public debate and discourse in late colonial india - citeseerx

From the Meh. fi l to the printed word: Public debate and discourse in late colonial India

C. Ryan Perkins

The University of Chicago

In 1905, the Urdu writer ‘Abdul Halim Sharar published a critical review of Brijnarayan Chak-bast’s new edition of Pandat Daya Shankar Kaul Nasīm’s (1811–43) maṡnavī (‘Narrative Poem’), Gulzār-e Nasīm (‘Rose Garden of Nasim’). This critical review met with a fl urry of responses in newspapers throughout north India and the Deccan. Described as the longest and bitterest of polemics in the history of Urdu literature, this debate reveals the printing press’ new-found role as one of the main forums for public debate. This article seeks to turn our focus to the world of print outside the colonial gaze, which provided a space for the consolidation and expansion of social and cultural worlds now linked in a way previously unimaginable. Many of those involved in arenas of vernacular print at the turn of the century were creating a world, not dependent on colonial patronage, nor constrained by physical distance. This debate, in particular, between Sharar, Chakbast and their respective supporters, presents unique opportunities to examine the relationship between print, circulation, literature, history and the workings of an expanding and critical public in late colonial India, while pointing to some of the changes fostered by print in the world of public debate and discourse.

Keywords: Public debate, history, print culture, Urdu literature, printing press, Muslim, Hindu, satire

In 1905, when the young twenty-three-year-old Kashmiri Brahmin, Brijnarayan Chakbast (1882–1926), published a new edition of Pandat Daya Shankar KaulNasīm’s (1811–1843) maṡnavī, Gulzār-e Nasīm (c. 1844) (Rose Garden of Nasim) (hereafter GN), he hardly could have imagined the drama that would ensue.1 One does not generally think of the maṡnavī, a rhymed narrative poem, often involving a quest and romance, particularly in the Sufi tradition, as par-ticularly disposed to instigating heated debate. Yet, in March and April when one of Urdu’s most prolifi c writers, ‘Abdul HalimSharar (1860–1926)2 published a

Acknowledgements: The article is dedicated to the memory of the late Aditya Behl, who fi rst introduced me to the world of Gulzār-e Nasīm. I am grateful to Daud Ali, Suvir Kaul, Lisa Mitchell, Veena Oldenburg, Ulrike Stark, C.M. Naim and the anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.

1 Nasīm, Gulzār-e Nasīm.2 Sharar published a total of 25 historical novels, 8 social novels, 24 biographical works, 21 histories,

2 dramas, 4 poetical works, and translated 8 works into Urdu. In addition he consistently published articles in his 10 different journals that appeared at various times throughout his life.

The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 50, 1 (2013): 47–76SAGE Los Angeles/London/New Delhi/Singapore/Washington DCDOI: 10.1177/0019464612474169

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The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 50, 1 (2013): 47–76

review of the masnavi in his periodical, DilGudāz, he initiated what is believed to have been the longest and bitterest of polemics ever known in the history of Urdu literature.3 For the next year, many prominent literary fi gures and other less well-known readers added their voices to the debate through the expanding medium of Urdu newspapers and periodicals. Some of the main individuals involved included Aḥmad ‘Alī Shauq Qidwāī (1852–1925),4 Riyāẓ Ḳhairabādī (1853–1934),5 Ḥasrat Mohānī (1875–1951),6 Munshī Sajjād Ḥusain (1856–1915), the editor of Awadh Panch, Taish Bilgrāmī a reader, and Jalīl Ḥasan Jalīl (1869–1949), who was from Manekpur in the modern day state of Gujarat. The primary newspapers and jour-nals included those from Lucknow, DilGudāz, Ittiḥād and Awadh Panch, as well as Riyāẓ ul Aḳhbār of Gorakhpur, Urdu-e Mu‘allah and Zamāna, out of Kanpur, and the Deccan Review from Hyderabad.

Throughout the debate Sharar attempted to exclude Nasim from a place in Urdu’s literary canon by focusing on language and ethnicity as a marker of authenticity. The attempt to use Nasim’s Kashmiri identity as a way to exclude him from Urdu’s literary past and the reception of this critique as a symptom of religious bigotry points to the rising signifi cance of ethnic and linked religious identities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. With the rise of representational politics and an increasing emphasis on religious identities, subjects of the Raj were made into religiously defi ned subjects. Perhaps some of the fi rst seeds of this conceptual shift in Lucknow were planted in 1862 with the formation of Lucknow’s Municipal Committee when two Hindus and two Muslims were made unoffi cial members to represent Hindu and Muslim interests.7

Despite these changes related to conceptions of identity, there were many like Ahmed Ali Shauq, Hasrat Mohani, Sajjad Husain, Brijnarayan Chakbast and Sajjad Husain, who fought against the rise of linguistic, ethnic and religiously motivated attempts of exclusion.8 In the case of this debate they sought to reveal the faulty assumptions underlying Sharar’s attempt to exclude Nasīm from a place in Urdu’s literary history. Despite the growing links between language and religion, the expanding divide between religious groups was highly contested, particularly in matters related to language. The resulting picture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century is thus one of great contestations where the growing emphasis placed on ethnic, linguistic and religious identities did not necessarily entail that

3 Suvorova, Masnavi: A Study of Urdu Romance, p. 170; Shīrāzī and Nūrānī, eds., Ma’rakah-e Chakbast o Sharar.

4 He was famous for his maṡnavī, Tarana-e Shauq (1887), written in imitation of Nasim’s GN.5 He was the editor of RiyāẓulAḳhbar.6 He was a former student at Aligarh and the editor of Urdu-e Mu‘allah.7 Oldenburg, The Making of Colonial Lucknow, 1856–1877, pp. 77–78. Two nawabs, Mohsunud

Daula and Mumtaz ud Daula were the Muslim representatives, both of whom were Shia, while two eminent maharajans (bankers), Shah Benarsi Das and Shah Makahan Lal were the Hindu representatives.

8 Naval Kishore was one such individual and for the most thorough English language account of his life and the work of his printing press, see Stark, An Empire of Books.



From the Meh.fi l to the printed word / 49


these categories would be used to divide people into oppositional communities. The fact that no one dominant ideology was able to achieve hegemony speaks to the contested nature of public debate and discourse.9

The use of the printing press, by those in support of Sharar and Chakbast, to further their own arguments highlights the shift that had taken place in the public sphere where, particularly in urban areas, the avenue for public discussion and dissension was no longer only through face-to-face contact, but also through the pages of printing presses.10 Rather than seeing printing and publishing as operating in an isolated sphere that lagged behind public debates, printing did not so much displace the formerly dominant modes of public debate and dissension, as much as add another avenue for debate to take place within the public sphere. Thus, new modes of communication, printing and publishing, were incorporated within older systems of circulation and public discourse.11 Methodologically, I argue that through a renewed focus on the particular vernacular uses of print and the engagement of a larger public with the products of print capitalism, we can produce a more nuanced picture of life at the turn of the century. This points to the ways in which Indians used print technology to foster the creation of particular reading publics that tran-scended the boundaries between the written and spoken word.

In contrast to claims that print is more individualistic and oral communica-tion more communal, the evidence we have from South Asia after the advent of lithographic print technology and through at least the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century demonstrates that print was hardly an individualistic private enterprise, in both its production and reception.12 This social dynamic of print raises questions about the binary between print and orality. Instead it may be more helpful to look at the ways in which oral networks of communication, strong throughout South Asia, provided the ideal context for a rapid incorporation of print into social spaces that could, at least theoretically, circulate beyond the educated elites.13 Though it was diffi cult to shape public opinion in any particular direction, individuals used print to create and consolidate new social spaces of circulation

9 I am not arguing against an increasing emphasis on religious categories that arose in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Rather, I want to point out that if we are to understand the way in which traditions were employed in novel ways to support political and nationalistic projects there is a need to fi rst make it clear that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century the trajectory had not been determined. Religious identities in the political realm were a work in progress, with no clear outcome. It is the indeterminacy at this period that I want to stress, while still acknowledging dramatic changes related to the ways in which religious and ethnic identities were imagined.

10 Stein, ‘Towards an Indian Petty Bourgeoisie’, p. 12.11 For a detailed look at eighteenth and early nineteenth century circulation networks, see Bayly,

Empire and Information. For a helpful examination of print in colonial Bengal, see Ghosh, ‘An Uncertain “Coming of the Book”’.

12 Ghosh, ‘An Uncertain “Coming of the Book”’, p. 25 and Stark, An Empire of Books. For a critical look at the binary Benedict Anderson creates in Imagined Communities, between print and orality, see Peter Wogan, ‘Imagined Communities Reconsidered’.

