Most of my stories are fact-based. In my story called Sardarji, I unwittingly added a third dimension to story writing which is at least as interesting – and more exciting – as the original story I had set out to relate.
The story, based on a true incident that happened to members of a branch of my own family, was written in Srinagar, and next day read out to a gathering of writers, artists including three Sikhs. Even with their approval, I did not rush the story to print. I have made it a principle to work on a story like a watchmaker; I want it to be perfect in all its jewels, I want it to tick.
I never write a story for money, though it might bring me some money. I make my living by freelance journalism and by scriptwriting for films. The stories I write (and, incidentally, the films I direct and produce) are my creative indulgences. Indeed, I do not write a story till the story itself compels me to write it. That is why in forty years I have written a little over a hundred stories which works out to an average of less than three stories per year of my writing life.
So, when I wrote Sardarji, I asked my friend Rajinder Singh Bedi where to send it.
He suggested a Pakistani journal to which he, Krishan Chander, Manto and Ismat Chughtai were regular contributors. The purpose of your story would be served, he said, only if it is published in a popular literary journal of Pakistan. He also advised me to cut out some of the more offensive remarks against the Sikhs which were put in the mouth of a rabid communalist, Shaikh Burhanuddin, the villain-hero of the story. In the prevailing conditions in the country, they were likely to be misunderstood. I was glad to carry out the corrections according to Bedi’s suggestions.
When I returned to Delhi, I showed the story to Krishan Chander and consulted him about the remarks excised at the instance of Bedi. The offending remarks are, after all, not made by you they are the remarks of a communalist Muslim named Burhanuddin – that is how such people think and talk in their ignorance and because of prejudice. But few readers were likely to have the humanity and the sense of humour of Krishan Chander, and so I carried out the corrections suggested by Bedi and sent the story to Adab-i-Lateef in Lahore.
Later, I was glad to get a letter from Chaudhrie Barkat Ali, the publisher, in which he described the story as the year’s best short story… We have received hundreds of letters appreciating the story. Among them are not only Muslims but many of them are Hindu and Sikh readers.
Then I heard from a friend that the popular Hindi short story magazine Maya of Allahabad had reprinted the story, in a transliterated version without my permission or without even informing me.
As a writer, I was happy with the success of the story. My writing had been published in both countries – Pakistan and India – and in both languages – Urdu and Hindi! Reasonable persons in both the countries had appreciated it. Perhaps it had helped a few hundred (or even a few thousand) prejudiced Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs to purge their minds of the poison of prejudice, and their hearts of hatred for each other. For me Sardarji had fulfilled its mission and I began to think of other stories. I didn’t know that the story of this story had not ended. It had only begun.
The first shot was fired from Pakistan.
News came from there that the communalist press was attacking Sardarji and its anti-Muslim writer, and demanding legal action against Adab-i-Lateef. I was not surprised to hear this; rather, I was satisfied that communalism was squirming under the attack. My aim had not misfired.
But I was certainly surprised to hear from some of my Sikh friends that in some gurudwara, violent speeches were delivered against the story Sardarji and its writer. Someone had brought a copy of Adab-i-Lateef and read out the beginning, and, without ending the story (which would have shown its real pro-Sikh bias), torn it to bits. This both surprised me and pained me.
I gave the story to a young Sikh friend of mine; he read it to the end and liked it so much that he read the whole of it out to his old father, who too liked it. After hearing the end he knew that the story had no anti-Sikh bias but was a satire against communalist Muslims.
He went to the local gurudwara and explained the original purpose of the story, and not to mistake a friend for an enemy. I thought whatever misunderstanding had been there was now removed. I received a call from Kashmir to come and help them to carry on counter-propaganda against Pakistan. The invitation was both for me and my wife. And so this time the two of us flew together to Srinagar.
Little of the furore over the story raised in Bombay, UP and other states managed to reach Srinagar. At best, it was a faint echo. But I became aware of the horrible misunderstanding that was being spread about my story. The representative religious organisation of the Sikhs, the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee, sent telegrams to the Prime Minister, Home Minister, and the Chief Minister of UP in which, inter alia, it was stated that:
Such telegrams of protest are nothing new to an Indian journalist. But two words intrigued and disturbed me. Article? Muslim Leaguer? How did a story become an article? Surely even the most simple-minded reader of magazines knows the difference. How did a lifelong nationalist and socialist become a Muslim Leaguer?
One word or, rather, one letter had created this ridiculous but nevertheless dangerous misunderstanding.
That word or letter was I. The short story Sardarji was narrated in the first person singular, purporting to be the confessions of the central character, Burhanuddin, a clerk in the Central Secretariat. This was not a new technique. For several hundred (if not thousand) years, novelists and short story writers had used it – from Dickens’s David Copperfield to Qazi Abdul Ghaffar’s Laila ke Khatoot, from Saratchandra Chatterji’s Shrikant to Krishan Chander’s story Ek Tawaif ka Khat.
