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Ahmed Ali: A Progressive Writer

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The English Literature Journal
Vol. 1, No. 2 (2014): 56-61
Research Article
Open Access
ISSN: 2348-3288

Ahmed Ali: A Progressive Writer

Dr. T. Jeevan Kumar*

Assistant Professor of English, Government College (UG & PG), Ananthapuramu – 515 001. (A.P.) India

*Corresponding author: Dr. T. Jeevan Kumar; e-mail: dr.tjeevan@gmail.com

Received: 13 March 2014 Accepted: 27 March 2014 Online: 29 March 2014

ABSTRACT
Syed Sajjad Zahir, Ahmed Ali, Rashidd Jehan, and Mahmuduz Zafar are some of the progressive writers in Urdu
literature whose contribution is not recognized much in the world of letters though they have written some of the
finest pieces of fiction and poetry in Urdu literature and English literature as well. In fact, they are ‘the trend-setters
for the coming generation of writers, and their role cannot be denigrated or denied.’ They possess not only literary
gifts but have also been the foremost social reformers of their times. Of all these Progressive writers Ahmed Ali
(1910-1994) occupies a prominent place. He is a socially committed progressive writer and a writer of avant-garde
who firmly believes in the betterment of social life. His literary achievement is more substantial in fiction and in
poetry as well. Being progressive, his writings receive and welcome the innovativeness from all directions so as to
give us a unified whole with myriad shades. His renderings of the literatures of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the
Far East established links which were not yet known, and are remembered respectfully. His creative writings still
draw wide interest and are an enduring contribution to international letters. In the present paper a study is made
on the solid contribution made by Ahmed Ali to the world of letters through his fiction and poetry.

Keywords: Progressive Literature, Urdu literature, Ahmed Ali, avant-garde, innovativeness

INTRODUCTION Movement’ to spread a good measure of literary

Literature is an artistic expression of life through the
medium of language. Its purpose and the object is to
ennoble the emotional as well as the intellectual
faculties and satisfy the aesthetic sense in the readers.
It is an interpretation and criticism of life. It is a
treasure of knowledge in which writers have reflected
the contemporary society and its characteristic
features. It is composed of written works, such as,
fiction, poetry, drama, and criticism, which are of great
human interest due to their subject matter and is
recognized as having important or permanent artistic
value. So, it is highly essential for each and every
individual as it transforms a man into a complete
human being and makes him lead a better life.
But, if we briefly review the trends and development of
literature through the ages, it has undergone a sea
change in the literary form and the theme is being
continuously enlarged. Instead of emotions common to
most of us themes like economic, political, social and
biological problems, different urges and moods of the
age, sex manifestations have come to find a place. The
reason for this is that some writers who believed in the
term ‘progress’ always tried to embrace the change in
literature. There arose a kind of ‘Progressive Writers’
consciousness among the people. It stirred the society
with agitation. It was derisive and offensive in its
policies and approaches. It exhibited a wonderful
novelty and variety in theme, form, medium, technique
and purpose. The literature produced by such writers
who are involved in the progressive movement is
loosely named as ‘Progressive Literature.’
The Progressive writers thought that mere reflection of
things is not enough but think of positive solutions to
problems and take refuge in socialism. They believed
that through their writings people must be roused and
awakened, social evils should be wiped out and bring a
new social order in the society. They also opined that
Literature has a role to play in the shaping of the
society, and in its turn it should be shaped in such a
way as to suit the urge of the hour and the need of the
common man. [Rao, 1947]
They even felt that their writing is not for the future
generation but primarily concerned with the needs of
the immediate present. They said that every
progressive writer must have a searching eye for the
bitter realities of the world. They were anti-
imperialistic and left-oriented, and sought to inspire

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 Jeevan Kumar / The Eng Lit J. 2014, 1(2): 56-61
people through their writings advocating equality and
attacking social injustice and backwardness.
Syed Sajjad Zahir, Ahmed Ali, Rashidd Jehan, and
Mahmuduz Zafar were some of the progressive writers
in Urdu literature whose contribution is not recognized
much in the world of letters though they have written
some of the finest pieces of fiction and poetry in Urdu
literature and English literature as well. In fact, they
were ‘the trend-setters for the coming generation of
writers, and their role cannot be denigrated or denied.’