13 Bayly, Empire and Information.





and exchange, ultimately leading to the increasing signifi cance of print for a rising middle class.14

In the following pages I will highlight several areas in which the expansion of print impacted the world of public debate. I will do this through an examination of articles and readers’ letters found in Urdu periodicals and newspapers from 1905 and 1906. The fi rst of several areas I will explore is related to the way in which the printed word became one of the main forums for public debate and discourse whereas previously this primarily occurred in face-to-face encounters or over extended periods of time utilising manuscripts, tracts and letters.15 Second, as the audience of public debate and discourse grew, the temporal circulation of print allowed many individuals to participate unhindered by geographic location. In addition to this, traditional notions of hierarchy, politeness and izzat were not necessarily rendered less signifi cant, but they were increasingly challenged and contested in the realm of print. Some transgressed the boundaries of izzat, while others sought to reinforce traditional notions of respectability, demonstrating the continued importance of idealised notions of izzat, even when transgressed. The fi nal area in which I will turn my attention will be to the way in which print acted to archive public debate and discourse, the ramifi cations of which I will explore later. While few would argue about the impact of print, the focus here is on the way in which material innovation, in this case the spread of lithographic print technology, in coordination with networks of circulation not only allowed heated exchanges to occur across a greater geographical area, but changed the fundamental nature of these exchanges. This made it possible to debate any topic from any distance in a condensed period of time. This debate underscores the unique role of newspapers and periodicals as creating a social space for the representation of diverse voices that were not confi ned to any particular religious group and were continually evolving in response to representations in other papers. Even when arguing against each other, as occurred in the debate concerning GN, many of those involved in arenas of vernacular print at the turn of the century were creating a shared world, not dependent on colonial patronage, not constrained by physical distance, and one where readers were active participants in the ongoing dialogue about issues of social and cultural concern.

The particular form of serialised publications created possibilities for a type of critical public dialogue to take place that was seen by some as unprecedented. Unlike religious tracts, which were often connected to public face-to-face debates and were usually partial, biased and highly rhetorical, placing the supported party in an almost divine light,16 Urdu language newspapers and periodicals thrived from

14 For a helpful discussion of the impact of print in nineteenth-century Punjab, see Bhandari, ‘Print in Nineteenth-century Punjab’.

15 For an example of the ways in which letters became available to more than the original recipients, see Friedmann, Shaykh Aḥmad Sirhindī, pp. 2–3.

16 Zaidi, ‘Writing Partial Truths’.





their ability to include voices of readers from diverse geographic locations who were not necessarily spokesmen for any particular community and could articulate opposing views that circulated within a public sphere comprised of Urdu-speaking Hindus and Muslims. Towards the end of this debate, Zaman Kaftori, writing in the 6 April 1906 issue of Zamana from Kanpur, expressed the way in which the circulation of print created possibilities for an exchange of ideas that previously had not existed. He wrote: ‘Great benefi t has come about from periodicals and newspa-pers so that within many hearts the discussion of critical writing takes place which is unprecedented.’17 Encountering language like that expressed by Kaftori about print, particularly newspapers and periodicals, underscores the need to approach the social, intellectual and cultural history of the period, along with print culture, from a perspective that recognises this excitement, not as ephemeral, but as crucial to the adoption, rapid expansion of print and subsequent transformations print engendered. The debate that fi lled Urdu language newspapers in 1905 and 1906 was a unique moment when each intervention, on the part of readers, authors and publishers was not only an attempt to prove their point, but also a process of mapping out the limits and possibilities of the ways in which the medium of print could function. Sharar’s attempts to make his journal successful meant that he continually experimented with different types of engagements with his subscription base. From the promise of a new novel, to pleas for subscribers to send in their fees, to threatening those who illegally published his books, each engagement on the part of Sharar and other authors, publishers and readers was crucial to the development of critical publics, networked through print, but branching beyond the confi nes of the printed page. It is crucial to keep this aura of the novelty of print in mind when examining this debate.18 This allows us to understand the debate and the myriad voices it included as attempts to answer a larger question: What could be accomplished through print?

In his work on the making of a middle class in colonial north India, Sanjay Joshi has highlighted the central role newspapers played by calling them ‘the quintes-sential sign of the public sphere’.19 While the newspaper was a sign of the public sphere, as print signifi cantly aided the aspirations of an emerging middle class, the plethora of periodicals that started coming out towards the end of the nineteenth century were also of primary importance to changes occurring in the public sphere.20 One such periodical was the Lucknow and Hyderabad based Dil Gudaz, begun by Sharar in January of 1887. It is clear from the writings of this period that those contributing to such papers and journals realised the new possibilities that print afforded. One of these was related to ‘wholly new ideas of simultaneity’, which

17 Shīrāzī and Nūrānī, eds, Ma‘rakah-e Chakbast o Sharar, p. 332. All translations are mine, unless otherwise noted.

18 Urban, Metaculture.19 Joshi, Fractured Modernity, p. 34.20 Staahlberg, Lucknow Daily.





‘print-as-commodity’ made possible.21 After the spread of print in South Asia new vocabularies emerged to describe these networks of people spread across a wide geographic region. From changing uses of the word qaum, which tradition-ally meant something akin to tribe, to uses in the second half of the nineteenth century, when it began to connote a national community, the meanings of words was expanding to account for the rapidly changing social environment, enabled in great part by the expansion of print.22 Not only were traditional words being used in new ways, foreign words were also being incorporated into local languages to describe novel social categories. 23 One word in particular was the English word ‘public’, which Bengali authors began using in their writings in the second half of the nineteenth century.24 Perhaps the fi rst Urdu usage was in Munshī Cirānjī Lāl’s Maḳhzan al-Muḥāwarāt, originally published in 1886. Indicating the novelty of the word, the scribe misspelled the word when he fi rst transcribed it.25 Sharar’s fi rst usage appears to have come in the June 1888 issue of Dil Gudaz. After describing the success of the Anjuman-e Dār us Salām, a voluntary association for which he served as its secretary, Sharar wrote that, ‘it is now necessary for Dār us Salām to have some aḳhbār [‘ newspaper’] so that in every issue they may inform the pablik of the work they are doing. In particular they have achieved the kind of suc-cess that only a blessed few are able to attain and that only with great diffi culty.’26 Less than six months later, in an attempt to describe the passion sweeping through a conglomerate of Muslims spread throughout north India, Sharar used the word pablik with a religious qualifi er as he wrote, ‘a movement has begun in the Islāmī pablik’.27 From these examples it becomes clear that Indians began to see their individual connections to others in novel ways, participating in both broader publics and in other more exclusive ones.

The pablik, as a conglomerate of individuals who came together for a variety of reasons, was never united in its aims or goals. Such publics were not confi ned to those reading Sharar’s journal as they were reading other newspapers, periodi-cals and books as well as participating in other associations and venues of public engagement.28 I will not be able to deal with these other publics in this article or all the factors that went into the formation of such publics.29 Instead my focus will be on the engagement of people with print in the context of this debate as evidenced through the sources I have examined. Sharar and others attempted to create particular

21 Anderson, Imagined Communities, p. 37.22 Devji, ‘Muslim Nationalism’.23 Joshi, Fractured Modernity, p. 43.24 Mukherjee, Realism and Reality.25 Hakala, ‘Diction and Dictionaries’, pp. 594–95.26 Sharar, ‘Anjuman-e Dār ul Islām: Muḥammaḍan Naishanal Vālinṭīr Funḍ’.27 Sharar, ‘Anjuman-e Dār ul Islām’.28 For an excellent look at localised public arenas, see Freitag, Collective Action and Community.29 For a helpful discussion of ‘public’ in the Indian context, see Freitag, ‘Introduction’.





publics, yet as we will see they were never in control of that world, in which they played only a part in helping create.

