NOTE 65 Progressive Literary Movement In the 1930s a progressive literary movement assumed shape and form under the inspiration and guidance of Munshi Premchand, Sarojini Naidu and several others. It provided the vehicle of expression for the spirit of the Indian peopled valiant resistance to the British raj and the revolutionary struggles of the W3rking class in the battlefronts of the freedom movement. As a part of this development, in Kerala, a cultural movement came to the scene in 1937 originally as Jeewal Sahlthya Sangham (Living Literature Society) and l^ter 3.^ Purogamina Sahithya Sanghatana (Progressive Literary Organization). The initiative in this venture was first taken by the authors and critics of the Left who, moved by the basic precepts of Marxism-Leninism, were trying to reinforce the anti-imperialist struggle by rallying the masses of Kerala under the hegemony of the working class; subsequently, their ranks were swelled by literati under the influence of Gandhism,' bourgeois parliamentarism and similar trends isolated from political or mass movements. Thus the progressive literary activities of the 1940s came to involve a wide range of opinions from the political to the non-political. The anti-imperialist political movement and, the Progressive Literary Organization as an indivisible part of it, reflected a conflict of ideoligies and viewpoints. On many occasions these differences came into the open. Antagonism of foreign rule, however, relegated all other contentions to the background. Different sections within the Progressive Literary Movement took a united stand against the common enemy. The uuity of the anti-imperialist struggle and its cultural affiliate, the Progressive Literary Movement, vanished with the transfer of power in 1947. The divisions were chiefly marked along these lines: - followers ofGandhiji who advocated transformation of the Congress Party into a World Service Organization since that organ of struggle had served its purpose of achieving national independence; other Congressmen who wanted to build a bourgeois state on the newly-won national independence; left-wing parties bent on shifting the course of national reconstruction to the socialist path; and the Communist Party which had a distinct stand of its own on the Left. All these forces began working towards their political objectives and therefore at cross purposes with each other. After Independence The conflict of political ideas made itself felt in literature. There ensued a direct confrontation between the Communist and non-Communist writers splitting the Progressive Literary Organization down the middle. Its members went their own ways, some of them ending up as the establishment's mouthpieces in return for benefits received directly or indirectly from the new Congress government. In the Communist Party which was committed to fight this tendency, such elements gained the upper hand and in effect endorsed and encouraged it. CoA|ie