It may be noted that all of them possess not only
literary gifts but have also been the foremost social
reformers of their times.
Of all these Progressive writers Ahmed Ali (1910-1994)
occupies a prominent place. He is a socially committed
writer who firmly believes in the betterment of social
life. He is a prolific author of poems and world-class
novels, translator of the Koran and the ghazals of
Ghalib, and critic of poet T. S. Eliot. His association with
Progressive Writers Movement has brought Marxist
and Freudian ideology and a modernist aesthetic to
Indian fiction. Writing in both Urdu and English, Ali has
produced a number of innovative literary and scholarly
works which have received acclaim from critics in both
South Asia and the West. He holds an honored place as
novelist and chronicler of India's shift from an English
colony to a free state.
The son of Syed Shujauddin (who worked in the civil
administration) and Ahmad Kaniz Begam, Ahmed Ali
was born on 1st July 1910 in New Delhi. He was an
Indian (later Pakistani after Partition) short-story
writer, novelist, poet, critic, translator, teacher, scholar,
and diplomat. He started his formal education at the
age of five by learning Qur’anic recitation. While
studying at Aligarh Muslim University in 1926, Ali, by
chance, enrolled in an English poetry class with Eric C.
Dickinson, a minor Oxbridge poet, who then became
the young man’s mentor. At this time he published his
first poem in English in Aligarh Magazine. He then
published his first short story in English entitled “When
the Funeral was Crossing the Bridge” in the Lucknow
University Journal in 1929. The following year he
graduated first-class, standing first, in English Honours
from Lucknow University, having achieved the highest
marks in English in the history of the university. He also
received the prestigious White Memorial Scholarship.
Ali started his literary career at a young age as a short-
story writer in his native Urdu in 1931. In fact 1931
was an eventful year as he published his first Urdu
short story “Mahavaton ki ek Rat” (One Rainy Night of
Winter), in Humayun and produced his English play
Land of Twilight. The theme of this play reemerged in
his first novel Twilight in Delhi. In the same year, he
received his M.A. in English Literature from Lucknow
University, along with the Jhallawar Gold Medal, as well
as an appointment as Lecturer in English at his Alma
Mater. He then became the cofounder of All India
Progressive Writers’ Association and published Angare
http://english.aizeonpublishers.net/content/2014/2/eng56-61.pdf
(Burning Coals) in 1932, a collection of nine short
stories along with three other friends. The book proved
as one of the most historically important in South Asian
Literature. He presented his paper “Art ka Taraqqi-
Pasand Nazariya” (A Progressive View of Art) in the
historic meeting of All India Progressive Writers’
Association in 1936. In the same year, he published his
first solo collection of Urdu short stories Sholey (The
Flames).
At this time a rift started between Ali and the other
members of the group based on personal differences
and a disagreement on the function of art and the artist
in society. He, unwilling to define the word progressive
as “communist,” “proletarian,” or “socialist realist,”
went his own way. But he viewed the term as a mean
trying for the betterment of our social life. In the
summer of 1938 he visited Delhi and made preliminary
notes and sketches for his first novel Twilight in Delhi
which was published by The Hogarth Press in London
in 1940.
A pioneer of the modem Urdu short story, Ali’s other
works include Hamari Gali (Our Lane; 1942) and Qaid
Khana (The Prison House; 1944), two collections of
Urdu short stories which display his ability to move
from social realism to Kafkaesque political parable.
Then he published Maut Se Pehle (Before Death; 1945),
his fourth volume of fiction. In January 1947 Ali
accepted an appointment as British Council Visiting
Professor of English, National Central University of
China, Nanking, where, in addition to teaching English,
he began his study of Chinese and, with poet Fang Ying-
Yang, started to translate an anthology of modern
Chinese poetry, which, to date, remains unpublished.
In 1949, Ali published The Flaming Earth: Poems from
Indonesia (1949), possibly the first anthology of
modern Indonesian poetry in English translation, and
Muslim China (1949), a study of China’s Muslim
populations, an outgrowth of his interest in China. The
Falcon and the Hunted Bird, the first of four anthologies
of English translations of Urdu poetry appeared in
1950. Ali also edited the first anthology of Pakistani
writing in English translation, the Pakistan E.N.
