Hajra Masroor

Hajra Masroor was a Pakistani writer, feminist and activist. She wrote several books of short stories and novels in which she raised the social, political, legal, and economic rights for women equal to those of men. She was one of the pioneers of the Progressive Writers' Movement in Pakistan. She received several awards including Pride of Performance Award in 1995 and Aalmi Frogh-e-Urdu Adab Award. She was born in a Muslim Jat family in Lucknow, British India, in 1930. Her father was a British Army medical doctor who died suddenly after a heart attack. She had five sisters including another well-known writer Khadija Mastoor and a younger brother, Khalid Ahmad who also became a poet, playwright and a newspaper columnist. Her family was mainly raised by her mother. She began writing from her early childhood. ¹ After the independence of Pakistan in 1947, she and her sisters migrated to Pakistan, and settled in Lahore. She graduated from the Kinnaird College in Lahore and then joined the Government College University (Lahore) to earn her master's degree in Urdu literature. She married writer Ahmad Ali Khan, who was the editor of daily Dawn for 28 years. They were married for 57 years before he died in 2007. ¹ She wrote literature in Urdu, producing novels, dramas and short stories regarded among the best Urdu novelists and short story writers of modern times. She was best known for her novel Raja Gidh. She wrote for television and stage in both the Urdu and Punjabi languages. Her play Aadhi Baat has been called "a classic play". She also created the Central Board for the Development of Urdu in Lahore and edited the popular Urdu weekly, Lail-o-Nahar. She started her radio program, Talqeen Shah (The Preacher) in 1962, which made her popular among the people in towns and villages. She was also the director of the Markazi Urdu Board, later renamed as Urdu Science Board, for 29 years. She also served as an adviser in the Education Ministry during Zia-ul-Haq's regime. She died in Lahore on 15 September 2012. ¹²³