Sajjad Zaheer

Syed Sajjad Zaheer was an Urdu writer, Marxist ideologue, and radical revolutionary who served as a member of the Communist Party of India. He became a founding member of the Communist Party of Pakistan following the partition of India. His life involved significant political activism and extensive literary contributions across South Asia.

Early life and education

Zaheer was born in Lucknow on 5 November 1905. He was the fourth son of Syed Wazir Hasan, who served as a judge at the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad. After earning his BA degree in English literature from the University of Lucknow in 1924, he moved to New College, Oxford for further studies. During his final year at Oxford, he contracted tuberculosis and required treatment at a sanatorium in Switzerland.

Upon returning to England, he joined the Oxford Majlis after being influenced by the communist leader Shapurji Saklatvala. He attended the second Congress of the League Against Imperialism in Frankfurt, where he met leaders such as Viren Chattopadhyay and Raja Mahendra Pratap. In 1930, he started the newspaper Bharat while living in England. He eventually graduated from Oxford University with a BA in 1931.

In 1932, Zaheer traveled through Germany, Italy, Denmark and Austria on his journey back to India. During this same year, he published his first book, the short story collection Angarey, alongside a group of friends. The British Indian government banned the book in 1933 because it reportedly hurt religious susceptibilities. Consequently, his father sent him to London in March 1933 to study law at Lincoln's Inn.

Career

Zaheer traveled to Paris in 1935 with novelist Mulk Raj Anand to attend the International Congress for Defense of Culture. This experience led him to establish the All India Progressive Writers' Association (AIPWA) in London. He organized the first conference of the association in Lucknow on 9 April 1936 and served as its general secretary. He also co-founded the Marxist journal Chingari in Saharanpur with Sohan Singh Josh.

His political roles expanded when he became the Uttar Pradesh state secretary of the Communist Party of India in 1936. He was later nominated as the person in charge of the Delhi branch of the CPI in 1939. During World War II, he spent two years in jail for opposing Indian participation in the conflict. Following his release in 1942, he edited the newspapers Qaumi Jung and Naya Zamana in Bombay.

After the partition of India, Zaheer moved to Pakistan where he helped found the Communist Party of Pakistan with Sibte Hasan and Mian Iftekhar-ud-Din. He served as the Secretary General of this party until his arrest in 1951 during the Rawalpindi conspiracy case. He spent four years in jail alongside Faiz Ahmed Faiz before returning to India. Jawaharlal Nehru granted him Indian citizenship upon his release.

His literary output was extensive and included several notable works. He wrote the novel London Ki Ek Raat in 1935 and published the prison letter collection Nuqush-e-Zindan in 1944. Other publications include Roshnai (1956), Zikr-e-Hafiz (1956) and the poetry collection Pighla Neelam (1964). He also translated works by Shakespeare, Voltaire and Tagore into Urdu.

Zaheer died in 1973 while he was attending a literary conference in Alma Ata, Kazakhstan.

Personal life

Zaheer was married to Razia Sajjad Zaheer. The couple had four daughters, including the writer Noor Zaheer, the actress Nadira Babbar and the historian Naseem Bhatia. He was a Muslim and is buried in the Jamia Nagar cemetery of Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi.