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With the passing away of literary critic and Urdu poet Professor Sharib Rudaulvi, Lucknow has lost a little more of its legendary lustre. The 88-year-old former head of Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Urdu department departed the world last Wednesday in a Lucknow hospital. Rudaulvi has left behind half a century of literary work on Urdu literature.
A great champion of the Urdu language Rudaulvi had believed that Urdu did not belong to any one community. Urdu was a child of love, born in the midst of the city’s population where all the different languages spoken were combined into one language that had made communication between everyone easier.
Urdu is beloved because it was born out of love and the desire of different human beings to get to know each other better. Urdu would not have survived without the literary contribution of non-Muslims like Raghupati Sahay, Firaq Gorakhpuri, Jamuna Das Akhtar, Ram Lal, Dr Jagannath Azad, and Krishna Chander. More recently Sanjiv Saraf, author, entrepreneur and founder of the Rekhta Foundation, continues to preserve and promote Urdu literature.
Throughout his life Rudaulvi gave the example of Anand Mohan Zutshi, Gulzar Dehlavi, Daya Shankar Naseem, Anand Narayan Mulla, Ratan Singh, Bharat Bhushan Pant, Ram Prakash Bekhud and Malik Ram, who was an authority on the works of Ghalib.
The birth of Urdu took place in a particular region where everyone spoke the same language irrespective of their faith, or status in society. It was the 19th Century Lucknow poet Ghulam Hamadani Musafi who first used the name Urdu for the language he spoke.
The Mughal rulers had called this language Hindi or Hindavi, and because it was written in the Persian script, it was thought to be a language of only Muslims.
Brij Narain Chakbast was a Kashmiri Pandit born in Lucknow and he wrote the story of Rama in Urdu. The greatest of all Urdu poets were not just Asrarul Haq Majaz, Mir Taqi Mir but also Chakbast, Krishna Behari Noor, and Sanjay Mishra ‘Shauq’.
There are Kushbir Singh ‘Shad’ and Abhishek Shukla in contemporary Lucknow who write in Urdu, and countless students of Rudaulvi are already taking forward his lush literary legacy.
The Cycle Of Life
The cycle of birth and death continues. Bodies perish but great ideas persist. It is the nature of the timelessness of the cycle of life that funerals be held and festivals enjoyed.
Despite all the people lost this month, this time of the year is also witness to a rush of festivals. And the soul of all celebrations have always been the beautiful artefacts made by a fleet of artisans.
The state’s handicraft industry is closely linked to the rural economy of Uttar Pradesh (UP). It has provided employment to countless in the country and in cities over centuries.
However, since the arrival of the industrial revolution, the agricultural sector has been sorely neglected, reducing the rural economy to tatters, including that of the artisan. Once upon a time when artisans were better respected and better paid, they were happy to create a variety of crafts.
From Varanasi to Agra, each region still has its own unique form of art. Lucknow specialises in embroidery in white thread on snow white muslin cloth. Brassware is from Moradabad, woodwork from Saharanpur and silk and carpets are woven in Bhadohi and Mirzapur. Ninety percent of all carpets in the country are woven in UP.
Fine glassware is made in Firozabad including chandeliers and glass bangles. In the outskirts of Lucknow, there used to be the colourful village of Chinhat populated by potters. Today Chinhat is swallowed up by sub-standard constructions plastered over water bodies that no longer attract migratory birds.
Traditionally artisans had used material that was locally available to them to create their art. With the displacement of villages by builders, urbanisation and due to competition from the organised industry raw material is no longer affordable.
Those still practising their craft are at the mercy of middle men, forcing potters to give up their profession to become petty shopkeepers or drivers. Besides, handmade pots and water vessels have long been replaced with refrigerators and bottled thirst busters.
The clay lamps that had lit up lives during Diwali are now exchanged for tacky electric lamps made in China.
The craft of pottery in UP is at least 500 years old but today it is unable to provide the craftsmen much return for their labour. The other cities famous for the potter’s wheel are Meerut, Khurja and Hapur.
It is in the villages of the Gorakhpur district in Eastern UP that clay figurines are made in terracotta. The famous terracotta horses are carved here and desired the world over.
There was a time when all of UP was drenched in the aroma of perfumes produced in Kannauj, and stored in elegant glass containers. The perfumeries have all been pushed to the wall and the mostly synthetic concoctions in plastic bottles no longer exude the fragrance like in the past.
There are approximately seven million artisans in the country but the actual number is said to run into hundreds of millions engaged in the unorganised business of handicrafts.
While Varanasi is famous for brocade and the art of weaving sarees in silk with gold and silver thread, Kanpur and Agra are the home of countless leather craftsmen. Apart from making awesome footwear in leather, stone is crafted best in Agra. In fact the city of the Taj Mahal continues to stand proud on the strong arms of its stone craftsmen.
To Agra To Agra
All roads lead to Agra also because it is home to the largest number of Dalits and every politician wants their vote in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Agra was a favourite city of Dalit leader Dr BR Ambedkar. His Republican Party of India (RPI) was popular in Agra. It was considered a space of awakened Dalit consciousness.
In his last speech, Ambedkar had agonised at the way educated Dalits had abandoned fellow Dalits to serve the government instead. Ambedkar had wanted to pick the consciousness of Dalits in the Hindi heartland where society is most caste-ridden.
He often felt dejected at not being able to communicate his ideas to people in UP as he belonged to the Mahar caste from Maharashtra.
The Bihari Congress leader Babu Jagjivan Ram was better able to capture the Dalit imagination in this part of the country soon after independence in 1947.
In Kanshi Ram, UP at last got its own indigenous Dalit leader in the 1970s. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) founded by Kanshi Ram and headed by Mayawati today has succeeded in restoring some pride amongst Dalits but social justice is nowhere close to the doorstep of the majority of UP’s Dalit population.
