Sajjad Zaheer | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1905-11-05)5 November 1905 |
| Died | 13 September 1973(1973-09-13) (aged 67) |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Alma mater | Oxford University |
| Occupation(s) | Marxist ideologue, writer and poet inUrdu |
| Political party | Communist Party of India |
| Spouse | Razia Sajjad Zaheer |
| Children | 4, includingNadira Babbar andNoor Zaheer |
| Awards | Soviet Land Nehru Award |
| Writing career | |
| Genre | Ghazal,Prose |
| Literary movement | Progressive Writers' MovementAfro-Asian Writers' Movement |
| Notable works | Angarey |
| Website | Sajjad Zaheer Digital Archive |
Syed Sajjad Zaheer (Urdu:سید سجاد ظہیر) (5 November 1905 – 13 September 1973) was a Pakistani-IndianUrdu political writer. He was aMarxist ideologue and a radicalrevolutionary who worked in bothIndia andPakistan. In thepre-independence era, he was a member of theCommunist Party of India and theProgressive Writers' Movement. Uponindependence andpartition, he moved to the newly createdPakistan and became a founding member of theCommunist Party of Pakistan.
Zaheer was born inLucknow in 1905 and was the fourth son ofSyed Wazir Hasan, a judge at theHigh Court of Judicature at Allahabad.[1] He got his BA degree from theUniversity of Lucknow in 1924.[2] He then left forNew College, Oxford for further studies. In his final year at Oxford, he contractedtuberculosis and was sent to a sanatorium inSwitzerland.[3] On returning to England, he was influenced by the communist leaderShapurji Saklatvala and joined the Oxford Majlis. He attended the second Congress of the League against Imperialism held in Frankfurt, where he met influential leaders like Viren Chattopadhyay,Saumyendranath Tagore, N. M. Jaisoorya andRaja Mahendra Pratap.[3] He also started the newspaperBharat in 1930 in England. He graduated fromOxford University with a degree in BA in 1931.[2] After finishing his studies at Oxford he travelled through Germany, Italy, Denmark and Austria on his journey back to India in 1932.
In December 1932, Zaheer along with a group of friends published his first bookAngarey. The book was met with outrage from both the religious and civil authorities inBritish India and was subsequently banned by the government.[4] Following the uproar due to the release ofAngarey, he was sent to London by his father in March 1933 to study law at Lincoln's Inn.[2][5]
In 1935, he and novelistMulk Raj Anand went to Paris to attend the International Congress for Defense of Culture organised byAndré Gide. Influenced by the conference he established the Indian Progressive Writers' Association in London.[5] The first conference of the association was held on 9 and 10 April 1936. After returning to India, he organised the first conference of the Progressive Writers’ Association in Lucknow on April 9, 1936, and started working as its general secretary. He along withSohan Singh Josh started the first Marxist journal in Urdu,Chingari, in Saharanpur.[6]
He became Uttar Pradesh state secretary of theCommunist Party of India (CPI) as well as a member of the working committee of theCongress in 1936. He was nominated in charge of the Delhi branch of the CPI in 1939 and was jailed for two years during the Second World War for opposing Indian participation in it. After his release in1942, he became the editor of the CPI newspaperQaumi Jung (People's War) andNaya Zamana (New Age) in Bombay.[5][7] He also helped to organize theIndian People's Theatre Association (IPTA) and theAll India Kisan Sabha.[8][7]
Afterpartition, Sajjad Zaheer along withSibte Hasan andMian Iftekhar-ud-Din started theCommunist Party of Pakistan. They were appointed Secretary General of the party.[8] In 1951, he was arrested in theRawalpindi Conspiracy Case along withFaiz Ahmed Faiz. He remained in jail for four years and upon release was given Indian citizenship byJawaharlal Nehru.[9]
While in India he continued to work in cultural activities organized by theCommunist Party of India.[8] He revived the All India Progressive Writers’ Association, became secretary of the Indian chapter of theAfro-Asian Writers' Association, and also worked as editor ofAwami Daur (People's Era)[8] and the dailyHayat[9]
He died in 1973 while attending a literary conference inAlma Ata, Kazakhstan.[8]
Zaheer started his literary career with a collection of short stories,Angarey (embers) in 1932. It had stories by Sajjad Zaheer,Ahmed Ali,Rashid Jahan and Mahmud-uz-Zafar. It was banned in 1933 by theBritish Government of India "for hurting the religious susceptibilities of a section of the community."[10] This gave rise to theAll-India Progressive Writers' Movement & Association of which both Sajjad Zaheer and Ahmed Ali were co-founders.[11] In 1935 he wrote a novel calledLondon ki Ek Raat based on his experience of London. In 1944 a collection of letters to his wife from the prisons of Lucknow and Allahabad was published asNuqush-e-Zindan. He also wroteRoshnai, a history-cum-memoir of the early days of the progressive movement (1956),Zikr-e-Hafiz, a critical look at the works of the legendary Persian poetHafiz (1956), and a collection of poems invers libre calledPighla Neelam(1964).[6]
In addition, Zaheer also served as the editor of several papers and magazines throughout his career includingBharat,Chingari,Qaumi Jung,Naya Zamana,Awami Daur andHayat.[8][5] He was also an avid translator, producing Urdu versions of Tagore's Gora, Voltaire's Candide and Shakespeare's Othello.[8][7]
Sajjad and his wifeRazia Sajjad Zaheer had four daughters, including Naseem Bhatia, who holds a PhD in history (ancient history) from a Russian university.[12] He was aMuslim and is buried in the Jamia Nagar cemetery ofJamia Millia Islamia inNew Delhi.[13]
The published works of Zaheer include.[5]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
