Saadat Hasan Manto

Saadat Hasan Manto (/mɑːn, -tɒ/; Urdu: سعادت حسن منٹو‎, pronounced [səˈaːd̪ət̪ ˈɦəsən ˈməɳʈoː]; 11 May 1912 – 18 January 1955) was a writer, playwright and author born in Ludhiana active in British India and later, after the partition, in Pakistan.[2][3][4] Writing mainly in the Urdu language, he produced 22 collections of short stories, a novel, five series of radio plays, three collections of essays and two collections of personal sketches. His best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics.[5][6] Manto was known to write about the hard truths of society that no one dared to talk about. He is best known for his stories about the partition of India, which he opposed, immediately following independence in 1947.[7][8]

NI

Saadat Hasan Manto
Native name
سعادت حسن منٹو
Born(1912-05-11)11 May 1912
Samrala, Ludhiana, Punjab, British India
Died18 January 1955(1955-01-18) (aged 42)
Lahore, Punjab, West Pakistan
OccupationNovelist, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, short story writer
NationalityIndian (1912-1948)
Pakistani (1948-1955)
Period1934–1955
GenreDrama, nonfiction, satire, screenplays, personal correspondence
Notable worksToba Tek Singh; Thanda Gosht; Bu; Khol Do; Kaali Shalwar; Hattak
Notable awardsNishan-e-Imtiaz Award (Order of Excellence) in 2012 (posthumous)
RelativesMasud Pervaiz (d. 2001)[1]
Abid Hassan Minto
Ayesha Jalal

Manto was tried for obscenity six times; thrice before 1947 in British India, and thrice after independence in 1947 in Pakistan, but was never convicted.[9] He is acknowledged as one of the finest 20th century Urdu writers and is the subject of two biographical films: Manto, directed by Sarmad Khoosat and the 2018 film Manto, directed by Nandita Das.[10]

Biography

Early life

Saadat Hassan Manto was born in Paproudi village of Samrala, in the Ludhiana district of the Punjab in a Muslim family of barristers on 11 May 1912.[11][12] His father was a judge of a local court. He was ethnically a Kashmiri and proud of his roots. In a letter to Pandit Nehru he suggested that being 'beautiful' was the second meaning of being 'Kashmiri'.[13][14]

The big turning point in his life came in 1933, at age 21, when he met Abdul Bari Alig, a scholar and polemic writer who encouraged him to find his true talents and read Russian and French authors.[15]

Early career and Bombay

Within a matter of months, Manto produced an Urdu translation of Victor Hugo's The Last Day of a Condemned Man, which was published by Urdu Book Stall, Lahore as Sarguzasht-e-Aseer (A Prisoner's Story).[16] Soon afterwards he joined the editorial staff of Masawat, a daily paper published in Ludhiana.[17]

This heightened enthusiasm pushed Manto to pursue graduation at Aligarh Muslim University,[9] which he joined in February 1934, and soon got associated with Indian Progressive Writers' Association (IPWA). It was here that he met writer Ali Sardar Jafri and found a new spurt in his writing. His second story, "Inqlaab Pasand", was published in Aligarh magazine in March 1935.[18]

In 1934, Saadat Hasan Manto first came to Bombay (now Mumbai) and started to write for magazines, newspapers and writing scripts for the Hindi film industry.[19] During this time, he became good friends with Noor Jehan, Naushad, Ismat Chughtai, Shyam and Ashok Kumar. During this time, he lived in Foras Road, in the center of Bombay's red light area of Kamathipura. What he saw then around him had a profound impact on his writings.[20] Subsequently Manto had also accepted the job of writing for Urdu Service of All India Radio in 1941. This proved to be his most productive period as in the next eighteen months he published over four collections of radio plays, Aao (Come), Manto ke Drame (Manto's Dramas), Janaze (Funerals) and Teen Auraten (Three women). He continued to write short stories and his next short story collection Dhuan (Smoke) was soon out followed by Manto ke Afsane and his first collection of topical essays, Manto ke Mazamin. This period culminated with the publication of his mixed collection Afsane aur Dramey in 1943. Meanwhile, due to a quarrel with the director of All India Radio, poet N. M. Rashid, he left his job and returned to Bombay in July 1942 and again started working with film industry. He entered his best phase in screenwriting giving films like Aatth Din, Shikari,[21] Chal Chal Re Naujawan and Mirza Ghalib, which was finally released in 1954. Some of his short stories also came from this phase including Kaali Shalwar (1941), Dhuan (1941) and Bu (1945), which was published in Qaumi Jang (Bombay) in February 1945. Another highlight of his second phase in Bombay was the publication of a collection of his stories, Chugad, which also included the story 'Babu Gopinath'.[18] He stayed in Bombay until he moved to Pakistan in January 1948 after the partition of India in 1947.