Bayly’s description of the Indian ecumene is a helpful way of showing the persistence of traditional forms of debate and discourse into the period of print, yet it is also important to recognise the ways in which print fostered new types of affi liations that were not confi ned to reading publics.30 Print technology and reading practices linked reading publics, yet reading was only one activity which bound people together. Shared sensibilities, as well as shared but shifting identities, and an increasing concern with action and volunteerism were other ways in which individuals understood themselves to be part of a larger public. Often these publics cut across religious lines. The pablik gained a signifi cant rhetorical and conceptual power around the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century. The concern with the rifāh-e ‘ām (‘public good’), underscored by Ulrike Stark in her work on the Lucknow based Jalsah-e Tahzib (est. 1868), points to the increasing concern with issues of public concern, yet it was only in the last decades of the century that Urdu writers began replacing the word ‘ām with the English word ‘public’, sometimes even combining the two, indicating a conceptual shift.31

Had it not been for Sharar’s review in the March and April issues of Dil Gudaz, Chakbast’s new edition of GN would most likely have faded into the historical record as just one more printing.32 Considering that this review was published in a ‘literary’ journal, for which the colonial administration did not even have consistent records and from which no quotation was ever deemed signifi cant enough to be included in the colonially produced Selections from the Vernacular Press, one should either be surprised that an ‘insignifi cant’ journal initiated such sustained responses or one must conclude that the concerns of the colonial admin-istration and that of Indians was vastly different. If we consider the perspective of most treatments of print in late nineteenth-century India, we would conclude that publishing during this period was that of a growing industry catering to educational needs, a desire for entertainment, pleasure, religious sensibilities and reform.33 These were defi nite components of printing and publishing during this period but

30 Bayly, Empire and Information, pp. 180–211.31 Stark, ‘Associational Culture and Civic Engagement in Colonial Lucknow’.32 It is also worth noting the heated political climate at this period, particularly after 1900 when

the British Administration in the United Provinces made Hindi, in the Devanāgarī script, the offi cial language. The Muslim League formed in December of 1906, making Lucknow its centre of operations. In the years leading up to this point Lucknow was bristling with notions of political separatism. It was in this climate that Chakbast issued a new edition of Nasīm’s GN, which drew such critical attention.

33 The following studies are extremely helpful and while they all deal with different subject matter they highlight the signifi cance of printing and publishing in reformist and revivalist efforts as well as for entertainment, pleasure and education. See Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India; Minault, Secluded Scholars; Oesterheld, ‘Entertainment and Reform’; Orsini, Print and Pleasure; Stark, An Empire of Books.





what is missing from this picture is the vibrancy of print culture and the ways in which readers, printers and publishers actively engaged the printed word, not only through reading, but also through debate. In part, because book history in South Asia is still in its early stages,34 there has been little attention given to the way in which daily, weekly and monthly newspapers and journals functioned differently from books in relationship to reading audiences.35 If we are to understand how it is that a 16-page review of a new edition of a poem in a minor ‘literary’ journal was able to initiate such heated debate, there is a need to not only re-conceptualise the working of print and networks of circulation within the public sphere, but also the way in which we understand the key terms used to describe particular genres of writing and their signifi cance in and relationship to changes taking place in the public sphere.36

Sharar’s initial review of GN in March and April of 1905, along with the immediate responses, created enough fodder to sustain the controversy for more than a year until June of 1906. In 1913 Mirzā Muḥammad Shafī‘ Shirāzī collected 60 of the articles that dealt with Nasīm’s GN, edited this assortment of works and published it under the auspices of Naval Kishore’s press with the title, Mubāḥiṡa-e Gulzār-e Nasīm ya‘nī Ma‘raka-e Chakbast o Sharar. This act of collecting, editing and publishing these debates within the pages of one book acted to reinforce their signifi cance, earning them recognition in Urdu’s literary canon as the longest and bitterest of polemics in the history of Urdu literature.37 In 1966 Amir Hasan Nuranī reprinted this as Ma‘raka-e Chakbast o Sharar ya‘nī Mubāḥiṡa-e Gulzār-e Nasīm and provided his own preface where he wrote:

Previously the mehfi l alone was the battlefi eld of poets—Mir and Sauda, Insha and Mushafī, Zauq and Ghalib, Atish and Nasikh, Anis and Dabir—who is not familiar with their battles? But, the most signifi cant one was between Chakbast and Sharar. This was a written debate, but is understood to be the biggest and most useful, which gave so much to Urdu literature.38

While it may not be entirely accurate that the mehfi l was the only battlefi eld for poets before the widespread expansion of lithographic presses in India, as battles

34 Stark, An Empire of Books, p. 6.35 While not necessarily concerned with the function of periodicals and newspapers in the public

sphere, the following study is one of the few to focus on this aspect of Urdu writing. See Khurshid, Kārvān-e Ṣaḥāfat.

36 Despite the fact that print culture itself is often seen as elitist failing to incorporate masses of illiterate individuals, I argue that it was not any more elitist than most forms of public debate and discourse that occurred previously.

37 Suvorova, Masnavi, p. 170.38 Shīrāzī and Nūrānī, eds, Ma’rakah-e Chakbast o Sharar, p. 3. Meḥfi l can mean, place of gathering

or assembly and can also refer specifi cally to a gathering of poets.





between poets and their particular supporters found their way into the bazaars and in other arenas of public discourse, Nuranī’s statement highlights a shift in public debate that took place after the expansion of print. Debates that previously occurred through physical proximity—face-to-face contact—were suddenly taking place through the printed word in newspapers and journals. This is not to say that previous debates did not occur across great physical distance through the written word. It was just that now with the medium of print and networks of distribution and circulation, one’s physical location was no longer an obstacle to immediate participation.39

By publishing their opinions in weekly, biweekly and monthly newspapers and journals that had subscription bases, the participants in the debate expressed their views in a new modality of circulation and discourse that had only became pos-sible in the latter half of the nineteenth century.40 In this period when printing and publishing expanded, circulation numbers also increased, allowing debates and discussions to circulate among a wider reading and listening public. The decision by those like Sharar to publish, primarily through the medium of monthly, weekly or daily journals or newspapers, was tied not only to fi nancial constraints, but also to the desire to participate in and contribute to a larger public discourse that circulated within a temporality of the present.

Print and Notions of Adab

The expansion of print allowed written debates that previously spanned years, decades or even centuries to take place in a contracted period of time. Debates could now circulate more widely and quickly, allowing more individuals, primarily from a growing middle class, to participate simultaneously.41 Nuranī’s reference to previous debates that involved famous literary personalities points to the limited geographical scope of debate before the expansion of print. Mir Taqi Mir (1723–1810) and Mirza Muhammad Rafi Sauda (1713–81) resided primarily in Delhi. Insha and Mushafi lived in Delhi, while Atish and Nasikh, along with Anis and Dabir, were attached to Lucknow. And while Sharar and Chakbast lived in the same neighbourhood in Lucknow, it was the fact that the other signifi cant participants in the debate were located in distant geographic localities that made this debate unique in the history of Urdu literature. This feature would characterise most future public debates. No longer would public debate and discourse be confi ned to local affairs

39 Warner, Publics and Counterpublics, pp. 94–98.40 Tassy, Ḳhuṯbāt-e Garcin De Tassy, p. 201. Even though there were a number of Urdu presses and

newspapers before that of Naval Kishore, circulation was extremely limited. In relation to the circulation of one of the fi rst Urdu newspapers, Koh-e Nūr, Tassy remarked in a lecture in Paris in 1856 that it rose to 349 in 1854. According to C.P.C. Smyth, Esq., Offi ciating Assistant Secretary to the Government for the North-Western Provines, this newspaper, published twice a week, had the largest circulation of any in the Provinces, numbering 227 in 1850. See ‘Selections from the Records of Government, North-Western Provinces’, p. 53.

41 Joshi, Fractured Modernity.





between rivals. While in July alone individuals from Hyderabad, Lucknow, Aligarh and Gorakhpur added their voices to this debate, Munshi Sajjad Husain’s article in his weekly newspaper Awadh Panch provided the initial response to Sharar. His reply and the others that followed underscore the ways in which individual actors drew from a rich historical tradition of public debate but employed new-found forms of material technology to try and shape public opinion.

Inspired by the British weekly Punch, a newspaper of satire that began in 1841, Lucknow’s weekly Awadh Panch began publication in 1877 under the editorial guidance of Sajjad Husain and continued until 1934. It was successful enough that it served as the inspiration for many other satirical newspapers that sprang up throughout India.42 On 11 May 1905, Sajjad Husain decided to respond to Sha-rar’s review of Chakbast’s new edition of Nasīm’s GN and playing on Sharar’s name, which means spark, entitled his article, ‘Nasīm kī rangīn bayānī aur Ḥaẓrat Sharar kī Sharar Fishānī’ (‘The Colorful Speech of Nasim and Sharar’s Throw-ing of Sparks’). After summarising Sharar’s arguments concerning GN, he began his critique by using sarcastic humour to dismiss Sharar’s claim that GN was not written by Nasīm. Not only did he write that such a claim was without proof, he characterised it as the type of argument that would be expressed in Lucknow’s bhang (‘marijuana’) houses. He further wrote that Sharar ‘is easily able to create historical events about which it is impossible to fi nd historical witness, but his ḳhāyāl [“imagination”] is so strong that it is not diffi cult to create strange and wondrous events in this head of his’.43 One of Sharar’s main arguments was that Atish (1778–1846) was, in fact, the author of the maṡnavī and not Nasīm. Others interpreted this as an explicit attempt to deny the contribution of a non-Muslim to the Urdu literary canon. This did not sit well with many readers.