If no one ever mistook Charles Dickens to be a child or Qazi Abdul Ghaffar to be a beauty named Laila, Sarat Chatterji to be a romantic wanderer and Krishan Chander to be a prostitute, then how was Khwaja Ahmad Abbas mistaken as a communalist? But who would explain the subtleties of literary genre to inflamed minds full of prejudice and hatred?
The editor of a Delhi newspaper wrote to me requesting a special article for the Independence number. And the very next day, the same newspaper published reports and letters against me in which I was called a communalist and a betrayer of the national cause. Perhaps, in his editorial preoccupations, he did not realise that the two men were the same! Another newspaper published my weekly column, Azad Qalam, on the same page as resolutions passed against me by communal organisations of Hindus and Sikhs. But the most interesting and preposterously amusing allegations were made by an Urdu paper of Delhi.
There was a Muslim communalist daily called Anjaam published from Delhi. From 15 August 1947 there is a sister-paper, also called Anjaam, being published from Karachi. The Karachi Anjaam supported Pakistan. The Delhi Anjaam supported and even flattered the Government of India. The Karachi Anjaam demanded the confiscation of Adab-i-Lateef and the prosecution of its printer and publisher, since the author was out of its reach. But he was denounced as being anti-Pakistan and anti-Muslim. About the same time, the Delhi Anjaam published two editorials, the headings of which may be translated as Khwaja Ahmad Abbas’s Universal Mischief-Mongering and New Devilry of an Anti-Muslim. Fantastic cameos were paraded and published in these editorials which described me as a Pakistani agent, an old agent of British imperialism, the same man who had accompanied a damned scoundrel from Moradabad to Turkey to murder Mustafa Kamal Pasha who, finding himself in danger, returned to India in a freight ship. Today he has authored a new devilry by which he hopes to create massacres of the Muslims in India and the non-Muslims in Pakistan. This murderable (gardan-zadni) person has published a story called Sardarji. We are surprised why he and the publisher of Maya were not immediately murdered. Our Sikh brethren do not know that this scoundrel (who is now sitting safely in Pakistan) is an old agent of the British and it is his business to think of new schemes to create murderous mischief… and so on.
Excerpted with permission from Bread Beauty Revolution, edited by Iffat Fatima and Syeda Saiyidain Hameed, Khwaja Ahmed Abbas Memorial Trust and Tulika Books.
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The story, based on a true incident that happened to members of a branch of my own family, was written in Srinagar, and next day read out to a gathering of writers, artists including three Sikhs. Even with their approval, I did not rush the story to print. I have made it a principle to work on a story like a watchmaker; I want it to be perfect in all its jewels, I want it to tick.
I never write a story for money, though it might bring me some money. I make my living by freelance journalism and by scriptwriting for films. The stories I write (and, incidentally, the films I direct and produce) are my creative indulgences. Indeed, I do not write a story till the story itself compels me to write it. That is why in forty years I have written a little over a hundred stories which works out to an average of less than three stories per year of my writing life.
So, when I wrote Sardarji, I asked my friend Rajinder Singh Bedi where to send it.
He suggested a Pakistani journal to which he, Krishan Chander, Manto and Ismat Chughtai were regular contributors. The purpose of your story would be served, he said, only if it is published in a popular literary journal of Pakistan. He also advised me to cut out some of the more offensive remarks against the Sikhs which were put in the mouth of a rabid communalist, Shaikh Burhanuddin, the villain-hero of the story. In the prevailing conditions in the country, they were likely to be misunderstood. I was glad to carry out the corrections according to Bedi’s suggestions.
When I returned to Delhi, I showed the story to Krishan Chander and consulted him about the remarks excised at the instance of Bedi. The offending remarks are, after all, not made by you they are the remarks of a communalist Muslim named Burhanuddin – that is how such people think and talk in their ignorance and because of prejudice. But few readers were likely to have the humanity and the sense of humour of Krishan Chander, and so I carried out the corrections suggested by Bedi and sent the story to Adab-i-Lateef in Lahore.
Later, I was glad to get a letter from Chaudhrie Barkat Ali, the publisher, in which he described the story as the year’s best short story… We have received hundreds of letters appreciating the story. Among them are not only Muslims but many of them are Hindu and Sikh readers.
Then I heard from a friend that the popular Hindi short story magazine Maya of Allahabad had reprinted the story, in a transliterated version without my permission or without even informing me.
As a writer, I was happy with the success of the story. My writing had been published in both countries – Pakistan and India – and in both languages – Urdu and Hindi! Reasonable persons in both the countries had appreciated it. Perhaps it had helped a few hundred (or even a few thousand) prejudiced Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs to purge their minds of the poison of prejudice, and their hearts of hatred for each other. For me Sardarji had fulfilled its mission and I began to think of other stories. I didn’t know that the story of this story had not ended. It had only begun.
The first shot was fired from Pakistan.
News came from there that the communalist press was attacking Sardarji and its anti-Muslim writer, and demanding legal action against Adab-i-Lateef. I was not surprised to hear this; rather, I was satisfied that communalism was squirming under the attack. My aim had not misfired.
But I was certainly surprised to hear from some of my Sikh friends that in some gurudwara, violent speeches were delivered against the story Sardarji and its writer. Someone had brought a copy of Adab-i-Lateef and read out the beginning, and, without ending the story (which would have shown its real pro-Sikh bias), torn it to bits. This both surprised me and pained me.
I gave the story to a young Sikh friend of mine; he read it to the end and liked it so much that he read the whole of it out to his old father, who too liked it. After hearing the end he knew that the story had no anti-Sikh bias but was a satire against communalist Muslims.
He went to the local gurudwara and explained the original purpose of the story, and not to mistake a friend for an enemy. I thought whatever misunderstanding had been there was now removed. I received a call from Kashmir to come and help them to carry on counter-propaganda against Pakistan. The invitation was both for me and my wife. And so this time the two of us flew together to Srinagar.
Little of the furore over the story raised in Bombay, UP and other states managed to reach Srinagar. At best, it was a faint echo. But I became aware of the horrible misunderstanding that was being spread about my story. The representative religious organisation of the Sikhs, the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee, sent telegrams to the Prime Minister, Home Minister, and the Chief Minister of UP in which, inter alia, it was stated that:
In the Hindi magazine Maya of Allahabad, some Muslim Leaguer, Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, has written a provocative, mean and dirty Article which makes one wonder whether it is a Pakistani magazine or a Hindi magazine of India whose proprietor is a Hindu. By the publication of the Article there is a wave of anger among Hindus and Sikhs… We demand the confiscation of this issue and exemplary punishment be awarded to the author, printer and publisher of this Article. Only then can our wounded sentiments be assuaged.
Such telegrams of protest are nothing new to an Indian journalist. But two words intrigued and disturbed me. Article? Muslim Leaguer? How did a story become an article? Surely even the most simple-minded reader of magazines knows the difference. How did a lifelong nationalist and socialist become a Muslim Leaguer?
One word or, rather, one letter had created this ridiculous but nevertheless dangerous misunderstanding.
That word or letter was I. The short story Sardarji was narrated in the first person singular, purporting to be the confessions of the central character, Burhanuddin, a clerk in the Central Secretariat. This was not a new technique. For several hundred (if not thousand) years, novelists and short story writers had used it – from Dickens’s David Copperfield to Qazi Abdul Ghaffar’s Laila ke Khatoot, from Saratchandra Chatterji’s Shrikant to Krishan Chander’s story Ek Tawaif ka Khat.
If no one ever mistook Charles Dickens to be a child or Qazi Abdul Ghaffar to be a beauty named Laila, Sarat Chatterji to be a romantic wanderer and Krishan Chander to be a prostitute, then how was Khwaja Ahmad Abbas mistaken as a communalist? But who would explain the subtleties of literary genre to inflamed minds full of prejudice and hatred?
The editor of a Delhi newspaper wrote to me requesting a special article for the Independence number. And the very next day, the same newspaper published reports and letters against me in which I was called a communalist and a betrayer of the national cause. Perhaps, in his editorial preoccupations, he did not realise that the two men were the same! Another newspaper published my weekly column, Azad Qalam, on the same page as resolutions passed against me by communal organisations of Hindus and Sikhs. But the most interesting and preposterously amusing allegations were made by an Urdu paper of Delhi.
There was a Muslim communalist daily called Anjaam published from Delhi. From 15 August 1947 there is a sister-paper, also called Anjaam, being published from Karachi. The Karachi Anjaam supported Pakistan. The Delhi Anjaam supported and even flattered the Government of India. The Karachi Anjaam demanded the confiscation of Adab-i-Lateef and the prosecution of its printer and publisher, since the author was out of its reach. But he was denounced as being anti-Pakistan and anti-Muslim. About the same time, the Delhi Anjaam published two editorials, the headings of which may be translated as Khwaja Ahmad Abbas’s Universal Mischief-Mongering and New Devilry of an Anti-Muslim. Fantastic cameos were paraded and published in these editorials which described me as a Pakistani agent, an old agent of British imperialism, the same man who had accompanied a damned scoundrel from Moradabad to Turkey to murder Mustafa Kamal Pasha who, finding himself in danger, returned to India in a freight ship. Today he has authored a new devilry by which he hopes to create massacres of the Muslims in India and the non-Muslims in Pakistan. This murderable (gardan-zadni) person has published a story called Sardarji. We are surprised why he and the publisher of Maya were not immediately murdered. Our Sikh brethren do not know that this scoundrel (who is now sitting safely in Pakistan) is an old agent of the British and it is his business to think of new schemes to create murderous mischief… and so on.
Excerpted with permission from Bread Beauty Revolution, edited by Iffat Fatima and Syeda Saiyidain Hameed, Khwaja Ahmed Abbas Memorial Trust and Tulika Books.