Blind follower Das—someone who is blindly devoted to a specific ideology or engages in personality worship—yet proclaims themselves as a poet, writer, or literary figure. This should change. It must change. One should clearly disclose their political identity. The spread of misinformation and rumors must stop. Your poetry is just a disguise, but in reality, you have come to be a leader of a particular party. You wear the mask of a poet while serving as a propagandist for your party. But true poets and writers cannot blindly belong to any political group. Poets must be neutral. They must see the whole truth. Writers should be the messengers of truth, standing firmly against falsehood. They should struggle for beauty all their lives, perceive the world with aesthetic vision, and reflect suffering and hardship in their verses. They should strive for equality.
And yet, these so-called poets are standing with political party flags, engaging in blatant partisanship, and serving as sycophants to individuals. They are spreading outright lies. Their poetry reeks of the worship of falsehood. One cannot become a poet by telling partial truths; one can only become a clown—seeking the party’s favor, receiving plots and apartments as rewards, filling their homes with medals and accolades from ideological institutions. Even actors should not be blind followers; they should stand with truth and awaken people against falsehood. But what are they doing? What do we see everywhere?
People may have political leanings or ideological preferences. But when one becomes a poet, one must embody the entirety of the truth. If a poet publishes half-truths to serve their own interests, they cannot be considered a poet or writer. True poets and genuine writers are neither friends nor foes of anyone. No one considers them their own, yet no one sees them as outsiders either. In this ideological battle, they become symbols of universal truth. I pray that poets and writers do not become the property of individuals or parties. They should be the wealth of the nation. But time and again, we are disheartened by shattered hopes. No one keeps their word.
Books of poetry are flooding the market, libraries are packed with novels, yet the number of true poets and writers in the country is dwindling. The universality of poets is almost nonexistent. Only a handful—those who rise above political affiliations—deserve reverence. The rest play the role of political operatives. They compose insult-laden verses to defeat opposing ideologies, yet when their own party is afflicted by the same ailments, they remain silent. They do not protest, not even slightly, as if lost in a trance. Poets and writers who are one-eyed, color-blind, and politically biased cannot be expected to propagate or uphold the truth. Hoping for that is foolishness. It is the pain you and I feel in our hearts every day.
Political polarization among poets and writers existed in the past, but now it has become even more blatant. Anyone who becomes a leader in an assembly now wants to be everyone’s poet! Those who cannot rise above their political preferences to speak the truth can be called political activists, but not poets or writers. Poets and writers who are politically biased create literature as shallow as an exam essay written by a student—something that may earn a couple of marks but can never become timeless. Until poets and writers establish themselves as ideological life-givers, they cannot be universal. They have no chance of becoming so. A true poet must possess equal capacity for praise, criticism, and condemnation. They must have a comprehensive vision and think beyond their immediate circle. How many people, known or unknown, do this today?