Migration to Pakistan

As a resident of Bombay, Manto had intended to stay in India after partition.[22] In 1948, his wife and children went to Lahore to visit their relatives and friends. During this time, as stories of the atrocities of partition riots reached him, in the midst of occasional communal riots in Mumbai itself, he decided to migrate to Pakistan, and left for it by ship. Manto and his family thus found themselves as "muhajirs" (refugees from India) and were among the millions of Muslims who left present-day India for the new Muslim-majority nation of Pakistan.[23]

Life in Lahore

When Manto arrived in Lahore from Bombay, he associated with several intellectuals at Lahore's Pak Tea House. According to one commentator: "There was absolutely no external influence and people would share their opinions on any subject without fear even during the military dictators' regimes."[24] In Lahore, Manto lived with his wife and family in a room in Lakshmi mansion, located near Butt Tikka.[25] The three storied building was built by Lala Lajpat Rai's Lakshmi insurance company in 1938, inaugurated by Sarojini Naidu, and was at one time the residence of K.Santhanam, an eminent lawyer and the family of a jeweler called Girdharilal.[26] However, it was abandoned during the partition riots of 1947-48. The mansion is currently dilapidated and uninhabited, though its façade still exists, renovated and painted.[27][28]

Death

In his later years, Manto had become increasingly alcoholic, which eventually led to cirrhosis of the liver. He died on 18 January 1955, in a mental asylum off Hall Road in Lahore. His death was attributed to the effects of alcoholism.[29] He was survived by his wife Safia and daughters Nighat, Nuzhat and Nusrat. His daughter Nighat Bashir Patel still lives in the vicinity of the house where Manto lived.[30]

Legacy

Manto was a writer whose life story became a subject of intense discussion and introspection.[31] During the last two decades, many stage productions were done to present his character in conflict with the harsh socio-economic realities of the post-partition era. Danish Iqbal's stage Play Ek Kutte Ki Kahani presented Manto in a new perspective on occasion of his birth centenary.

On 18 January 2005, the fiftieth anniversary of his death, Manto was commemorated on a Pakistani postage stamp.[15] On 14 August 2012 which is Pakistan's Independence Day, Saadat Hasan Manto was posthumously awarded the Nishan-e-Imtiaz award (Distinguished Service to Pakistan Award) by the Government of Pakistan.[32]

In 2015, Pakistani actor and director Sarmad Khoosat made and released a movie, Manto, based on the life of Manto.[33] In 2018, the British Broadcasting Corporation named the work Toba Tek Singh among the 100 stories that shaped the world, alongside works by authors like Homer and Virginia Woolf.[34]

The 2018 film Manto, made by Nandita Das and starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui, is a Bollywood film based on the life of Manto.[35]

On 11 May 2020, Google celebrated his 108th birthday with a Google Doodle.[36]

Writings

Manto chronicled the chaos that prevailed, during and after the Partition of India in 1947.[37][38] Manto strongly opposed the partition of India, which he saw as an "overwhelming tragedy" and "maddeningly senseless".[7][39] He started his literary career translating the works of Victor Hugo, Oscar Wilde and Russian writers such as Chekhov and Gorky. His first story was "Tamasha", based on the Jallianwala Bagh massacre at Amritsar.[18] Though his earlier works, influenced by the progressive writers of his times, showed a marked leftist and socialist leanings, his later work progressively became stark in portraying the darkness of the human psyche, as humanist values progressively declined around the Partition.[38][40]