Miscellany, having founded the Pakistan E.N. with his
long-time friend and fellow-poet-diplomat, Shahid
Suhrawardy.
Ali continued his literary activities, publishing his first
volume of poetry, Purple Gold Mountain: Poems from
China (1960); the remaining anthologies of poetry
translations, The Bulbul and the Rose (1960), Ghalib:
Selected Poems (1969), and The Golden Tradition
(1973); and his second novel, Ocean of Night (1964).
By 1980 he completed his acclaimed translation of the
Quran, which was published by Akrash Publishing,
Karachi (1984) and by Princeton University Press
(1988). In the same year he translated an anthology of
Urdu literature Selected Pakistani Stories. According to
Alamgir Hashmi (1994), ‘Translation to him was an
57
 Jeevan Kumar / The Eng Lit J. 2014, 1(2): 56-61
important medium of reading cultures and he remained
engaged in this vast enterprise throughout his life’ (47).
In 1981 Ali was awarded the Sitara-e Imtiyaz (Star of
Distinction) by the Government of Pakistan for
exceptional service to the country. Four years later, his
third novel, Of Rats and Diplomats (1986), appeared.
Despite the onset of ill-health and the marked
deterioration of both his sight and hearing, Ali
remained busily engaged in new writing projects and
revisions of older pieces as long as he was able. Just a
few months prior to his death, on 3 October 1993, he
received the degree of Doctor of Letters (honoris causa)
from Karachi University. A complex man of wide-
ranging intellectual and artistic interests and
considerable personal charisma, Ali moved with equal
ease
Between West and East and has served as an important,
though often unrecognized, intellectual bridge and
artistic link between these two polarities. Through his
creative writings, scholarly publications, and
translations, Ahmed Ali brought Asia and some of its
choicest literary works to the attention of the often
indifferent West. [Coppola, 1994, p.53]
Twilight in Delhi which was rated as a Classic in Asia
brought him an international fame. Ahmed Ali in an
Interview with Carlo Coppola said that “All the greatest
living critics of England at that time wrote the finest,
most glowing reviews of it. They paid compliments to
my English, to the lucidity of my style, the depiction of
life which was so vivid” [Ahmed Ali, 1994, 20]. It deals
with the decline of Northern India’s Muslim élite at the
turn of the century through the eyes of one family and
its intimates. It addresses “India’s changing social,
political, and cultural climate following colonialism”
[Mehrotra, 2003, p.185]. It is destined to be
“significant and influential in contributing to the fusion
of two cultures. Western English culture, coloured
strongly by post-Darwinian determinism and
pessimism, is merged with the Eastern Muslim culture
that combines a reverence for life with a sense of hope”
[Anderson, 1971, p.81]. It also aims, according to the
author, at depicting ‘a phase in our national life and the
decay of a whole culture, a particular mode of thought
and living, now dead and gone already right before our
eyes.’ In the words of M.K. Naik (2007), “Ahmed Ali’s
picture of the middle class Muslim family of Mir Nihal
and its relationship with other Muslim families in early
twentieth century Delhi is indeed drawn with
painstaking attention to detail” (174).
Twilight in Delhi is set in the great Indian centre of
Muslim civilization, Delhi, and the plot revolves round a
simple love story of Asghar and Bilqeece. One day,
when Asghar goes to his friend’s house he accidentally
falls in love with Bilqeece. But he feels that he cannot
marry her because of his father’s strict notion of class
hierarchy. His father Mir Nihal, a man looking into the
twilight of his life, is a direct descendant of the Prophet
Muhammad while Bilqeece’s father is a Mughal. Later
they go through the cyclical joys and difficulties of
having their love accepted, formalized, and renewed
http://english.aizeonpublishers.net/content/2014/2/eng56-61.pdf
despite social barriers or death. Around this story is
built a whole way of life – customs and ceremonies that
sustain a colorful though declining feudal culture,
including the father’s (Mir Nihal) pigeon-flying pastime,
the zanana, and wedding rituals. In the outer circle,
round the old house in a bylane of old Delhi, history is
seen at work in the Great Durbar held by the King-
Emperor in 1911, the public reactions to the First
World War, the influenza epidemic of 1919, the
Jallianwalla Bagh massacre of 1919 in Amritsar, and the
political turmoil of 1920 in Northern India. Ahmed Ali
thus uses the historical-cultural-symbolic complex as
background, with the people of the mohallah in the
foreground and the family of Mir Nihal centre stage as
the story of decline unfolds. Edwin Muir stated in his
review of the novel in The Listener (London):
The atmosphere in which the story passes . . . has a
striking resemblance to that of the French Romantics:
there is the same exaltation of feeling, the same
resignation to the impulses of the heart, especially in
love, and the same readiness to embrace death, at least in
contemplation, when the heart’s impulses are frustrated.
