Origin The origin of the Progressive Writers' Movement can be traced to the publication of
Angarey (Embers or Burning Coals), a collection of nine short stories and a one-act play by Ahmed Ali, Sajjad Zaheer,
Rashid Jahan and Mahmud-uz-Zafar in 1932. The publication was met with outrage from civil and religious authorities and was banned by the government of United Provinces. On 5 April 1933, Mahmud-uz-Zafar published a statement titled
In Defence of Angare: Shall We Submit to Gagging? in
The Leader: 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. The idea of forming a
League of Progressive Authors was presented for the first time in this statement which later expanded itself and became 'Indian Progressive Writers' Association'. In 1936, Sohail Azimabadi set up a branch of the PWA in
Patna while
Hasrat Mohani set up a similar branch in
Kanpur. Shyam Kumari Nehru organised a major conference of the Hindi and Urdu writers in 1937 in Allahabad which was attended by writers such as Maulvi Abdul Haq, Acharya Narendra Dev, Pandit Ram Naresh Tripathi, Shivdan Singh Chauhan, Narendra Sharma, Ramesh Chandra Sinha and Om Prakash Singhal among others.
Bishambhar Nath Pande the then secretary of the Allahabad branch of the PWA organised another similar conference in 1938 in Allahabad. By the summer of 1938, when Anand returned to India after attending the international writers' conference held in Madrid and Barcelona, the association had already become an influential organisation with various regional and linguistic branches.
Second all-India Progressive Writers' Conference The second conference of the association was held in
Calcutta in 1938. The inaugural address of the conference was sent by
Rabindranath Tagore who could not attend it due to ill health. Abdul Aleem was elected as the new General Secretary succeeding Zaheer and a newly amended constitution was adopted in the conference. The PWA also launched a monthly bulletin and a quarterly English journal called
New Indian Writing.
Third all-India Progressive Writers' Conference The third conference was organised at the Hardinge Library in
Delhi in 1942.
Krishan Chander, who was then working for the
Delhi Radio Station, was the convener of the conference.
Fourth all-India Progressive Writers' Conference The fourth all-India conference was held in
Bombay from 22 May to 25 May 1943 at the Marwari Vidyalaya Hall. A revised version of the Manifesto was adopted at this conference. Zaheer was elected as the General Secretary of the association with
Bishnu Dey and
K. A. Abbas as joint secretaries and
Mama Varerkar as the treasurer. The central office of the association was also moved from Lucknow to Bombay. It could be said that the Urdu writers were in the forefront of 'Anjuman Taraqqi Pasand Musannifin', but later on almost all the writers of Indian languages had their own organisations with the same aims and objectives: struggle against British imperialism for the liberation of India from the foreign yoke; struggle against the henchmen of imperialism, land for the tillers of the soil. The organisation regarded socialism as the proper economic system, which could end exploitation.
Post-independence period India After the independence of India in 1947, the movement lost its momentum in India. It further declined in growth after the split of the Communist Party in 1964. In 1975, the Association was renamed as the
National Federation of Progressive Writers. Since then, the Federation has had four Conferences, at Gaya (1975), Jabalpur (1980), Jaipur (1982) and the Golden Jubilee Conference in Lucknow (1986). The Golden Jubilee Conference was inaugurated by Mulk Raj Anand. Sibte Hasan also attended the conference. ==Writers==