It is difficult to conceive of a period in Bengali literature when the themes of social justice and human rights were not reflected in one way or the other. These concepts have undergone considerable change with time and so have their reflections in our literature. Some of our earlier poets, living probably around the tenth century, regretfully pronounced that ‘the thief and its captor are the same person’ or ‘the jackal constantly fights the lion’. The novelist Bankimchandra Chatterjee (1838-94) had, under the influence of Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill, published a pamphlet on equality in 1873 where he talked of inequality and injustice in the relationship between the rich and poor, the landholder and peasant, the man and woman. Although he later retracted the work, he did not withdraw such other pieces of his writings where he argued that since the right of conquest had been conceded by all, the right of theft should similarly be acknowledged. Rabrindranath Tagore (1861-1941) had a great deal to say, among others, about imperialism, aggressive nationalism, autonomy and self-rule, and the position of women in society. In one of his best known poems, he asks God:

Kazi Nazrul Islam (1899-1976) had produced a whole bunch of poems under the title of Samyabadi (The Egalitarianist) where he scrutinised the discriminations all around. The writers of the 1930s and 1940s had carried the themes further.

One notices that the question of social justice has evolved around certain issues, like those of gender and communal conflict. The discrimination between the rich and the poor, the urban and the rural people, between the high and mighty and the downtrodden and helpless has been a recurring theme in our literature. Sufia Kamal (b. 1911), the senior-most of our literary figures follows Tagore in her prayer:

The desire to appropriate what he thinks his share denied cannot, however, be fulfilled due to the interplay of social forces. This gives rise to social tensions and rebellions, as Hasan Hafizur Rahman (1932-83) notices :

Many of the characters in our novels consider education as a means of improving one’s lot. There is, however, a great deal of debate over the merits and demerits of madrasa education and general education, on the one hand, and that of female education, on the other. In Lal Salu, Majid prevents Akkas from founding a school and makes others contribute to establish a mosque instead. It is clearly perceived that education cannot be easily and equally available to all in view of the discrimination between the urban and rural areas, between men and women and between people with means and those without. A combination of factors, of which education is one, makes people leave their village for the city with (to borrow a phrase from Hasan Azzizul Haq b(1939), one of our foremost writers of fiction), tears in one eye and avidity in the other. Thus the countryside is gradually replaced in our later novels by the city which turns out as the real centre of power. Several novels of Syed Shamsul Haq (b. 1935) deal with this change and, more particularly, with the life in the city which liberates people in many ways, bound in many other ways, but which continues to be unequal. The liberation of Bangladesh makes the city even more powerful and different.

The coercion of the state machinery resulting in violation of human rights, has not, however, ended with the liberation of the country. To this has been added the phenomenon of fatwa – judgement handed down by the self-proclaimed custodians of public morality and religious principles – which has been directed mostly at women.

Our literature has reflected the situation obtaining at home over times. The writers have joined the people who can claim, in the words of Shamsur Rahman (b. 1927), the leading poet of Bangladesh :