In 1935, he and novelist Mulk Raj Anand went to Paris to attend the International Congress for Defense of Culture organised by André Gide. Influenced by the conference he established the Indian Progressive Writers' Association in London. The first conference of the association was held on 9 and 10 April 1936. After returning to India, he organised the first conference of the Progressive Writers’ Association in Lucknow on April 9, 1936 and started working as its general secretary. He along with Sohan Singh Josh started the first Marxist journal in Urdu, "Chingari", in Saharanpur.