resolutions passed there, except for one – directed against the Halqa-e Arbab-e Zauq, of which Meeraji was one of the founders.

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Writers of that time had split themselves into two groups: one aligned with the Halqa, and the other with the Progressives. As I have said earlier, the Progressives valued only those writings that reflected some aspect of socialist doctrine. The Halqa, on the other hand, judged a piece of writing purely on its literary merit. Each year, they published a selection of Urdu poetry that included poems by both Josh and Shad Aarfi, not discriminating between Progressive and non-Progressive poets. At the conference, however, a resolution was passed declaring the writings of Halqa-affiliated writers to be regressive.

The main reason for this stance of the Progressives was their fear – a fear that still afflicts some of them. They wanted a monopoly over literature. In their view, no writing was worthy of consideration without their seal of approval. But this ambition failed. All the good and trustworthy writers eventually left the Progressive fold,...

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