Progressive Writers' Movement

The Anjuman Tarraqi Pasand Mussanafin-e-Hind or Progressive Writers' Movement (Urdu: ترقی پسند مصنفین تحریک‎, Hindi: अखिल भारतीय प्रगतिशील लेखक संघ) was a progressive literary movement in pre-partition British India. Some branches of this writers' group existed around the world.

These groups were anti-imperialistic and left-oriented, and sought to inspire people through their writings advocating equality among all humans and attacking social injustice and backwardness in the society.

According to The Dawn newspaper, "Progressive Writers Movement in Urdu literature was the strongest movement after Sir Syed's education movement. The progressives contributed to Urdu literature some of the finest pieces of fiction and poetry. Undoubtedly, they were the trend-setters for the coming generation of writers."

Progressive Writers Movement has had a chequered career. Formed in 1936 in Lucknow, just one year after the London meeting of Indian writers, the motivating figure behind this organisation, whose Urdu name was Anjuman Taraqqi Pasand Musannifin, headed by Sajjad Zaheer. The other writers in the forefront were Dr Mulk Raj Anand, Dr Joshi Parshad, Permud Sen Gupta and Dr M. D. Taseer. Sajjad Zaheer had traced the account of its formation in his celebrated book 'Roshni'. It could be said that the Urdu writers were in the forefront of 'Anjuman Taraqqi Pasand Musannifin', but later on almost all the writers of Indian languages had their own organisations with the same aims and objectives: struggle against British imperialism for the liberation of India from the foreign yoke; struggle against the henchmen of imperialism, land for the tillers of the soil. The organisation regarded socialism as the proper economic system, which could end exploitation.Munshi Premchand, the great Urdu and later on Hindi writer inaugurated it. Rabindranath Tagore, Maulvi Abdul Haq, Chiragh Hasan Hasrat, Abdul Majeed Salik, Maulana Hasrat Mohani, Josh Malihabadi, Professor Ahmed Ali, Dr Akhtar Hussain Raipuri, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Professor Majnun Gorakhpuri, Dr Rashid Jahan, Sahibzada Mahmood uz Zafar, Professor Manzoor Hussain and Dr Abdul Aleem were some of the stalwarts whose active or lukewarm support was with the Anjuman Taraqqi Pasand Musannifin.

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