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Literary Review
The writer as activist
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If writing is a discovery as most writers affirm, full of surprises for the author herself, how can a purposeful role, of intervention, be a part of the writing? A creative writer explores gaps, silences, ambiguities and complexities and writing itself becomes a kind of activism, says noted novelist SHASHI DESHPANDE, leading to understanding and possibly, reconciliation.
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IF a writer were to ask herself the question so often asked of writers: "why do you write?", answer, indeed articulation itself, would be difficult, since the urge to write comes from some unknown source. Fortunately, the question rarely enters the writer's mind, except in times of crises — personal or otherwise — when any writing seems meaningless and a self-indulgence. And then one asks oneself: of what use is this to anyone? Of what use am I to society? And, since the role is connected to the intent, this inevitably leads to "why do I write?"
I realise now that my own writing was born out of my confused angry feelings about the roles that my gender identity seemed to have locked me into, roles which I chafed against. Of course, the factors that propel writers into writing differ, though there are a few common things almost all writers refer to — like the mystery of the beginning of writing, for example. I often have the sense of being an instrument, of a finger in my back prodding me, telling me "now write!" Writers also speak of finding meanings, of learning things in the course of writing; the word "discovery" resonates in most accounts. Writing is a process of discoveries, often serendipitous ones, a groping in the dark, during which unexpected gifts fall into your hands. And since, most often, you write to make things clear to yourself, it is mainly a process of self-learning. The third commonality is a love of words — inextricably linked to the urge to say something. In fact, ideas and words are yoked together; it is a symbiotic relationship. When you look for the right word, you are examining the soul of the word itself. It is like creating and hearing music; a single false note is immediately discernible.
Now, where does the social role of a writer figure in this? If you don't know where it comes from, if, when you begin, you don't know where you are going, how can a purposeful role be a part of writing? In fact, writers themselves rarely speak of wanting to play such a role. Writing seems an entirely self-contained activity, work pursued for its own sake. However, writers have written to express their anguish about social problems and their work is often intimately connected to these feelings. But in the course of the writing, the characters take over the story, bringing in complexities which have no place in an ideology-driven narrative. Human truths emerge and artificial constructs fall by the wayside. The focus is always the human being; it is the interaction between society and the individual that the writer is concerned with. People are both complex and complicated, and therefore writing, good writing that is, ultimately provides a complex picture, not the simple picture that writing as a social or political crusade would. No creative writer is interested in conveying a message, whether political or social. In truth, it is not only difficult, but almost impossible to control the flow of creative writing within the narrow banks of a message, of political and/or social reform. When Toni Cade Bambara, an American writer, speaks of writing as "participating in the struggle", of celebrating the "tradition of resistance", I connect this view to her own specific situation of being coloured and a woman — two huge reasons for her to speak of struggle and resistance. So too it is for the Dalit writers in our own country and for women writers everywhere. Personal reasons trigger off the writing most of the time. The writer is not writing of social evils, but expressing a personal, sometimes an intensely personal anguish — which need not, however, be related to the writer's own life.
Now, where is the reader in all this? Surely, even if the writer is not thinking of reforming society, she is thinking of a reader whom she can influence? But most writers deny thinking of a specific reader, or of a species called readers when writing. Since the writer writes to communicate, this seems difficult for the world to understand. But as I see it, the reader enters the picture only after the writing is complete. Until then, I am my own reader. In fact, when writing, I am telling myself things. But to say "I am my own reader" is not enough; the matter is slightly more complicated than that. Since an important aspect of the urge to write is the desire to communicate, it presumes someone who will receive this communication. It is only with this connection that the writing becomes real. Borrowing Shankaracharya's terminology*, there is a chain: vak — speech, sphota — apprehension and dhvani — meaning. Without the apprehension, there is no meaning and without meaning, speech has no existence. In fact, again using Shankaracharya's idea, words are transient and ephemeral; it is the meaning which makes them eternal. And therefore the enormous importance of the reader, because it is only when the reader apprehends the word that it is invested with meaning. But, if writing is to communicate with a reader, the question is: communicate what? No, not a message; what the writer is trying to do rather is to make sense of life — for herself and incidentally for the reader. It is a kind of self-communing, of which the reader becomes a part. What is ultimately communicated is a picture of the world as the writer sees it, a picture that comes out of somewhere deep within, often taking even her by surprise. It is almost like hypnosis: things one didn't know were there, things one wouldn't have expressed in ordinary life, emerge. It is also a little frightening, being almost like an emotional and intellectual strip tease; there is a sense of standing exposed and bare under the spotlight.
