1960ء سے 1980ء تک اردو افسانہ: جدیدیت، صنعتی تبدیلی اور طبقاتی شعور

The Urdu Short Story from 1960 to 1980: Modernism, Industrial Change, and Class Consciousness

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between modernism, social consciousness, nature, and class conflict in Urdu fiction, with particular attention to the period from the 1960s to the 1980s. The article explores how modernist thought transformed narrative structure, characterization, language, and thematic concerns in Urdu short stories and fiction. It highlights the growing emphasis on psychological conflict, alienation, urbanization, industrial development, social inequality, and the changing relationship between human beings and their natural environment. The discussion further investigates how nature—through images of land, fields, weather, trees, water, drought, and seasonal conditions—functions not merely as background but as a symbolic medium for representing poverty, labour, deprivation, resilience, and class-based power relations. The article also considers the effects of industrial and urban development on human relationships, family structures, emotional life, and social values. Selected works of writers such as Krishan Chander, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Saadat Hasan Manto, Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi, and Intizar Hussain are discussed to demonstrate how Urdu fiction reflects the tensions between modernization and social inequality. The study concludes that modern Urdu fiction uses psychological realism, symbolism, environmental imagery, and experimental narrative techniques to portray the complex interaction between modernity, class struggle, human experience, and social change.