𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐈 —Aruna Roy

Aruna Roy started her lecture remembering Prof. G.N. Saibaba by reciting his poem and shared her reminiscences from older memories that she had spent half of her first salary and bought 100 Penguin books after becoming an IAS officer. Here are some of the points of her lecture:

• Literature (and poetry) of different genres is the strongest method of communication with different kinds of people.
• Folklore and folk literature are huge stores of knowledge that one gets out of them; you get a chance to connect with diverse people belonging to diverse cultures.
• Many writers including Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, Shakespeare, James Joyce, Tolstoy, Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie, and many others have impacted me differently.

This is an image of the list of the writers whose work has impacted Aruna Roy. The same had been shared by her during the lecture.

Click an image to view it at full size.

• Writers like James Joyce and Virginia Woolf introduced me to “Stream of Consciousness,” explaining human minds’ tendencies of thinking at various levels at a time and human emotions involving so many complexities.
• We need to understand that women’s logic is different from that of men’s logic and vice versa.
• There is a need for Aristotelian rationality involving deliberation, thinking, and questioning.
• There is no linearity in my reading, understanding, and action. For me, learning is something that you can learn from anywhere.
• Thinking is not an easy job. Many times, thoughts come back to you and haunt you.
• Battle for women to occupy space in creative writing and intellectual arena is very tough.
• Literature of Gandhi, Marx, Ambedkar, and many others helped me to develop 'Lateral Thinking,' and this I got to know while practicing in my political praxis arena; literature does this to develop this kind of ability.
• Women have instincts of doing art more creatively; they have the potential to imagine and to convince. Mere confrontation leads you nowhere. You must possess the ability to convince others, and women have this ability. Women writers tell the truth in their own way, which also needs to be looked at and incorporated.
• Aesop’s Fables and stories of Panchtantra introduced me to the world of literature and reading about which its importance told by my father at a very young age. Also, my mother used to tell me stories at night.
• I feel that the older generation has a greater sense of plurality than the younger ones, and I have seen this, and they have chosen the mediums of literature, stories, music, etc. to impart and inculcate such senses. You used to listen and read what you liked and not liked, and the implication of the same could be seen in terms of the sense of plurality and multiculturalism that people possessed earlier, which is not the case in the times we live in. North Indians lack this, as they rarely try to understand South India. Interaction with diverse and contrasting views (like of Alvars and Nayanars; North Indian classics 'Ramayana' and 'Mahabharata' and Tamil classics ‘Silappadikaram’ and ‘Manimekalai’) generates tolerance and pluralism in a child's mind.

• Pride and Prejudice of Jane Austen has laid the foundation of feminism in me. Her literature helped me to develop the ability to see ridiculous; I would say the ability to see ridiculousness in the way people function (especially during my political career and when I was in Rajasthan).
• Charles Dickens is one of the greatest writers whose writings has the potential to let you know the social milieu of 19^th century England which you might not learn from a history textbook.
• Writers like Rabindranath Tagore taught me about ‘Bengal Renaissance,’ Sunil Gangopadhyay taught me about Brahmo Samaj, and Tolstoy’s War and Peace taught me about Napoleonic Wars so comprehensively that a single history textbook rarely does.
• Literature is not about knowing and learning a language only; it is about learning ideas also.
• Some emotions remain the same in most of the writings. In modern writings of writers like Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Salman Rushdie, and Arundhati Roy, we can relate with them in a sense that they do write about our ideas better than we do.
• The best way to enter into any community is through their culture, and the best way to know the culture of a community is through their literature. Not knowing about the local fables, laws, literature, and culture is what we lack in modern times.
• If you don't think with love, fear, emotions, and compassion, you will not become a good human being.

This inaugural lecture is part of a new series titled "Literature Matters" (a series in which non literary friends talk about the significance of literature in their lives through writers and literary texts) delivered by 𝐀𝐫𝐮𝐧𝐚 𝐑𝐨𝐲 (a social activist) and conducted by The Raza Foundation in collaboration with the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation on Tuesday, 5th November 2024, at the Jawahar Bhawan, Dr. Rajendra Prasad Road, opposite Shastri Bhawan, New Delhi.

Aruna Roy is an Indian social activist, professor, union organiser and former civil servant. She is the president of the National Federation of Indian Women and founder of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan.

Click on this link to listen Aruna Roy reading a poem titled 'The Second Calling' written by William Butler Yeats.