Those who criticised Sharar’s review tended to be aware of the faulty logic and inconsistencies in his arguments. In this instance, Husain pointed out how Sharar simultaneously argued that GN was the work of Atish and yet complained that its language was not the language of Lucknow. Considering that Atish was recognised as one of Lucknow’s premier poets, Sharar’s faulty logic provided ample opportunity for future criticisms. While Husain’s piece included serious criticisms of Sharar, it was also sprinkled with sarcastic comments and at times crude name-calling. Per-haps the most memorable of these was when Husain wrote that ‘Sharar’s objection

42 For an excellent look at the Awadh Panch with reprints of its satirical drawings, see Hasan, Wit and Humour in Colonial North India. In particular for a discussion of Sharar in relation to this debate, see pp. 103–09. Hasan lists other satirical publications inspired by Awadh Panch, which include: Punjab Panch (Lahore), Calcutta Panch (Calcutta), Indian Panch (Lucknow), Delhi Panch (Lahore), Bangal Panch (Calcutta), Bawa Adam Panch (Banaras), Rajputana Panch (Ajmer), Meerut Panch (Meerut), Sarpanch (Saidpur, Bara Banki district), Kashmir Panch (Badaun), Haryana Panch (Jhajjar), Karnataka Panch (Raipeth), Dakin Panch (Madras), Katra Panch (Allahabad), Fatehgarh Panch (Fatehgarh), Berar Panch (Kolhapur), Gujarat Panch (Gujarat), Ferozepur Panch (Ferozepur), Sarpanch (Meerut), Muslim Panch (Jullundhur) and Agra Panch (Agra).

43 Shīrāzī and Nūrānī, eds, Ma’rakah-e Chakbast o Sharar, p. 105.





is just gūz-e shatur [“a camel’s fart”]’.44 Even the editor felt it necessary to point out that this jesting went beyond all bounds of acceptability and was pure crudity.

Writing in Riyaẓ ul Akhbar on 16 June 1905, Hakim Barham, using what was believed to be a pseudonym, alleged that an unknown individual heaped insults upon Sharar in Awadh Panch while only addressing a few of his complaints. One of the most signifi cant objections Barham expressed was connected to traditional notions of respectability:

I hope that Chakbast advances a great deal in the future, but in the passions of youth his pen has gone beyond the bounds of adab [‘respect/etiquette’]. At one point he had challenged Sharar, Hali, Azad and Sarshar and seeing this all the excellent writers were astonished about what was written.45

In Chakbast’s response to Sharar in Urdu-e Mu‘alla he openly ridiculed Sharar and wrote, ‘Whether it is right or not that as Sharar said every type of language has its own separate style it is at least true that his taste of research displays a different style on every page.’46

One month later in Awadh Panch Chakbast took the personal attack one step further and used Sharar’s connection to the qasba of Kursī (an area directly out-side of Lucknow, infamous for the stupidity of its people) to ridicule him further. Without specifi cally mentioning Sharar’s links to this town he quoted a well-known saying but directed it towards Sharar writing: ‘You have also been affected by the air of Kursi.’47 A number of those who sided with Sharar, like Barham and Riyaz Khairabadi, expressed astonishment that a young writer of only 23 years would challenge, not only a writer of Sharar’s status and age, but also the most respected poets of Lucknow’s past. Responding to the tone of the articles in Awadh Panch, Riyaz Khairabadi stated that ‘I am totally against the harshness of the articles of Awadh Panch . . . and I am sorry that such words are used in a debate of educated language.’48

While Sajjad Husain wrote some of the most personal attacks, particularly in his satires that began appearing in July, Chakbast’s attempts to ridicule Sharar met with a greater level of surprise. Not only was Chakbast young, he was also a Kashmiri Brahmin and his attempts to elevate Nasim’s standing by comparing him to other famous Lucknow poets met with harsh reactions. After Husain’s initial critique of Sharar in May, Riyaz Khairabadi published an article in the July issue of Riyaz ul Akhbar. Writing that Sharar only reviewed a book, nothing outlandish in itself,

44 Ibid., p. 113.45 Shīrāzī and Nūrānī, eds, Ma’rakah-e Chakbast o Sharar, p. 148.46 Ibid., pp. 175–76.47 Ibid., p. 263. There also seems to be a pun here related to the fact that the kursī (‘chair’) is a

position of authority and one who sits on it in an offi ce becomes affected by power. Here this would be a critique of Sharar acting as someone putting himself in a position of authority to make these judgements.

48 Ibid., p. 242.





he asked Sajjad Husain why he was so opposed to Sharar. In fact, before turning attention to Sharar, he suggested Husain write about Chakbast’s presumptuous-ness that allowed him to challenge all of Lucknow’s esteemed poets and attempt to soil their names in order to esteem ‘his fellow qaumī Nasim’.49 Yet, he also pointed out the weakness of Sharar’s arguments. While Riyaz ul Akhbar generally sup-ported Sharar in the debate, this article was more even handed. The author wrote that he had never seen such lazy and weak writing by Sharar as in these criticisms, but concluded that his critique was valid. He pointed out how Nasīm’s language was fi ne in his day and that the accusations leveled against Sharar concerning his rusticity should be taken as a compliment. Khairabadi mentioned how his friend Muztar Khairabadi (1865–1927) admitted to writing about Sharar’s villager status, but clarifi ed his statement with the following:

Although my language is not like Sharar’s I accept that if I write that he is rustic then this is no insult to him. Rather it should be a matter of pride for a villager like Sharar to be so capable that he has many books not only being produced in Lucknow and taught in instructional venues, but ones that are the pride of Lucknow, having achieved fame in all lands. In this same way Awadh Panch has respect in all lands although he [Sajjad Husain] is also a village editor. Vil-lagers are now the pride of Lucknow and at this time due to villages Urdu has advanced. Say whatever your heart desires but when someone considers this for a short period then impartiality will certainly make it known that due to the blessings of the qaṣbātīoñ [‘villagers’] the language today is at this zenith.50

Khairabadi expressed the irrelevance of the idea that being an urbanite somehow imparted authenticity. Instead he asked, ‘Are the criticisms that Sharar made, sound or not?’51 While he believed many of Sharar’s criticisms were sound it is clear here that many of the other individuals involved in the debate did not appreciate Sharar’s attempts to dismiss Nasīm’s maṡnavī because of his Kashmiri roots. In the same article Riyaz Khairabadi further clarifi ed his position. He in no way wanted people to send him shoddy articles to print that were against Sajjad Husain or Sharar: ‘I have received a number of letters that prove that everyone has learned from these criticisms of Sharar, but I have never wanted to include writings that transgress

49 Shīrāzī and Nūrānī, eds, Ma’rakah-e Chakbast o Sharar, p. 157. For a more detailed look at the different uses of the word ‘qaum’ in the late nineteenth century, particularly as employed by those affi liated with the Muhammadan Anglo Oriental College, see Devji, ‘Muslim Nationalism’, pp. 26–30, 217. For several examples of the changing uses of the word from the nineteenth century, see Sayyid Aḥmad Ḳhān, ‘Qaumī T‘alīm, Qaumī Hamdardī aur Bāhamī Ittifāq’; ‘T‘alīm aur Ittifāq’.

50 Ibid., pp. 158–59. Muẓṯar Ḳhairābādī was a well-known poet in his own right who received instruction from Amīr Mīnā‘ī. He was also the grandson of Maulāna Faẓl-e Ḥaq Ḳhairābādī (1797–1861), a primary fi gure in the Insurrection of 1857 who issued a fatwā in favour of jihad against the British in 1857. Faẓl-e Ḥaq also edited the fi rst diwān of Mīrzā Ġhālib.

51 Ibid., p. 159.





the boundaries of respectful exchange.’52 Yet, this attempt to temper the debate by renewing the focus on the actual work in question proved unsuccessful. By this point it had already become impossible to rein in a debate that had spread across north India and as far south as Hyderabad and involved some of the well-known newspapers and journals of the period. It demonstrated the inability for even those with status, respectability and infl uence to single handedly shape the contours of a discourse. While this expansion of print appears to have put more power into the hands of individuals like Sharar, Chakbast and Sajjad Husain, because they could disperse their own views to a large number of people, it simultaneously weakened the ability for any one individual or group to control the direction of a debate in any particular way.

