Literature’s opposition to the state

Even though he did not write poetry, Plato was undoubtedly a poet—this is evident throughout his prose writings. Through his use of metaphors, allegories, and word choices, the philosopher employed both the imagination and aesthetic sense of the poet within him. There is no reason to doubt that he understood the appeal and power of poetry in his personal life. Yet, in his ideal state, he made no room for poets. He even gave instructions for their expulsion. Poets may be honoured, adorned with garlands and perfumes, but they must be politely told: Gentlemen, there is no place for you in our state.

Why not? The immediate allegation is that poets tell lies. But beneath that lies a deeper issue: poets endanger state discipline. Plato’s "communism" is fascistic in nature—accepting class divisions, and only then allowing equality—equality within division, not by breaking it down. In such a state, philosophers will govern, soldiers will wage war, and workers will produce. This division must never be broken. The fundamental reason why poetry—or literature as a whole—is unacceptable lies in this unyielding commitment to preserving state-imposed divisions.

What does literature do? Literature stirs human emotion. It sensitises people, prompting them to rise above divisions. A philosopher might be moved by a labourer’s suffering, a labourer might aspire to rule, a soldier might seek to move up—or down; and then the state would collapse, and "justice" would cease to exist, everything would be engulfed in injustice. The central concern of Plato’s state is to maintain security—thus, there is no place for literature. Literature is dangerous for Plato’s state, just as it was for Hitler’s.

A state has many elements—soldiers, police, laws, courts—everything. Doesn’t it have a conscience? It does indeed. That conscience is the interest of the ruling class. And so is “justice”—defined as the ruling class’s interest. On the other hand, literature’s task is to awaken and refresh the conscience that resides within people—the sensitive human being within. That is why literature is opposed to class, and for that very reason, opposed to the state.

The story of Antigone in ancient Greek literature is a tale of rebellion—an individual’s rebellion against the state, a revolt of conscience against authority.

Antigone declares that she will bury her dead brother. She will bury him, because it is her duty and moral obligation. But the state forbids it, declaring the man a traitor. In this particular case, the spokesperson of the state is none other than Antigone’s own uncle, Creon. But kinship has no place here. As king, Creon is bound by the chains of state interest and discipline. Antigone goes ahead to bury her brother; Creon captures the rebellious Antigone and buries her—alive. Creon’s son, who was in love with Antigone, goes to her tomb and dies there, weeping. Yet Creon could do nothing. As king, he was imprisoned by his role. When an individual stands against the state, the king must, inevitably, stand with the state and against the individual—otherwise, he ceases to be king.

People of conscience, like Antigone, are feared by the state. And the work of literature is precisely to heighten sensitivity and awaken conscience in people. We know that literature brings joy; we also accept that it teaches. But even so, literature is neither a form of entertainment nor a scholar’s classroom. It plays both roles, yes—but only because both are part of literature’s deeper responsibility: to make the human heart sensitive. The education literature offers is not of the mind, but of the heart. And only those with feeling can have conscience—which is why the state deeply fears the heart.

Politically, Shakespeare was conservative—that we all know. Yet, being a great artist, he repeatedly portrayed in his plays how the state humiliates the individual. Prince Hamlet stands alone against the king. But the king is not alone—the entire apparatus of the state looms behind him. Hamlet sees that because a villain sits on the throne, everything is headed toward ruin. The state is a hard, unyielding beast.

Tolstoy did not like Shakespeare. He felt Shakespeare chose only kings and nobles as his characters and did not give the common people much importance. Yes, Shakespeare’s patriotism was also narrow. But the real question is not where a character stands socially—it is about their human essence. Whatever their attire or social identity, Shakespeare saw the person within. That person may not be a king or a prince—just a human being. Even for the conscientious Prince Hamlet, the state is no ally, but an enemy. The state doesn’t hesitate in its relentless efforts to destroy him.

Literature does not abide by the nation. It does not abide by time. It does not obey the state. But more than simply not obeying, literature exposes the tension between the individual and the state. Literature is less about defying time and place, and far more about defying the state.

Tolstoy’s own writings also reflect a profound opposition to the state—and naturally so. In his monumental novel War and Peace, he reveals that war is essentially a clash between states, but the suffering always falls on ordinary people. And the so-called great statesmen? In the end, they are ordinary men too—only fond of pretending to be extraordinary.

In Anna Karenina, most of the main characters are servants of the state. Anna’s husband is a high-ranking bureaucrat; her lover is a military officer. Her brother, too, is a government official. Anna’s entire social world revolves within this civil and military bureaucracy. In many ways, Anna is extraordinary—surpassing everyone in her circle in beauty, intelligence, character, and, most distinctively, sincerity. But neither her husband nor her lover is capable of fulfilling her. Her older, bureaucratic husband fails her; her young, dashing officer-lover fails her too. Both are trapped in the narrow, self-serving logic of a bourgeois state system that raises and sustains them.

There are also characters in the novel who are political dissenters—opposed to the state and dreaming of new systems, even communism—but they remain in the background, not central. Still, the broader message is unmistakable: the established order has failed; it is collapsing. For someone like Anna, there’s no space left—except suicide. In Anna Karenina, we hear the footsteps of a coming revolution. Anna’s beautiful body, shattered beneath the wheels of a train, is a chilling image—a prophecy—that the existing state and society will crush human dreams in just the same way, unless something radical changes.

In a sense, Tolstoy was conservative. He did not like bloodshed, nor was he in favour of a state revolution. But through his writings, he helped advance the Russian Revolution by exposing the emptiness and cruelty of the existing state. This was very natural. He understood with his heart and transmitted that understanding into the hearts of others.