. . . But if we accept the sentiment, we become aware that
Mr. Ahmed Ali expresses it with a distinction and purity
of which a western writer would be quite incapable.
Every accident of life, pleasant or horrible, is touched by
it. The description of a horrible influenza epidemic in
Delhi after the Great War is so deeply moving because of
this union of horror and tenderness and something
resembling romantic pity . . . the relations between the
various characters are exquisitely felt; the detail of life,
wonderfully clear and yet quite strange. The writing
produces a curiously pictorial effect, yet is itself as clear
as water. The end, where innocence is drowned by
experience, is intensely moving.
The novel, due to its excellent subject matter and
innovative style, received much critical attention from a
number of prominent litterateurs. In a letter to Ahmed
Ali, E.M. Forster stated that “It is beautifully written and
very moving. The detail is almost all of it new to me,
and fascinating. It is a sort of poetical chronicle. At the
end one has a poignant feeling that poetry and daily life
got parted, and will never come together again.” This
comment was used as a blurb on a paper band around
the book. Bonamy Dobree (1940), a noted Critic, called
the novel “poetic and brutal, delightful and callous.”
David Anderson (1971) stated that
It is a novel about people, about life, and about time; it
makes pertinent, often profound comments about them;
and it makes them with grace and clarity. It effectively
narrows the gap between two alien cultures and it points
the way toward a further narrowing in the future. (86)
Maurice Collis (1940), another critic, said that
The book is so delicate and charged with such colour and
emotion, that a bold statement of what it is about can
give no ideal of its equality … It may well be that we shall
not understand India until it is explained to us by Indian
novelists of the first ability, as it was that we understood
nothing of Russia before we read Tolstoi, Turgenev and
58
 Jeevan Kumar / The Eng Lit J. 2014, 1(2): 56-61
the others. Ahmed Ali may be the vanguard of such a
literary movement.
Ocean of Night is the poetic romance of a courtesan
with an aristocrat and evokes the Persian and Urdu
mystic poetry Ali loved. It deals with life between the
two World Wars and explores the possibility of the
modern spirit within a feudal structure. It also
examines the cultural rift in India that preceded the
creation of India and Pakistan in 1947. The novel is set
in the other great Muslim center, Lucknow. The mood is
somewhat subdued, the atmosphere one of repose and
contemplation amidst a celebration dance and Muslim
ideas of love, peace and friendshi The Nawab’s mistress
is a fine courtesan, and the young lawyer in love with
her cannot overcome the class barrier to find
fulfillment. The intellectual and mystical elements in
the Muslim tradition are related to the political
degeneration of the Muslim civilization and both
ordinary feelings and the more delicate emotions are
seen as atrophied or sacrificed to the remaining
oligarchy’s reckless lifestyle and idle, indiscriminate
social pursuits.
Of Rats and Diplomats, Ahmed Ali’s third novel, is a
post-colonial novel. It deals with general decay in the
world, in which representatives of the “newly-freed
fourth world” find analogs of their own decay and
depravity prevalent on a universal scale. It is a satirical
novel about Sourirada Soutanna, a twice-divorced
soldier-turned-dishwasher-turned-diplomat whose
ratlike tail is the physical manifestation of his moral
dissolution. The ratty business has taken its moral toll,
whose evidence is biological and (un)aesthetic. The
narrative aspires to the moral status of a fable.
