On Manto…

Ever wondered why the name “Manto” carries so much controversy even within it’s local audience …?

Saadat Hasan Manto is considered one of the literary gems, along with many other writers of South Asia. But unlike his fellow academics, his reputation is not that of a saint which, more or less, is used to describe every other influencer of his time. Although he wrote many thought inducing stories and pieces, the audience on the receiving end was not very open minded as compared to the present, where people have a little more tolerance, even if they are still against the idea of everything Manto represents. People have had so many debates regarding his work and career over time, that the name “Manto” became synonyms with the word controversy, itself. One simply cannot hear the name Manto without indefinitely thinking about the complicated ethics involved in his works.

Urdu literature is dominated with works written at the time of independence, or by the events and thought processes that led to it. Any material written before, is either considered obsolete, or not up to merits that fall under the definition of “exemplary”. Almost, all of Urdu literature’s academic contributions are dedicated towards the creation of Pakistan and the sad state of the people before its existence. This take is not entirely wrong since inspiration is needed in order to start a revolution, but somewhere along the struggle, they seem to have erased every other narration that was not about the mentioned objective. For even after the accomplishment, people refused to hear a stance that was not about the “ultimate victory”.

Manto’s writings deviated from the usual stance and that is the reason he is disliked by the whole of right-wing individuals, even now. At the time of independence, while all the well-known leaders were off, fighting the political war, Manto saw the remains of all the violence in its rawest form. So instead of writing about the bravery and brilliance of all the patriots, he chose to write about the problems and injustice he saw as a common man walking among the common folk. He would point out the dark realities that existed in the slums of a civilization, which the rest of the residents, were adamant on ignoring. His ideas basically represented a dystopian truth when people were too eager to believe in a utopia, finally achieved after all their hard work. Their eagerness surpassed even the need for progressive thinking, ignoring even the flaws that were evident in the system. They claimed that voicing out apparent errors, was a way of disrespecting the cause and the people that died because of it.

Such a mindset was bound to be a setback for any hope of betterment in the future. The stunted perception would only make the history repeat itself. Manto saw through that and tried to voice it all out, yet only received criticism and abuse for all his efforts. He strongly believed that in order to solve a problem, one must first be able to admit that there is one. Sadly, our public was, and is, too busy in keeping the “traditions” intact and considers such beliefs, an attack on their culture that has long since lost its meaning. While all the people were too busy glorifying their shallow and regressive concepts, our society as a whole, has only digressed further into corruption.

Manto was a true genius who saw beyond what was obvious and yet could not be recognized in his own time, as such has been the case with many smart people to ever live. As a result, he reverted towards excessive consumption of alcohol which eventually lead to his death at the age of 42, leaving behind a collection of his achievements for the people to look into.