"A writer picks up his pen only when his sensibility is hurt."[37]
-- Manto to a court judge

His final works, which grew from the social climate and his own financial struggles, reflected an innate sense of human impotency towards darkness and contained satire that verged on dark comedy, as seen in his final work, Toba Tek Singh.[41] It not only showed the influence of his own demons, but also that of the collective madness that he saw in the ensuing decade of his life. To add to it, his numerous court cases and societal rebukes deepened his cynical view of society, from which he felt isolated.[42] No part of human existence remained untouched or taboo for him, he sincerely brought out stories of prostitutes and pimps alike, just as he highlighted the subversive sexual slavery of the women of his times.[43] To many contemporary women writers, his language portrayed reality and provided them with the dignity they long deserved.[44] He is still known for his scathing insight into human behaviour as well as revelation of the macabre animalistic nature of the enraged people, that stands out amidst the brevity of his prose.[37]

"We’ve been hearing this for some time now — Save India from this, save it from that. The fact is that India needs to be saved from the people who say it should be saved.[45]
-- Manto

At least one commentator compares Saadat Hasan Manto to D. H. Lawrence, partly because he wrote about taboos of Indo-Pakistani Society.[46] His concerns on the socio-political issues, from local to global are revealed in his series, Letters to Uncle Sam, and those to Pandit Nehru.[37] On his writing he often commented, "If you find my stories dirty, the society you are living in is dirty. With my stories, I only expose the truth".[47]

Controversies

Conservative critique: charge for obscenity

Manto faced trial for obscenity in his writings in both India (then under British rule) and Pakistan, including three times in India before 1947 (‘Dhuan’, ‘Bu’ and ‘Kali Shalwar’) and three times in Pakistan after 1947 (‘Khol Do’, ‘Thanda Gosht’ and ‘Upar Neeche Darmiyaan’) under section 292 of the Indian Penal Code (by the British Government) and the Pakistan Penal Code in Pakistan’s early years.[48] He was fined only in one case. Regarding the charges of obscenity he opined, "I am not a pornographer but a story writer".[49]

Progressive critique: migration to Pakistan

While the conservative or right-wing section of the society criticised him on moral grounds, the progressives or Marxists and leftists criticised him for ideological reasons, namely for his migration to Pakistan and embrace of Pakistani nationalism, Manto then being championed by traditional minded literary critics such as Hasan Askari and Mumtaz Shirin.[50]

Bibliography
  • Atish Paray (Nuggets of Fire) – 1936 آتش پارے
  • Chugad – چُغد
  • Manto Ke Afsanay (Stories of Manto) – 1940 منٹو کے افسانے
  • Dhuan (Smoke) – 1941 دُھواں
  • Afsane Aur Dramay (Fiction and Drama) – 1943 افسانے اور ڈرامے
  • Khol Do (Open It) – 1948 کھول دو
  • Lazzat-e-Sang – 1948 (The Taste of Rock) لذتِ سنگ
  • Siyah Hashiye – 1948 (Black Borders) سیاہ حاشیہ
  • Badshahat Ka Khatimah (The End of Kingship) – 1950 بادشاہت کا خاتمہ
  • Khali Botlein (Empty Bottles) – 1950 خالی بوتلیں
  • Loud Speaker (Sketches) لاؤڈ سپیکر
  • Ganjey Farishtey (Sketches) گنجے فرشتے
  • Manto ke Mazameen منٹو کے مضا مین
  • Nimrud Ki Khudai (Nimrod The God) – 1950 نمرود کی خُدائی
  • Thanda Gosht (Cold Meat) – 1950 ٹھنڈا گوشت
  • Yazid – 1951 یزید
  • Pardey Ke Peechhey (Behind The Curtains) – 1953 پردے کے پیچھے
  • Sarak Ke Kinarey (By the Roadside) – 1953 سڑک کے کنارے
  • Baghair Unwan Ke (Without a Title) – 1954 بغیر عنوان کے
  • Baghair Ijazit (Without Permission) – 1955 بغیر اجازت
  • Toba Tek Singh – 1955 ٹوبہ ٹیک سنگھ
  • Burquey – 1955 بُرقعے
  • Phunduney (Tassles) – 1955 پھندنے
  • Sarkandon Ke Peechhey (Behind The Reeds) – 1955 سرکنڈوں کے پیچھے
  • Shaiytan (Satan) – 1955 شیطان
  • Shikari Auratein (Hunter Women) – 1955 شکاری عورتیں
  • Ratti, Masha, Tolah – 1956 رتی ماشہ تولہ
  • Kaali Shalwar (Black Pants) – 1961 کالی شلوار
  • Manto Ki Behtareen Kahanian (Best Stories of Manto) – 1963 منٹو کی بہترین کہانیاں
  • Tahira Se Tahir (From Tahira to Tahir) – 1971 طاہرہ سے طاہر
  • Mottled Dawn: Fifty Sketches and Stories of Partition - 1997

Further reading
  • Manto Naama, by Jagdish Chander Wadhawan.1998, Roli Books.
  • Manto Naama: The Life of Saadat Hasan Manto, English translation of the above by Jai Ratan, 1998, Roli Books.
  • Life and Works of Saadat Hasan Manto, by Alok Bhalla. 1997, Indian Institute of Advanced Study. ISBN 81-85952-48-5.
  • The Life and Works of Saadat Hasan Manto. Introduction by Leslie Flemming; trans. by Tahira Naqvi. Lahore, Pakistan: Vanguard Books Ltd., 1985.
  • Another Lonely Voice: The Urdu Short Stories of Saadat Hasan Manto, by Leslie A. Flemming, Berkeley: Centre for South and South east Asian Studies. University of California. 1979.[51]
  • Madness and Partition: The Short Stories of Saadat Hasan Manto, Stephen Alter, Journal of Comparative Poetics, No. 14, Madness and Civilization/ al-Junun wa al-Hadarah (1994), pp. 91–100.[52]
  • Bitter Fruit: The Very Best of Saadat Hassan Manto, edited and tr. by Khalid Hassan, Penguin, 2008.
  • Naked Voices: Stories and Sketches by Manto, Ed. and tr. by Rakhshanda Jalil. Indian Ink & Roli Books, 2008.
  • Stars from Another Sky: The Bombay Film World of the 1940s, tr. by Khalid Hasan. Penguin India, 2000.
  • Manto: Selected Stories, tr. by Aatish Taseer. Vintage/Random House India, 2008. ISBN 81-84001-44-4.
  • The Pity of Partition: Manto’s Life, Times, and Work across the India-Pakistan Divide. Ayesha Jalal.
  • Pinglay-Plumber, Prachi (12 January 2015). "Manto Bridge : to Manto, Bombay was about its people". Outlook. 55 (1): 72–73. Retrieved 6 January 2016.
  • Dozakhnama - A Novel: A biography of Manto and Ghalib and history of Indian culture combined into one by Rabisankar Bal, translated by Arunava Sinha. Random House India.[53]

References
  1. Jalal, Ayesha (2013). The Pity of Partition: Manto's Life, Times, and Work across the India-Pakistan Divide. Princeton University Press. p. 216. ISBN 978-1400846689.
  2. https://www.economist.com/prospero/2012/05/14/a-writer-of-fierce-candour
  3. https://thewire.in/books/saadat-hasan-manto-kashmir
  4. "Dareechah-e-Nigaarish - Saadat Hasan Manto (1912-1955)". Dareechah.com. Retrieved 19 September 2018.
  5. "Saadat Hasan Manto". Penguin Books India. Archived from the original on 30 March 2016.
  6. "The Storyteller: Saadat Hasan Manto (May 11, 1912 - January 18, 1955". Dawn. 6 May 2012. Retrieved 18 March 2016.
  7. Manzoor, Sarfraz (11 June 2016). "Saadat Hasan Manto: 'He anticipated where Pakistan would go'". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 March 2019. The partition was brutal and bloody, and to Saadat Hasan Manto, a Muslim journalist, short-story author and Indian film screenwriter living in Bombay, it appeared maddeningly senseless. Manto was already an established writer before August 1947, but the stories he would go on to write about partition would come to cement his reputation. ... Manto had been implacably opposed to partition and had refused to go to the newly formed Pakistan.
  8. Mehta, Suketu (8 May 2014). "Pearls of Regret". The New York Times. Retrieved 30 March 2017.
  9. "Saadat Hasan Manto's 104th birth anniversary: Facts about the best short-story writer in South Asia". India Today. 11 May 2016. Retrieved 14 September 2018.
  10. Thakur, Tanul (21 September 2018). "'Manto' Is an Unflinching Account of a Man's Descent Into Paranoia". The Wire. Retrieved 14 January 2019.
  11. Flemming, Leslie A. (1979). Another Lonely Voice: The Urdu Short Stories of Saadat Hasan Manto. Center for South and Southeast Asia Studies, University of California. p. 2.
  12. Samiuddin, Abida (2007). Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Urdu Literature. Global Vision Publishing House. p. 391. ISBN 978-8182201910.
  13. Reeck, Matt; Ahmad, Aftab (2012). Bombay Stories. Random House India. ISBN 9788184003611. He claimed allegiance not only to his native Punjab but also to his ancestors' home in Kashmir. While raised speaking Punjabi, he was also proud of the remnants of Kashmiri culture that his family maintained-food customs, as well as intermarriage with families of Kashmiri origin-and throughout his life he assigned special importance to others who had Kashmiri roots. In a tongue-in-cheek letter addressed to Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru, he went so far as to suggest that being beautiful was the second meaning of being Kashmiri
  14. Pandita, Rahul (2013). Our Moon Has Blood Clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits. Random House India. ISBN 9788184003901. By virtue of his disposition, temperament, features and his spirit, Manto remains a Kashmiri Pandit.
  15. "Saadat Hasan Manto (1912-1955) Men of Letters". Pakistan Post. Archived from the original on 25 December 2017.
  16. "Saadat Hasan Manto Biography". BookRags. Retrieved 18 March 2016.
  17. "सआदत हसन मंटो". Abhivyakti-hindi.org (in Hindi). Retrieved 18 March 2016.
  18. Dutt, Sharad (10 May 2005). "बैरिस्टर के बेटे से लेखक होने तक" (in Hindi). BBC Hindi. Retrieved 18 March 2016.
  19. Mohan, Devendra (2 October 2018). "Manto, the man, the movie". Asian Affairs. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
  20. Khan, Shah Alam (24 September 2018). "'Manto' Is Not Only Worth Watching, It Is Also Worth Remembering". The Wire. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
  21. "Shikari". Retrore. Retrieved 21 May 2017.
  22. Manzoor, Sarfraz (11 June 2016). "Saadat Hasan Manto: 'He anticipated where Pakistan would go'". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
  23. Manto, Saadat Hasan. Ganjay Farishtay. p. 190. Retrieved 4 September 2015.
  24. Hussain, Abid (19 March 2015). "Not everyone's cup of tea". The Herald. Retrieved 6 September 2015.