Through the account of diplomat, the author comments
on the world of politics, high-powered multinationals
and international intrigue.
Apart from the fiction, Ahmed Ali’s poetry too has
drawn much critical appreciation in the world of
letters. In fact, his trip to China had a profound and far-
reaching effect on his poetry. In the words of Ahmed
Ali “It was only in 1947, in China, that I discovered the
right mode of communicating intimate and personal
emotions which could stand as poetry. His method of
impersonalizing personal experience is suggestive of
Eliot’s notion of the ‘objective correlative” [Coppola,
1980, p.65]. His poems reflect the influences imbibed
from the Chinese lyric, English Romantic, Urdu, and
Persian traditions. Often written in a deliberately
antiquated style, they achieve a certain distance and
impersonality while dealing with personal details of
human, moral, and metaphysical themes. They also
lend themselves “both to personal and political
allegories” [Hashmi, 1995, p.11]. The theme of loss and
loneliness, the theme of exile, the dilemma between
politics and art, between public life and private life of a
poet occupy a prominent place in his poetry. All these
issues are very well conveyed through images and
effective phrases.
Purple Gold Mountain: Poem from China (1960), the first
volume of Ahmed Ali’s poetry, consists of sixty poems.
http://english.aizeonpublishers.net/content/2014/2/eng56-61.pdf
It is divided into three parts namely “Preludes,” “The
Flowery Middle Kingdom,” and “Exile.” In the first
section, there are ten poems which are mostly
quatrains in imitation of Persian rubai. But the themes
which he treats in the next two sections are familiar to
readers of both Urdu and Chinese poetry. They address
themselves to views about evanescence of life and the
ravages which time visits upon men. They are also
The corollaries to these sentiments: the loss of old
friends, either because of death or through a lack of
caring; warm memories of old loves recalled in the
chilling light of present harsh realities; a sense that one
has not achieved all that one had set out to do in one’s
life time, or having achieved fame, the realization is one’s
old age that its pursuits was worthless. [Coppola, 1980,
p.66]
“On the Departing Seasons” is a short poem but
effectively portrays Ali’s feelings towards his lost
friends. He says
The autumn wind blows
The summer beyond recall;
The leaves hurry along the road
The flowers of the spring has trod.
Who knows the sorrows of the lonely heart?
One by one all old time friends have gone. [Purple Gold
Mountain, p.16]
In these lines one can easily find that the poet is
experiencing the loneliness and lamenting on his lost
friends. The lines are also ambiguous that they cannot
be explained whether the poet’s friends have departed
from his life because of death or for any other reason
(may be abandonment due to Partition).
“Being Lonely I Remember my Old Friends and
Write this Poem in their Memory” is another poem that
conveys a similar sense of loss, loneliness and
expectations. In his own words,
I sit and contemplate the rooks on the wall
My heart heavy with the burden of thought
Remembering the peonies of old. [Purple Gold Mountain,
p.37]
“Youth and Old Age” and “Having Lost Both Youth and
Age I am Sad” are equally powerful, perhaps the best, in
the entire collection. In these poems, the poet takes up
the themes of lost youth and loneliness of old age. He
very artistically juxtaposes the two conditions like
when young, a person pretends to the older in order to
impress his beloved while in old age, drinking too
much, he pretends to be young to woo his beloved. He
says,
When I was young I feigned
Old age to win my loved one’s heart …
And now in ripe old age
I laugh and drain cup after cup of Mau-t’ai wine,
I boast climbing Swallow Cliff in one breath
Of swimming across the Yangtze in a hundred strokes.
She dries a tear from my drunken eye.
Pulls out a white hair from my beard.
59
 Jeevan Kumar / The Eng Lit J. 2014, 1(2): 56-61
And goes out of the room. [Purple Gold Mountain,
p.41]
Even in “Having Lost Both Youth and Age I am Sad,” the
poet is concerned not only about his lost youth, but also
about the uncertainty of the future in his old age. He
asks the Purple Gold Mountain, a symbol of the ultimate
earthly beauty and a powerful image for contemplation,
what he should do:
Magnolia buds unfold
Their cups at white gold;
The red of Ch’ahua blossoms
Is precious like parted love
O Purple Gold Mountain,
Where lies my way?
