Notes Progressive Writers’ Movement and Causes of its Decline

Abstract

The Progressive Writers’ Association (PWA) had its beginning in the late thirties in India. In fact it was founded by Sajjad Zahir, Mulkraj Anand and others earlier in London. The conference of progressive writers in India was held in Lucknow in 1936 and was inaugurated by noted Urdu-Hindi writer Premchand whose birth centenary is being celebrated this year. Even the worst critic of the PWA will agree that this movement created new consciousness among creative writers in India. Most of the Urdu and Hindi writers adhered to classical notions of aesthetics and did not display much awareness of social reality around them, much less being critical of existing reality. I am of the opinion that it was not merely a writers’ club but a dynamic movement which infused new life in the creative literature.