Satire and Public Debate

In July 1905 Sajjad Husain began a series of satirical pieces directed towards Sharar and published them in Awadh Panch. The fi rst was a fi ctional letter from Mīr Yār ‘Alī Ḳhān ‘Jān Ṣaḥib’ (1818–1886?), a famous reḳhtī poet of Lucknow. Reḳhtī, the feminine form of reḳhtā and one of the early names for Urdu, refers to poetry written by male poets in the female voice using female idioms.53 It was most popular in Lucknow in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but was characterised as obscene in the twentieth century and ‘systematically eliminated from the Urdu canon’.54 Mir Yar Ali Khan was the son of Mir Amman, an employee of Fort William College, who worked with John Gilchrist and translated the Persian classic Qiṣṣa-e Chār Dervish into Urdu as Bāġh o Bahār (1801). Khan was well known for dressing up as a woman when he would recite poems in mushā‘iras (‘gathering of poets’) to the laughter of those present.55 Husain related how an angel brought an envelope with a ghazal from Jan Sahib. According to his account, it was sent to Dil Gudaz and having been returned, it was published in Awadh Panch. The ghazal poked fun at Sharar and his criticisms of GN.

Sajjad Husain’s success as an editor was due in large part to his creative fl air and ability to ridicule anyone or anything. It was towards the latter part of July 1905 that he used a quite ingenious idea to further infl ame the hearts of those fol-lowing the debate between Sharar and Chakbast. Not content to merely criticising Sharar and his arguments he decided to begin a series of fi ctional letters in the name of the late Urdu poet Atish criticising Sharar. The fi rst was titled, ‘Jinnat kī Ḍāk – Ātish kā Pahlā Ḳhaṯ Sharar ke Nām’ (‘The Post of Paradise—The First

52 Ibid., pp. 159–60.53 For more in-depth examinations of reḳhtī, see Naim, ‘Transvestic Words? The Rekhti in Urdu’;

Petievich, ‘Gender Politics and the Urdu Ghazal’; Petievich, ‘Feminine Authorship and Urdu Poetic Tradition’; Ṣiddiqī, Reḳhtī kā Tanqīdī Mutāla‘āh.

54 Vanita and Kidwai, Same-Sex Love in India, pp. 191–94, 220.55 Saksena, A History of Urdu Literature, pp. 95–96.





Letter of Atish for Sharar’). From 20 July 1905 to 16 November 1905 he published twelve of these letters in Awadh Panch. Those like Ahmed ‘Ali Shauq pointed out that Nasīm was ahl-e zubān (‘a native speaker’), but that one needed to time travel to truly determine the validity of Sharar’s critique.56 In the 1 August 1905 issue of Ittihad, after the fi rst of Husain’s satirical pieces had been published, Sharar stated that he would neither read Awadh Panch nor respond in a like manner:

Awadh Panch took up this debate in an extremely vile and fi lthy manner and I am nādim [‘ashamed’] that on my account the muhażżib pablik [‘refi ned public’] is forced to listen to such fi lthy language…and I will do the same thing that any sharīf ādmī [‘respectable man’] would do against a shohdā [‘bad character, vagabond’]. If a shohdā were to stand in front of your house and start cursing, you would close your door. In this same way I close the door of my offi ce to Awadh Panch.57

The irony is that while Sharar distanced himself from the type of name-calling he accused Sajjad Husain of, he indirectly called Sajjad Husain a shohdā. After receiv-ing a copy of this issue of Ittihad from a friend, Chakbast wrote his own article in Awadh Panch and described his disappointment upon fi nding more criticisms of GN from Sharar’s pen.58 What, he wondered, was the interest of this ‘cultural and moral journal’ with these ‘ilmī [“educated/scientifi c/scholarly/pedantic”] debates?’ Responding to Sharar’s condemnation of Chakbast’s decision to publish his responses in such ‘bazārī and kam ḥaqiqat [“untrustworthy”] papers’ like Awadh Panch, Chakbast concluded that ‘Sharar’s intention is for the ‘ām pablik to remain deprived of the bounty [of researched answers]’. In this instance Chakbast seemed to be talking about his own researched answers and treated Sharar’s suggestion that Chakbast write in ‘a respected and refi ned paper’ as an attempt to limit the public’s access to arguments contrary to Sharar. Chakbast further wrote, ‘For whom is Awadh Panch a bazārī and untrustworthy paper and since when has it become disregarded so that it is inappropriate to give it any attention?’59 After pointing out the fact that Awadh Panch had been in publication for thirty years and had made signifi cant contributions to Urdu, he highlighted Sharar’s previous positive feelings towards Awadh Panch and the dramatic emotional turn Sharar experienced after it became one of the primary avenues for criticism of Sharar. In another humorous jab directed at Sharar, Chakbast suggested in a footnote that he hide behind purdah and have someone else read the article to him. But, he then stated with great regret that this could not be, alas, because Sharar is against purdah.60

56 Shauq, ‘Gulzār-e Nasīm aur Marḥūm Nasīm’. This article of Shauq appeared in Awadh Panch as well.

57 Sharar, ‘Ittiḥād’, pp. 1–2.58 For a look at print circulation in Bengal, see Ghosh, ‘An Uncertain “Coming of the Book”’.59 Shīrāzī and Nūrānī, eds, Ma’rakah-e Chakbast o Sharar, p. 280.60 Ibid., p. 286.





Sajjad Husain had his own response to Sharar’s attacks and asked him not to take offense at the words of Awadh Panch for ‘from the curses of the beloved one’s honor does not depart’. Regarding Sharar’s calling him a shohdā, Husain highlighted this in big and bold letters, pointing out that Sharar was no less guilty of name-calling than he was, but that at least his was done in humour. Awadh Panch had a long history of satirical writings that ridiculed public fi gures and Chakbast pointed out how previous attacks by Awadh Panch against Hali, Sarshar and Daġh were no less harsh than the ones against Sharar.

As the debate progressed the attacks became more and more personal. The following summary of Sharar’s life, penned by Husain, is but one example:

One Sahib, with the name of Abdul Halim and a pen-name of Sharar, came from some other place and settled in Lucknow and after some days began writing Maulvi before his name and fi nally it became Maulana . . . Sharar Sahib began writing historical novels and in these he wrote stories of Islam’s victories. He wrote about the events of the Crusades and stirred up passionate opposition to Christians among Muslims. He wrote the story of Mahmud Ghaznawi’s attacks and ignited the fl ames of bigotry between Hindus and Muslims. He wrote most novels in such a way that he deliberately brought feelings that exacerbated ani-mosity between Shias and Sunnis…He achieved great fame among a circle of bigots so that they began saying that until now Sarshar [1846–1903] alone was thought to have achieved excellence in the art of novel writing. Now Sharar has also produced useless compositions. But, Lucknawis are famous for their lack of bigotry. They never accepted Sharar because they did not like his writings or his language, which was village-like.61

Husain focused, not only on Sharar’s tendencies to spark controversy, but countered Sharar’s own criticisms of Nasīm’s non-Lucknow roots by revealing Sharar as an emigrant to Lucknow. With just about every criticism Sharar had used against GN, Husain attempted to turn the tables and use those same criticisms against Sharar. These letters of Atish paid extremely close attention to the language used in Sha-rar’s reviews of GN and painted a hilarious picture of Sharar’s ability, or rather inability, to write Urdu free of errors:

Nasim’s maṡnavī has 1000 couplets and with great diffi culty you extracted thirty to forty mistakes and even then your criticism is not correct and what you have written reveals your ignorance. But regarding your writing, it is noteworthy, that in these two articles which comprise no more than sixteen pages there are fi fty slips and errors.62

Due to his personal connection to Kursi, an area directly outside of Lucknow, Sharar’s attempts to characterise the language of GN as rustic and bazari provided

61 Shīrāzī and Nūrānī, eds, Ma’rakah-e Chakbast o Sharar, pp. 368–69.62 Ibid., p. 401.





Husain with new material to ridicule Sharar over the following months. While Chakbast had previously mentioned Sharar’s family connections to Kursi as a way to insult him, it was Husain who took this link to another level by making it a focus of satirical drawings and almost all future writings criticising Sharar. Beginning in late August 1905 Husain began publishing a series of satirical drawings of Sharar in Awadh Panch as seen in Figures 1 and 2. In another series of letters that focused on Sharar’s social novel, Badr ul Nissa kī Muṣibat, and began in October of 1905, this connection to Kursi became one of the primary means to ridicule Sharar. Husain characterised Sharar’s writing and ideas as coming from his rustic homeland of Kursi. The satirical drawings in Awadh Panch began putting Kursi uniforms on Sharar and his supporters and showed them losing in a game of tug-a-war and in a game of football. The uniforms, emblazoned with pictures of a chair, as shown in Figure 1, made the Kursi (‘chair’) connection quite clear.

