Everyone will agree that our Muslim community in Bengal has acknowledged Bengali as their mother tongue and shown levels of progress beyond expectation, in a very short time. This is a matter of no mean pride for us. Now, almost every Bengali Muslim, whether gentry or commoner, is studying Bengali and trying to learn the language. That is a cause for great hope and joy. In every heart there is an avid desire to attain a permanent place in the field of Bengali literature, and the travellers on this new path have taken up their pursuit of this goal with great enthusiasm. This is certainly an indication of our affinity to literature. Particularly, in the writings of a few of our young writers, we find great promise of literary richness.
Now, to promote our lasting influence on Bengali literature, we must first of all relieve our writing of dullness and infuse it with the liveliness and easy freedom of the rippling waves of a waterfall. Literature that is moribund and soulless will not benefit us in any way because it is lifeless, nor can it achieve permanence. In Bengali literature, with the exception of Rabindranath, very few writers’ works evince an indomitable desire for freedom. Indeed, how would such a desire arise? Literature is an expression of life. How can something lacking life, something inert, infuse life into literature? Most of us lead dreadfully monotonous, moribund lives, with neither variety nor any beauty. To make matters worse, we are reputedly philosophers by birth, hence by the time we are barely twenty years of age, we become unnaturally grave. And to acquire gravitas is to immediately withdraw into inaction, like insensate creatures. This state of inaction, depriving ourselves of the joy of movement, is precisely the factor that is choking our life-spirit to death. In the free-flowing stream of literature there should be the joy of moving forward, the force of the water current, the music and liveliness of waves.
All of us, especially the young members of our community, must pay special attention to this. The writings of many young authors appear as if they are composed by some ailing old man. They have neither spirit nor thoughtfulness nor any emotion – only garbage, dead bones and inertia. That is very sad. If literature is to acquire the miraculous power to awaken people with the wave of a magic wand, our community of young writers will first have to take care of their physical health. When the body is free of disease, the mind automatically brims over with pure joy. The healthier and more cheerful a writer’s constitution, the more robust and eloquent his writing will be – you will find this to be true.
To remain ever cheerful, if young writers dabble in discussions of music, they will find that this music, this melodious vibrancy, this captivating effusion of joy, will manifest in their writings, lending their works a new intoxicating quality and a novel energy. You will find that the writings of most authors afflicted with rickets and jaundice are morbid; that is what brings turbidity into the clear stream of literature. The purer, more limpid and humorous a person’s disposition, the richer their writings will be. Europeans are healthy. Sports, action, jostling and jokes are their daily companions. Likewise, in equal measure, these very same precious qualities manifest themselves in their writings.
On the other hand, because we have all the shortcomings that are the exact opposites of these virtues, our writings, our literary creations, are narrow, and full of duplicity, falsehood and germs of disease, in equal measure. A writer’s work is the true expression of his spirit. Where a writer is true, that truth will truly articulate itself in his writing. Where a writer is dishonest, he will not be able to conceal that untruth even with the best of efforts. Even if it eludes the eye of the common people, it will not escape the gaze of the expert. The attempt to infuse literature with this spirit, this indomitable vivacity, this open freedom, can be found at present in only one or two young writers, not in any others. The same herd instinct continues to prevail. Many of our new writers are blind to the fact that a new trend has entered literature. For all these reasons, the spirit of the writer, poet, author must be free and open as the sky. It must have no religious hatred, racial hatred or sense of hierarchy. If the life of a writer is muddy, narrow and limited like the water in a blocked and stagnant ditch, their literary endeavours will prove terribly futile. Their works will be stillborn. The freer and more open a person’s spirit, the greater a writer he can be. For literature belongs to the world. It cannot belong to one person. The writer must speak for the world, touch the world’s raw nerve, through his own words and his own pain. No matter how refined the subjects addressed by a writer, everyone in the world should say, upon encountering these writings, that they express his own deepest thoughts and feelings; that these were churning in his own heart, without finding a way to express themselves. That is how world literature is created. That is what we call the universality of literature.
It is because he has been able to create such world literature that Rabindranath has achieved international fame and repute. What fails to find a place in world literature will not endure as literature. After a brief spell of fame at most, it dies. We too must create universality in literature. Of course, we must accomplish this without evading or losing our national and local particularity. No matter where people belong, in everyone’s heart there are certain truths, some supremely refined emotions, which are the same for people of all countries. When creating literary works, we must remain aware of these finer aspects. Keeping our attention on these elements, we must elaborate on the profound mystery of life and express the beauty and value of the truth. Our community of young writers must earn this supreme power. If truth is the aim, and the creation of beauty and value the pledge, then the works of such a writer are bound to acquire eminence. To achieve the power of touching the very soul of the reader, one must possess a soul of one’s own. We are not directing these remarks at any particular group of writers; they are equally applicable to novelists, poets and writers of short fiction alike. Amongst these three groups of writers, none is inferior, for each of them has the same aim: creation. An artist is someone who can express the artistic principle. The meaning of art is the execution of truth, and truth implies beauty; truth is ever beneficent. We may define art as creation, joy, or a confluence of man and nature, but the manifestation of truth remains its supreme goal. It is our desire that our new, young artists, writers and poets bear these few things in mind, and direct their endeavours and their spirit towards the creation of literature that endures. May this hope come true!
Excerpted with permission from “Muslims in Bengali Literature” (1920) in Selected Essays: Kazi Nazrul Islam, translated from the Bengali by Radha Chakravarty, Penguin India.