Once again there is nothing in this picture that speaks of the writer as desirous of playing a social role. Actually, the writer sets out on a very personal and solitary quest, involving, at least in its intentions, no one else. Nevertheless, the idea that the writer is and should be an activist is strongly entrenched in our minds and writing which espouses a cause becomes significant because of this factor alone. Certainly in our country, no one, least of all a writer, can ignore the social and political realities. And most writers, good writers, that is, do not ignore them. But it is their effect on a person that interests the writer. And for writers who are activists, such activities are part of their personal agendas. They do not make these issues the subject of their work, they see them indirectly, through human lives. Nevertheless, there is a deep suspicion in our country of what is called "art for art's sake". Of what use is art if it is not wedded to a social purpose? But what is not understood is that the purpose will be achieved only if it is good art. Good art is powerful and can communicate much, whereas bad writing, even if carefully structured for a purpose, will fail to move a reader. To me, the writer's integrity is far more important than any avowed purpose. Virginia Woolf says that integrity is "the conviction that the writer gives the reader that this is the truth". But I see it as a belief in what one is saying. Clearly, if I do not believe in what I am saying, how can I convey any conviction to the reader? It is important to understand the way a writer works before giving her the role of a social activist. Facts are stored, they are sifted through memory, transformed by the creative imagination and articulated in a way that expresses best what the writer wants to say: this is how the writer works. The creative writer, unlike the historian or the social/political analyst, explores the gaps, the silences, the ambiguities, the complexities, the contradictions — and this, not to get to any kind of a conclusion, because often there is no conclusion. What matters is understanding and, possibly, reconciliation. Articulating this is a kind of activism. In fact, writing is the writer's form of activism.
However, writers can have an influence on the social and political life of the nation because they are, undoubtedly, thinkers and opinion-makers. Have our writers done this? I have to admit that writers in our country (I include myself) are, unfortunately, not playing this role. There are many reasons for this, one of which is that there are too many voices speaking out today — politicians, journalists, celebrities, the media, etc. There is nothing wrong with this; but it does mean that it is hard to hear the writer's voice in this cacophony of voices. There's this too, that the mystique surrounding the writer has all but disappeared. Inevitable in an age of enormous media coverage, it is, in fact, the flip side of publicity. By making the writer a celebrity, the media has actually weakened the writer's role. The media has also taken away, to some extent, the writer's freedom: to want to be known and to be known — both these erode the writer's freedom. Sadly, to be known, to become a celebrity and be constantly in the public eye, seems to have become a much-desired role for writers.
There are others pressures besides the media. There's money, for one thing. The myth of the writer's freedom has to accommodate the fact that no writer can be free if she has to depend on someone for money. Earlier, there were patrons, which, perhaps, curtailed the writer's freedom, but only to some extent. An acknowledgement, a salaam, was enough to keep the patron happy. But, today, the writer has to please many more people — publishers, readers, journalists, reviewers, etc., for writing is as much a market-driven profession as any other. There is also an urgent need to be on the right side of the authorities. To write, to be published and read are no longer the only ambitions of writers: there are prizes, awards, committee memberships, political appointments, travels abroad — all of which depend on knowing the right people. Writing today is not only a self-indulgent, but also a self-promoting activity. To see writers hankering for rewards is to lose faith in their ability to play any role beyond a selfish one. I am extremely suspicious of awards, specially government sponsored ones. I see them as a slow poison destroying the strength of literature, which comes from the direct response of readers to the writing. When awards, which are always subjective, and too often political and biased, mediate between the writing and the reader, this necessary connection is destroyed.