Between the cream white and the crimson red
I stand with empty hand alone.
And when the winter comes,
Where shall I go? [Purple Gold Mountain, p.45]
Here the poet presents a dilemma symbolized by the
flowers. The white of the magnolias suggests
asceticism and the pursuit of oblivion in the best
Buddhist tradition, the red of the ch’ahua represents
sensuality and the reaffirmation of the life of the sense.
Such a dilemma in middle age prompts such question
as Where lies my way? …. Where shall I go? However,
as the poet looks to old age,
These questions will be answered, for the ageing process
inexorably leads one to accepting the path symbolized by
the magnolia buds. In old age, here symbolized as
winter, there are no flowers of any kind; other types of
questions and situations with uncertain answers and
indeterminate results emerge. It is about these which
the poet worries as well. [Coppola, 1980, p.68]
Apart from the theme of loneliness one may also find
the theme of politics in some poems in the collection of
Purple Gold Mountain. In fact, they are the testimony to
Ali’s maturation process as far as the relationship of art
and politics is concerned. “The Chess Player,” “The
Bourgeois,” “The Same,” “On being asked by a kind Lady
about my Native Place” are some of the poems where
politics is much talked about. They clearly demonstrate
what the poet means by the method of impersonalizing
personal experience into poetry with a universal
appeal. “Having Been Attacked for Speaking Truth, My
Heart was Filled with Sorrow and I wrote this Poem” is
the finest of all poems throwing light on the
relationship of politics and art as well as the dilemma
between public life and private life. It is the
objectifications of the emotions which the poet felt
when he was retired from government service by
general Ayub Khan because he would not support the
dictator’s policies. In the poem, Ali says thus:
In Autumn the war began
Men went out, but they did not return
…
I say under the Purple Gold Mountain,
Contemplating the Lotus Lake and peaceful scene,
I belong neither to this warring lord not that,
Only a poet in search of peace
Yet the Soldiers beat me all the same
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For having no hatred and being serene. [Purple Gold
Mountain, p.30]
Selected Poems: Ahmed Ali (1988) is another collection
of poems edited by Klaus Stuckert and published by
JIWE Publication, Gulbarga, India. The poems in this
collection are authentic, genuine, and at the same time
original. In these poems, Ali employs his theory of
making personal experience impersonal with universal
relevance. “Entrapped by War in a Foreign Country I
Think of my Native Land” is a poem that deals with the
theme of exile. In the poem Ali’s reminiscence of his
native land as well as his present chaotic state as an
employee is very well brought out. He begins the poem
with the description of spring season and the call of the
‘cuckoo bird,’ ‘across the country of foreign lords.’ He
develops the poem by comparing his varied roles with
the changing season. He concludes the poem by
lamenting that he is caught between the gain and the
loss and his suffering is crushed under foreign feet to
unknown dust. The concluding lines run thus:
Caught between the gain and the loss
I must suffer and be crushed
Under foreign feet to unknown dust. [Selected Poems,
p.5]
“In Exile I Remember my People and Feel Sad” is
another powerful poem with a title having a direct
bearing on the theme of exile. Here Ahmed Ali is
haunted by the memories of his native land but alas! He
has no freedom, as he is chained and bound. The poem
clearly shows the cold and indifferent attitude of the
foreigners; the state of humiliation and suffering; hope
to reunite with the people of native land is well brought
out. “I Meet Lee San in the Nether World and Talk of
Home” is a beautiful poem that clearly exhibits the
poet’s genuine sentiments, his homesickness, his
yearning and long to talk about home.
“Having Spent the Last Penny I Had I Feel Happy” is a
distinguished poem in which the author glorifies
charity, the divine virtue which gives a blissful joy. The
title of the poem tells us about the noble act of the poet,
followed by a sense of contentment, in turn making him
feel himself a ‘noble being.’ The background for this
poem is purely Chinese culture, climate and civilization.
After narrating the Chinese life, he turns to the
fundamental quality of man through which he can
achieve unbounded pleasure and joy. Charity – this
divine quality – occupies an important place not only in
Islamic principles but in almost all religions. His
experience is not only his but related and concerned to
all the human beings.
