South Asia

Organized Panel Session

(3) - Indo-Persian Romance(s): Reflections on the Two 19th-Century Versions of Qissah-e-Gul-e-Bakawli

This paper is interested in exploring the Indo-Persian romance tradition (dastān/qissa) and its afterlife during the colonial rule in India. By focusing on one of the most popular romances of its time, namely Qissah-e-Gul-e-Bakawli, I am interested in analyzing the two Urdu versions of the Qissah (Nihal Chand’s Mazhāb-e-Ishq and Daya Shankar Nasim’s Gulzār-e-Nasīm) through closely engaging with the Persian original, written by Izzatullah Bengali.

With the advent of Fort William college in 1800 in Calcutta several of these romances including Bakawli were translated from Persian to Urdu at the behest of orientalists like John Borthwick Gilchrist and were circulated even more into Indian popular culture. The Qissah-e Gul-e Bakawali, like the more well-known, Dastan-e Amir Hamzah, was translated into Urdu in 1803 by Nihal Chand Lahori, a munshi at  Fort William College, Calcutta. Romances were being translated into Urdu-Hindi at the College for various purposes, including the training of British officers who were to serve in India. The translation-historical study of romance tradition in general, and Gul-e Bakawali in particular, present exciting possibilities for the study of how the imperial project of colonization shaped translation as a discursive practice and impacted the local literary imagination of 19th century British India. This translation process of pre-colonial literary genres such as the qissah in first half of the 19th century offers a significant gap to be studied in the context of Indo-Persian literature, which I try to address in my close reading of the two versions of Gul-e Bakawali.

Speaker(s)

• AI

  Aqsa Ijaz

  McGill University, Canada