Rashid Jahan

About Rashid Jahan

Rashid Jahan (1905-1952) was a writer of short stories and plays in Urdu, and a doctor by profession. Besides being a founding member of the Progressive Writers’ Association, she was also a member of the Indian People’s Theatre Association. She was actively involved in the Communist Party of India and served as co-editor of its magazine Chingari. But her political commitments exceeded these formal contributions, especially in the form of her grassroots activism, which was also reflected in her writing that is remarkable for its intrepid engagement with many contentious issues of her time. Her fiery contributions to the controversial anthology Angaarey, Nizami Press, 1932, co-written with three other subversive young Urdu writers of her time earned her the notorious sobriquet ‘Angaareywali’. In her lifetime, she published only one book, Aurat Aur Digar Afsaane, Hashmi Book Depot, 1937, although her stories and plays appeared in journals and over the radio. Her pioneering contributions as ‘Urdu Literature’s first angry young woman’ left a lasting impact on the trajectory of Urdu Literature and paved the way for a radically new generation of (especially women) writers. Her grave carries the tellingly sparse epitaph: ‘Rashid Jahan: Communist Doctor and Writer’. Published in Urdu as ‘Faisla’, the story appeared posthumously in the collection Shola-e-Jawwala , India Publisher, 1974.