Progressive Writers’ Movement in Hindi (1930s-40s): Conflicts and Debates

Abstract

This paper is a broad study of the debates around the Progressive writings in Hindi during the
1930s and 1940s. Many Hindi authors joined the Progressive Writers’ Movement during its
early stages to explore its potential, but some of them, like Agyeya, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar,
Jainendra, Sumitranandan Pant, dissociated themselves from it very soon because their
aesthetic principles and political ideologies were different. Progressivist and Modernist
tendencies were increasingly being brought together in fiction, despite some major differences
which often led to conflicts about the content and form of literary works. Efforts were being
made to appropriate the literary space for presenting certain political realities from specific
ideological perspectives; while some Hindi writers took this development very positively in
their contemporary historical-political circumstances, others considered it dangerous as it
could lead to the manipulation of literature for political propaganda. Bhagwaticharan Verma
presented anxieties about the excessive influence of Communist politics on literature and the
inability of some authors to negotiate their politics and aesthetics in Tedhe Medhe Raaste
(1946) (Zig-Zag Ways; translation mine). Ram Vilas Sharma and Rangeya Raghav wrote ‘Tedhe
Medhe Raaste’ (an essay) and Seedha Saada Raasta (The Linear-Simple Path; translation mine)
respectively to critique Verma’s presentation of the Communist movement and the
relationship between politics and literature.
The direct dialogue between these texts and their authors is ample indication of the
varied reactions to the Progressive Writers’ Movement according to the authors’ personal
opinion regarding the influence of Marxism or political theory on literature and the role of
literature in presenting politics and social reality. This paper analyzes the conflicts and debates
among Hindi authors about the appropriation of literature for presenting personal political
opinions as well as national social reality and about negotiating the relationship between
political theory, international politics, national socio-political movements, and the literary
space.