Rights in Jeopardy and Outburst of Anger

Dr.N.Kalaithasan, M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D., H.O.D: PG Faculty of English,

Sri Sarada Niketan College for Women, Amaravathipudur, Karaikudi.

Art exists in dynamic relation to the society which produces it and influences it  and is influenced by it. Environment affects a writer. A writer affects the environment. Society influences literature and literature influences society. As rightly pointed out by Harry Levin: “The relations between literature and society are reciprocal.  Literature is  not only the effect of social causes and it is also the cause of social effects.”

The voices of the tribes deprived of their forest habitat, exploitation of the laboring community, the discrimination of the people on the basis of racial animosity, colour prejudice and economic backwardness get reflected in works of literature across the globe.

Mighty pens and eloquent tongues the world over made the people aware of their rights to question all types of ill­treatment and injustice, humiliation and harassment done to the labouring community, and the people at the lower strata of society.  They raise  their voice for the voiceless­the humiliated the harassed, the frustrated, the fallen, the discriminated, the oppressed, the suppressed, and the depressed.

The appalling conditions of the masses of France­­the starving bellies, the thirsting mouths, the burden of taxation upon the lower classes made Rosseau assert in his Social Contract “Man is born free and is a everywhere in chains.” The Social Contract lit the  fire of the French Revolution. The writings of Karl Marx and Engels fanned the flame of the Russian Revolution of 1917. Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience Movement asserted the people’s right to refuse to pay unjust taxes. This movement had the impact  on Leo Tolstoy and Martin Luther King, Jr. Thoreau’s philosophy inspired Mahatma Gandhiji to start Salt Sathya Graha. Edmund Burke questioned the right of the British

Government to tax the American colonies and raised the slogan “No Taxation without Representation.” In the Indian scenario, Gandhiji started the Salt Sathya Graha Movement, Non­cooperation Movement and Quit India Movement to question the authority of the British Government to rule and levy taxes. Netaji Subash Chandra Bose with his Indian National Army fought against the British.

People the world over suffer from political subjection, social inequality and economic backwardness. We hear angry outbursts and revolting voices in the literature  of all countries. A poet cannot be blind to the woeful sights of suffering and starvation. That is why Emerson calls the poet the world’s eye. A poet cannot be insensitive to the tales of injustice and ill­treatment.  Hence, Emerson calls the poet the world’s heart. Poets all over the world have an identity of thinking in their responses and reactions to  the issues and problems confronting mankind.

We hear the first voice of revolt against the colonial ruler in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Caliban, the son of Sycorax, was the first to raise his voice against Prospero,  the oppressor. In accents of anger, Caliban retorts against the  threatening  colonial master:

I must eat my dinner This island is mine

By Sycorax, my mother Which thou takest from me

(The Tempest, Act I sc ii, 11 329­332).

In the like manner, Kattampomman, a Vassal in Tamil Nadu, questioned the presence and the power of the British in India.

We hear the first voice against racial animosity from Shylock, the Jew in The Merchant of Venice, He roars for Justice against anti­Jewish law in a pro­christian court in Venice.

In Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, we hear the voice of the commons against the high born­lords:

We are accounted poor citizens, the Patricians good. . . They think we are too dear. The leanness that afflicts us the object of our misery is as an inventory to particularise their abundance. Our sufferance is a gain to them. Let us revenge this with pikes ere we become rakes; for gods know I speak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst of revenge.

(Coriolanus. Act I, sc i, ll 14­23).

Satan in Paradise Lost has been drawn after the freedom­loving spirit of Milton.  In PL BK IX, Satan instills courage and confidence into the despairing minds of the fallen angels:

It does not matter if we have lost the battle. We still possess unconquerable will, unyielding courage and undying hatred. We hate God. We will defeat God. We’ll never go down on bended knees and beg for peace. (Paraphrased by Kalaithasan).

William Wordsworth is the singer of the short and simple annals of the poor. In  the poem “The Solitary Reaper” Wordsworth speaks of a solitary reaper. She sings of the old, unhappy far off things, battles fought long ago; some sorrow loss or pain, and the familiar matter of today.  She sings as if her song could have no ending.  Her life has  been a struggle, a never ending struggle, a class struggle put up by the labouring community. She is seen bending over the sickle.  She is bent not with age.  She is a lass,  a maiden, an unmarried girl. She is bent because of hunger tiredness, loss or pain. She is given no name. She stands for the all the suffering community. Had Wordsworth been a Shelley, a Marxian thinker, he would have made the girl raise the sickle in her hand, a symbol of the Communist Party.

Shelley is the stout champion of the labouring class. In “The Revolt of Islam,” Shelley champions the cause of the workers, weavers, and wage earners. He prepares the people for an armed Revolution:

Sow the seed. Let not the tyrant reap Weave robes. Let not the idle wear Find wealth. Let not the imposter heap Forge arms in your defence to bear

Shelley, the adversary of tyranny, and despotism in “Prometheus Unbound” makes Prometheus raise his voice against the all­powerful Sun.

Galsworthy in The Silver Box comes down upon the unjust laws of England. There are two fellows. One is a poor fellow. The other is a rich fellow. Both of them drink. Both of them steal. The poor fellow is jailed. The rich fellow is  released.  The poor fellow bursts out:

I stole. He stole. I drank. He drank.  I  am  behind the bars because I am poor. He is set at large because he is rich.  Is this law?

There is an identity of thinking among Longston Hughes, an African American poet and Veluchamy, a Tamil poet. They awakened the slumbering conscience of the people and made them exercise their rights to question the unfeeling capitalists and even prepared them for an armed struggle.