But a problem greater than all these external pressures is the way writers have lost confidence in themselves, in their ability to play any role. I remember my own anguished helplessness post-Gujarat. What could I say? Who would listen? In any case, how often do we hear writers speaking out on major issues? Individual voices may speak, but does it make any difference? When I see a letter to the editor signed by a list of august names, I am filled with despair; it seems to spell out the pathetic limit of the writer's role. Politicians have, I think, very accurately gauged the impotence of writers; they don't give a damn for their opinions. Mayawati, Laloo Prasad, and Narendra Modi seem to be able to speak the language people understand better than we do. If, earlier, kings and rulers were advised by men of intellect, today, in a democracy, it seems to be clearly recognised that such people have nothing to contribute. A single voice has no value; only numbers matter. Appealing to passions works, reason and sense don't have a chance.
In any case, I doubt whether writing can change anything. For example, even after so much has been written about feminism, people still equate it with hating men, abandoning families, lesbianism, etc. The idea that feminism wants women to be accepted as responsible human beings has still not got across. I was witness recently to a Very Famous Author dismissing gender concerns as a banality. What hope, then, is there for lesser humans? But only a cynic would say that writing is totally impotent. The truth is that writing by itself, one writer by herself, can achieve very little. Nothing, in fact. Virginia Woolf, speaking of masterpieces, says that they are not solitary births, but the outcome of many years of thinking in common by the body of people; the experience of the mass, she says, is behind the single voice. I know how true this is when I think, once again, of the feminist movement. It was the effect of the voices of writers, academics, journalists, lawyers, activists, and ordinary women, all speaking together, that finally made some impact. One Simone de Beauvoir, one Germaine Greer, could never have done what was achieved by so many people coming together. The writer matters as part of a group and in the group the writer's is a very important role, because the writer can spearhead a movement. By articulating ideas with great clarity, she makes it possible for others to identify with what she is saying. And often, the writer, by first articulating an idea, builds a platform on which others can stand. The writing may give expression to a very personal emotion, but when readers identify with it, it becomes universal and symbolises human emotion itself. It is through giving expression to human feelings that the writer becomes part of a movement for social change.
However, there is this too: unless the time is ripe, unless people are ready to hear what is being said, the words make no impact at all. Over two centuries ago, Mary Woolstonecraft wrote a brilliant book called A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. But her plea for women's rights remained unheard. In the last century, however, such voices fell on fertile ground. The world was ripe for a change and therefore feminism gathered strength. A writer's role, then, is to work as part of a community, to be part of a body of voices. It happened in our country in the Dalit movement, it happened with the women's movement; but these are rare examples. Otherwise, there is no forum in which writers come together and make an impact. The trouble is that the writing community in our country is a splintered group — caste-ridden, as well as language and gender divided. Yes, sadly, writers too look upon women's writing as being less significant, less intellectual.
But there is a role which writers can and do play: this is to give voice to the voiceless, to speak on behalf of people who cannot articulate their ideas or feelings. I don't think a book can change a person's life, though blurbs often make this grandiose claim. But sometimes a book, through a kind of identification, can spark off an understanding of herself in the reader which becomes part of the process of healing, of moving on. If writing is a quest, the reader is part of the quest, a partner who travels with the writer. As Kafka puts it, "A book ought to be an axe to break the frozen sea within us".
I doubt whether any writer sets out to play a social role through her writing. For a writer, as I said, writing is the thing. But in exploring ideas, in teasing and stretching them, the writer helps readers to see what they have not been able to glimpse on their own. It is the writer's imagination that opens out new worlds to the reader. The imagination is a very powerful tool, it has both muscle and strength. I would compare it, not to the butterfly's flitting, but to the eagle's swoop and soar in flight. There is something daring about the way imagination can go into the dark, leap over a yawning abyss and make connections. It is imagination that allows the artist to get to the inner truth, going beyond the facts, behind the presumed reality. "Poetry is something more philosophical and of graver import than history": Aristotle's words. It is the writer's imagination that makes it possible for creative writing to have these qualities.
How do we live?: the question which has plagued the human mind is the one all serious writers address. There is little hope of getting an answer, but to pursue the question itself is to understand a little more of life, to get some glimpses of possibilities. The writer's unique perspective allows for much to fall away — our accepted ideas about ourselves and the world, for example — and lets us see clearly our strengths and weaknesses, our flaws and follies, our dreams and nightmares. This is what the writer has to offer a reader, this, perhaps, is truly the writer's role.
I have this from Ganesh Devy's After America
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