THE CREATIVE SPIRIT
V.P. Singh
Former Prime Minister of India,
Poet, Painter
I think the writer, the artist, in his most intense moments of creativity is generally all alone, like the high peak of a snowy mountain. From that height the snow melts and runs down as a stream to meet the sea. A tear does not need a translation, a smile does not need a dictionary, and sorrow does not need a passport. These are the very elements of the existence of a writer, an artist, or a creator. Yet in this universality of human experience also thrives the concrete identity. Each of us has a different face, yet they are all human. Cultural discourse consists of the interaction of our identities blossoming into a richer and more creative common experience.
It is here that the writer and the artist can score over governments, because governments have got their own compulsions and limitations. We are not looking for uniformity, for uniformity is the death knell of unity. It will be a dull garden that has only one kind of flowers. Let there be a riot of flowers. For they all have roots in the same cultural soil, the soil of tolerance, understanding, synthesis and patience, which have been the hallmark of our common heritage. Our social and cultural ethos is such that we can instinctively understand a particular way of social or personal behaviour. The challenge of the writer and the artist is greater than that of governments. Governments have the challenges of a manager. Writers and artists have the challenge of the creator. So what governments fail to manage, you can create and that is the responsibility you have.
We have to unleash creative forces among people – youth, women and workers. The main creative forces of society are shackled in this hierarchical system. It is not legislators, but writers who can usher in change for a more equitable social order. It will be a more stable and productive one. In spite of our rich cultural heritage, women have still to find a proper place in the social setup. It is in their laps that the new generation is brought up. They are the carriers of our culture. Yet they are bound in more ways than one.

To add to this, poverty, illiteracy, disease are the hard realities that beset us. No sensitive person, much less a writer, can fail to respond to the miserable human condition that stares at us. A final test of being cultured is not how well we can sing, dance or write but how adequately we respond to the needy person who knocks at our door. We are in a period of flux: we have to face the challenge of the international market. But let not the market take away the essence of our culture and humanness.
These changes must have a human face. Only then they can succeed. We should refuse to ‘commodify’ human beings. This is the essence of our cultural experience. We have never ‘commodified’ human beings. In this commodification of a consumerist society, we are today on the brink of final consumption, the consumption of mankind itself. This is the question which the West poses. The answer is in our culture, in our heritage. Yet, while addressing ourselves to specifics, we must not forget totality. The century that has just passed has been the most violent in human history. I do believe that your creativity is the expression of your ideas and provides guidance. South Asia demonstrates the essence of culture even if literacy is absent, because literacy is not synonymous with education or culture. You can be illiterate, yet be highly educated. Our own history tells us that.
And the transition of cinema from screen to a box and the convergence of various means of communication have really placed a very big question on the importance and the strength of the literary world. We face today assaults of deculturalisation.
I do believe that – that one single idea is peace. It does not require radio transmission or television transmission or communication through newspapers. The greatest strength is in the idea itself, and that idea is with us today, the idea of peace. If there is any one appeal that I can make here, it is that this idea should be the heart of that declaration, whatever be the main idea that you communicate.
Peace is a very great idea. It is an idea that shall not be contained:
it is an idea which is the collective call of the Conferences of SAARC Writers. It is, and will be, a very impressive call.