A Requiem to an Age of Socially Conscious

Literature
The literature which does not arouse in us a critical
spirit or which is not force-giving' and dynamic, which
does not make us face the grim realities of life in a
spirit of determination, has no use for us today. It
cannot even be termed as literature. Munshi
Premchand

As with cinema, so with literature, the progressive

strands that characterised the period preceding Indias
independence and thereafter gradually lost their
bearing in the later part of the last century, with the
idea that literature could be used as a catalyst for
social change waning and receding from the
background. The trend of socially conscious poetry,
prose, plays and essays with realist premises was a
reflection of the socio-political ferment and the
cataclysmic events of the tumultuous decades of the
20th century, when the nation was yearning for
freedom from the colonial yoke and striving to find its
place in the comity of nations. The literary outpourings
of the 30s and beyond were grounded in a kind of
social reality and articulated the concerns of the
underprivileged. The deeply humanistic narratives that
defined the works of literature of that era were a
reminder that literature could be a vehicle for social
change. It also brought home the welcome reality that
language is a means, not an end, as Munshi Premchand
once so famously said, and its purpose is to influence

our thoughts, feelings and emotions for a larger social

purpose.
Many literary critics feel that the present-day literature
- mostly the Indo-Anglican writings that pass off as
literature - is mainly soulless and the growth of the
publishing industry in India in recent times is coupled
with the sad decline in thoughtful literature, where
writers feel content to narrate their individual
experiences without a fig about the larger concerns of
socio-economic injustices and exploitation, about the
larger humanistic concerns of life and livelihood. The
sole intention behind these clever purveyors of art is
towards making their stories marketable and saleable
and the thrust is only to entertain and bring a feel good
factor. Contrast this with those prominent progressive
writers and poets such as Munshi Premchand, Kishan
Chander, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Manto, Mulk Raj Anand,
Ismat Chughtai, Bhisham Sahni, Sahir Ludhianvi, Josh,
Amrita Pritam, Sarat Chandra Chatterjee, Manik
Bandyopadhyay, Firaq Gorakhpuri and others, who
always grappled with themes that concerned the larger
majority, the issues of their life and livelihood, of an
increasingly acquisitive and iniquitous world, of unequal
distribution of and asymmetrical access to resources
and opportunities. They spoke against myriad
superstitions and other social evils and championed the
cause of women and other disadvantaged sections of
the society. These writers and poets spoke so
eloquently and so passionately of emotional realities
and were not there to just entertain readers. Their
writings were in the backdrop of the terrible Bengal
famine that consumed over three million innocent lives,

traumas of the tragic partition and the gruesome

violence and bloodshed that followed. The unfortunate
chain of events saddened and shocked them, but also
steeled in them the resolve to articulate their feelings
and concerns for the suffering masses and those who
were on the precipice. Gorki, Pablo Neruda, Garcia
Lorca, Mayakovski and writers of their ilk too believed
in the credo of literature with a larger social purpose
and remained an inspiration for Indian writers.
Unlike todays market-driven writers, the novelists and
poets in the thirties and forties and beyond wrote not
just to make personal gains, but to make positive
contribution to raising social consciousness and
awareness, in the process enriching the literary
heritage of India and adding a unique chapter to Indias
wonderfully varied and rich literature. Their stories very
tellingly made the readers aware that their problems
were not just their own but the results of larger
structural issues, that their characters were mere
victims of what these writers perceived of an unjust
social and economic order. Many of them while dealing
with profound and rational analysis of the lives of
ordinary
people
exposed
the
pettiness
and
wretchedness of existence in the context of rural India.
They were not propagandists and for many of them, the
primary concern was entering the dark alleyways of the
human mind and exposing rather savagely the
hypocrisy in daily happening, sometimes even among
the supposedly simple village folk. Not for them the
serene and pristine beauty of nature that always
remained in the background and never did override the
leitmotif of myriad inequalities that dwarf the lives of

the main protagonists and other characters, from which

there appeared no escape.
The Progressive Writers Association, founded in the
thirties of the last century and of which Mulk Raj Anand
and others were the guiding inspiration, was fortunate
in having the blessing of such giants of Indian literature
as Rabindranath Tagore, Sarojini Naidu and Munshi
Premchand. In the words of Mulk Raj Anand: After the
disillusionment and disintegration of years of suffering
in India and conscious of the destruction of most of our
values through the capitalist crisis of 1931, a few of us
emerged from the slough of despondency of the cafes
and garrets of Bloomsbury and formed the nucleus of
the Progressive Writers' Associations.
Lets also listen to what Munshi Premchand, the doyen
of Hindi and Urdu literature, stated in his inaugural
speech of the Progressive Writers Association in 1936:
Hitherto we had been content to discuss language and
its problems; the existing critical literature of Urdu and
Hindi has dealt with the construction and the structure
of the language alone. This was doubtless an important
and necessary work, and the pioneers of our literature
have supplied this preliminary need and performed
their task admirably. But language is a means, not an
end; a stage, not the journey's end. Its purpose is to
mould our thoughts and emotions and to give them the
right direction. We have now to concern ourselves with
the meaning of things and to find the means of fulfilling
the purpose for which the language is constructed. This
is the main purpose of this conference.

