KARACHI: A young Marxist thinker and poet on Friday spoke about the frequently asked question as to what literature should specifically mean to and what it is implied to reflect — society as a whole or a writer or poet’s existentialist nuances focusing more on one’s inner self.

“Literature is not created in vacuum and every writer or poet is influenced by the conditions in one’s surroundings,” said Shamil Shams, journalist associated with a German broadcaster, who described himself as a pupil of Jaun Elia, during his lecture at the office of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP). The lecture on ‘Literature and human rights’ was organised by the HRCP Karachi.

He gave excerpts from William Shakespeare’s works to substantiate his view that a creative writer speaks about the whole humankind and not just for one’s own person.

Shakespeare was clearly not associated with any literary movement as no such association was there in his time, he said.

Mirza Ghalib, Nazir Akbarabadi and Keats were champions of human rights and so was Shelley, but what differentiated the latter with Keats that Shelley belonged to a literary movement, he said.

He said literary movements started in 19th and 20th centuries, but the French Revolution left its strapping footprints on writers of its time and generations that followed.

Mr Shams said Iqbal, Hasrat and Faiz wrote against imperialism and for interfaith harmony. Similarly, Sahir Ludhianvi and Josh’s loud emotions did not eclipse Majaz’s mastery.

Mr Shams spoke about the rising feminism in 20th century, which turned into a movement and produced a series of female poets and prose writers of class stature.

He said when Kishwar Naheed and Fehmida Riaz were associated with movements, but Perveen Shakir was not. However, all the three were equally committed to the cause of human rights.

On the Western front, the classical novels of Jane Austin and Bronte sisters reflected the problems and status of women in the society of their times.

He said human rights literature had formally become a subject and was duly recognised internationally. But, the current literary situation in Pakistan was gloomy as writers were getting increasingly entangled in conservatism, he added.

“We are not seeing writers targeting the topics, which their predecessors frequently did in the past for the cause of humanity. They are increasingly getting abstract — both in prose and poetry.”

He pointed at the situation in Karachi, which, he said had the potential of producing great literature, but no writer was depicting the situation matching the merit.

“The situation clearly shows that our writer or poet is not associated with any movement, which could guide one to write for human rights. Even there is no movement; writers should write for the good of people.”

Akhtar Balouch, a writer, informed the audience that there were writers in Sindhi, Balochi and Pashto literature who wrote vigorously for the people.

Mr Shams agreed with him. He said writers in Sindhi and Balochi literatures were full of energy and politically aware of the issues, which was not in the case of writers representing the country’s urban centres.

He said the class character of writers had changed as well, which forced them to change the very cause of their writing, which was not for human rights.

He, however, said there was a difference between art and sloganeering.

“A piece of writing should have artistic ingredients in addition to be human friendly. We have seen sloganeering and pamphleteering in the name of literature, which can never be rated as literature.”

He said everyone who sang progressive poets could not be a great singer.

“I don’t like the Laal musical group because they don’t sing well no matter they sing Faiz’s poetry.”

He said Pakistan’s English literature was still too young in relation to Indian literature and needed more maturity and class to fill a wide gap.