This article explores the connection between the development of new literary genres in Urdu and colonial authority. British Colonial authorities tried to develop a system of scrutiny for local literatures. To limit the ‘vernacular’ literatures within the ‘suggested’ traits, colonial administration used its local subordinates in disseminating the ideas of ‘reform’ and with the help of public instruction department managed to keep at length the ‘bigoted’ elements in local literatures. This article shows the process of change and interaction between colonizer and the colonized, and how this interaction was shaping the literary space.