In the greater world and the sub-continent, one`s inclination towards culture traditionally makes him or her stand out as someone living in a world far from reality and the mundane. In short they are viewed as impractical and thus social burdens, having little to contribute to the development of society --- or in any other branches of knowledge. Arguments may crop up on the question of the nature of contributions. The cultural people have many faces in different countries. In South Asia, more specifically the sub-continent, the said contributions emerges with music, literature and painting. These three genres of the arts make the enthusiasts of cultural activities around the world a unique class in society. Despite their being mostly detached from the social mainstream, few can muster the courage to get excluded from social scenario. How could they? Because they are the persons no less than Rabindrnath Tagore, Albert Einstein, Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Min, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Azad, Sheikh Mjibur Rahman, APJ Abdul Kalam, et al. Mahatma Gandhi and Jinnah were unique cases. These illustrious persons also include Leopold Senghor, former president of Senegal and a renowned poet of the modern times, Albert Camus, novelist and one of the founders of Existentialism and also a legendary footballer in the Algerian national football team. Along with the philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, Camus also took part in the underground Resistance Movement against the Nazi occupation of Paris during the World War-II. Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister during WW-II, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953. Pablo Neruda, the Nobel winning Chilean poet, and Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz from Mexico --- both served their governments as envoys of their respected countries. They have long been revered as two stalwarts of the modern Spanish poetry. The autobiography of the Mughal-era India's Emperor Babur --- 'Baburnama', still remains a literary tome in the world since the 16th century.
In the history of painting, the name of Leonardo De Vinci occupies a haloed place during the European Renaissance in the 16th century. He painted one the greatest artworks of all time --- 'Mona Lisa'. The fact is now well-known that the Italian painter has long been credited with the innovation of the air-plane. Along with painting, Vinci had continued to use his imagination in the inventions of many now-common scientific wonders. In the 18th century, the Genevan writer, philosopher and composer Jean-Jacques Rousseau emerged as a world figure promoting radical ideas in the realms of socio-economic and political thoughts in Europe. Rousseau was a great inspiration behind the French Revolution of 1789-1799. Rousseau's works including 'The Social Contract' have influenced the characters of many a nation during their struggle for nationhood.
That the essentially creative persons can also play their social roles and carry out their social responsibility has long been prevalent. But this universal fact didn't get its due recognition. The English Romantic Poets of the 19th century are also equated with the medieval troubadours of the 13th century France. These itinerant folk bards used to move from one area to the other. They would sing their poetry, by setting tune to their poems of varied nature. Actually, it was the anti-poetry social activists of the 19th century spread across Europe, who waged a virtual war on the poor poets, thus belittling the English Romantics. These groups portrayed the poets as social idlers. They evidently got the idea from Plato's 'Republic', in which the Greek philosopher wanted to send the poets into exile. In reality, the detractors of John Keats, PB Shelley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron et al, knowingly or unknowingly, misinterpreted Plato's observations. A great philosopher like Plato believed in activism. He was dead against passivism, and wanted to see the indolent poets out of his ideal 'state'. He had no reason to take an antagonistic stance on poetry and the poets.
Students of English literature know it well that a lot of the Romantic poets took up arms against the kingdom's enemies near and far. The late-Romantic Alfred Tennyson didn't join any war. But his scathing poem 'Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead' has won thousands of readers since its publication.
In the post-modern period, 'art for art's sake' doesn`t carry any meaning to the 'socially aware' writers and artists. But the classification indirectly appealed to artists belonging to the early 20th century. Thus the international fraternity of art-lovers found the global message of peace in Picasso's immortal painting `Guernica'. Almost at the same, in 1929, a decade after the First World War came the 'A Farewell to Arms' by Ernest Hemingway. The book vividly portrays the horror and brutality of war. Like the art-work 'Guernica', it explicitly carries the anti-war message as shas been done by the books, paintings, pamphlets and movies of the time and later decades. As has been seen by the decades of the 1950s and the 1960s, anti-war poetry and band music denouncing wars and the feared Armageddon won spontaneous public approval throughout the world.
The UK-based pop music group The Beatles, the anti-war poetry platform led by the US Beat Generation poets like Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti et al have contributed to the launch of a worldwide anti-war campaign. By the 21st century, the Cold War days and the bipolar world became a phenomenon of the past. But the spectre of the latter and rise of the new powers keeps haunting the 'peace-loving' nations. The regional war with world implications like the ongoing one between Russia and Ukraine had been far from the furthest periphery of imagination. Yet it continues to rage.
But as many are suspecting the war being a proxy one between the US and Russia, both promoting the capitalist economy and ideas, the left-leaning mass protestors find themselves in limbo. The World War-II and its aftermath witnessed a sharp rise in anti-war camps. To the surprise of many, the world has yet to see an anti-Ukraine vis-à-vis NATO, or an anti-Russia peace platform. But the festering Ukraine-Russia conflict may soon witness global peace marches and domestic chaos of varied kinds. It's the artists, in the broader sense, who are expected to be behind all protests. In these contexts, blaming the writers and cultural figures for their alleged passivity amounts to doing injustice to them. Compared to the other segments of society, the artists, in general, are more inclined to perform their social responsibilities.
