Prof. M. U. Malkani

Prof. M.U. Malkani

1986—1990

The eldest son of Raisahib Udharam Malkani, Mangharam, or Dada Mangha as we would fondly call him, was born on December 24, 1896, in Hyderabad, Sindh. He was fascinated with the works of Aldous Huxley, Honoré de Balzac, Leo Tolstoy, Émile Zola, Thomas Hardy, and many other Western novelists, and had little interest in taking over the reins of zamindari from his father. That responsibility fell upon his younger brother Alimchand Malkani. To pursue a career in literature, Mangharam gave up his ancestral vocation and became a professor of English at D. J. Sind College, Karachi.

In 1923, Prof. M.U. Malkani and his friend Khanchand Daryani established the Rabendarnath Tagore Literary and Dramatic Club of Sindh, inaugurated by the great Bard of Bengal, Rabindranath Tagore himself. During his time in Karachi, he wrote 34 one-act plays and 4 full-length plays, leading to the appellation “The Grand Old Man of Sindhi Literature”. Not only did he direct the plays himself, but he also sometimes acted in them. Consequently, in 1933, he received the opportunity to star in a Hindi movie titled Insaan Ya Shaitan, directed by Moti Gidwani. He played the lead role in the film opposite Jaddanbai, the mother of the celebrated actress Nargis.

After the partition, Prof. M.U. Malkani migrated to India where he co-founded Jai Hind College, Bombay, in 1948, and served with great distinction, as a professor of English until the day he retired. He also started specialized literary classes in 1949 at the Sindhi Sahit Mandal (Sindhi Literary Society), where aspiring poets and short story writers would gather to present their writings for evaluation and constructive criticism. It is said that this initiative, which lasted 14 years, gave a new lease of life towards the preservation of the Sindhi language. It helped young writers rediscover their cultural identity, engage with the community, and find their feet in the vastly unfamiliar and uncertain socio-political landscape after the partition ‒ which had prised them from their beloved homeland.

In the year 1956, Prof. M.U. Malkani led a delegation of Sindhi writers to the Asian Writers’ Conference, New Delhi, where he impressed upon Dr. Rajendra Prasad, the first President of India, that the Sindhi language be acknowledged in the 8th Schedule of the Indian Constitution and be ranked equally with the other recognized languages. This pioneering effort culminated in the Sindhi language getting its due recognition and acceptance on April 10, 1967. He founded the Sindhi Adabi Sangat (Sindhi Literary Fraternity) and also served as the president of the Sindhi Sahit Mandal. He wrote more than 22 books, including Sindhi Nasar Ji Tarikh (History of Sindhi Prose), for which he received the Sahitya Akademi Award (the highest literary honour bestowed by the Indian government) in 1969. He was also awarded a Sahitya Akademi Fellowship in 1972, the only Sindhi writer thus honoured so far.

An eminent scholar, critic, writer, playwright, and literary historian, he was indeed a towering figure of Sindhi literature. With his demise on December 1, 1980, we lost a much-loved family member, and the community, its national treasure.