Thus, Ahmed Ali’s poetry dealing with such themes as
art, dilemma between exile and loneliness, humane and
moral values and search for meaning in life marches
towards the goal of higher perception and purpose of
life and the intense realization of man’s destiny. He has
enriched English poetry by bringing east and west
together.
60
 Jeevan Kumar / The Eng Lit J. 2014, 1(2): 56-61
+
CONCLUSION
Ahmed Ali, as a socially committed progressive writer
and as a writer of avant-garde, comes before the world
readers as a significant writer who firmly believes in
the betterment of social life. His literary achievement is
more substantial in fiction and in poetry as well. Being
progressive, his writings receive and welcome the
innovativeness from all directions so as to give us a
unified whole with myriad shades. His renderings of
the literatures of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the
Far East established links which were not yet known,
and are remembered respectfully. His creative writings
still draw wide interest and are an enduring
contribution to international letters. As he wrote in
1985 (“Afterword,” The Prison-House):
I am still a progressive, and try to face the actualities of
life, and look at it with unclouded eyes, untrammelled
with baseless conservatism or ideality, or the
shibboleths of our own making, the tin gods who sit in
judgment over our freedom of thought and expression,
and restrain us from growth and progress and
emancipation from the shackles of blind orthodoxy that
hold us back from marching towards the goal of higher
perception and purpose of life, the intense realisation
of man’s destiny for which he was ordained from the
beginning of creation. (168-69)
Zeno (1995), a reputed Critic who made some
contribution on Ahmed Ali, rightly remarks thus:
Firstly, in the formal aspect of his fiction, we find him a
strict realist who is concerned above all with the social
reality of his group. Secondly, in terms of content we
find in him a sharp satirical critical of the life of his
society and at the same time a positive upholder of the
cause of social change. Both these characteristics
endure throughout in his writing, indeed till the very
end. (41)
*****
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To conclude, one may easily say that Ahmed Ali was a
great man and a towering literary personality of merit
and achievement.
REFERENCES
1. Ali, Ahmed. Purple Gold Mountain. London: Keepsake Press,
1960. Subsequent page references appear in the text are to
this edition.
2. Ali, Ahmed. Selected Poems: Ahmed Ali. Edited by Klaus
Stuckert. Gulbarga: JIWE Publication, 1988. Subsequent page
references appear in the text are to this edition.
3. Anderson, David D. Ahmed Ali and Twilight in Delhi.
Mahfil/Journal of South Asian Literature, 7, 1-2, 1971: 81.
4. Coppola, Carlo. The Poetry of Ahmed Ali. The Journal of
Indian Writing in English, 8, Jan-July, 1980: 65-66.
5. Coppola, Carlo. Ahmed Ali in Conversation: An Excerpt from
an Interview with Carlo Coppola. The Annual of Urdu Studies,
9, 1994: 20.
6. Coppola, Carlo. Ahmed Ali: Bridges and Links East and West.
The Annual of Urdu Studies, 9, 1994: 53.
7. Collis, Maurice. Twilight in Delhi. Review. Time and Tide, 30
November, 1940.
8. Dobree, Bonamy. Twilight in Delhi. Review. The Spectator, 8
November, 1940,
9. Hashmi, Alamgir. Ahmed Ali. The Journal of Indian Writing
in English, 23, 1 & 2, Jan-July, 11, 1995.
10. Mehrotra, Arvind Krishna. A History of Indian Literature in
English. New Delhi: C. Hurst and Co. Publishers, 2003. 185.
11. Muir, Edwin. Twilight in India, London: The Listener, 1940.
12. Naik, M.K.. A History of Indian English Literature. New Delhi:
Sahitya Akademi, 2007. 174.
13. Rao, D.V. Rama. Progressive Literature. Triveni: India’s
Literary and Cultural Quarterly, August, 1947.
<http://yabaluri.org/TRIVENI/CDWEB/progressiveliteratur
eaug 47.htm>
14. Zeno. Professor Ahmed Ali and the Progressive United
Movement. The Journal of Indian Writing in English, 23, 122,
June-July, 1995: 119.
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