In Tolstoy’s novel Resurrection, which followed Anna Karenina, the face of the state becomes even more explicit. Katyusha Maslova is an innocent young girl. A nobleman youth, Nekhlyudov, corrupted her. Maslova becomes pregnant, but the father of her child, Nekhlyudov, is far away as a junior army officer. Maslova works, sells her body, and even serves time in prison. She fights to survive. She comes to court as the accused. By a twist of fate, Nekhlyudov is one of the jurors in that trial. He recognises the girl. His conscience awakens. He tries to save Maslova but fails. Maslova is sentenced to prison and exile. Nekhlyudov manages to get her prison sentence remitted through influence with officials, but the exile sentence remains in effect.

Maslova went to Siberia and Nekhlyudov followed her footsteps. He experienced a resurrection of his own. He wants to atone and seek forgiveness. If Maslova agrees, he will marry her. Finally, Nekhlyudov was able to make the proposal to Maslova after arriving in Siberia. He hoped Maslova would not delay and would consent. But Maslova did not agree to the proposal. Her rejection was very firm. She said, “I understand—you used my body back then, and now you want to use my soul. No, that will not happen.”

Actually, Maslova has also undergone a resurrection. She is no longer the lost girl she once was. She has found her way. Among her fellow prisoners in Siberia, several were political detainees. These are different kinds of people. They are disciplined, intelligent; they read books, and one could see Marx’s book Capital peeking out of one person’s bag. One of them was Simonson. Maslova became acquainted with him. They fell deeply in love and planned to marry.

No matter what Nekhlyudov and the others do, they are prisoners, confined within the circle of the state. No one is free within that circle—not Nekhlyudov, not Maslova, nor Simonson. The Maslovas will be especially oppressed. The Nekhlyudovs will use them for their own particular purposes. A new system is needed for human liberation. The system for which Simonson and his comrades are fighting. It goes without saying that among them was Lenin, whom Tolstoy had not yet discovered when he finished writing the novel Resurrection in 1899.

In our subcontinent, there has always been a direct conflict between literature and the state. This was true during the British rule and continued afterward. Under the British administration, it seemed that the state had supported the development of Bengali literature. Indeed, it did. The emergence of Bengali prose is a result of the arrival of the British—that is recorded in history. The middle class that advanced modern Bengali literature—where would they have come from if not for the British? Without the introduction of English education and the opportunities for jobs, businesses, and trade, who would have studied Bengali literature? All of this is true.

But the fact that Bengalis pursued their own language and literature without fully adopting English was, in itself, an act of defiance against the state. They did not assimilate completely. Some did assimilate, wanting to become English, but many influential people did not. They practiced their mother tongue, and this very fact shows that behind acceptance there was a strong rejection. Michael Madhusudan Dutt left, became a sahib, married a memsahib, converted to Christianity, and decided to write in English; but the fact that he returned and became a Bengali writer was his real rebellion—far deeper than merely resisting Englishness.

The state language was English. Bengalis practiced that language but did not create literature in it. Instead, they advanced the Bengali language. The demand for independence was expressed in that literature, in various forms and voices. But the state was extremely powerful. Its power was immense. It was impossible to deny its harmful dominance. No, literature could not deny it either.

Literature suffered two damages: one was communalism, and the other was class division. The example of Bankim Chandra is easy to recall. He was extraordinary both in worldly matters and in his love for independence. While writing in favour of independence, he should have written against the English; but since that was impossible, in “Anandamath” and “Devi Chaudhurani” he positioned the absent Muslim as the enemy. This introduction of communalism into literature diverted the natural flow of the river, causing great harm later on—for the Bengalis. The main cause of Bengal’s division into two parts in 1947 was communalism, and literature did not resist this cause; rather, it nurtured it.

And then there is class. The English state strengthened the existing class divisions even further. Literature did not play any significant role in breaking them. Literature remained the culture of the wealthy class.

In then East Pakistan, we practiced Bengali literature not with the support of the state, but within a context of state hostility. Yes, there were awards, magazines, and some publicity in the media; but the fundamental truth was that the state wanted to keep the Bengali language under Urdu. Just as the English wanted English to be the primary language, the Mughals wanted Persian to dominate, the Aryans wanted Sanskrit, similarly the Pakistanis wanted Urdu to be the main language, and Bengali to be secondary. The Bengalis did not accept that.

But the question remains: to what extent has literature been anti-state? No, not much. After 1947, our literature was predominantly poetry. Our leading poets wrote many poems and songs glorifying the state. They showed no remorse about that. Unlike the French or Russian revolutions, where literature played a role, no such literary movement occurred behind the Bangladesh Liberation War.

The inability of literature to deepen and intensify its conflict with the state is certainly a weakness. That weakness existed then and still exists today. Literature has failed to fully embrace the unfulfilled and painful aspects of human life — not only materially but intellectually and emotionally as well. For this reason, literature has remained at the level of entertainment. And since television and video have been working at that entertainment level much earlier, literature has been unable to make itself as necessary as it should be — not only for itself but also for our culture.

There is a complaint that the country has readers of light novels but lacks readers of serious literature. But is such serious literature even being written? Where are the works in which thought, feeling, perception, and imagination unite to achieve depth—both philosophically and aesthetically?

If literature fails to meaningfully engage with the conflict between the individual and the state, it cannot expect success. This truth is evident in the works of all great writers. A major weakness of our literature lies precisely in this failure.

Sirajul Islam Chowdhury: Thinker and Emeritus Professor, University of Dhaka