'Doosra Shanivar' meet in Patna on 10.3.2018 - dialogue on Literature, Politics and Ideology

A literature without ideology is inanimate

Literature is of eternal value and political manoeuvres are ephemeral. It is desired that creative writer should not behave like a mouthpiece or bete noire for a political party, yet it would be unjustified letting his muse be reduced to a pastime recreational work. Literature can’t and shouldn’t abhor raising burning political issues which have a greater effect on the society at large.

Whether literature remains creative without a tinge of politics and whether politics should be practiced in absolute isolation from the literature? These fundamental questions were discussed and elucidated by Prem Kumar Mani, the renowned story writer and member MLC in the latest meet of literary group 'Doosara Shanivar' a sobriquet which means the Second Saturday.

To install the statue of Lenin was wrong but razing the same is even more erroneous Even the most revered revolutionary of freedom struggle Bhagat Singh had been going through the book by Lenin before he was hanged. To keep silence on the political developments in the country would be disastrous for the progress of the country.

If someone keeps mum on the far reaching political developments in his surroundings then he can’t write something really useful. While Gandhi ji had been in the process of completing ‘Hind Swaraj’ – essentially a  conservative sort of piece ‘Rabindra Nath Tagore wrote ‘Gora’ which is far ahead of the time in terms of the progressiveness of the message. In ‘Gora’, he shows the disillusionment of a Brahmin son when he is debarred in advance from the last rites of his father only because of his biological parents were Irish and not the Brahmins.  Rabindranath has been ignored in his own nation just because he showed the guts to oppose the established archaic ideologies and becoming unpopular as a result of the same.

Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyaya had been swinging between conservatism and progressiveness and became popular in both sorts of literary pieces through his classy talent of expression. In the novel ‘Devadas’ both Devadas and Paro keep themselves bound to the established social norms and make their lives a hell. Whoever reads or watches their story even today would burst into tears. But in ‘Chatritraheen’ all the norms have been overturned.  

In Mahabharata age, Yudhisthir uttered a half truth , “Aswasthama hato – naro wa kunjaro”. But the modern era is not that of half-truth in fact it is of post-truth. Even a half truth is not a truth is nothing but a fallacy, but in post truth every fact is convoluted and transformed which is even more dangerous.

After Anti-defection law, the heads of a political parties have got immense power and have got an epithet of Supremo in place of the earlier simpler designation of president. As a result, there has remained no internal democracy in any of the political parties. Now the moves of the political parties are decided just by the commands of the respective supremos.

Fanishwar Nath Renu was himself also a political worker. In his story ‘Atmasakshi’, he talks about the downfall of a political worker. A devoted worker of a political party is being crushed by another worker of the same party because of the dichotomy of the pre and post-independence ideologies.

Of course, the slavery has it’s own pleasure which ensures cosy living but if you take the risk  of getting freedom like those taken by Premchand, Tagore, Nirala and Mukatibodh the pleasure to your soul is much higher.

 In his short story ‘The Bet’, Anton Chechov describes how even half an hour of freedom is more valuable than two million roubles.

While 19^th and 20^th centuries were Land-centric and Capital-centric ones respectively the present 21^st century is Knowledge centric. Knowledge gives birth to ideology and a writer should never shun from pouring in his ideological thoughts in his pieces of literary pieces. 

Sidheshwar Prasad, Krishna Samiddha, Arun Sharma, Narendra Kumar, Hemant Das ‘him’, and Pratyush Chandra Mishra put forth several queries which were satisfactorily answered by Prem Kumar Mani. The renowned writer Prabhat Sarasij summed up the the speech of Mr. Mani and dialogue held thereafter.

Mukesh Pratyush, Kumar Pankajesh, Harindra Vidyarthi, Arvind Paswan, BN. Vishwakarma, Lata Prasar, Aks Samastipuri, Jyoti Sparsh, Asmurari Nandan Mishra, Amir Hamza, Anshuman, Pranay Priyamavad, Priti Singh, Pawan Pratyay, Mukesh Kumar, Ajay Kumar, Kundan Kumar, Avinash Aman, Niraj and Shyam Kishore also participated in the dialogue. 

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Report - Hemant Das 'Him', Arvind paswan, Sanjay Kumar

Photo - Lata Prasar

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