While Sharar wrote the story of Badr ul Nissā kī Muṣībat to show the ill effects of strict purdah (‘female seclusion’), Husain subjected the story to a different interpretation. In the story an engagement took place between a young woman in Hyderabad and a young man in Lucknow. The family from Hyderabad sent their daughter with her father-in-law to Lucknow via train, but because she was wearing the niqāb (‘full veil’), she was switched with another woman and arrived in a dif-ferent village with a different man. Sharar’s intended moral of the story, as Husain made clear, was that purdah is bad and that if there had not been purdah then the problems in the story would not have occurred. But, Husain wrote that he understood the moral to be that travelling by train is bad. Furthermore he wrote: ‘What sharif family would send their daughter from Hyderabad to Lucknow with her future father-in-law after the engagement? Village ideas have come into Sharar’s brain.’63

Many of Husain’s satirical pieces effectively used satire to point out the prob-lems with Sharar’s criticism of GN. The continued focus on Sharar’s connections to Kursi highlighted the way in which Sharar’s own arguments were based upon faulty notions of linguistic and ethnic purity as well as an urban prejudice that looked down upon those from outside the urban areas of Lucknow or Delhi. At the same time this focus in almost weekly publications of the letters of Atish from the fi rst half of July to mid-November and the series on Badr ul Nissā kī Muṣībat from 19 October 1905 to 28 December 1905 ended up reinforcing this prejudice towards those from outside urban centres. Husain pointed out the problem with excluding anyone from an authentic claim to a language and culture based upon geographic and familial connections. Yet, through the continued focus on Sharar’s origins, he contributed to a discourse that reinforced urban prejudices.

Husain drew from a long history of satire in Urdu and had produced satiri-cal pieces from the early days of Awadh Panch. In order to elucidate some of the changes print brought to the realm of satire and debate it will be helpful to

63 Shīrāzī and Nūrānī, eds, Ma’rakah-e Chakbast o Sharar, p. 449.





Figure 1Sharar is in goal getting scored on. The large fi gure in the foreground is Mr Awadh Panch.

Lucknow’s team wears jerseys with a crown on them, symbolising Awadh Panch, while Kursi’s team jerseys are emblazoned with a chair.

Source: Awadh Panch, 16 November 1905. Lucknow aur Kursī kā ‘ilmī Ṭūrnāmenṭ (A Learned Tournament between Lucknow and Kursī).





Figure 2 Sharar is in the front of the team on the left.

Source: Awadh Panch, 30 November 1905. Tug: Lucknow aur Kursī kā ‘ilmī ṭūrnāmenṭ Number 2 (Tug: A Learned Tournament between Lucknow and Kursī).





mention an exchange from the eighteenth century involving one of Urdu’s most esteemed poets, Mirza Muhammad Rafi Sauda (1713–81) and another poet, Mir Zahik, who was the father of Mir Hasan (1736/37–86) and grandfather of Mir Anis (1803–74).64 Sauda’s dislike for Mir Zahik was well known and they both composed satires ridiculing each other. Many of them were recited in poetic gatherings.65 Despite this mutual antagonism between his father and Sauda, Mir Hasan became Sauda’s pupil. After Zahik’s death, Sauda apologised profusely to Hasan for what he had composed about his deceased father. Sauda then proceeded to destroy all the satires he had composed about Zahik. Mir Hasan responded by sending for his father’s volume and destroyed the satires his father had composed about Sauda. Yet, Muhammad Husain Azad (1830–1910) explained that ‘since Sauda’s compo-sitions used to spread so fast that the moment they were composed they were on the lips of every child, they all survived. Mir Zahik’s poetry, which was confi ned to that bound manuscript, was lost.’66 Though the historical reliability of Azad’s explanation is questionable, it still provides us with at the very least, late nineteenth century understandings of the tenuous state of written material before the spread of print and points to the diffi culty for oral exchanges to outlive their immediate contexts while retaining their complexities and multiple voices.

Print and the Archive

Those writing and publishing in support of Sharar became less and less active after September of 1905. In late September Hasrat Mohani had written in Awadh Panch in support of Chakbast and Nasīm as follows: ‘GN is without a doubt the language of Lucknow despite having some errors and it seems extremely shortsighted to say that based upon a few errors Nasīm’s language is not that of Lucknow or that these errors efface GN.’67 On 7 November 1905 in Akhbār Tafrīḥ, an anonymous reader questioned why Sharar had begun this fi ght in the fi rst place:

Why was it necessary to raise such complaints about a poet whose works have already been collected. Nasim is not around today. His maṡnavī is not being composed or in the beginning stages of publication, so from the multitude of complaints what is the correction that was so necessary?68

But, perhaps the most enlightening article written in the course of this debate was one by Taish Bilgrami, published on 8 February 1906 in Awadh Panch. It is enlightening because it is one of the few accounts of a reader detailing, not only

64 Sauda, Kulliyat-e Sauda.65 Azad, Āb-e Ḥayāt, pp. 170–71; Chand, Sauda, pp. 82–83; Islam and Russell, Three Mughal

Poets, pp. 40–41.66 Azad, Āb-e Ḥayāt, pp. 173–74.67 Ibid., p. 304.68 Ibid., p. 305.





the way in which he interacted with the printed word, but also how printed debate and face-to-face encounters worked seamlessly together in forming a new type of public engagement.

One of the consequences of the expansion of debate to the forum of print was related to the way in which information was archived. Print acted to archive public engagements, providing a new-found space and role for intellectuals in the novel public arena of the printed word. As the previous comments from an anonymous reader testify, this space was even open to those without a prestigious name, or no name at all. The increased preservation of debate that occurred through the printing press provided a wider range of people access to a larger archive of written material. This resulted in the possibility for a greater level of intellectual accountability and several of the exchanges in this debate demonstrate this shift. Along with the widespread dispersal of printed material and enlarged networks of circulation the ability to control the exposure of one’s work to certain individuals or groups became more diffi cult. Previously this was easily regulated as materials had to be hand-copied by scribes and even access to particular manuscripts could be limited to particular groups.69 The diffi culty with accessing manuscripts made it diffi cult for individuals to thoroughly debate particular topics. Translation of texts into local languages along with the printing and publication of authoritative texts was seen to be a necessary step to dispel misunderstandings in the realm of public debate.70 With the proliferation of lithographic print technology, written materi-als, which previously were limited to few individuals with signifi cant wealth or to those who had access to textual repositories, were widely available for a fraction of the cost and effort.

The role of print’s archive becomes clearer in Bilgrami’s letter, addressed to the editor of Awadh Panch, Sajjad Husain. Despite the formal address, with which it begins, it is evident the letter was intended for the wider reading audience of Awadh Panch and not Sajjad Husain alone. Husain’s editorial note at the end of the letter explained that although Awadh Panch does not generally publish these types of be namak (‘bland’) articles, ‘because this article came with a recommendation letter from a good friend it was published’.71 Though such debates carried out in the world of print were theoretically open to all, in practice the voices included were often from individuals who were part of interconnected social networks. Despite being on opposing sides in this debate, each intervention expanded the scope of these social and cultural networks linking individuals and groups across space. Bilgrami began his letter by detailing the story of how he had gained an interest in the debate:

In the last issue of Awadh Panch a piece of writing passed before my eyes which concerned the question of who was the primary person responsible for

69 Cort, ‘Indology as Authoritative Knowledge’, p. 141.70 Ibid.71 Ibid., p. 331.





the length of this debate. Two months previously I believed that Awadh Panch alone is responsible and that Abdul Halim Sharar is completely innocent. The reason for this is that I had not seen the debate from the beginning. For the past few months I have been reading some here and there and because I mostly read the articles of Awadh Panch I thought that poor Sharar is completely silent but Awadh Panch is attacking his criticisms and writings . . . But as it was by chance I went to Lucknow and heard different rumors. Some established that Sharar was guilty. Some complained of Awadh Panch going overboard. To unravel this knot I collected all the published articles related to this debate and read them in order. I came to this conclusion that Awadh Panch has no guilt . . .. 72

There are several points worth highlighting from these comments of Bilgrami. First, this provides a picture of what was likely a common way of interacting with printed material. In Bilgrami’s own words he read ‘some here and there’ and formed his opinion based upon what he had read. Though he primarily read Awadh Panch, Bilgrami still held the view that Sharar was in the right. The description of the discussions spreading through Lucknow in relation to these debates point to the way in which printed materials and the ideas contained within them circulated in the public sphere through not only the physical copies of newspapers and periodicals but via word of mouth. Thus, the rising signifi cance of the printed word as an arena for public debate and discourse did not necessarily diminish the signifi cance of dialogue that occurred through face-to-face encounters. There was one signifi cant difference however, highlighted by the way in which Bilgrami went about trying to ‘unravel this knot’.

