IN THE 1930S, under the umbrella of the fight for independence, a think tank of influential leaders had begun to chalk out another agenda. In a historic confer-ence in 1936 at Luknow’s Darulshafa Common Hall, the manifesto of the Progressive Writers Association (PWA) was read out to a packed audience comprising Munshi Premchand, Mulk Raj Anand and Sarojini Naidu. The new literature of India would highlight the problems of hunger, poverty, social backward-ness and slavery. Under the leader-ship of Comrade Sajjad Zaheer, PWA became a driving force in the development of regional literature. Fondly addressed as Bannebhai, the writer, staunch communist and freedom fighter men-tored a generation of litterateurs including Kaifi Azmi, Sardar Jaffrey, Firaq Gorakhpuri and Ma-jrooh Sultanpuri.

Marking his birth centenary in 2006, theatre-person and daughter Nadira Zaheer Babbar for-mally ends a yearlong commemoration of his life with a celebration in Mumbai in November, as a tribute to her father and his legacy of progressive writing. Similar three-day events have already taken place in Bhopal, Ranchi, Kerala, Allahabad and Luknow. “Aside from a film on his life, we’re also inviting fresh scripts based on his ideas for a Maharashtra Theatre Festival,” says Nadira. Zaheer was an active communist during his student days in Oxford. Along with companions Mulk Raj Anand and Hiren Mukherjee among others, he drew out a rough sketch of PWA in a London café. Being a penniless association, the first meeting in Luknow was a shoestring affair fraught with chaos. “Train timings had changed and no one went to the station to receive Premc-hand who was to preside over the meeting. Everyone was shocked when they saw him coming in a tanga. They apologised profusely, but Mun-shi chacha knew they had no money and told them to think nothing of it,” recalls Noor Zaheer, Nadira’s younger sister, an author herself. Za-heer travelled the country rallying writers and mobilising units of the PWA. Not only did he edit Chingari, the CPI mouthpiece, but even roamed the streets selling copies.

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