angari is an edited volume of essays containing memories and experiences from the members of Sangat, a collective of Punjabi writers, literary critics, cultural activists and artists from various disciplines. At first glance, Vangari looks like a plain book, a labour of love and commitment to the cause of Punjabi language and culture. However, a bare reading of the book quickly shows that Sangat’s basis of unity is the organic link between the politics of the marginalised in the Punjab and their language, Punjabi. This link gives Sangat’s theory and practices a distinct colour, unique among the Punjab’s many shades of progressive politics and literature.

Sangat was started in 1973 by Najm Hosain Syed as a literary circle and gathering with literary and intellectual figures and students, of whom many rose over time to national and international fame. The narratives in the book show that Sangat turned into a collective of several projects arising out of the initiative of its members, advancing the cause of Sangat in Punjabi literature, theatre, music, publishing and activism over time. An umbrella cultural group named Sangat still exists and meets regularly. Many of its participants hold study circles and organise collectives of artists, theatre activists and musicians.

Another important activity inspired by the intellectual thrust of Sangat is its theatre group, organised by its director and teacher, Huma Safdar. This group, away from the limelight and commercial temptations, performs in villages and cities, at protest demonstrations and peasant and labour gatherings. Accounts, photos and experiences of their practice from members of the group in Vangari show that they have maintained the distinct colour of their politics in cultural practice despite the general degeneration of Left politics in Pakistan, which has become lost in the quest for elite liberal democracy, civil society and NGO discourses, over the recent decades. Members of Sangat have kept alive the themes of revolt and resistance of the oppressed in their theatrical performances and discussions embedded in Punjabi classics and interpreted in the writings of Najm Hosain Syed, who has authored a vast repository of writings containing plays, poems and prose for over five decades. The theatre group has also kept alive the tradition of the Punjabi parcha with its regular newsletter, Suchait Pandhri, which documents its performances, activities and experiences across Pakistan.

Any account of the Sangat and its activities today would also be incomplete without the musical contributions and singing of Shafqat Hussain and a team of many young members who learn from him and actively participate in the Sangat’s activities across its various platforms.

Vangari also documents the many projects developed by members of the Sangat, which continued its mission at various other forums. These included the Punjabi Adbi Markaz, Kitab Tirinjin, magazines like Rut Lekha and Maan Boli and Sajjan, which lasted from 1989 to 1991 and was the first Punjabi daily newspaper in the country. One of the most notable contributions of the Sangat is the work of its member and renowned literary critic Maqsood Saqib who has continued to serve the cause of the marginalised in the Punjab, their language, history and culture through Suchait Kitab Ghar and its publications such as Pancham magazine, which has been in continuous publication since 1998.

Vangari uses a collective method to tell the story of the Sangat through the memories and experiences of various members who have contributed essays to the book. The approach challenges dominant historiographical techniques, shunning mega-narratives and describing the Sangat as seen through the eyes of those who have been or are a part of the movement. This allows the readers to see Sangat in all its complexity. It seems that the book’s editor was confident that despite different subjective experiences and perceptions of its members, there is a common core and soul at the heart of the Sangat, which readers will be able to recognise and relate to.

Vangari leaves its reader curious to find out what this core is. What did the Sangat set out to do and what it has achieved. Is the Sangat a mission or a movement? How to capture or conceptualise the soul of the Sangat’s mission? How to theorise it?

For this reviewer, Sangat, by pointing out the importance of language and culture for the cause of the Punjabi masses and then producing a vast array of literary interpretations of Punjabi classics from the class perspective, has sought to indigenise Marxism and working-class politics in the Punjab. This places the Sangat and its politics amongst a unique strand in the politics of the marginalised in the Punjab. To properly appreciate this contribution of the Sangat, we need to capture the essence of the time when the project was inspired.

The late 1960s and early 1970s were a time of nation-building projects. Many newly independent countries were grappling with postcolonial confusion, questions of identity and self-realisation. The post-independence elite nation-building projects under the leadership of the upper classes were beginning to collapse, especially in countries such as Pakistan and India, and the task of independence and establishing an egalitarian society was falling into the hands of the most marginalised. The traditional Left in Pakistan was unconditionally and uncritically tied to the ethnonationalist politics of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. The politics of this [traditional] Left was the victim of economism, technological reductionism and evolutionism of orthodox or “official” Marxism of the Soviet Union. It had borrowed liberal enlightenment and modernity and attempted to apply it wholeheartedly in the Pakistani context without regard to indigenous histories of people’s struggles and their methods. As a result, it treated local culture as backward, primitive and needing change under the leadership of modernising figures, prompting the masses to follow their lead.

However, by the late 1960s, this dream had been shattered by the failure of the nation-building projects in the Third World. The failure was remarkably captured by writers like Frantz Fanon, who pit the hopes of the oppressed on the radical struggles of peasants starting in countries struggling against imperialism. In the Punjab, this wave was reflected in the politics of organisations such as the Mazdoor Kissan Party (MKP) and the Professors’ Group, with intellectuals such as Major Ishaq, Eric Cyprian and Dr Aziz-u -Haq, who were trying to place the politics of the Left in the hands of the most marginalised classes. Towering literary figures like Najm Hosain Syed, Manzoor Ejaz and Maqsood Saqib carried these intellectual insights into the literary and cultural sphere of the Punjab. Their contributions resulted in the Sangat project, which continues to this day through the efforts of its younger members and activists.

While the Sangat’s work continues in the cultural sphere, the political project degenerated into liberalism and the quest for liberal democracy and the West-led human rights campaigns in the face of the stronghold of the military and extremist Islam in politics. It should be noted that trends parallel to the political project led by the MKP in the Punjab continued elsewhere in the form of the struggles led by Adivasis, Dalits, landless and rural workers and small-holding peasants in India and Nepal.

The current crisis of democracy and its open co-optation by authoritarian institutions and the miseries of the people in Pakistan have laid bare the failure of its ruling elites and have once again given rise to the politics of the most marginalised. This can be seen in the rising number of youth interested in critical thinking, resistance and struggle. For them, the work of the Sangat in the literary and cultural sphere of the Punjab is a valuable reservoir of organic and indigenous cultural and political practice. Vangari is, therefore, a very relevant and timely intervention likely to serve as a wonderful inspiration and starting point.

Vangari

Editor: Huma Safdar

Pages: 224

Publisher: Suchet Kitab Ghar, Lahore, 2023

Price: Rs 400

The reviewer is a literary critic and academic. He is currently an associate professor of law at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS)