MAKATEEB-I-NIGAM

(Edited with notes by Mohammad Ayyub Waqif, Bombay, Published by Munshi Daya Narain Nigam Memorial Trust, Chakbast Road, Lucknow—Price Rs. 20.00)

“Makateeb—i—Nigam”, edited by Mohammad Ayyub Waqif is a collection of 89 letters, written by the late Munshi Daya Narain Nigam to a number of Urdu writers and poets in India, including Ahsan Marehrvi, Basheshwar Prashad Munawwar, Josh Malihabadi, Shiam Mohan Lal J igar and Abdur Razzaq Qureshi.

Daya Narain Nigam (1882—1942) was an Urdu litterateur having a multi-dimensional personality. As founder-editor of the monthly “Zamana”, Kanpur, he introduced a large number of young Urdu prose-writers and poets to the Urdu world. “Zamana” alongwith “Makhzan” (Lahore) and “Makhzan”(Delhi) had the distinction of publishing in the first three decades of the present century a large number of poems and prose articles by prominent Urdu poets and writers like Durga Sahai Surror, Iqbal, Brij Narain Chakbast, Akbar Allahabadi, Tilok Chand Mahru-n, Josh Malihabadi, Firaq Gorakhpuri, Ghulam Bheek Nairang, Maharaj Bahadur Barq, Abu Nasr Aah (Maulana Abut Kalam Azad’s elder brother), Sadiq Az Kashmir ( A Kashmiri poet of Urdu, whom we in Jammu and Kashmir have now almost completely forgotten), Lala Lajpat Rai and many others. The readers of the present write-up would be interested to know that Iqbal’s poem “Sare Jahan Se achha Hindostan Hamara” originally appeared in the “‘Zamana” under the title “Hamara Des”. It was after the poet had revised the poem and made substantial changes in it that he included it in his first Urdu collection of poems “Bang-i-Dara” under the title “Tarana—i—Hindi”.

The dozen of Urdu Litterateurs,Munshi Pram Chand, who originally started his literary career under the name of Nawwab Rai, followed by another pen-name, Dhanpat Rai, first of all appeared in the “Zamana”. His first collection of short stories entitlted “Soz-i-Watan”, which was prescribed by the then Government of India, was also printed and published by Daya Narain Nigam.

It would be without any exaggeratior to say that Daya Narain Nigam wrote in his life time hundreds of letters to Urdu writers of standing in India, particularly in his capacity as Editor “Zamana” (1903—1942). Most of these letters have by now perhaps gone out of existence. The present writer vividly remembers to have seen in 1935 a large number of Daya Narain Nigam’s letters addressed to Tilok Chand Mahrum in his ancestral house in Isakhel (now in Pakistan), carelessly dumped in a cane-basket alongwith many other letters from various Urdu writers of that period. Mohammad Ayyub Waqif has really done a highly creditable job by collecting Daya Narain Nigam’s 89 letters from various sources and putting then together, alongwith his scholarly marginal notes, in the form of the book under review. Mr.Waqif has also added to the book a valuable preface wherein he has thrown good deal of light on the life of Daya Narain Nigam vis-a-vis Urdu literature in Northern India in the first half of the twentieth century.

Mohammad Ayyub Waqif, a young scholar from Bombay, has &commendable literary back-ground, having had long association with the Shibli National College, Azamgarh, Darul Musannifin, Azamgarh and Anjamun-i-Islam Research Institute, Bombay and, this background has successfully been manifested in all the books he has written,namely “Sudarshan Ki Afsana Nigari”, “Jagan Nath Azad—Ek—Mutalia” and “Ali Sardar Jafri : Shakhsiyat Aur Shairi”. The book under review “Makateeb-i-Daya Narain Nigam”, which has recently seen the light of the day is his fourth publication and is a valuable addition to the literature produced on life and letters of Urdu writers and scholars. It is hoped the book will be received with the same warmth by lovers of Urdu in India and Pakistan, with which his earlier books have been received.

Prof. Jagan Nath Azad