User:DEFCON5/sandbox/Mahmud-ud-Zafar

Mahmud-uz-Zafar (1908-1954) was an Indian writer, journalist, Marxist ideologue and radical revolutionary. In the pre-independence era, he was a member of the Communist Party of India and the Progressive Writers' Movement.

Early life
Mahmud-uz-Zafar was born in 1908 in Agra, the son of Sahibzada Saiduzzafar Khan. His father was a medical doctor and the head of Lucknow Medical College. He received his education at the Sherborne School in Dorset and graduated from Balliol College, Oxford.

Hamida Saiduzzafar was Mahmud-uz-Zafar‘s sister. In 1934, Mahmud-uz-Zafar married Rashid Jahan.

Career
After graduating from Oxford he returned to India and became an educator. He also became a member of the Communist Party of India. In 1932 the publication of Angarey, a collection of short stories to which he contributed along with Sajjad Zaheer, Ahmed Ali, and Rashid Jahan was met with outrage. When the book was banned by the government of United Provinces in 1933. Mahmud-uz-Zafar wrote an article, ‘In Defence of Angarey’ for The Leader, a newspaper published from Allahabad. The piece was also reproduced in some other papers, including the Hindustan Times. Subtitled ‘Shall We Submit to Gagging?’ it read:

"The authors of this book do not wish to make any apology for it. They leave it to float or sink of itself. They are not afraid of the consequences of having launched it. They only wish to defend 'the right of launching it and all other vessels like it' ... they stand for the right of free criticism and free expression in all matters of the highest importance to the human race in general and the Indian people in particular... Whatever happen to the book or to the authors, we hope that others will not be discouraged. Our practical proposal is the formation immediately of a League of Progressive Authors, which should bring forth similar collections from time to time both in English and the various vernaculars of our country. We appeal to all those who are interested in this idea to get in touch with us."

This gave rise to the All-India Progressive Writers' Movement and in 1936 he helped Sajjad Zaheer establish the Progressive Writers’ Association in India.. He remained associated with the movement throughout his life.

From 1934 to 1937 Mahmud-uz-Zafar taught at Muslim Anglo Oriental (MAO) High School in Amritsar, and later he also served as the vice principal of the college. He resigned from the College to become the editor for the Urdu magazine Chingari (Spark) which was the mouthpiece of the Communist Party of India. He later moved to Lucknow and was appointed as the Party's general secretary in Uttar Pradesh. In 1940 he was arrested and taken to jail in Fatehgarh for participating in strikes against the British Government. He was only paroled in 1942 to meet Rashid Jahan, his wife, as she underwent surgery for cancer.

In 1948, after India won its independence, the Communist Party of India was banned and several of its leaders arrested. Mahmud-uz-Zafar was forced underground between 1948 and 1950 to escape arrest. In 1952, he along with his wife Rashid Jahan moved to Moscow to receive treatment for her cancer.

Mahmud-uz-Zafar died in 1954 in Moscow.