Leadership and Literature

Dr. A. V. KRISHNA RAO
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

In this paper, an attempt has been made to analyse the actual relationship between “Leadership” and “Literature”, as they are generally understood. For the purpose of our discussion, the point of departure is the broad definition of literature as “fundamentally the expression of life through the medium of language.”¹ Implicit in this definition is the fact that the expression is not mechanically objective but imaginatively subjective. It is an interpretation or criticism of life, as it shapes out in the writer’s mind. Since no great writer is an isolated fact, his or her interpretation or representation of life is bound to be of common human interest. It is this human quality of literature that sharply distinguishes it from scientific and technical literature. There are, broadly speaking, four great impulses behind literature, viz., (1) a desire for self-expression; (2) a general interest in people around us; (3) a natural interest in the two worlds of reality and imagination and (4) aesthetic satisfaction. As Hudson ably analyses, there are at least five classes of literary production: “(1) The literature of purely personal experience; (2) of the common life of man as man; (3) of the social world under all its different aspects; (4) the literature which treats of nature and (5) the literature which treats of literature and art.” ² And, finally, there are four important elements which are the essence of creative literature, viz., intellectual, emotional, imaginative and technical or stylistic.

Seen in this light, various literary forms are but different accents in which the same truth of life is uttered. Depending upon the people’s taste, which itself is influenced not a little by the prevalent social, political and economic situation in a country, a particular literary form may, become popular and established. For instance, in the current century, novel has become the principal instrument of a writer’s expression. It is a well-known fact that the “Leader” in a novel is its “Hero” or “Protagonist”. But, perhaps, it is not equally well-known that the concept or “Hero” Has undergone many a change since the day when Carlyle considered and justified “Hero” as Divinity, Prophet and Poet. Earlier still, Plato also spoke of a “Philosopher-king” as the ideal ruler of a Republic. He, however, admits that “a philosopher will never be a popular hero, because he has no time to waste on mere party politics, and it is success in this lower sphere alone which earns the plaudits of the crowd.” ³ But, now, we know that in a democracy–which, incidentally, Plato condemned as the worst form of Government, in so far as it has degenerated from Aristocracy and Timocracy, the best leadership is as difficult as it is important. As Prof. A. Appadorai remarks in one of his most recently published articles:

“It is now a common place after Mallock that leadership by the few is a necessary condition of every form of Government...To rouse men and women to a sense of their common interest and their public duty; to think out what are, in a given period, the best interests of the community and the means to achieve them; to present them in a simple, intelligible and interesting form to the common man and get his general (and continuing) consent to them and to reshape them in the light of circumstances, are the functions of leadership in a democracy...A leader’s duty is to lead and not onlyto follow the public opinion. Bernard Shaw aptly compares the statesman who confines himself to popular legislation to a blindman’s dog who goes wherever the blindman pulls him, on the ground that both of them want to go to the same place. Mr. C. Rajagopalachari has rightly said that the greatest danger to democracy and, therefore, to civilization threatens when the leaders of men, instead of leading, begin to be led by what they consider tobe the trend.”⁴...Thus, we see that in a modern democracy leadership assumes diverse forms…socio-Political, intellectual, bureaucratic, scientific and spiritual or cultural. Literature, ipso facto, reflects this diversity as can be found in George Orwell’s 1984 and other novels, Lionel Trilling’s Middle of the Journey, C. P. Snow’s Corridors of Power, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Herman Herse’s Siddhartha.

It is noteworthy that the current fictional concentration is on the numerous problems of man who is the real “Hero” of a novel. It has been well said that the “proper study of mankind is man and literature is replete with illustrations of this maxim. In short, the leader in literature is man himself, as acclaimed by Shakespeare:

“What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals.” ⁵ Owing to the complexity of man’s existence today, it is rather anachronistic to hold in literary analysis of a novel that “character is the destiny of an individual.” The truth is that society, and not character, is the destiny of man. It is the business of a novelist to depict as best he can the interaction between the man, the milieu and the moment in a given situation. In a word, the heroic existentialistic struggle of man, his success as well as failure, constitutes the core of literature, irrespective of the medium of expression. As regards the continual conflict between the individual and society, “Man, like animals, submits to the rules of society, but, in addition, he has an active power to change the forms of social life.” ⁶ Man, therefore, as a “Leader”, faces the posers of life in all its multiple aspects.

To take a few concrete examples from our own country, ideal and charismatic personalities such as Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru are portrayed as “Leaders” or “Heroes” of the Indian National Renaissance and Reformation in Indo-English literature. For example one may examine R. K. Narayan’s Waiting for the Mahatma, Raja Rao’s Kanthapura, Mulkraj Anand’s Untouchable, Nagarajan’s Chronicles of Kedaram. On the other hand, there are novelists such as Bhabani Bhattacharya, K. A. Abbas, Anand Lall and Kushwant Singh whose writings represent realistically the miserable lot of the common man in modern India. A unique, if slightly astringent, example of the esoteric, cultural and spiritual aspect of man’s life is Raja Rao’s The Serpent and the Rope.

Thus, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that literature particularly modern novel, represents the “leadership” pertaining to all fields of life. Just as the subject-matter of literature is life with its myriad facets, so also the “leader “ in literature is man himself in his different or manifold activities. He is not necessarily a celebrity with the halo of greatness about him. In fact, the real ‘hero’ in literature is the universal man who transcends the external trappings of a transient civilization. As it happens, in some naturalistic novels, the protagonist is inescapably crushed under the wheels social injustice and prejudices; in the novels of education, or what the Germans call the “Bildungsroman”, the leading figure becomes chastened through experience, and in the end, his spirit shines, as it were, like burnished gold beyond the influence of matter. This must not be construed as an impossible dichotomy of Man’s personality but must be understood as meaningful symbolic versions of man and his life. Hence, in the ultimate analysis, literature becomes the most dependable mirror of our many-splendoured life, as shaped and affected by our “leaders” whether they are political, social or spiritual. The nature of the relationship between leadership and literature is like that of soul and body, meaningless and dubious if absolutely divided. Literature without reflecting the contemporary and current leadership, noble or ignoble, is doomed to be sapless and wooden. For, after all, the impersonal element in literature should not be confused with lack of identity.

¹ J.W. H. Hudson, An Introduction to the Study of Literature. P. 10.
² Ibid. P.13
³ Great Dialogue of Plato. P. 121. (A Mentor Classic)
⁴ A. Appadorai, Democracy and a Just Social Order. “Indian Express”, dated 19-8-67
⁵ Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act II, Sc. ii.
⁶ Ernst Cassirer, An Essay on Man. P. 280.