Langston Hughes is the champion of the voiceless Blacks. He uses poetry as a weapon of offence to attack the Whites for the inhuman treatment of the Blacks as a  block of wood devoid of feelings, for calling them by derogatory names like the Nigger, the Negro, the coloured, and the Blacks. He uses poetry as a weapon of defence for the Blacks’ demand for the better tomorrow and for the better living conditions.

Langston Hughes asks the people to organise themselves into a mob of revolutionaries to ring the death­knell of racism, sexism, capitalism and oppression:

Revolution

Great mob that knows no fear Come here

And raise your hand Against this man

Of iron and steel and gold Who has bought and sold You

Each one.

For the last thousand years Come here

Great mob that has no fear And tear him limb from limb Split his golden throat

Ear to ear

And end his time for ever Now

This year

Great mob that knows no fear.

(“Revolution,” CPL 175).

Claude Mc Kay can be treated on par with Hughes.  In the poem “If We Must Die,” Mc Kay makes no secret of his revenge motive. The poem is a clarion call to the Blacks to fight with all their might. No doubt, it might be an unequal battle, a losing battle. The Black might be outnumbered by the Whites.  The Blacks would never go  down on bended knees and cringe for grace and peace.

Mc Kay calls the Whites the mad hungry dogs, cowards, and murderers. He  throws a challenge that the Blacks won’t die in an inglorious manner like hogs hunted down by mad hungry dogs.

Mc Kay makes a firm resolve that they can meet the common enemy and deliver a crushing death­blow once for all.

O Kinsmen! We must meet the common foe

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

And for the thousand blows give one death blow

(qtd. in R.Ganapathy’s Beautiful American Verses).

Veluchamy also talks in a revolutionary tone. He asks the starving sons of Mother Bharath and the jobless graduates of Mother Bharath to take out a procession to put an end to the evils of casteism, sexism, capitalism, and exploitation.

Stand aside There comes fast A procession to

Revolutionise Ages A procession of

Starving sons of Mother Bharat Comes

A Procession of

Jobless graduates of Mother Bharat Comes

A class Revolution Will break out

If their dried up stomachs Begin to speak

Even the sighs

They heave

Will burst

into a fiery breath

A day will come When these sparks Will turn into flames

And burn the earth (58­59).

Bharathidasan, a Tamil poet of 20th century, calls upon the poor exploited labourer to free themselves from the unfeeling landlords who hold God responsible for the economic inequality prevalent in the society. It is due to the dispensation of justice by God that the bonded labourer should be paid a pittance as wages and the rich people should wallow in wealth without doing any work and rule the world. Bharathidasan asks the labouring community to shed off their fear of God and turn the labouring community against the rich landlords.

Bharathidasan urges the poor to beat and kill the rich. This resolve of Bharathidasan is well brought out in the poem “Ulagappan Pattu:”

Once the lean and the hungry poor take to blows, in a fraction of second the high­born will become equal with the low­born. (Trans. Kalaithasan, N.)

ஓட பராய    LO ஏைழய ப

உைதய  பராகிவ   டா   ஓ   ெநா ஓட ப   உயர ப    எ லாLO   மாறி ஒ ப ப ஆய வா , உணர பா ந .

(உலக ப6ir பா  , 153).

Bharathidasan is highly critical of the casteism and communalism, misogynism and exploitations perpetrated by the caste Hindus and rich landlords. It is his prediction that the freedom is only a Utopia in a country reeling under untouchability:

Can there be liberty? Can there be liberty?

In a country ­oh! my dear Where there is no equality.

இத த LO சமேநா கLO இ லா நில தி  ந ல

 த தரLO உ டா ேமா - சகிேய

 த தரLO உ டா ேமா. (‘சம வ  பா  ’ ப :323)

Bharathidasan calls upon the people to walk on the war path with the loaded gun  to end the wicked deeds and lives of money­sharks who are responsible for economic disparity and social inequality:

Take the death dealing sword to end the deeds of the wicked people.

ெகாைலவாள1ைன எடடாமி

ெகா ேயா ெசய அறேவ. (‘வாள1ைன எடடா,’ 169).

In the Indian scenario, even today, the right to question is denied. Democratical rights are trampled. Freedom of expression is an unrealised dream.  The Dalits are still  not free. He is still languishing in corners of India and finds himself an exile in his own native land.  Writers of Tamil literature especially Bama is a crusader for the rights of the

Dalits. She asks the Dalit girls to say good bye to the traditional Tamil virtues­accham, madam, naanam, pairppu and to imbibe qualities of courage, confidence defiance and dauntlessness.  She asks the Dalit youth to raise the slogan:

Dalit endru sollada Talai nimirnthu nillada

The day is not far off when the affected people the world over will lose faith in the ballot paper and use bullet to end  the forces at work against them.

Works     Cited

1.  Craig, W.J., ed. Complete Works of Shakespeare. Leicester, U.K: OUP, 1991.

2.  Dhasan,   Bharathi.       The    Poems    of    Bharathidhasan.  Chennai:   Manivasaar Publishers, 1999.

3.  Faustina, Bama. Karukku. Trans. Lakshmi Holmstrom. Chennai: Macmillan,  2000.

4.  Ganapathy, R. Trans. One Hundred and Eleven Beautiful American Poems in Tamil. Annamalainagar: Annamalai University, 2008.

5.  Hughes, Langston. “Revolution,” The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. New York: Vintage Classics, 1995.

. . . . One Way Ticket. New York: A.A.Knopf, 1949.

6.  Levin, Harry. “Literature as an Institution,” Accent Spring 1946.

7.  Velluchamy, Kuruchetram. Trans. Kalaithasan, N.