Literature and Politics in the Age of Nationalism: The Progressive Writer’s Movement in South Asia, 1932-56

The All-India Progressive Writers' Association (AIPWA) was born in one of the most  turbulent periods of South Asia's history. It set itself the ambitious goal of mobilising South Asian writers and advancing the nationalist movement by infusing it with a social content. Inspired by the debates in Europe and the US, the movement played a pivotal role in defining the public and political role of the writer in society and in developing a cultural and intellectual tradition for the post-colonial nation. This book brings out the influence of the AIPWA on the nationalist movement and its impart on the post-colonial nation. It attempts to understand this progressive movement as a project of cultural hegemony as much a political and social movement as a literary one. Locating it in a global context and investigating the interplay between literature and politics, the author assesses the success and limitations of this hegemonic project. Contrary to what is implied by previous scholarship, the book goes beyond the simplistic 'communist front' definitions and brings out the vision of a wider post-Independence nation that the movement nurtured. Supplemented with hitherto unknown literary and archival sources, and oral testimonies and narratives of the activists of the movement, the book provides readers with a fresh, balanced and considered assessment of one of the 20th century's most influential and interesting literary political movements