“Literature does not recognize caste, gender or colour. It does not follow the rules of society,” noted critic Namwar Singh said while delivering the Fourth Silver Jubilee Lecture on `The Democracy of Literature: Place of the Marginalised’, organized by IGNOU at the Convention Centre in its Main Campus.
The focus of the lecture was on various stages in the history of conflict between society and literature. Prof. Singh stressed that Literature is democratic. He presented several examples from the writings of prominent Hindi writers like Nirala, ‘Dhumil’ and others and illustrated how they placed ‘Dalits’ in their compositions.
The marginalized, he said, paradoxically have been leaders in mainstream literature and Hindi Literature is no exception to the rule.
IGNOU Vice Chancellor , VN Rajasekharan Pillai presented the key note address at the Lecture.