The 1920s and 2020s have striking resemblances, especially the alarming rise of communal hatred in both eras. The difference in the 1920s was the new set of leaders who stood up to the challenge of communal strife, resisting it through mass mobilisations. Mahatma Gandhi and his companions emerged on the firmament of anti-colonial nationalism in this period, earning global repute for India’s civilisational credentials. In the subsequent decades, a sentiment of hatred towards Gandhi arose. Today, the hate-filled ideology that resulted in his assassination is a hegemonic force in India. It has acquired state power and endorses social animosities, which reflects in electoral outcomes, too. One symptom of this animosity is the wide readership that contentious literature on Gandhi and first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
Therefore, it is instructive to revisit a lesser-known literary category that took off between 1919-1932. Precisely a century ago, at least three authors wrote Gandhinamas or accounts of Gandhi’s life in Urdu. The versified Gandhinama of Akbar Allahabadi (1846-1921), known as the master of wit and sarcasm in Urdu poetry, is notable. Composed over 1919-21, it was published posthumously in 1948. Prof. Iqbal Husain’s “Akbar Allahabadi and National Politics” (1988) and Shamsur Rahman Faruqi’s “The Power Politics of Culture: Akbar Ilahabadi and the Changing Order of Things” (2002) chronicle the poet and his Gandhinama.
The other two Urdu Gandhinamas are less known within and beyond the Urdu-reading public. It is, however, necessary to discuss them at the popular level. Amid the civil
— source newsclick.in | Mohammad Sajjad | 09 Mar 2022