Saadat Manto - My Name Is Radha

I was angry at their frequent manifestos, long-winded resolutions and effusive statements — the substance of which came straight from the Russian Kremlin to the Bombay Khetwadi and then on to McLeod Road. Such and such Russian poet has said that. . such and such Russian short story writer has stated. . such and such Russian intellectual has. . I was furious. Why don’t they ever talk about the land whose air they breathe? If we can no longer produce our own intellectuals, can this state of barrenness be remedied by just spreading red seeds imported from the Soviet Union?

I was angry because no one deigned to listen to me. A confused state of laissez-faire took hold of the country following Partition. People weren’t hankering after just evacuee properties — residential houses and mills and what not — but also high positions. They didn’t stop to think for a minute that after such a seismic upheaval the situation wasn’t likely to remain the same as before. No one could predict with any degree of confidence whether the existing narrow trails would expand into spacious highways or vanish altogether. Nor could a clear idea of the difference between the rule of the Other and the rule of one’s own be formed in the ensuing chaos. What kind of atmosphere would it be and how would thoughts and feelings be nurtured in it? What would be the nature of the relationship of the individual and the community with the government? These questions required deep thought and much deliberation, not slavish adherence to foreign prescriptions and precepts. Lamentably, our so-called intellectuals acted very hastily. In their eagerness for leadership they ignored whatever talent they had and left it to rot unutilized.

Initially these progressive custodians of literature decided to prohibit writers of their group from working for or publishing in government publications. I opposed their proposition and reasoned with them, showing how such a decision was manifestly wrong — not just wrong but entirely ridiculous.

It was wrong because it betrayed the fear of the Progressive Writers’ Association that their members lacked, or might lack, steadfastness. Then again, such a decision should have been made more appropriately by their opponents, which too I would have considered absurd because no government would choose to do something which ran counter to its own interests.

Our government did resort to the same ridiculous absurdity, but a bit later, after the Progressives had already openly touted their resolution of non-cooperation. The government banned the inclusion of any Progressive thought in their publications and on national radio. Later on, the provisions of the Amrat Dhara Act were invoked to put some Progressives in prison. Government, after all, is another name for foolishness. So I have no wish to comment on the series of stupid moves they made to silence the Progressives.

I feel sorry that Ahmad Nadim Qasimi and Zaheer Kashmiri, two of the most harmless souls one ever saw, whose mental and physical constitutions are incapable of comprehending the true meaning of the word ‘conspiracy’, were imprisoned uselessly. One of them is fond of making ‘brothers’, the other ‘sisters’. It is mind-boggling how the government managed to detect the odour of some subversive element in this innocent pastime.

Anyway, beside itself with anger, the government thoughtlessly threw them behind bars, handing them over to the barber who would surely disfigure them beyond recognition, so that when they emerged from prison after some time no one could say what sort of creatures they were: bald from head to toe or hairy all over like a chimpanzee. Would they be called ‘ghazi’ or ‘shaheed’? Would they become leaders, or snake-oil pedlars pushing their concoctions with hype and brio to the crowds gathered around them? Would they give up writing poetry and fiction? Or drape their tentacles around literature like the old man of Sinbad’s voyages. I’m not mocking them at all. If I were sent to prison, I would have said the same, or perhaps worse, about myself because I’m much too sensitive.

Well, the government and the band of Progressive writers both fell prey to their own sense of inferiority. I felt sorry about it and still do, though I felt sorrier for the Progressives. They had butted into the government’s affairs without rhyme or reason. These amateur pharmacists were blending a remedy for head colds with portions of literature and politics according to a recipe supplied by the Kremlin, but they paid no attention to the patient’s temperament or pulse. Well, you know the result. Isn’t everyone talking about this stagnation in literature?

I feel terribly gloomy today about how the representative periodicals of the Progressives had to somersault every which way, along with their leaders; how they were obliged to scrape away every last word of their wise counsel, statements and resolutions; and how they had to cook up fresh excuses and apologies to win back the cooperation of the same writers they had earlier blacklisted and condemned.

I feel very gloomy today seeing those who had firmly withheld their cooperation from the government now revising their decision. Why didn’t they see that man’s struggle to earn a livelihood is central among the fairly expansive orbit of his earthly struggles? Of course our manly courage can scale up to the heights of the Almighty, and we can ensnare even Gabriel in the wastelands of our madness. However, there are times when the only course we have before us is to sing the praises of some stupid nawab for the sake of our stomachs. Of course this is man’s greatest tragedy, but this tragedy is another name for being human.

And now all my anger has turned into a gloom of the spirit. I feel distraught, weighed down by anguish and sadness. What I’ve seen and continue to see only deepens this feeling. I’m exhausted. My life today is rife with difficulties. Even after a grinding day of work, I’m barely able to earn enough for my daily needs. The painful thought that if I were to die suddenly there would be no one to look after my wife and my three little girls gnaws at my heart night and day. Call me whatever you like: a pornographer, terrorist, eccentric, comedian, or even a reactionary, but I’m also a husband and a father. If my wife or one of my daughters were taken ill and I was forced to go door to door begging in order to pay for their proper treatment, it would certainly make my hackles rise. And I also have friends who are in more strained circumstances than I am. It hurts me terribly if I can’t help them when I’m most needed. Believe me, I’m anguished to see anyone’s, or even my own, head lowered from need. How would I feel if the libraries and the radio opened their doors to my writing after my death, or if my short stories were given the same status the late Iqbal’s poetry is being accorded now? Oh, that would put my very soul on edge and make it terribly restless. When I think about that restlessness, I feel infinitely more contented with the way I’ve been treated so far. May God save me from the termites that will gnaw at my desiccated bones in the grave!

I feel very low today hearing the know-it-all pundits around me declare that literature has stagnated, that it is in decline, that it is in suspension. This sort of talk is the twin of the absurd claim that Islam is in danger. Literature, like Islam, is a self-existent entity. Energy never declines, and is never swept away by stagnation or suspension. The atom’s power existed before its discovery and will continue to exist even after. Its disuse or misuse doesn’t imply a decline in its power, or its being near death, or having already died.

Literature is as alive and exuberant today as it was before it was discovered. The question of its stagnation or suspension doesn’t arise. It is our own stagnation and suspension that we foist upon it.