Use Your Voice

Jean-Paul Sartre [1905-1980]

A writer is the conscience of his time, Jean-Paul Sartre wrote in his foundational essay What is Literature? (1947). India today is a country that does not love writers who possess conscience, unless their conscience aligns with the ideology of the dispensation. Dissent is suppressed, critical voices are intimidated, and conformity is rewarded. What would Sartre do if he were living in India today?

Silence is complicity, Sartre would assert. For him literature was an act of communication, not just about beauty or style. Not for him concepts like ‘art for art’s sake’. Writing is commitment, commitment to reflecting on and shaping of social and political realities. If we leave the construction of our social and cultural life to our politicians, we will soon be doomed. Intellectuals should do such things, not politicians. Politicians are mere administrators; writers are philosophers and visionaries. If writers choose to be silent or to conform, who will shape the intellectual milieu of the nation?

Secondly, to write is to act. For Sartre, writing is a way to challenge oppression and exploitation, even if such things are happening in the holy names of gods and culture. God, for Sartre, is a comforting illusion, and a dangerous one too. A form of what he called “bad faith.” That is, a way to avoid accepting the burden of our own freedom. Religion offers false consolation, providing readymade values and rules that absolve individuals of responsibility for their actions. When religion rubs shoulders with politics, we are sure to end in disasters, because religion reinforces systems of domination. Sartre wrote that nearly a century ago, and see how true it is in today’s India.

Overcome cowardice, Sartre would tell us bluntly today. Cowardice can drive a writer to myths, nostalgia, spiritualism, and/or ‘neutral’ storytelling. In times of political repression, such flights enable injustice and a writer’s duty is to question injustice. A writer has to stand his ground, come what may. It can be dangerous. But what use is to live unless you live your own life?

Write for freedom, not comfort. That would be Sartre’s fourth lesson for us. Literature, for him, is a call to the reader’s freedom of conscience. Freedom was almost everything for Sartre. It is more than the ability to choose between options. It is a deep metaphysical condition. We are condemned to be free, Sartre said. And hence we are responsible too for our life and what happens to it. “Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.” Why do you leave it to your government to choose what you should be? That’s absolute irresponsibility. Writers, particularly, have the duty to be responsible. They have to write not only for their own freedom but also for the freedom of those being silenced, dispossessed, vilified, or victimised in any way.

I can hear Sartre telling us:

· Speak, even if your voice shakes.

· Name the lie, even if no one listens.

· Refuse to participate in the spectacle of cowardly silence.

A writer is a person who has a voice, and chooses to use that voice for others who have none.