In April 1966, the new modernist journal Shabḳhūn (or Night-Attack) broke onto the Indian literary scene. The journalintervened in a milieu that had, for the past twenty years, been subject to Cold War aesthetic divisions and Urdu’s increasing minoritization in postcolonial India. This paper explores Shabḳhūn’s contribution to Indian World Literature while foregrounding the journal form as a site for rethinking literary history. A notable proponent of Urdu modernism, Shabḳhūn emerged within a tradition of ‘ilmī o ‘aqlī publications that inculcated a multifaceted worldliness among Urdu readers. The journal countered Urdu’s active minoritization through a socio-politically committed modernism. Shabḳhūn saw itself as a “caretaker” of Urdu language, literature and culture. Its modernism entailed both the introduction of new literary forms and modes of thought as well as the social and political protection of Urdu itself. Shabkhūn sought to ‘modernize’ Urdu culture and inaugurate a new literary-political community. The journal’s critical essays, editorials, and paratexts reconciled Urdu’s social realists and modernists, reorienting Urdu literary politics away from aesthetic oppositions and toward a united linguistic front. While mid-twentieth century Urdu literary history typically reinforces Cold War polarizations between realism and modernism, Shabḳhūn offers a provocation for revisionist work. Tending to the journal reveals how literary realpolitik and multiple forms of affiliation trouble the critical legacy of the Cold War. Building on the case of Shabḳhūn, I show how the journal form might be understood as a site of multiple affiliations, one that opens fresh avenues for rethinking local and global literary histories.