Ideology-tainted literature

       Somehow I still find it heartening -- even as I cringe -- that there are authors and critics who maintain: 'Literature should have ideological base'.
       Profiling Central Sahitya Akademi Awardee Rachapalem Chandrasekhar Reddy in The Hindu, M.V.Subramanyam notes:

Commenting that many critics lacked an ideological base causing confusion, he said a literary critic should identify if he believed in Gandhism, Ambedkarism, Marxism or feminism.

       [Just in case: I apologize to concerned readers for never having made my position vis-à-vis 'Gandhism, Ambedkarism, Marxism or feminism' clear. Maybe next year ?]
       Apparently Dr. Rachapalem also determined:

Out of nearly 2.50 lakh stories in Telugu, nearly 85 per cent were non-serious fiction and the remaining 15 per were seriously linked with the societal issues and reflected the problems confronted in daily life

       I suspect 'non-serious fiction' sounds a lot more promising to most readers .....