POiSON WORLD

Doyen of the Progressive Writers’ Movement, Josh Malihabadi dominated the Urdu literary scene of the 20th century Indian sub-continent. Born on December 5, 1898 as Shabbir Hasan Khan in Malihabad, near Lucknow he studied at St Peter’s College, Agra and passed his Senior Cambridge examination in 1914. Josh subsequently studied Arabic and Persian and, in 1918, spent six months at Tagore’s university at Shantiniketan.

While working as in charge of the translation department of Jamia Osamania, Hyderabad, Josh wrote a poem against the oppressive Nizam and was exiled from the state. Josh then worked for Shalimar Film Company in Poona as songwriter for about four years.

Josh was known as “Shair-e-Inqilab”. He also got actively involved in the freedom struggle and became close to quite a few of the political leaders of that era, specially Jawahar Lal Nehru. His first collection of poems was published under the title of Rooh-e-Adab. The collections of his poetry include Shola-o-Shabnam, Junoon-o-Hikmat, Naqsh-o-Nigar, Fikr-o-Nishaat, Sunbal-o-Salaasal, Harf-o-Hikaayat and Sarod-o-Kharosh. Josh was editor of Aaj Kal and advisor to the All India Radio. He was honoured with the Padma Bhushan in 1954 by the President of India.

Josh was concerned with the state of Urdu in independent India and migrated to Pakistan in 1956, but was not well-received by the authorities and pro-establishment media of Pakistan for his iconoclastic ideas and socialistic leanings. His autobiography Yadon Ki Barat was published in 1966. He died on February 22, 1982.