Manto: Appropriation and Appreciation

If you cannot bear these stories then the society is unbearable. Who am I to remove the clothes of this society, which itself is naked. I don't even try to cover it, because it is not my job, that's the job of dressmakers.

Sa’dat Hassan Manto

Manto should be at ease now because our society has managed well to bear the unbearable, remove Manto from it and cover his stories.

Manto vehemently rejected Master Abdul Ghani’s appreciation of his story Hatak (as noted by Krishan Chandra in Khali Botal Bhara Hua Dil) by saying that Hatak is his worst story because he was well aware of the fact that his work will be destroyed more by his admirers than by his rejecters. I am also afraid of Manto’s admirers more than those who loath him. Their admiration and proliferation of Manto everywhere kills the spirit that his work holds. The previous generation that saw his work as scandalous are more worthy of appreciation because they could at least give a genuine response of shock that Manto evoked. The censorship that his work underwent shows that that age understood Manto and they could recognize the shock and horror they were not able to handle. We on the other hand feel no such shock nor do we let others to discover that shock because we have a strong urge to celebrate Manto bright in the dark night of our institutional sky.

Manto’s writing is like his characters. As they grow in the dark margins of society, so does his writing grow on the fringes of literature. Only then is he able to evoke the desired reaction of shock, horror and awe. Manto’s admirers, by celebrating him everywhere force him to disappear instantly. The appropriation of his work in institutional spheres and artistic entrepreneurs has actually led to a gradual canonization of his works. By offering an open welcome to his works his admirers force him to enter their disciplinary enclosures and make him a part of their world. As if he is telling them what they already knew, and now when he has told them the reality without shocking them, it calls for a celebration and party. Manto’s canonization has been a gradual process. The institutionalization of his work has been done by assimilating only those stories which are politically, morally and ethically appropriate. It is for this reason that we meet only Toba Tek Singh in colleges. Universities have opened doors only to stories like Khol Do and our artistic entrepreneurs will go as far as Thanda Ghosth. This is the limit to which they can accept Manto, assimilate him and throw him away. In the process, Manto has been strangely canonized as a chronicler of partition only. His other stenching stories which evoke shock and make you vomit in the face of society are kept well odoured under the sandalwoods of institutional ignorance. The stories like Asli Jinn, Mozail, Dhuaan, Blouse, Phahaa, Sadak key Kinarey, License, 100 Candle Power ka Bulb and many others have a restricted entry to these enclosures.

The Progressive Writers Association of Manto’s time in general and leftist circles in particular was able to see that he is going beyond the rules and confines that the association upheld. He brilliantly expresses his views regarding Marx and Marxism in Badtameez where the narrator discusses counter to Izzat Jahan’s Marxist views by saying, “Maybe anarchism will also find some Karl Marx.” It is for this reason that time and again Manto was rejected publication from their journals and Newspapers. Still they deserve our admiration because they were able to understand his works well and the rejection they showed was genuine. But, the hypocrisy of today’s progressive and leftist circles is unbearable. They pronounce Manto’s name in such a way as if he wrote well in the confines of their agenda and every time they do this I can see the appropriation that they want do of his works. Actually, he does fit well in their agenda because their party myopia does not let them see Manto beyond partition. Even when they will raise gender and religious issues they seek it from the partition stories of Manto and not from those stories which explicitly deal with it.

Another problem with these circles is that even when they express their exorcized Manto, they do so through their mediums. They will not deliver his short story as short story but as a drama, Telefilm, Dastaan Goi. By this they bury Manto and his art of Short Story in one grave. What Georges Bataille said of Marquise de Sade can well be applied to Manto. He said, “Those people who used to rate de Sade as a scoundrel responded better to his intentions than his admirers do in our own day: de Sade provokes indignation and protest, otherwise the paradox of pleasure would be nothing but a poetic fancy.”

Manto’s writing is like his characters. It is like the Mother and Child found by the roadside, it is like Sougandhi and her diseased Dog who cannot be embraced, it is like Toba Tek Singh who forever shocks and remains in a sphere that cannot be domesticated.