ABSTRACT
Premchand’s Address represented a call to arms to South Asian intellectuals. But if the proceedings of this conference were opened by a living legend, the organisation of it was anything but grand. The Rifah-e-Aam was a very plain hall, poorly decorated with a simple handmade banner and old rickety chairs. The common strand in the words delivered by Premchand, Anand and Tagore was the supreme public role and responsibility of writers and the inevitable and inextricable interplay between literature and politics. It was clear that the stories had offended religious sensibilities of some Muslims and the clergy deemed them and the authors blasphemous. Whilst Ahmed Ali and Mahmuduzaffar were conducting the defence of their publication in India, the next chapter in the antecedents of the Progressive Writers’ Association (PWA) had shifted to Europe. The international political, social and economic background of the 1930s was also instrumental in the formation of the PWA.