Our literary taste, Premchand added, is undergoing

a rapid transformation. It is coming more and to grips
with the realities of life; it interests itself with society or
man as a social unit. It is not satisfied now with the
singing of frustrated love, or with writing to satisfy only
our sense of wonder; it concerns itself with the
problems of our life and such themes as have a social
value. The literature which does not arouse in us a
critical spirit or satisfy our spiritual needs, which is not
force-giving' and dynamic, which does not awaken our
sense of beauty, which does not make us face the grim
realities of life in a spirit of determination, has no use
for us today. It cannot even be termed as literature.
Many of the writers and poets were attracted to theatre
and cinema, the latter emerging as a new medium for
mass dissemination. The Indian Peoples Theatre
Association (IPTA) provided the platform to articulate
their thoughts and feelings to the masses, through
drama and songs. The songs carried the narrative
forward; at times, they were the narrative. The high
point of popular cinema of the fifties and early sixties
was its music, considered an essential element of mass
appeal and fascination for films and for spreading social
message effectively to an audience which was still
largely unlettered. No wonder, the fifties was famously
referred to as the golden era of Hindi film music.
Sensitive and progressive poets and lyricists like Sahir
Ludhianvi,
Majrooh
Sultanpuri,
Prem
Dhawan,
Shailendra, Kaifi Azmi were associated with the IPTA, so
also well-known music directors that included Anil
Biswas, Salil Choudhury, Hemant Kumar and Ravi
Shankar. Their progressive social and political outlook

lent a new dimension and helped in spreading social

awareness about the myriad ills afflicting this land.
Of course, there is always the danger of art and
literature with realist premises being taken as
propaganda. Where do we draw a line where a piece of
art appears gross and partisan and lose its subtlety and
originality to become a tool for propaganda? This is
best left to the individual writers judgement and
wisdom.
What is deemed as literature today, and we are
referring to the Indo-Anglican variety, with some
honourable exceptions, is only to entertain its
extremely narrow band of readers, a tiny minority of
privileged urban middle class, it has only a commercial
value, and is devoid of any lasting literary merit. It
doesnt deign to ponder over such pressing concerns of
urban deprivation and agrarian distress, unemployment
and unequal access to education and health care and
other myriad issues that afflicts the lives of the
unfortunate. There is no larger social purpose behind
their writings and their main aim is to create a beautiful
and pleasant atmosphere of a make-believe world,
highly sanitised and deflected from the grassroots
realities, for their readers to remain smug and
complacent and day-dream of all being well with the
world. The corpus of Indian writing in English because
of their disproportionately unreal presence and visibility
in the media may give an impression that their writings
represent an Indian sensibility. Far from that, most of
the characters they etch out also belong to the same
narrow section of urban middle class and they do not

even make an iota of attempt to understand the grim

social realities. Because of the urban middle class
audience, these writers, mostly located in the metros,
get disproportionate attention and space in the media,
which helps in merchandising their products and make
windfall gains, when the majority of their works are
devoid of any literary merit and have no lasting value.
It is thus clear that the misplaced adulation of Indian
writings in English has more to do with marketing and
commercial exploitation, than any great literary merit.
This also explains how and why much of the regional
literature or what is known as vernacular literatures, so
vigorous, rich in content and active, and in close touch
with the ground realities at the grassroots, drawing
their sustenance from the daily happenings of the
ordinary lives and their commonplace concerns, get
such short shrift and coverage. Needless to say, they
are ignored by most of the major publishing houses,
and many of the writers remain in relative penury,
despite producing works of great literary value. They
continue to remain marginalised, that could also be
ascribed to the global dominance of the English
language, the pathetic efforts at translation and apathy
and listlessness of the major publishing houses to give
prominence to writing in local languages. The
contributions of writers such as Mahadevi Verma,
Qurratulain Hyder, Ismat Chugtai, Mahashweta Devi,
Sahir Ludhianvi, Amrita Pritam, Bedi, Krishan Chander
and others can hope to have a much wider readership
and dissemination only if their works could be
translated into English. No wonder, some of the most
outstanding literary outputs have found no takers

because of lack of credible translations and most

unfortunately they have been relegated to obscurity.
Can the literature with grassroots orientation, mostly
the vernacular writings, be revived to articulate the
concerns of life and livelihood of the silent majority?
Can they with wider dissemination with translations
available in English, once again become a medium for
creating social awareness and bringing change, against
myriad social evils? Is there any space for articulating
an alternative vision? These are the questions that
gnaw at your conscience and demand an answer that
are not so easy in forthcoming.