Quest for a New Epoch: Progressive Movement in Odia Literature

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The Progressive Writers’ Movement has been seen by literary historians as a defining phase in the history of Indian literature(s). It easily caught the imagination of the writers and intellectuals, and soon took the shape of a widespread movement influencing the thinking and writing of the succeeding generations. It has been universally believed that the Movement had its inception in India at the Progressive Writers’ Conference held at Lucknow in April 1936. In my paper, I seek to historicise the genesis and development of the idea of progressivism abroad and the subsequent formation of the Progressive Writers’ Association, first in London and then in India; with emphasis on the Movement in colonial Odisha under the leadership of Bhagabati Charan Panigrahi which has almost gone unnoticed and unacknowledged by scholars and historians.