The Role Of Short Story Writing In Progression Of Urdu Literature

The progress, prosperity, and propagation of any language is greatly dependent on its literature. Luckily, Urdu has been a language that got assistance of literary brilliance of countless devotees whose work in different genres of Urdu literature has offered it quite a significant position in world literature. Almost all major genres of literature are treasured with unique and high quality work from Urdu language lovers.

Short story writing, termed as “Afsana Naveesi” in Urdu language, is a popular genre of literature in almost all the major languages of the world having their share in literature. Short story or “afsana” has become a permanent part of Urdu literature for well over 100 years by now, and has matured into a highly developed and liked genre of Urdu literature.

Different times and generations have added different dimensions to short story discipline of Urdu language. This century of progression has exposed “afsana” with certain unique characteristics. It has developed under the influence of different phases, such as, initial romantic period, followed by progressive writing era, modernistic writing era, and the ongoing period.  

Munshi Premchand set the strong foundations of Urdu short story writing around early 20^th century by producing short story marvels like “Kafan”, “Poos Ki Raat”, etc. His footsteps were followed by the likes of great authors including Krishan Chandar, Ghulam Abbas, Sadat Hassan Manto, Bedi, and Ismat Chughtai, to name a few.

The next generation of Urdu short story tellers comprised of Quratulain Haider, Jogindar Paul, Ashfaq Ahmad, Mumtaz Mufti, Qudrat Ullah Shahab, etc. They inspired current generation of writers like Neelam Ahmad Bashir, Zahida Hina, and Paigham Afaqui, to name a few.

Thus, these are all the devoted souls who contributed in progression of “afsana naveesi” in particular and Urdu literature in general.

Urdu: Still Struggling In India!

Urdu has always been a point of debate for the linguists and literary people. One of the most important points in this discussion is if Urdu belonged to a religion or region. Urdu has always been attributed to Muslims and religion Islam.  One of the reasons might be that Urdu was devised for the Muslim army initially.  Urdu is still struggling for its status in the whole world.

Not every language has been attributed to religion, but every language has been related or attributed to region. Javed Akhtar, famous Urdu poet said” other languages belong to a region but unfortunately Urdu is the only language which has been assigned a religion”. He further added that Urdu is the only language that talked about secularism and liberalism.

Another famous Urdu writer, Akhtarul Wasey, says that "Urdu language does not belong to a religion. None of the languages need religion but all religions need a language." Urdu being the official and national language of Pakistan has gained satisfactory status in the country. However, it is still struggling in India.

This is the language which showed its extreme power during independence. English has always been hated in this region, if we turn back the pages of history. Urdu, on the other hand side, has always been liked by this region, no matter in the form of Urdu or Hindi. Dr. Hameedullah Bhatt, famous Urdu literary personality, said that, "Urdu will be ahead of all the languages in future because future lies in convergence,"

Languages of Pakistan

There are two major languages that are being used in Pakistan. Urdu being the major and English is the official language in Pakistan. Besides these two languages, there are provincial languages spoken in Pakistan, mainly Pashto, Balochi, Sindhi and Punjabi.  Saraiki, Hindko and Kashmiri are also being spoken at local level in Pakistan.

The languages that are spoken in Pakistan belong to Indo-Iranian Branch of the Indo-European language family. Urdu is spoken by a majority of nearly 7.57 % population in Pakistan. The majority of the population speaks Punjabi, Punjab being the biggest province of the country. Nearly 44.4 % of the population speak Punjabi. The second mostly spoken language in Pakistan is Pashto. The Pashto Belt is nearly 15.42 % of the total population, followed by Sindhi, Saraiki and then Balochi.

Though Urdu is not spoken in masses, yet it enjoys the status of being national language of Pakistan.  It the mother tongue of nearly 8 % of the population, but it is understood by masses.  Now that the literacy rate of Pakistan is improving, it also strengthens the internal communication through channelizing the communication through mutually understood language.

Urdu enjoys the history of being one of the developmental languages, which was introduced during the Islamic conquests of the South Asian subcontinent.  It was devised for the betterment or improvement of the communication of the Muslim Army which belonged to different origins. Urdu itself is a Turkish word, which means army.