Bilgrami’s collection of all the articles in the debate was possible because of the materiality of print, the signifi cant circulation numbers and the relatively low cost of printed materials. While it was likely more common for individuals to gain knowledge of the debate through written pieces here and there and gossip in the bazaar, it was still possible to check the details of the debate by going back to the different articles that had been published with an ease that was absent from a pre-print or manuscript-based culture.73 In his detailed 15-page discussion of the controversy, Bilgrami remarked that in the fi rst published piece in Awadh Panch concerning GN, nothing inappropriate was written. What Bilgrami failed to note was that Husain had insultingly and provocatively called Sharar’s arguments camel farts (‘guz-e shatūr’). In fact, this had been the comment early on in the debate that had prompted others in Sharar’s camp to characterise Husain’s writing as unfi t for an erudite public discourse on classical poetry. Furthermore, Bilgrami pointed out that it was only after Sharar had fi red the fi rst salvo and defamed village language on 20 July 1905 that Husain was prompted to begin the series of letters from Atish.

72 Ibid., p. 316.73 The translation and printing of Jain manuscripts into local languages was seen to be necessary in

order to erase religious misunderstandings. See ibid.





Shauq’s ‘incomparable essay’ in Awadh Panch on 3 August 1905, claiming that Nasīm’s language was indeed that of Lucknow, seemed to have brought the debate to a conclusion when Sharar reignited the debate by calling the editor of Awadh Panch a shohdā (‘rake’) in the 1 August 1905 issue of Ittihad.74

In the early part of his letter, Bilgrami repeated an accusation that Sajjad Husain had made back in the 27 July 1905 issue of Awadh Panch, where he accused Sharar of using pseudonyms to write articles in support of himself. According to Bilgrami, Sharar saw Shauq’s well-researched article and then ‘wanted to turn this educated debate into a religious and qaumī fi ght’.75 On yet another pseudonymous article in Payām-e Yār, which he attributed to Sharar, Bilgrami wrote that its contents should not be repeated in a religious magazine. He went on to say that although Sharar’s name was not attached to the article and he was, therefore, not directly responsible for its contents, he still bore the moral responsibility: ‘All the people of Lucknow know that the article was published with his consent.’76 While Sharar highlighted the shared ethnic and religious identity of Chakbast and Nasīm in his fi rst review of GN, it was his comments in the 1 October 1905 issue of Ittihad that convinced Bilgrami and others that Sharar wanted to turn the debate into a communal fi ght. Citing the month as well as the page number, Bilgrami quoted Sharar’s own comments in Ittihad where he reviewed Nisar Husain’s new weekly periodical Ẕarīf and ended his review with the following: ‘The Muslamān pablik [‘Muslim public’] in particular should give their attention to these articles [those in Zarif].’77 In particular, Sharar noted that Zarif was ideally suited for those who opposed the attacks on him in Awadh Panch. He encouraged his readers to make their voices heard by supporting this periodical.

The call to the Muslim public to involve themselves more in this debate by supporting a new journal that positioned itself in opposition to Awadh Panch and GN drew the following response from Bilgrami: ‘If Sharar had not turned this learned debate into a qaumi and religious fi ght then what necessity was there to write this sentence?’78 Bilgrami’s trenchant letter to the editor was based on his thorough review of most, if not all, of the relevant material that had been published concerning the debate. This raised a new dynamic to public debate and discourse that had not existed before the expansion of print. For one, it allowed more people to participate. The ability for Bilgrami to participate in this debate in an educated manner was because it was printed. In face-to-face debates there was no archive for someone to consult at a later time, whereas with print there was now an archive. At the same time it is important to point out that religious debates, while often carried out in public face-to-face forums, were frequently followed up with or

74 Ibid., pp. 318–21.75 Ibid., pp. 320–21.76 Ibid., p. 319.77 Sharar, ‘Ẕarīf ‘.78 Shīrāzī and Nūrānī, eds, Ma’rakah-e Chakbast o Sharar, p. 321.





even preceded by written materials or publications from the different parties, each celebrating victory. Christian missionaries were some of the fi rst to use print in this regard.79

One of the most well-known Muslim–Christian debates took place in Agra in 1854 between the German missionary Karl Gottlieb Pfander (1803–65) and an Indian Muslim Shi‘i theologian Maulana Rahmat Allah Kairanawi (1818–91). The details of the events leading up to the debate and its afterlife underscore the impor-tance of print and its role in spreading a debate beyond its immediate geographic, linguistic and temporal context. It also illustrates the way in which wider access to a debate and its arguments relied upon the work of translation, print technology and networks of circulation that linked Europe to South Asia and South Asia to the rest of the Islamicate world.

In 1829 Pfander, a missionary in India from 1837 to 1857, wrote an apologetic work Mizān al-Ḥaq (Balance of Truth), which sought to defend the Bible against the Muslim charge of taḥrīf (deviation of the Christian scriptures). Originally written in German, it was subsequently published in Armenian (1831), Persian (1835), Urdu (1840), Turkish (1862) and Arabic (1865). Agra was a centre of missionary efforts and the Muslim community sought a way to counter their infl uence. Despite Kairanawi’s S hi ìte faith it appears the entire Muslim community of Agra rallied behind him as the defender of Islam.80 Having begun arguing against the Christian missionaries in the beginning of the 1850s, by 1855 Kairanawi had written three polemical works against Christianity with the help of Dr Muhammad Wazir Khan, who had joined the East India Company’s medical service after receiving his medical degree from Calcutta Medical College. Wazir Khan was a key fi gure in the polemical exchanges, utilising his knowledge of English to read the latest in European biblical criticism and provide Kairanawi with key arguments during the debates.81 In a strange twist the Catholic missionaries also added to Kairanawi’s book collection by passing on to him the latest European works so that he could use them against the Protestant missionaries. In 1867 at the request of the Ottoman Sultan Abdulaziz I (1861–76) Kairanawi wrote the six-volume Izhār al-ḥaq (The Truth Revealed), incorporating the latest in European biblical criticism to argue against Pfander’s work. It was subsequently translated into Turkish (1876/77), French (1880), English (c. 1900) and Urdu (1968). While Kairanawi debated in Urdu and Wazir Khan acted as the interpreter for these debates, he wrote his classic apologetic work in Arabic and it was not translated into Urdu until 1968. The debate lasted two days, after which both sides claimed the victory. With the advent of print each party could circulate their materials far and wide giving a long shelf life to some of the more

79 For more on polemical debates in colonial India, see Metcalf, ‘Polemical Debates in Colonial India’ and Ahmed, ‘Muslim-Christian Polemics and Religious Reform in Nineteenth-century Bengal’.

80 Schirrmacher, ‘The Infl uence of Higher Bible Criticism on Muslim Apologetics in the Nineteenth Century’, p. 270.

81 Powell, ‘Muslim-Christian Confrontation’, pp. 77–78.





prominent religious debates, evidenced by the fact that Kairanawi’s work is still being published today.82

While the circulation of tracts and the involvement of missionaries in Agra contributed to the spectacle of a public debate, it is signifi cant that the publication of Kairanawi’s work took place more than 10 years after the actual debate and acted not so much to extend the life of the face-to-face debate through its transla-tions and republications, but to replace the public debate with a text that no longer acted as the repository of diverse voices. The afterlife of religious debates tended to result in the production of texts that rarely if ever preserved the complexities of the public debate.83 Yet, the increase of newspapers and periodicals along with the increasing ability to collect numerous sources with ease acted to preserve a greater multitude of opposing voices. Debates utilising print from the 1880s took place in many vernaculars. Some concerned with icon-worshiping and icon-rejecting Jains as well as the Arya Samaj were conducted not only through public face-to-face debates, but through letters, printed books and tracts. Many of these debates found their way into Gujarati, Hindi and Urdu newspapers.84 Yet, it is also worth pointing out that explicit religious debates versus literary debates with religious overtones may have differed as to how they mobilised oral versus written public spheres.85

Due to their overlapping circulation, newspapers and periodicals were ideal forums for the preservation of opposing voices, essential to public debate. The publications involved in the debate about GN did not represent themselves as affi liated with any one religious group or ideological perspective and all of them were at least theoretically circulating freely among groups of individuals who were in no way in agreement on the topic of debate. Lest we assume that Awadh Panch and Sharar’s own publication ventures operated from opposite ends of a social or political spectrum, it should be pointed out that Sharar’s decision to try his hand at writing in the early 1880s was greatly infl uenced by a well-known columnist for Awadh Panch, Munshi Ahmad ‘Ali Kasmandavi. It was Kasmandavi who in 1882 chose the pen-name for ‘Abdul Halim and encouraged Sharar to begin wri-ting for newspapers. Shortly after this Sharar started writing for Akhbar Tamanai, a weekly paper published by Munshi Ram Sahad Tamana’s father, Puranchand ‘Ajaz.86 In a sense, even though the editors of different newspapers and periodicals appeared to be at tremendous odds with each other over the nature of the debate, they operated in overlapping social spaces and despite the vitriol involved, contri-buted to each other’s success through the referencing of each other’s publications, continued engagement with the ideas expressed and the space they created for the

82 For more details of this debate, see ibid.83 Zaidi, ‘Writing Partial Truths’. 84 Jordens, Dayananda Sarasvati; Cort, ‘Indology as Authoritative Knowledge’.85 I thank Ananya Chakravarti for making this observation.86 Sharar, ‘Maulānā Sharar Marḥum kī Ḳhūd Navisht Sawānih ‘Umrī ‘Āp Baitī’, p. 4.





publication of readers’ voices. Providing a space for the publication of readers’ letters encouraged the active participation of the readership giving reading publics material evidence of their existence that went beyond that of just an idea or act of imagining.

