Art by Khuda Bux Abro
While the crop of what can be called his most seasoned offerings ripened in later years, Faiz's early poetry and his linkages with the Progressive Writers' Movement (PWM) hold a key to many of his lifelong concerns. This article deals with his career largely in connection with the Progressive Writers' Movement (PWM) – a socio-political-literary movement that raged like a tornado from the 1930s till the 1950s and left a lasting imprint on the literatures of South Asia.
Faiz's introduction to the progressives took place in 1935, when he joined the staff of the Muhammedan Anglo-Oriental (MAO) College in Amritsar. Here, Faiz was drawn to the vice-principal, Mahmuduzzafar Khan, and his wife, the charismatic Rashid Jahan. These two introduced him to communists and their sympathisers, both from the Punjab as well as visitors from Aligarh, Lucknow and elsewhere, such as Sajjad Zaheer and Mohibbul Hasan. Sajjad Zaheer, founder-member of the PWM and one of its most vigorous proponents, in his Roshnai, the only history of the movement, makes several light-hearted references to the young Faiz, who seemed a trifle bemused by Rashid Jahan's forthrightness. Roshnai also documents Zaheer's first meeting with Faiz, in January 1936, and recalls how neither Zaheer nor his hosts knew that this shy young man wrote poetry. Mahmuduzzafar merely regarded him as a young teacher with good taste in books, since he borrowed Stephen Spender and W H Auden from his collection.
In early 1936, Zaheer travelled to Lahore in the company of Faiz, Mahmuduzzafar and Rashid Jahan. There, they met Mian Iftikharuddin and other prominent Punjabi writers and, with the active help of Faiz, set up the Lahore branch of the Progressive Writers' Association (PWA). Local units of the PWA had been springing up all over the country; their members would meet in April 1936 for the first-ever all-India conference and announce the launch of a radical new movement. During the Amritsar days, Faiz also became drawn into the trade union and civil-liberties movements, concerns that would occupy him for the rest of his life. And it was here that he began to take part in the great debate of his day: 'Art for Art's Sake' vs 'Art for Life's Sake', that is, the debate on whether or not literature should be socially-engaged and grounded to life and reality.