HISTORY THE RISE AND FALL OF THE PROGRESSIVE WRITERS' MOVEMENT.

One of the most significant literary movements to emerge from India - the All-India Progressive Writers' Movement (AIPWM) - had its roots in the political revolution that formed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1917 and its consolidation.

Though AIPWM has left behind a rich literary legacy that aimed to bring to the surface various sufferings of people in India, it became controversial soon after its creation. Accused of 'using the plight of a common man to push a Marxist agenda backed by the Soviet Union', it was eventually dismantled.

Under the banner of socialist realism - an ideological catalyst in the early 20th century - the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union merged all its existing literary organisations to create the Writers' Union of USSR. As it gained complete agency over Soviet literature, the Writers' Union came to play a vital role in sustaining communist doctrine by influencing fiction and distributing it to the masses.

Soviet fiction became popular in other parts of the world. A few years after the Writers' Union had been established, the socialist intellectuals of India, who at that time had been scattered throughout the country, joined together to organise the first All-India Progressive Writers' Conference in Lucknow. The meeting was led by renowned Urdu writer Sajjad Zaheer and the presidential address was delivered by none other than Jawaharlal Nehru.

One of the most influential literary movements of the Subcontinent was inspired by Marxist ideology emanating from the Soviet Union. The partition of the Subcontinent and the movement's close alignment with political ideology led to its undoing as well

A LITERARY MOVEMENT IS BORN

Lucknow in the 1930s was a roaring hub of zestful voices and endless discourse.

Four years prior to the conference, a collection of nine short stories and one play, titled Angaarey, was published in Urdu, authored by four young writers: Rashid Jahan, Ahmed Ali, Mahmud-uz-Zafar and Sajjad Zaheer. The book was considered so controversial that it was banned months after its publication and the authors faced a trial in Lucknow for hurting communal sentiments.

As copies of Angaarey were burnt in a public display of hostility towards emerging liberalism in literature, Ahmed Ali would call Angaarey a 'declaration of war by the youth.'

In 1936, the same year when the first All-India Progressive Writers' Conference took place, the Communist Party of India formed its farmers' wing and, at the annual session of the Indian National Congress, the Communist Party of India united with the Congress Socialist Party to challenge the right wing's longstanding authority. A cultural and political shift was inevitable, and it would come to life by introducing a new ideology to the masses through a literary movement.

The manifesto of the All-India Progressive...