Sharar’s attempt to rouse the ‘Muslim public’ as if this public had a certain characteristic that tied it together and would have put it in contrast to other publics, like the ‘Hindu public’, raises signifi cant questions related to conceptions of the public at this period. When Sharar called on the ‘Muslim public’ was he addressing a recognisable group or was he trying to will it into existence? Who exactly was included in this Muslim public? Sajjad Husain, Taish Bilgrami, Hasrat Mohani and Ahmed ‘Ali Shauq were all Muslims who supported Chakbast throughout this debate. Were they also included in this Muslim public? Obviously Sharar did not include them in this address, but what then are we to make of this call? Sharar along with Chakbast had used the term, the ‘ām public previously, which in this context appears to more clearly characterise an inclusive public without religious discrimination or class distinctions.

Writing in Zamāna in April of 1906, Zaman Kaftori criticised what he described as the ‘bū-e t‘aṣub’ (‘the smell of bigotry’) that emanated from the writing of Niqad in the July and August, 1905 issues of the Deccan Review. Niqad had been criti-cal of Nasīm and concluded that he was not a true poet. Kaftori set out to defend Nasīm against what he felt were unjustifi ed attacks. To clarify the reason for his own article he wrote: ‘I don’t have anything special for Nasim and I am not so acquainted with Niqad beyond the fact that he is a journalist for the Deccan Review and that ‘Professor B.A.’ is usually written after his name. I have written this so the public will not be led into error anywhere . . ..’87 In June of 1906 an anonymous writer, believed to have been the editor of Tahzīb of Rampur, Munshi Sa‘id ullah Khān, wrote his second article that dealt with GN. In both articles he supported Nasīm and wrote about the benefi t he saw as a result of the types of exchanges that print made possible: ‘In these types of educated exchanges there is great benefi t for the qaum and mulk [“country”] by taking into account the various qaumi ideas and perspectives and carrying out true and faithful research in contrast to seeing such matters from a qaumi standpoint.’88 Throughout these writings of Bilgrami, Kaftori and Khan there was great signifi cance given to the idea of the public and the need for informed debate to take place so that the public would not be misled or misinformed. This type of rhetoric was not unique to those who supported Nasīm as Sharar and his supporters also appealed to the idea of the public and the value of educated debate and discourse. The distinction Khan made between qaum and mulk is signifi cant, for here he implied that qaumi ideas are those that pit one com-munity against the other and yet the benefi t that derives from true research applies

87 Shīrāzī and Nūrānī, eds, Ma’rakah-e Chakbast o Sharar, p. 346.88 Ibid., 358.





equally to the qaum and mulk. Although not explicitly stated, this implied that what benefi ts one community benefi ts the whole. Rather than pitting one community against another, implied in Sharar’s call for ‘the Muslim public’ to attend to the debate at hand, it portrayed the productive and unifying potential that could come with ‘true and faithful research’.

Examining the rhetoric that took place in and around this debate sheds light on how individuals conceived of the public and understood debate to function through the realm of print. Individuals on both sides of the debate attempted to draw greater public support for their positions and did this in varied ways. While print held out the possibility of benefi t to both the qaum and mulk, many of the discourses that took place through the printed page became increasingly bifurcated between religious communities, particularly so as the barrier between Hindi and Urdu grew. Yet, as others have demonstrated, there were equally signifi cant attempts to counter these trends. 89 Many like Chakbast, Husain, Bilgrami and Ahmed ‘Ali Shauq defi ed attempts to link ethnicity or one’s religion with a more authentic claim to a language or a literary tradition. And even those like Sharar, Khairabadi and Nisar Husain vehemently denied accusations that they were trying to turn this into a religious fi ght. One of the ironies is that during the debates Sharar was not only publishing Dil Gudaz, but his biweekly paper, Ittihad, whose purpose was clearly written on the cover of every issue as follows: ‘To promote harmony and friend-ship among Hindus and Muslims. To remove their dissensions and to bring all the people of Hind together and to create one qaum and one naishan [“nation”] is its [the journal’s] obligation.’90 Perhaps one of the main changes that came with the expansion of print was the belief that one could now invoke nations into existence.

Yet, as Sharar learned, every page has not only two sides, but also many possible readings. In this instance the print archive combined with a critical public frustrated Sharar’s attempts to garner broader support and rewrite one part of Lucknow’s literary past. The debate petered out in the middle of 1906 and little of the debate was seen in the following years until 1913 when Shirazi decided to archive the debate in the form of a book. In what was likely no coincidence, soon after this in January of 1914, Sharar began composing his now famous articles on Lucknow’s past, Hindustān meñ Mashriqī Tamaddun kā Āḳhrī Namuna (The Last Example of an Eastern Culture in Hindustan) that were later put into book form as Guzashta Lucknow. In 1975 its English translation came out under the title Lucknow: The

89 For a few excellent examples of works that highlight this, see King, One Language, Two Scripts; Stark, An Empire of Books. Although many Muslims throughout India resisted attempts to exclude Nasīm from a claim to Urdu’s literary past it is also important to point out that this was connected with the threat Hindi posed to the established order of Urdu-speaking Muslims. With the rise of Hindi as the language of Hindus, Urdu as the kharī bolī (lingua franca) was threatened, thus putting Muslims at a disadvantage in arenas where Devanāgarī would be used rather than the Urdu script.

90 Hind o Musalmānon meñ ittifāq o yak jihatī paidā karānā. Un kī muḳhālafaton ko dūr karnā aur tumām abnā-e Hind ko bā ham milā ke ek qaum aur ek naishan [‘nation’] banānā is kā farẓ hai.





Last Phase of an Oriental Culture. The changes that print brought about in the arena of public debate and discourse may have taught Sharar the best way to respond was not through a focus on one aspect of Lucknow’s past, but on the past world of Lucknow in its entirety. And although many may think of his work as effectively achieving that rare iconic status, as Sharar’s Lucknow is now synonymous with the ‘real’ past Lucknow, this was not the case during its composition. In fact, many of the readers of Sharar’s journal, Dil Gudaz, contested Sharar’s portrayals of a world that he had never actually experienced.91 Far from being uncontested affairs, attempts during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century to write about a past in which the audience had a vested interest were greatly challenged.

Those involved in the world of print at the turn of the century understood its importance in a rapidly changing landscape and sought to use it for varied rea-sons. Entertainment, pleasure, debates, apologetics, education, social, religious and cultural reform—all were in print’s orbit. Yet, such uses of print in any given context were never givens, as if they ex nihilo attached themselves to lithographic print technology. The second half of the nineteenth century saw publishing as a private enterprise expand rapidly, not only in India, but in many parts of the world. Individuals who adopted print technology made choices at each step of the way as to how they would use it. Individuals like Sharar, Chakbast and Husain were actively creating social and cultural worlds of print.92 Each intervention was part of the process of creating a world where print would not only carry their voices to those in distant locales, but also create a more intricately networked society, a social and cultural world of print where individuals would collectively be addressed and conceptualised more and more as the public and nation. The debate surround-ing GN was but one period when individual actors experimented with the ways in which they could employ the medium of print. In this instance, they used the public arena of print to criticise the arguments of others and engage in debate, both erudite and humorous. Some appear like they were fi ghting for a social and cultural world under threat, others for literary ideals and still others for the satirical opportunity. Yet, what united all these people, from writers and publishers to readers and listen-ers, was the collaborative process they were involved in, each building up a world where the printed word would have an ever-increasing role. Even those on opposite ends of this debate mutually contributed to a process whereby an emerging middle class’ ability to represent itself and shape its surroundings was intricately linked to its uses of new-found forms of technology. While print fostered the expansion of public spheres and the formation of print publics, it was the actors themselves whose voices are preserved in such texts that allow us over a century later to con-struct an account of those moments when print as a forum for debate was pushed to its limits, revealing the passion and vibrancy of print at the turn of the century.

91 Sharar, ‘1916 kā Koch’.92 For a detailed look at the social construction of print, see Johns, The Nature of the Book.





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