Background

One of the greatest Hindi writers of the 20th century, Premchand writes, “I write for only one sake: To present a human truth or to show a new angle of looking at common things,” as an incisive way of demonstrating the significant value of literature as a tool of reflecting socio-cultural values to allow us to better understand the contexts in which we live. Literature then exists as a space for critical reflection to facilitate the analysis and evaluation of social values, their mutations, and their progress. Further, literary works like short stories, novels, dramas, and poems serve to capture the imagination of their readers, and thereby exist as vehicles of progressive change by helping us question normative assumptions and imbibe the values of inclusivity, tolerance, and empathy.

This is precisely why it is important for us to preserve literature — to be able to preserve a culture’s unique traditions and beliefs in order to understand the rich tapestry of human experience that informed our past, and to draw insights from them to help us in our present. A country like India, with its myriad languages, is home to some of the most diverse literatures in the world, with its own varied literary traditions, styles, forms, and heritage. Unfortunately, owing to imbalanced dynamics of power, local languages do not receive the same attention and popularity that languages like English enjoy, resulting in an endangering of the literary wealth they harbor. By foregrounding the limitless brilliance of Indian sahitya (the Hindi word for “literature”), The Great Indian Sahitya Collective seeks to act as a corrective in this direction by creating lasting and popular awareness about the splendor of these literary traditions.