  25. Das, Nandita (7 April 2015). "Lahore's charm is distinct: Nandita Das falls in love with the walled city". Dawn. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
  26. Das, Nandita (6 April 2015). "Lahore diary - If you haven't seen Lahore, you haven't even been born". Scroll. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
  27. Damohi, Usman. Karachi - Tareekh ke aayiney meain.
  28. Balouch, Akhtar (14 December 2013). "Manto's Lakshmi". Dawn. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
  29. Farooq, Mohammad (18 January 2018). "Saadat Hasan Manto, the family man". Live Mint. Retrieved 27 December 2018.
  30. Rehman, Noor Ur (14 August 2018). "Lakshmi Mansion: Now A Decrepit Void". Charcoal and gravel. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
  31. "Tributes paid to Manto". Dawn. 11 May 2012. Retrieved 19 January 2016.
  32. "Abida Parveen, Aleem Dar among winners Posthumous awards for Manto, Mehdi Hassan". Dawn. 14 August 2012. Retrieved 12 August 2015.
  33. Jalil, Xari (8 September 2015). "Behind the scenes: How Manto, the movie, came about". Dawn. Retrieved 19 January 2016.
  34. "The 100 stories that shaped the world". BBC Culture. 22 May 2018. Retrieved 22 May 2018.
  35. "Look who's playing Nawazuddin Siddiqui's friend in Manto". DNA. 25 February 2017. Retrieved 16 May 2018.
  36. "Saadat Hasan Manto's 108th Birthday". Google. 11 May 2020.
  37. "Social and Political World-View of Saadat Hasan Manto". Kashmir Sentinel. Retrieved 18 March 2016.
  38. Chatterjee, Aparna. "Saadat Hasan Manto: A Profile". Boloji.com. Archived from the original on 30 July 2017.
  39. Bhalla, Alok (1997). Life and works of Saadat Hasan Manto. Indian Institute of Advanced Study. p. 113. One can, however, assert that the finest short/ stories about the period were written by Saadat Hasan Manto. For him the partition was an overwhelming tragedy.
  40. "A short story by Sadat Hasan Manto: A Biographical Sketch". Mahfil. 1 (1): 12. 1963. Retrieved 18 March 2016.
  41. "Manto's undivided people & divided us". The Tribune. 6 September 2015. Retrieved 18 March 2016.
  42. "Some Closing Thoughts on Saadat Hasan Manto's Centenary". Pak Tea House. 19 December 2012. Retrieved 18 March 2016.
  43. Manto, Saadat Hasan (2008). Bitter Fruit: The Very Best of Saadat Hasan Manto. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0143102175. Retrieved 18 March 2016.
  44. Shani, Sufia (10 May 2005). "औरत को इंसान के रुप में पेश किया" (in Hindi). BBC Hindi. Retrieved 18 March 2016.
  45. "Manto's Anna Hazare moment: Who will save India? - Living News , Firstpost". Firstpost. 28 February 2013. Retrieved 26 November 2020.
  46. Shani, Sufia (10 May 2005). "प्रामाणिक रुप से लिखने वाला क्रांतिकारी कथाकार" (in Hindi). BBC Hindi. Retrieved 18 March 2016.
  47. Manto, Saadat Hasan (10 May 2005). "मैं क्या लिखता हूँ?" (in Hindi). BBC Hindi. Retrieved 18 March 2016.
  48. Tariq, Bashir (20 March 2015). "Sentence First – Verdict Afterwards". The Friday Times. Retrieved 20 February 2017.
  49. Jalal, Ayesha (2013). The Pity of Partition: Manto's Life, Times, and Work across the India-Pakistan Divide. Princeton University Press. p. 109. ISBN 978-1400846689.
  50. Parekh, Rauf (4 March 2008). "Mumtaz Shirin & movement for Pakistani literature". Dawn News. Retrieved 17 January 2021.
  51. Memon, Muhammad Umar (1981). "Reviewed work: Another Lonely Voice: The Urdu Short Stories of Saadat Hasan Manto., Leslie A. Flemming". The Journal of Asian Studies. 40 (3): 627–629. doi:10.2307/2054591. JSTOR 2054591.
  52. Alter, Stephen; ﺃﻟﺘﺮ, ﺳﺘﻴﭭﻦ (1994). "Madness and Partition: The Short Stories of Saadat Hasan Manto / ﺍﻟﺠﻨﻮﻥ ﻭﺍﻟﺘﻘﺴﻴﻢ : ﻗﺼﺺ ﺳﻌﺎﺩﺕ ﺣﺴﻦ ﻣﻨﺘﻮ ﺍﻟﻘﺼﻴﺮﺓ". Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics (14): 91–100. JSTOR 521767.
  53. Bal, Rabishankar (2 December 2012). Dozakhnama. India: Random House India. p. 544. ISBN 9788184003086.
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